sketchley

Yeah, that's the one thing I dislike about his character. He's the "everyman" that provides us the window into the SGU world, and us viewers are supposed to identify with him. Ugh. The one good thing about the season premier is that they didn't kill off my favourite background character. Killing off background (and sometimes major) characters is my biggest complaint about SGA. Now, if only the writers of SGU can write in a way for everyone to get personal stylists so as to help us viewers differentiate between the background characters?

Did it take the same amount of time and cost the same amount of money for a B&W or B&W with limited colour at the front and/or back? Or was it something that's easy to do, but cost more and took longer?

Ugh... serves me right for replying in the middle of the night. I thought you were talking about the VF-1J.

Trust us, it's the revised one. That's actually pretty normal for these things. It costs a lot more to have a couple of colour pages strewn throughout. Without getting technical, it's because colour and B&W are printed on different presses, and splicing the two together when binding is more expensive than just slapping the colour pages at the front. Of course, there are exceptions. Ghost in the Shell is a notable example. But if memory serves, it uses nice (read: expensive) paper throughout (not something akin to newsprint for the B&W and waxy paper for the colour sections), so it can get away with it. Of course the end user pays a lot more for it...

Semi-related... I've recently seen an ad or CM indicating that the next "One Piece" movie is being created in 3D. Maybe it's the future of big-budget, popular anime?

Agreed. Conserving energy is a good thing, but only if there are more energy-friendly alternatives. Working nights generally eliminates a lot of options; specifically mass transit (IE buses, trains, et al) and generally (Boinger's aforementioned car pooling). Mass transit is also generally not a viable option, the farther from an urban center one is. Even in urban centers, if one is not traveling in the same direction as the majority of other travelers, travel times, costs and energy expenditures can grow exponentially. So, I think a much more viable question (albeit totally off topic) is: are you going to buy an electric or hybrid car as a replacement? I should add that I'm also a Canadian (though not living there anymore), who's had similar experiences with mass transit in Victoria and Vancouver. Victoria had a layout with all the buses running to the center, but no or very few buses running between the "spokes". Vancouver has a grid pattern. Terrible if you want to travel diagonally. Probably the best bus service I experienced was in Seoul. At the local bus stop, there were 5 different bus routes, and there was a bus once every 10 minutes for EACH of those 5 routes! Their routes were varied enough that one could go in multiple directions to multiple destinations without transferring. I should add that that the bus stop was at the periphery of the city, and not in the core (or one of the cores, as the locals say). But I guess that comes from being the 7th largest city.

Good question. I just checked Macross Chronicle, and she's not in it! However, given that the rest of the characters she's pictured with, it looks like she's either a reporter, or someone who works with the reporters (ie a manager).

Odd. Of all the pictures that they would use, they used that one. One would think that they would have used a character from one of the larger/more popular series... I can understand why it's not SDFM or DYRL. But why not M7 or MF?

and even if they do have non-Japanese subtitles (Keith's given the reason why they don't), why presume that they would be one of the European languages? Money wise, the Korean, Taiwanese, Chinese markets are much larger. For Japanese DVD releases that DO have non-Japanese subtitles (limited completely to imported English movies, of course), they have Korean/Chinese/Vietnamese subtitles in addition to the Japanese and English. French, German, Spanish? Wrong side of the world. Wrong side by half.

He'll be in Tokushima? WOOT. Almost worth the trip across Naruto to it. I've known for awhile that Tokushima City's been a big anime town (production wise), but didn't realize it has this kind of draw. Cool.

I see Ozuma's colours (greys, no reds or whites). EDIT: I think it's a bad screen-cap. Same shot in this month's Macross Ace had me thinking Aruto. Doesn't the Gunship already have a pointy bow which serves as a bayonet? (Before anyone says there's no blade, keep in mind that Macross ships using both energy conversion armour and a PPB can make any limb into a formidible weapon: the Daedalus Attack, and the Macross Quarter's ability to turn the ARMD-L flight deck into a giant saber.) The question I have is where do those guns fit? There's no room, unless part of the rail gun turret is removed; and it doesn't look like that's happened.

SDFM redone? Doubtful. It's already been done (see DYRL). What's more likely is that we're going to get an OVA series on the further adventures of the main MF characters (precedent has already happened with SDFM (FB2012) and M7 (M7D). What's even more likely, is that once the MF buzz has died down (maybe I should add an 'if'?), we'll see more Macross with similar characters and themes. Which, I'm not looking forward to, as I was disappointed with the protagonists and antagonists of MF. Maybe I've outgrown the target demographic? For shame!

After I left for work, I pondered it, and felt that it would've been much better to have posted an article about wikipedia misinformation by a known or reputable news source or even better: a university's policy excluding the use of wikipedia as a valid reference source. But as the poster is relying on a website implied to be about how to successfully troll a message board, we're apparently not at that level of discourse. Ah well, it's not like he was pointing out something that everyone already knows or carefully read my original post or anything.

zomg, there's an error on the internet. What else is new?

It's the same for a lot of non-Japan based I-net streaming services, too. There's one that a lot of MW keep mentioning, that is inaccessible outside of the USA.

And the helicopters, and the fighter jets (F-15 and F-16) and the majority of civilian vehicles (cars, trucks, etc).

Nope. You're confusing the VF-19C with the VF-19E. The VF-19E is what both the Basara Nekki custom and the VF-19P are based off of (aka the image you linked to). The VF-19A/B/C/D all have the same wing.

Why not use the definition that's been refined by a number of people over the years? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecha http://anime.about.com/od/animeglossary/g/mecha_def.htm

No, it's a cut scene and he jumps into the river and swims to shore just as the ship starts falling. If you look closely, you see him disappear "inside" the ship. Where does he go? Cowering on the floor mats? The dialogue implies otherwise. Anyhow - 3D is overblown. Go read Roger Ebert's 9 reasons why I hate 3D and you should too: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/30/why-i-hate-3-d-and-you-should-too.html (movie critic opinions aside, there's a couple of very important technical and biological reasons in there)

Anyone else watch season 2 eps 1? I found it rather underwhelming and a somewhat disappointing reset to status quo. Shame after the fireworks and hints at major changes in the last two episodes of season 1.

What he said.

Aside from the difficulties of the language and culture, Japanese universities are akin to high school in Canada (I want to say North America, but I don't know the USA or Mexican public school system well enough to say that). In the following regards: - you have to show up to every class (there's roll call). If you miss more than 3 classes without an excuse (part-time job is a valid one), you're dropped from the course. - the overall mood of the students is pretty much the opposite. After spending years studying for and passing exam hell, everyone is more relaxed; as entering a good university pretty much guarantees a good job. (Of course this was a decade ago, and pending which university you go to, such things aren't guaranteed any more. With the few university students that I teach at my language school, the majority are more serious about there studies). Health care: Public and private require that you pay 30% of the medical fees yourself. Depending on how long you stay, you may find it much, much cheaper to get foreign travel medical insurance. The one that I had during the year of university was something equal to or less than 1 CAD per day. Which is cheaper than the public insurance. However, it only lasted a year. If you stay longer than a year, consecutively, then you'll have to enroll in public insurance. The sucky thing about that is it is run from the local city/town/ward office, and they back-charge you to the time that you registered for residency in that city/town/ward. Of course you can get around this by moving to a new city/town/ward, but that's annoying if you're not already planning to do so. Anyhow, some general advice: prepare as much as you can before you go. This includes: - saving as much money as you can - learn as much Japanese as you can. Probably focusing more on a good foundation in the language than anything else (this includes reading and writing hiragana and katakana, and how to correctly compose the strokes of kanji!). - bring pictures of friends and family from home, and how to contact them. Along with 1 favourite book/manga/whatever and music (not a problem with Ipods et al). This is mostly to minimize the effects of culture shock than anything else. Oh, and keep in mind that the first 3 months are going to be the roughest. In short, your dictionary is going to be your best friend. After that, you'll know enough of the language to start making real friends (but beware the English vampires. Real friends are made with the people who have no interest in English. So join a club of some kind that doesn't use English at all. Like Aikido.)

Ah, but it's more than Transformers. For starters, it came first and has had more of a lasting impact. Lastly, Testuwan is much cooler looking, and he's got a bit more realistic anime magic working for him.

Agreed. I think that we should collectively take a step back from promoting our personal favourites and major influences, and think about the influence that the mecha on the list had on latter productions. Eva has had, and continues to make a large influence. Now, where is Tetsuwan Atom (aka Astro Boy)?

I've skim read the article. At first he says it's a good movie. Then that he's aware of the Macross/Itano Circus reference. The rest of the article appears to be about how the movie is either a good live action representation of anime, or anime should be done like the movie; but that's skim reading for you. He was already introduced last issue. I think fleshing out might be a better descriptor.