Nekko Basara

Lately, just about every song and BGM from Girls und Panzer.

Funny you should mention it - just a couple of days ago I got "Enter Enter Mission" stuck in my head totally out of nowhere.

I guess I never paid enough attention to the BGM, but I was always so disappointed by the opening to that show. I adore Choucho's work as an utaite, but DreamRiser just leaves me cold.

Really enjoying everything posted here. To me, a super-catchy tune can be like a bottle brush to clean out the brain... once it has run its course, anyhow.

Wikipedia agrees with 20 for Japan.

But I'm just kidding around. The teaser doesn't say Sei and China are living together - Sei sounds like he could be calling from outside her door (like, maybe they have hotel rooms near one another). Sei still calls her "class rep," which isn't exactly intimate. And Rinko could be right around the corner, anyhow (probably still trying her best to get them together). I just think it's funny to imagine them travelling the world together while still technically kids.

The age at which one is legally considered an adult.

Props to my wife for picking up on this detail:

In Build Fighters, Sei was 13 years old. China was presumably the same age, as they are classmates. So, six years later they are 19. Isn't the age of majority in Japan 20? What are these two kids doing living in Paris together? Is Rinko around someplace?

Scandalous!

Everybody knows about the Gundam Hammer, but what about the Gundam Axe?

Wooo!

Honestly, though, I'd prefer figmas in the "normal" outfits. I have nothing against nendoroids, but I don't feel they capture the energy of those particular two characters. And - I'll admit it - the powered up outfits on the figmas are just a bit too sexy for my shelf.

I agree 100%, but unfortunately we can't really strike down a member's post everytime they mention M7 even though you know it's going to devolve into a mess of a discussion.

Oh, please don't feel that I was saying M7 discussion should be curtailed in any way. I think it's (mostly) wonderful - it's just interesting that one series drives so many of the posts.

Kawamori seems to be tying music to a lot of highly mysterious technology or alien species in a way that shows there's a lot of "power" to singing.

You know you want to say it ;-)

I'm a new poster, and I have definitely noticed the way that M7 serves as a lightning rod and a polarizing force around here, but I'm not personally put off by it. A lot of great discussion results; I wish the other series inspired as much conversation.

Not to pull a Horshack over here, but did anybody agree or disagree with the idea that music having visible, pseudo-magical effects is the norm in Macross post-DYRL, rather than an anomaly confined mainly to M7?

No mention of Ryuko? This looks amazing and has an August release!

Grats on finding that piece!

I realized as I was handling it that somewhere along the way one of the yellow intake pieces in the "backpack" portion of the GP-01 fighter had gone missing. For anybody building it, just glue those suckers in - there is no reason for them to be so loose (unlike the ones on the chest, which are reversible by design).

Mk. II is started, but I'll warn that I am slow

My wife and I finished the show tonight - I was avoiding this thread until done, but I see folks have been really conscientious with spoilers.

I don't want to go on a rant, because I feel like the only one here with a negative overall impression. I'll just say that it felt like the "concept car" of mecha anime shows - a gleaming vision of innovation and futuristic ideas, which is actually built on old stock parts and barely runs. We kept waiting and waiting for the series to surprise us, and instead it delivered trope after tired trope. Uh, bear notwithstanding.

But, here's what I liked!

- The look of the show is amazing. Very high quality animation with a style that didn't look like much I've seen before (maybe hints of Ergo Proxy or Last Exile, but that might have just been the outfits). I've seen folks complain about the heavy use of CG, but I thought it fit the gardes very well and I didn't notice any jarring overlap with traditional animation. My only gripe was that the daring look of the show, with its super-washed-out palette, got uncomfortable to watch for extended periods. But it seemed somewhere around the midpoint the animators had the same thought, and warmed colors started to creep in.

- Unique mecha design. Mind you, even though Tanikaze's garde was apparently an older model from another company made a hundred years earlier than everyone else's, I still couldn't tell it apart after twelve episodes (the shape of the chest?) But the gardes in general looked cool as heck and I don't think I could confuse them with any other show's mecha.

- Izana. I thought it was neat to have a character with such an unusual sexual identity. It made him/her more interesting, and also made his/her role as "the best friend who is obviously smitten with the protagonist but the protagonist doesn't notice" much more believable. What might have otherwise been cheap gags with people getting his/her gender wrong, or inserting themselves between him/her and Tanikaze, had actual significance because of that detail.

- Opening and Ending themes were freaking awesome. Catchy, exciting, and fit well to the animation. Props to Eri Kitamura for singing the ending and voicing the interchangeable Luka-Megurine-lookin' clones.

- Netflix. Good to see them directly licensing a show and making it available so soon after the Japanese airing. Honestly, by the end we were watching just to boost the numbers and encourage them to get more shows in the future. I do feel like it could be a good "ambassador" show for new viewers; most of my dislike was of an "I've seen this a hundred times before" nature (although, considering how much old hands here liked it, maybe I'm off base).

Anyhow, it would take a lot to get my wife and I on board for a season two, but I'll certainly be curious to see how folks react when it happens. From the folks who have read the manga, it sounds like there may be more interesting stuff going on than what I saw in these twelve episodes.

Although I think that the Sound Boosters and visible song energy exist in M7 mainly so that "fighting with music" could be turned into a more visual and super-robot-like experience, I want to expand on what veef said about Sharon Apple. Song becomes visible, tangible, and magical in many of the Macross series, not just M7 and Plus.

Sharon had mind control powers and was able to physically manifest herself via holograms (even in places where this made little sense from the available hardware, like the YF-19 cockpit), as well as physically manipulate technology in a pseudo-magical way (like making presumably inert cables move).

In Macross II, humanity's Minmay attacks were accompanied by massive holographic representations of the singer. The way the SDF-1/Alus awakens for Ishtar is also quasi-magical.

Zero had song lifting stones and eventually making the (non-Frontier) Flying Rock event, and the Shin's narrow escape / resurrection and departure is rife with both visible and tangible magic, or technology indistinguishable from it.

In Frontier (where the real Macross mitichlorians show up in Ranka's tummy), song powers fold energy in ways that are crucial to the plot but barely explained. Song visually manifests itself in the giant Ranka that presides over the final battle and replaces the Vajra queen.

Some of these instances can be explained as holograms or other technology, some perhaps as metaphor, but my point is that song energy becoming visible and having real, magic-like qualities within the story is actually the norm for Macross after SDFM/DYRL. I can't say if this is intended to retcon the original story, expand upon it, or is just something done for the benefit of the viewing audience, but I suspect it's a bit of each.

Scooping out Ai-kun's eye! Priceless!

My Mk II showed up today. Box was pretty well bashed, but everything inside is perfect. I hope to start on it this weekend. Maybe I'll make an album with in-progress shots as it comes together. It certainly had a great profile in the booklet.

I took "Fleet of the Strongest Women" to be tongue-in-cheek parody. And it's not just parodying M7; it's parodying SDFM. It's actually the closest to the original that the M7 ever gets - the fleet meets actual Zentraedi (Meltrandi), it responds with a Minmay-style attack, and (after various difficulties) succeeds in absurd fashion. Beyond being thrown into disarray and/or changing sides as in SDFM, DYRL, and M2, the enemy is reduced to raving fangirls.

As you say, it's hilarious. I don't think it's supposed to warp the canon.

Ok, I appreciate you clarifying. You're saying that back when M7 was "new," it may have alienated fans by getting too far from the formula of SDFM and DYRL. Makes sense.

But let's have some perspective. We're talking about the early days of the Clinton administration here. A good portion of the current fanbase may not have even been born. Does it matter now who left the fanbase back then?

Macross has grown up a lot over the years, and it had gone in many different directions. All of that is part of its history now. Nobody is required to like all of it, but at some point wishing to go back to the beginning becomes... odd.

Let me explain by giving my own musical example that's fairly contemporaneous to Macross (and to me). Depeche Mode has been making music for almost 35 years. Although their lineup hasn't changed very much, they've gone through many shifts in style, sound, and themes across thirteen albums. It is rare to find a fan who loves every single thing they've done - I certainly don't. But if I met a fan who said he really wished they'd go back to when Vince Clark was in the band, and make another album like "Speak and Spell" (their first) and not like the "new" stuff, well... I wouldn't know what to say to that. I mean, it's a valid opinion, but is that realistic? And what has that person gotten out of their other work? Are they a fan of the band, or maybe of just that album?

That is great info. I guess I have to put the Strike Freedom on my list. I wonder how it would look with a gunmetal or even silver frame. I haven't seen the series, so I have no special attachment to show accuracy.

We may want to be clear what we call "old" and "new" Macross shows..

If we divide the time between SDFM and today, the only series that fall after the midpoint are Zero and Frontier... and Zero is still more than a decade old. Even back when Frontier started (2008), it was farther in time from the M7 series (94-95) than M7 was from the original series (82-83).

Bottom line: Frontier and arguably Zero are "new" shows. Every other series is the realm of old farts ;-)

That's some really good insight, Tochiro. I'm embarrassed that my response was so close-minded and unhelpful by comparison, but I won't go editing it away.

The Macross fandom is in an unusual place, I think (as are the creators), because the elements of what make Macross have been much more explicitly defined than the bounds of most fiction are. Clearly, this cuts both ways in how the series grows - it provides direction, but it also confines.

There are plenty of stories out there without pop music, love triangles, and idols. Some even have transforming mecha. But the "cliches" are what make Macross Macross.

When I see folks talk about wanting a Macross show without one or more parts of the formula, to me it sounds like, "You know, I want a new Batman reboot, but does he have to dress up? And could it be, like, four guys for hire instead of one guy on a vendetta?" That sounds like a great show, but you may want to check out The A-Team.

Argh. Argh, I say!

I remember just enough about that show to wonder how I ever thought it was "ok." I watched the whole thing, though - with my wife! It was at a time when anime was so tough to come by that we'd watch basically anything we could get our hands on, without regard to the subject matter or quality.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Because the figure thread has dredged up the Moon Phase opening theme from the dark place in my brain where I had buried it, I am thinking about other anime songs that have proven almost impossible to dislodge. For a long time, the Chobits opening theme was probably the biggest offender for me, but it has recently been superceded by the ending to Unbreakable Machine Doll. I cannot stop hearing that song!

So, for better or worse, what are the biggest anisong earworms that have afflicted you over the years? They don't have to be good or bad... just maddeningly catchy.

Can the plastic used on the inner frame hold paint, though? It's at least partly ABS - I thought paint wouldn't stay on that stuff very well in normal handling, let alone in all of the areas the frame rubs on itself and the armor.

I visited there last summer and it was amazing, but my wife and I laughed our butts off at the prominent cases of transformers right in the center of the main display area. It was just so crass. Worst was the monitor playing a continuous loop of the Jetfire intro scene in RotF, complete with the part where he steps out of the hangar in the Udvar-Hazy center and is inexplicably in a Nevada boneyard.

Having said that, it was cool to see the design sketches and some prototypes of the RotF toy alongside the vintage and Classics versions. And the Center itself is incredible - a little product placement could take nothing away from that.

P.S. - I wonder if Hasbro will go add in the new Generations Leader version now?

P.P.S. - The info in the link is a bit dated. The shuttle on display there is Discovery (complete with burn marks on the tiles from re-entry; so awesome!). Enterprise was transferred to the Intrepid museum in NYC in 2012.

You could probably save some money and get some hovertrucks to boot if you got the Hard Graph ground war set with the HGUC RX-78 ground type and GM heads, rather than kitbashing. Just to mention it.