sketchley

1. If by armour, you mean the FAST packs, than yes. But it's not so much 'rise' as it is 'opens like a door on a hinge.' 2. Same as 1 - opens like a door on a hinge to reveal what is inside.

Apologies for the quality of internet translation: It ..Rinco.. fought bravely. Japan..media..win..do.Failure..write..that.. seat..wear.It returns home in won feelings because it is a terrible thing, and being possible to hold br/>? is okay and 怼There is br/>?. Recently, it is severe for us who has increased when the actor in Japan is needed in Hollywood the number of cases to find the actor in mainland Japan, remains in the loss, and is holding out. It doesn't become thin too much however with black hair and I will advance in overweight br/>? and the future though I become br/>?. After that, everybody pushed its back for Conze br/>? To in Chile as it was warm. 汼 that hardens feelings aiming at the first concert achievement in October this year;It had the br/>? mind. Thank you really. Japan first of all.

Pg 120 of Shoji Kawamori Macross Design Works has a rough drawing of the internal weapon bay of the VF-11C. Pg 78 of the same book has a rough of a VF-11B with a single "stealth pod" mounted on each wing. It is possible that these eventually developed into what I consider the 'aerodynamic UUM-7' missile pods as seen on the cover of the "This is Animation Special Macross Plus" book, in front of the YF-19.

It depends on how the meteor hits. Usually, a meteor will slowly vaporize, leaving only a few chunks that actually hit the surface of the Earth. It should be considered rare the number of big ones that survive long enough to literally hits the dense air closer to the surface. At that point, they usually explode with the force of an atom bomb, or greater. The Tunguska event is a great example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event The ASS-1 obviously didn't do any of these, which basically boils down to anime magic; followed by a lower, slower, and controlled tragectory of approach. Even though it isn't mentioned directly, we can assume that the ASS-1 contains super materials or even the 'structural integrety field' of Star Trek, which kept it in basically one piece. And yes, Zinjo, it did come down under it's own power, or at least on a controlled crash landing course. The ship, sans crew, was left on Earth as a "Booby Trap" by the Supervision Army to delay the Zentraedi who were chasing them, as they (the Supervision Army) left the area (by area, it's probably safe to presume the Local Spur, or even the Orion Arm of the galaxy.) This was made clear in SDF:M, in the first two episodes.

Matt Groeing is someone who does throw in a plethora of in-jokes - some of them being so esoteric, that few, if any, get the joke. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of those esoteric jokes.

I think it's all of the above. The character designs by Mikimoto in Macross 7 are some of his best - simple, clear, and cute. Though, I do agree that some of them are less than desirable (Basara.) But we should keep in mind that Mikimoto is essentially a freelancer to this job, and he only produced what he was told to do. I think his work should be judged more along the lines of 'look what he created given his limitations' as opposed to 'man, he was solely responsible for the characters in Macross 7.' Anyhow, Jenius, you may think that Macross 7 sucks, but not everyone does. Boiling the arguement down to 'how much it sucks' isn't a good summation of the debate, as it completely ignores the opinions of those who don't think it sucks, though don't necessarily think that it is a great anime either.

She hoped he was alive. He was killed, along with the rest of the personnel of Mars Base Sara AND the fleet that went to pick them up and return them to Earth, when the Anti-UN destroyed them in their hijacked Oberth destroyer near Earth.

Tanks and APCs on the moon. The next generation Hound Dog and/or Lancer II space fighter for non-atmospheric, non-terrain operations.

Not necessarily. With no threat on the horizon, and a general switching to cheaper is better, there'd be little incentive to continue development and deployment of Destroids, and we'd see a continued deployment of things like tanks, APCs, and helicopters. Of course, if the UN Wars continued (or the economy of the UN decided to go the route of the military-industrial economy, and create a war simply to fuel the economy) then there'd be continued development and deployment of Destroids; possibly even VFs. But, there'd still be plenty of tanks, APCs and helicopters.

Inflation. Inflation + changes in the exchange rate + increases in shipping costs & import fees. AND, people have been willing to purchase these things at inflated costs. The manufacturer wants in on that action, so the costs go up. Personally, as long as people are willing to spend as much as they have been on these things, the price will remain high, and possibly climb higher. If everyone (and I do mean everyone) stops purchasing them at the high prices, we'll see price cuts, but on the flip side, less variety produced by the company. Part of the increased costs are due to R&D (need to buy the latest computers and the latest CAD software, and retrain your workers to remain compatable with the factory), but they are also due to an entirely new set of molds needing to be created. 'Simple' fixes as well, require new molds being made, and those things are expensive, in the thousands of dollars range. I have a general question: are these kits hand or machine assembled?

He may just be called Skull-2 simply because Skull-1 is Fokker's callsign, and, at least in some airforces, wingpairs are generally referred to by the callsign of the wingleader, not necessarily by their squadron name. This may also be the reason why DD Ivanov instantly recognizes Roy Fokker's VF as Fokker, and not any random pilot in the skull squadron.

I fully agree with you, VFTF1, especially: Though, I don't limit it to anime, and SDF:M in particular. This is an important aspect of all entertainment - give highlights and important moments of a story, just enough to leave the viewers wanting more, but at the same time, developing as much of a well-rounded view of the situation inside of the story as is possible. The master of this is George Lucas, especially when it comes to action scenes: we never see the same circumstances or equipment used twice - and for those of us with the means, we want to go back and relive those moments, as they only come once. Even the lightsaber duels are wildly different throughout the six movies (and they are rarely shown more than once per movie.) DYRL is another good example of this - the entire SDF:M series is condenced into a movie. Sure, some things get lost in the process, but the main point of DYRL is to act as a reminder of the TV series, cased in better animation. It, too, follows the technique of having wildly different action scenes. Simply for comparison purposes: "Die Another Day" is an example of repetative action scenes: the sword fight early in the movie was great IMHO the best sequence in the entire movie as I actually felt JB would be harmed, redoing the sword fight on the burning airplane at the end of the movie (despite being between the two female leads), was not good, and actually hurt the movie, IMHO. There were also far too many scenes of "men firing guns at each other". Watching that movie made me yearn for the creativity in "Goldeneye" - probably the best being the exploding pen gimmick. But this is all for another discussion in a different forum.

New VF. New VF, not because the old ones don't work, but because that's the way these things generally turn out. If we look at all the Macross anime released to date, every one has a new VF - some of the games even introduced new VFs as well! What will it most likely be? Somewhere in the middle of what we've seen. The VF-1/0 are a bit 'limited' (but have great selling potential in all markets,) and the VF-19/22 are a bit too uber, and may make the series a little less than interesting (who cares if the hero can take out all the enemies, with no fear of damage or injury?)

To be honest, it's old news. I first read about this about 10 years ago. There's apparently plenty of in-jokes on the okudograms and the signs on the doors and over the patients in sick bay - mind you, they're next to impossible to read unless you are actually on the set. Aside from the mentions in the compendium: http://www.google.com/search?q=+++++++++++...earch=anime.net consider for a moment the name of the sister-ship of the Enterprise: the Yamato. Rick Sternbach is an anime fan amongst fans, and I miss his column in the first year of Animerica.

Yes, good points everyone. In the manufacturing company I worked at before, we purchased labels. The funny thing is that if we ordered anywhere from 1 to 4,999 labels, it would cost almost the same as if we purchased 5,000 to 10,000 labels. There are minimum production points - my interpretation is that Yamato is having someone manufacture at, or slightly above that point. Even then, small print runs (anything less than 100,000 (100k) is considered small time) will have a higher cost per unit. In a way, it's not price gouging, but simply the nature of manufacturing - complex model = expensive R&D + expensive manufacturing = big bucks, even before you tack on company operating overhead, and a small profit margin. Of course, given that these things have a group of hardcore collectors who are willing to part with large amounts of money for them, means that Yamato, and EVERYONE else will add a larger profit margin. If anything, the retailer that you purchased from gets the largest amount of profit per unit, however, because Yamato produces so many, despite getting the smallest percentage of the profit per unit, they get the largest total profit. Simply because the get the largest total profit for the entire production run, they get the blame, when any price gouging blame should probably be placed on the retailer that added an extra 5 to 10% because the item is a premium good, and some fans are willing to pay that extra amount.

It may also be because those companies are outside of the USA (HG's home turff) and the countries have different laws - laws that have prevented any legal actions, simply because they are groundless in those countries' judicial systems. That, and they may have copyright, registered tradmarks, etc., that predate the HG use of the term. In this situation, it's HG that will more than likely loose. Consider the case of Puffy vs. Puffy. Puffy (Japan) is still used to refer to the group in Japan, whereas they entered into the US market after Puffy (the rapper) established his use of the name, and Puffy became Puffy Japan in, and only in, the US. Personally I find the legal actions based on similar sounding names as being rediculous... Marvel (X-men) vs. John Burn's Next Men, etc... :roll:

Knowing how much a product costs to be manufactured is misleading at best. The $2 USD product mentioned in my previous post cost something like $0.98 CAD in materials, and $1.50 to 1.85 in labor, overhead, and etc.. Anyhow... as for the above figures, it was based on imports costing double the domestic retail cost ($200/2 = $100. Fairly similar to the $120 USD paid in HK - also an import into that country. ) The $200 USD is obviously not issued by Yamato - given that it retails for far less in HK, and Japan doesn't use the USD as it's currency. All of the other questions were answered in my previous post. However, just to clarify - that $12.50* isn't to any customer. It's to a wholesaler who is buying somewhere in the ballpark of 5,000 to 10,000 (probably more) units. Distributors, paying at least double the wholesale cost of $12.50, would still be purchasing hundreds, if not thousands of units. It's all to do with the economy of scale, etc., my friend. *Edit: the $12.50 is an estimation based on similar experiences. It may not be accurate, and it is probably higher. The point of the figure is to highlight the small sum that Yamato actually receives, in proportion to the total amount spent on the product.

I find it very interesting that the majority of non-supportive of Yamato posters appear to be forgetting that they are buying an import from Japan. In simple terms, that means that the retail cost is DOUBLED. It does not matter the product - in the past, I have purchased imported Japanese manga, books and MG Gundam kits. I was blown away at how much more expensive they were compared to the sticker price, and blown away again after I came to Japan, and saw how cheap they really are, in their native market. (Double the cost when imported, half the cost when bought domestically.) Having worked with an import/export company, I know that only a small amount of the mark-up is because of the local retailer. Most of the price increase is eaten up with middlemen, import fees, customs duties, tariffs, and the currency exchange rate. All of that combined, equals roughly a doubling of the domestic retail cost. (as has been mentioned by others earlier in this thread - thank you for the efforts.) Some analogies - distributors sell comic books to retailers at 50% of the cover price. Up to another 25% to 35% can be added due to shipping and other middlemen. Tack on store overhead (payroll, electricity, rent, etc.,) a comic retailer is making usually less than 5% of the cover price in profit. The publishers were selling their comics to distributors at around 10 to 25% of cover price (I'm guesstimating here, based on my experience with manufacturers in other industries,) and they are definitely NOT making 100% of the cover price in profit (maybe between 0.1 and 2.5% of the cover price.) I've worked with a wholesaler manufacterer, whose products retailed at $30 USD. The company sold the products at $2 USD to wholesalers, who sold it at $5 USD to distributors, who sold it at $10 to 15 USD to retailers. The company certainly didn't make $28+ USD in profit per item. It made a low $0.10 to $0.15 USD profit per item. Based on that info, Yamato is only getting $7 to $12.5 USD per product you buy! (Based on a $200 USD figure quoted above.) That $7 to $12.5 USD isn't all profit. Maybe a maximum of a 1/3 is profit. The rest? Manufacturing, company overhead, storage, materials, etc.). I'm not a Yamato defender, please do not mistake me as one. I have never purchased their products, and doubt that I will. I wrote this to correct the gross assumptions being presented in this thread. Yes, Yamato is putting out slightly flawed product, and it hurts them in the long run*, but what do you expect for $12.5 USD or less? *though they do improve their quality with time, and these are rather complicated transforming toys after all.

If I'm not mistaken, the active stealth only effected non-OT equipped equipment. I think it's safe to say that after Macross Zero, and until Macross Plus, it was difficult for non-OTEC equipment to detect equipment based on OTEC - given that the main opponents of the period all had OTEC based equipment, it's a mute point. Macross Plus marks the date that active stealth was finally able to work against equipment based on OTEC.

BlueMax is seconded. Valkyrie becomes ãƒãƒ«ã‚­ãƒªãƒ¼ (Ba-ru-ki-ri) in Japanese. Long story short - it's the consonant-vowel arrangement (or lack of it) in the language. Keep in mind that it is a two way street, and native English speakers tend to butcher the pronunciation of Japanese words like Toyota, tsunami, and karaoke. Toss it up to linguistic-cultural differences, and good luck listening for it. I remember hearing it the most in Macross 7 - pretty much any time there is a VF on screen, or about to be on screen. Speaking on the topic at hand - Yamato being mentioned, I'm interpreting this as a request for more toys (and not models.) Bandai released a few for Macross 7. I'm not sure how well they sold (probably not very well, given that other companies are not reproducing them). It may boild down to the VF-1 being a sure-thing, and the others are not; so companies are staying away from them. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't write to a company, and request they produce those other VFs. Though, it may be more realistic for them to appear in the more niche model format.

Try listening for ba-roo-kii-rii

Valkyrie is the name for all VFs, in Japan. If you listen to the Japanese carefully while watching Macross 7, Plus, etc., Valkyrie is what they usually use to refer to any and all VFs.

IMHO, the best VFs are the one's from Macross 7. Not for any of the obvious reasons, of course, but for the unobvious ones: they are a mastery of 'economy of line'. They are a collection of simple lines, that results in a complex image. Kawamori's skill, and experience is very apparent in them.

Mr March, you are one funny fellow. You ask for translations and technical information, then you shoot the person bringing published facts, and accuse that person of speculation. Is it because the published order runs against your opinions that you easily dismiss it? Are you bothering to ask about the placement of other items in the book or their catagorization by series? Did you even bother to consider that the YF-21 is not a Kazutaka Miyatake design and may have been included for reasons other than chronology? You, sir, have an agenda to promote your own opinions, interpretations, and supositions on Macross. Why are you even bothering to ask for the facts? Why should anyone go out of their way to help you when all they get is your dismal attitude? Go and buy the book yourself, and do your own translations.

Kazutaka Miyatake Design Works Macross and Orguss: Pg 29 Nousjadeleul-ger Pg 30 Zentraedi Battlesuit (the 'enemy battlesuit' of "This is Animation Special Macross Plus" probably isn't the correct name of the topic of this thread; partially because the book for the actual designer, detailing the design process, has a different name for it, AND especially because TIAS:MP has at least one known typo/error.) Pg 39 YF-21 Pg 40-41 Queadlunn-Rau Placement in the KMDWM&O book speaks volumes. Of course, the book isn't free of errors either - I've spotted plenty of graphical ones (mostly low res scanning issues); but I'm probably being nit-picky. Renegade Power Armor is a definite RPG falicy. The Nousjadel-ger Kai formly of mahq sounded much cooler, but again, no canon material to back that up.