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kajnrig

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Everything posted by kajnrig

  1. kajnrig
    Oh, that's cool. I was expecting just some prettification of the Hasegawa Valkyrie stands, but this is something else altogether. Love the details.
  2. kajnrig
    Minus points for mislabeling it as 1/144. If that's 1/144, the real Fumina must be some 20 meters tall. I remember doing some estimates and the "scale," if there is one, is closer to 1/10 to 1/12. Which makes me wonder if it used MG Wing wings or the HGAC Wing wings (I'm guessing the latter).
  3. kajnrig
    @mickyg: I think what you're looking for is that Delta is optimistic. All of Macross is, now I think about it, especially compared to its older brother Gundam, where almost everyone mopes and no one knows how to crack a smile.
  4. kajnrig
    ...Orga? (It'd be a better fit than the cipher that is Mikazuki.)
  5. kajnrig
    Hayate Immelmann's last name is clearly named after Max Immelmann and the Immelmann turn maneuver, but does Hayate have any particular significance? Like there was a famous WWII ace named Hayate or something...?
  6. kajnrig
    There are iterations of that in Frontier, too, and in sci-fi in general. I was a bit put off by how floaty it looked, like someone had done a bad Photoshop copy-and-paste instead of contouring the image to the folds and crinkles of the page. It could just be that it was way higher resolution than I was expecting, though.
  7. kajnrig
    Yeah, I think the first I saw of him he was breaking whats-his-face out of prison. I thought the summary he gave later in the movie was all we'd get, but apparently I am indeed missing out on quite a bit. Well, it's enough of a reason to go see it again, I think.
  8. kajnrig
    That reminds me: I ended up being about... 10 minutes late to my showing thanks to some tardy friends. I came in at the point of Rey on Jakku (I thought it was Tatooine for about the first half of the movie) getting the half-portion for her scraps. Can someone fill me in on what happened beforehand? I know there's something about Force-suspending a laser bolt in midair...?
  9. kajnrig
    Or both. I saw it the week after it came out. Liked it more than I expected, but less than I'd hoped. I made the comment on another forum that while it's miles above the prequels, being miles above the Mariana Trench is still only sea level. It's a perfectly serviceable movie, buoyed I think by the fandom's collective desire for it to be good. I thought the lightsaber handling was a step down from the original trilogy, and even from the prequels. Not the fighting and choreography, but the FEEL of the lightsabers. I think part of it may have to do with how they managed to nick each other with their blades and there would be pieces of burnt flesh/clothing sparking off. In 1-6 the impression I always got was that lightsabers were so sharp/hot/what-have-you that they would just cut a clean hole straight through you. Also, lots and lots and lots of protracted shots of people's faces. So many shots of the new Force users cringing and making faces at each other. It got kind of silly by movie's end. That final shot with the lightsaber held out was also sustained for like ten seconds too long. I half-expected Rey to just give up and shout out "HEY DO YOU WANT IT OR NOT OLD-TIMER!?".
  10. kajnrig
    Suddenly gender politics. It certainly seems like a lot of the "hate" or at least aversion to the new series has to do with the fact that it incorporates so heavily media not traditionally aimed at straight men. Magical girls, pop music, bishounen, emotional characters... Looking at the franchise as a whole, though, it becomes apparent that Macross never had this super-masculine mystique that some commenters in this thread seem to retroactively prescribe to it. Perhaps this and Frontier make the "feminine" side of Macross more prominent, but it's always been there. Heck, part of M+, the most "manly" of Macross productions, part of its social critique is how being the dude-bro who denies his/her emotions is super bad for you, your friends, and society at large. But none of that is a jab at anyone in particular. I honestly haven't read much of the conversation thread that led to this point. Something about who Macross is aimed at? I do know that Kawamori has a habit of trying to reach to the female audience more so than other mecha anime creators. Escaflowne's main character Hitomi Kanzaki was initially going to be the more helpless, airheaded waif that relied on the men around her typical of shounen anime, before they turned her into an athletic proactive type. Earth Maiden Arjuna had a female lead who didn't so much fight an enemy as sought balance with nature. He and his anime tend to have a feminist bend to them... even if they indulge in female objectification now and again, too. I mean, even Delta has an all-female band actively fighting battles, and female pilots holding their own against the men (though yeah, that's been done before). Like I said before, I'm interested in seeing how all their interpersonal relationships play out; it would be so cool to see some LGBT and/or polyamorous relationships prominently depicted. (Someone mentioned something about this being a return to M+. In what way?)
  11. kajnrig
    That's because it IS cheap, at least compared to doing the same kind of animation with cels, or even cel shading (though cel shading tech has improved significantly since 2008). Though I agree that the number and level of effects is a bit garish and dizzying. It's a complaint I often had with both Frontier and Zero, too. Another reason why M+ is still the epitome of the franchise.
  12. kajnrig
    It's better than Thunderbolt, at any rate. But anyway... Not so much picking on as correcting a misstatement made to pick on others who do like the series, but as you say, sticking on topic. (08MST is a great show. <--There, olive branch. ) I'm curious which version of Frontier they'll reference. Seems they're taking the tech from Frontier already, despite it being... what, barely eight years since that show/movie? They've played fast and loose with canon and galactic scale before, so it's plausible for Frontier tech to reach Al Shahal, so now the only question is who's dead, Michel or Brera? EDIT: Watched it again, with subs. Far more understandable than my limited Japanese would allow me otherwise. Looking forward to the love dodecahedrons that'll be cropping up. I'm not relishing keeping track of everyone's relationships, though it would be really neat if it turns out some of the idols/pilots are in LGBT/polyamorous and actually sexually active relationships. It would be a big deal, especially considering how oppressive the idol culture can be in Japan. /flashes back to the AKB48 girl who shaved her head in shame for daring to have a boyfriend...
  13. kajnrig
    M+ definitely seems like the vanity project of the Macross franchise. Kawamori's vanity projects always outshine his mainstream successes in terms of artistic value, but they're never as financially viable. (Escaflowne leaps to mind...) Can we not with the whole "us oldies" bit? I think it's been demonstrated that even among the supposed "older generation," there are plenty (seems like even a majority) who like the newest iterations of Macross just fine. Also, if you're looking for good story lines and character building in grim settings, you're doing wrong to look at Thunderbolt. IBO, despite all its problems, is far grimmer, with much better storytelling and character-building. Thunderbolt is Call of Duty grim-dark Gundam. IBO is actual grim Gundam. One wonders if perhaps you just have bad taste in anime.
  14. kajnrig
    The same could be said of the opposite reaction of "You don't like Macross!" when people say they DO like Delta's Sailor Moon dancing mecha bit. For my part, I contented myself with disregarding the notion that Macross ever existed primarily as anything other than a marketing ploy. SDFM's overarching theme that culture can overcome hatred and warfare was really well-told. M+ (the movie) was and continues to be the peak of the series in terms of story, theme, characters, action, everything. And from there it's been an exploration of pop culture and understanding Macross's place in shaping and being shaped by said culture. ...I'm most inclined to compare Kawamori to Hideo Kojima, and Macross to the Metal Gear series. Both are auteurs in their respective fields, and both franchises, in my opinion, epitomize what can be done with AAA production values. EDIT: I don't know about the first few, but the last one is Ikenai Borderline. (The first, I think, is "Love! Halation The War." Love-halation, as in the inhalation of love, perhaps?)
  15. kajnrig
    That's an interesting observation. It's not directly related to the subject of children in war, but there's definitely some intersection. I suppose it's just another sign that I'm not, as you say, the young male audience these shows target. There's a dearth of anime, shounen or otherwise, that deconstruct these types of anime the way Eva did back in the 90s. Maybe the industry is due for one? 1.) I'm not saying it's anime that's causing the epidemic of suicide, either, but I think perhaps the culture around anime (a microcosm of pop culture in general?) does play a role. Satoshi Kon, in an interview about his movie Paprika, talked about how anime is a very easy, exciting escape from the real world, even for adults: "But I think there is a danger, too. If you go into that world, it is very vivid and colorful and seductive, but there are big traps within that, particularly if you let your real world deteriorate as a result." Do I think it's solely anime's fault, or even anime's fault at all? No, not really. But I think there may be something of an unhealthy attraction to and/or overindulgence in anime and the products of anime. Maybe. I dunno. 2.) It's understandable for the kids and other orphans and so on to not acknowledge Mikazuki's problems, because they're all kids and/or they know Mikazuki personally and/or they're involved in things just as much as he is. But Kudelia seems to have an understanding of the psychological trauma involved with being a child soldier, yet she never brings it up. Most of that is due to bad characterization on the part of the writers, but all the same, it's still a glaring plot hole. 3.) I think it's just bad writing, honestly. The writers seem to vacillate wildly between smart, politically-driven and/or character-driven scenes whenever they're NOT dealing with Mikazuki and by-the-numbers, cliche humdrum nonsense when they ARE dealing with Mikazuki. Seriously, I think he's just the blandest bland kid to have ever blanded.
  16. kajnrig
    I didn't, actually. But I thought the VF-25 was still undergoing evaluations (as of Frontier, anyway), hence only PMCs using them. When did the A variant begin to roll out and phase out/supplement the main NUNS 171s?
  17. kajnrig
    Could it be they're using it as a placeholder until a final design is, well, finalized? By this point the 171 is... 20 years old? That's way older than the 11 was when it was phased out. Personally, I'd love for the VF-11 to make a comeback as this colony's mainstay fighter. Like they're so far on the edge of NUN territory that they're using tech twenty years behind the times, with some VF-17(1) valks sprinkled amongst the force, and even fewer VF-25s/27s/31s for specialists like the Walkure.
  18. kajnrig
    So I checked out Thunderbolt and it still befuddles me how Gundam UC can still get so much love. Outstanding production values wasted on dreadful dialogue and flat characters and consistently terrible action direction. But that's all I'll say about that, because what I'm more interested in is IBO. I'm only three episodes in so far, but I've come to an interesting impasse. To quote from another forum I frequent: Any opinions and/or insight?
  19. kajnrig
    As someone who was with the franchise from the beginning, I reached very different conclusions about it than you did, so maybe you just phrased that statement poorly. It's one thing to dislike the show; I disliked Frontier from the get-go, mecha designs and story and all, and only very slowly warmed up to it. But it's another thing - that is to say, fallacious - to claim to speak for an entire subsection of the community. EDIT: It'd be a break from the norm, for sure. Though I suppose they got close to it in Frontier. It'd have to be done smartly, of course, and not just for shock value.
  20. kajnrig
    That's what I assumed as well. Or maybe they're more fragile than they look and lose communication with the host VF-31 easily, and so the gun to re-establish communication? (I still think the battery idea is more apt, but still.) Those Cheyennes are so good. I've loved them from the moment they first appeared in Zero. Have there been any models/toys produced of them in the ten years since?
  21. kajnrig
    The 171 is how old now? Mayhaps it's getting to the age of the VF-11 circa 2040? (Oh, if only the 11 could make a comeback as this colony's cannon fodder...) It would be nice to see something else take its place. A mass-produced 19 variant (though I suppose it has too heroic a profile...), or maybe even a mass-produced version of the VF-25 would be neat.
  22. kajnrig
    Gotta get me a copy of that Ikenai Overdrive ASAP... I hate pop music, but damn if Macross doesn't constantly keep sucking me in...
  23. kajnrig
    So for those of us not in the know (namely me), was this the first episode, then? A MFrontier Deculture Edition Episode 1-type thing, maybe? Also, any other ways of getting to watch it besides VPN?
  24. kajnrig
    Can't third the Thunderbolt rec, sadly. Too much Gundam cliche-y badness. Morose characters who can't say or do anything that isn't the epitome of melodrama. GMs being decimated en masse because they decided it was a good idea that TWENTY-FOUR ROBOTS go-kart race through a narrow alley with KNOWN SNIPERS waiting at the other end. Gundam eliciting awed gasps of "Gandamu!?" despite having only achieved a number of improbable victories in a few months. (They treat it as if the past thirty years of Gundam have happened rather than just the first 3/4 of the original MSG.) But back to Delta, how can I get a shot at watching this and future episodes?
  25. kajnrig
    Since this one's just been released and rendered the Yamato offerings obsolete, what are people's opinions on getting a Yamato release for cheapo preassembled model kit purposes?
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