VFTF1

That's cool! But where's his email? If he wants comments from abroad, I'm only too happy to oblige - but I don't even know how Pete PS: Don't want to go off topic too much - and perhaps this is speculation better meant for the Macross Frontier News Thread where the movie is being discussed but -- on this not of "He is a wonderful girl" and Alto.... Last night - I had a dream that I got a chance to see the Macross Frontier movie premiere. And it was a shocking experience, because the trailer and all that we know about it lead us to believe that it'll be re-hashed old footage with some new stuff mingled in and a couple of new songs, and that the "False Songstress" is either fluff or means something along the lines of "Sheryl and Ranka seeking out their true selves/being used for bad purposes/being manipulated as artificial creations for political purposes"... BUT In my dream... the movie was completely different then what people expect. It featured Alto having a double life: High schooler dreaming about piloting Valkyrie on the one hand, and deranged Sheryl Nome fan who plots to kidnap her and then dress up like her and pretend he IS her and perform concerts on the other. The movie is basically about how Alto does a bait-and-switch - plucking Sheryl from Danger when the Vajra attack, only to stick her in a closet and lock it. He comes back dressed up as Sheryl and fools even Grace. No one suspects that Alto secretly dresses up as Sheryl Nome except for super Sheryl fan Ranka Lee, who suspects that "someone is faking Sheryl" because she notices that Sheryl "seems different." Of course Ranka falls in love with (high schooler) Alto and never suspects that it is her love that has kidnapped her idol and deins to dress up as Sheryl for concerts. Alto gets a job at SMS as a janitor (which he quits out of pride) - Ozma won't allow him to pilot Valkyrie and punches him not once but twice for asking. But Alto lies to Ranka and says he is being trained as a Valkyrie pilot and that's why he has to "go away for a couple of weeks sometimes." In fact, though, Alto is not training at SMS while he is away - but rather he dresses up as Sheryl and performs concerts. Ranka is a prize detective who is determined to get to the truth of things. And in effect she finally connects the dots when she decides to surprise Alto at SMS with a birthday present - and he's not there. Only her nichan Ozma, who explains that Alto never was in SMS but was a janitor for one day. Ranka confides her fears to Ozma - and both of them go to the latest Sheryl Nome concert to get to the bottom of it. They unmask Alto as the Fale Songstress and rescue Sheryl from the clost. The end. Best movie dream I ever did see

I hope I said this: Super-space-time super idol - sounds like something I would write about Ranka Pete

Neither of you guys are annoying! Next to Gubaba, Kieth and Agent One are my favorite Macrossworld members:) My goal in life is to know as much about Evangelion as Kieth, as much about Macross as Gubaba, and to look like Agent One Pete

ILLOGICAL. You don't like downloading fansubs (which are free and where fans make NO MONEY) because you want to support the maker of the anime ..... so you'd prefer to PAY HG a cut of the DVD profit??? But... HG ISN'T the anime maker. Why would you want to pay HG if you want to "support the anime maker?" HG Has nothing to do with making the anime. Ergo - you're actually supporting the anime maker by downloading a fansub - because you are spreading (marketing) that anime - spreading name recognition and letting the foriegn fanbase know that something cool is out there are worth watching - which also leads people to toys, models, figures etc. Well, as a retailer who has thousands invested in an import/export business, I have a different view of the matter. But for the sake of argument, I had a very similar situation with a certain online hobby store a long LONG time ago, although it was for only about 65 bucks. I didn't even get a shipping confirmation. They got my 65 bucks. But that was in the early days and I think my order just got lost in their mess. In any event - in my view, there is almost zero risk in shopping online nowadays. Online vendors have too much invested in their businesses to allow customers to feel like they risk sending money into a black hole - never to hear of the purchased product, or the money, ever again. Here we agree - to a point. Namely - I actually DON'T think the average American has lower standards. If that was true, then there wouldn't be a hobby market in America that was as vibrant as it is. The problem is that corporations like Bandai don't give a squat about the American market, or really about the European market either. No Japanese hobby/anime company does. None of them use the business model they are using in Japan on the US market. Maybe this is because they realize that you are indeed right in your view of the "average American consumer" - maybe that's true... Or maybe it's just because they can't be bothered...? Who knows. But what if people - like me - are not interested in watching the "official" Macross with its' english language dubs and zany translation? What if I want to watch the Japanese version because I like to watch things in their original? What we're basically getting into here is a debate about property rights vs. the notion of trademark/licensing as something that limits property rights and artificially tries to prop up or protect someone's profit margin at the expense of freedom of speech. Harmony Gold has no right to force me or any other American to acknowledge that the official Macross Saga english dub DVD is the "real" Macross and forbid us under the pretense of law from enjoying the original Macross subbed for free by fans. They are using arcane trademark/licensing laws and a contract that no one has ever seen or read the contents of to try to monopolize a market which isn't theirs to monopolize. I think that at some point, the whole notion that what they are doing is "legal" needs to be challenged. In the United States, the Constitution is ultimately the highest law of the land, and I don't see the first amendment as saying "Congress shall make no law that infringes on the right of free speech...except for laws about copyright and licensing which would allow certain companies to dictate to people that they can't watch foriegn movie productions in the original with free fan subs but instead have to go buy a dubbed DVD. Hah hah." Copyright and trademark laws are nice and swell in terms of the intention of protecting the intellectual property rights of people who come up with stuff - BUT - first of all - some intellectual property becomes public domain after the passage of a certain period of time, and/or especially when it becomes popular enough. Do we really need to give the proverbial Fred Flinstone a cut of the profit from every tire made for a bycicle or car in America because the proverbial Fred Flinstone invented the wheel? In the end, intellectual property rights have a tendency to protect themselves, without the law - because if you have invented A, and nobody else understands it or knows how to do it but everybody WANTS it or wants to use it - then you profit from your invention - you start selling it. And of course the competition is going to copy A, take it apart and try to come up with something similar. Should we stop them? Should we shut down every computer company beyond Apple because - hey! - they copied Steve Jobs' idea for a PC! (?) Is competition illegal? Should Walmart have sued K-mart for using the word "Mart" in its' names? Are words property? Now - I'm not saying that there is a cut-and-dry case "in favor" of what is known as "internet piracy" - there isn't. But what I am saying is that we need to be careful here when coming to a conclusion regarding what is legal and what isn't, and what should be legal and what shouldn't. In my view, the situation with HG is pretty simple: They have no product that is theirs. They don't make anything. They are not endeavoring to make anything. All they have is a licensing agreement and an army of lawyers. I'm not particularly worried about a company like that because when a company has a piece of paper and a bunch of lawyers as their primary weaopn - that company is pretty much on the rocks anyways. And the notion that "cutting a deal" with HG by Big West would mean that people in America would wake up and see VF-1s from Yamato next to Legends class Optimus Prime in the grocery store, turn on the TV and see Macross Zero coming right after the Simpsons, and drive past billboards advertising May'N and Megumi concerts coming to your local football stadium next week... is false. What it would actually mean would be that Hobby shops in America would STOP importing Yamato and othe Macross products because the 5 dollars they SOMETIMES make off of selling these things would have to go to HG. Meanwhile, HG would of course not mass import them either - because they don't have the resources. And why should they? Once they shut out Yamato macross products totally - they can sell their crappy Toynami. And they would prefer to ram crappy Toynami down American consumers throats with a comfy profit margin then make the effort of mass importing and mass marketing Yamatos for a measy "2.50 cents" per Valk (as you claim - which IMO is spurious anyways). So however you want to look at it - Macross fans loose if HG wins. The future of Macross in a world where HG wins is Doug Bendo. Pete

I hope you're right. The page doesn't open on the product - but if the "20 usd Gundam model" is a "Bandai USA Highgrade" kit or something of the sort - then that's a good indication of what ther problem is: Namely that as much I hate to say it... but the US market is not the Japanese market; it's worse. It has lower standards and poor taste - at least in my judgement. Bandai Gundam models are a perfect example. The stuff Bandai brought over to the USA, when compared to the Gundam product they had going in Japan, is terrible - was terrible and is terrible. Now, I don't "fault" them for it. And it's not "always" a golden rule that American stuff is "worse" than Japanese. There's plenty of great American stuff out there. But by and large - whenever a film, animated series or toy has been brought in to the USA, it's gone from better to worse - and Gundams are a great example. Unless, of course, it has been brought to the US by someone who knew enough to appreciate the original for what it was and sell it as it was. I think we're confusing ourselves here. I meant BigBadToystore by BBTS, not Big Boyz Toys. I don't think you can make a parallel comparisson between - correct me if I'm wrong - but animated DVDs and Macross toys made by Yamato. First of all - before we even get to the "HG gets a cut of the profit" problem - let's be clear about something completely different: The Yamato Macross products we (or at least I and lots of others here) love couldn't be sold at US retail toy outlets EVEN IF all the licensing issues were resolved. Why? Because they have sharp points, small parts, and generally do not fulfill a multitude of American toy safety laws. Yamato would therefore have to radically retool them to fit those safety laws OR the item would have to be sold as an Adult Collectible - and clearly labelled as such. So even if you saw them at Walmart - it wouldn't be in the toy aisle. And if you did see them on the toy aisle, it would be in a terrible state - one that is in accordance with toy safey laws and therefore not in accordance with the standards of accuracy to line art and aesthetics of Real Robots that we've come to expect. I guess what I'm saying is that there are a ton of problems above and beyond the licensing issue that would make it hard to legally bring this stuff to the USA on a wider basis. The licensing problem just complicates it. In the end, for me personally, since I haven't lived in the USA since 2003, it's kind of a far off distant matter that doesn't affect me. But it is still something I find interesting. Pete

That story was actually concocted by NERV PR department. The fact is, an N2 bomb was detonated there when an Angel attacked. Pete

That's partially why I don't like them. They want money for other people's work for no effort on their part. And when they do make an effort - it's only to destroy other people's work. Not true. There are pictures here on MW showing Kawamori sitting around with the Bandai staff working on the VF-25. As for Yamato - it is actually mind boggling how anybody could think that they "just sold the toys." They actually revolutionized the toys; they came up with perfect transformation VF-1s, after experimenting. They were the ones pushing the envelop on R&D - taking huge risks and potentially fatal losses to their credibility as a producer (QC nightmares etc). Meanwhile, Toynami and Bandai just took the easy route of making crappy new toys (Toynami MP and 1/100) or reissuing the nostalgic Chunkies (Bandai). So - wrong on all counts. Yamato didn't "just sell toys" - it lifted up the entire market. And Bandai didn't "just sell toys" - it worked side by side with Kawamori to make something that would appeal to a broad cross section (models for accuracy nuts, DX for durability) as well as having actually sponsored Macross Frontier and thereby brought a new excellent Macross series out after - what? - a decade - of no series. Yes - but if they were entitled to a cut of the profits from Yamato Valkyrie - that would basically - IMO - mean that Yamato valkyrie would have to cost roughly 30 to 50% MORE than they do now. It's not enough to just "allow" these things over to the USA legitamitely. For a company to do that on a truly vast scale that would allow for minimizing retail costs, they would HAVE TO tie it to a cartoon or DVD release or SOMETHING. So this is actually a completely false vision - that it's just going to be the way it is now with HG getting a cut. NOBODY would sell Yamato valkyries if HG was entitled to a cut because the things are hardly profitable as is. The Yammies are a huge success story IMO - and if there was an effective HG TAX on them and no mass marketing mechanism - they die. And who would do the mass marketing? Well - that would bring us back to square one: bringing Macross over to the USA, dubbing - the whole nine yards. The best thing HG can do is just leave Macross alone and go away. Not possible. To get Yammies on Walmart shelves would mean what I wrote above -which in turn would mean SOMEBODY would have to heavily invest in sponsoring the series to come over to the USA and to do a proper marketing campaign and to mass import and distribute at a scale practically equivalent to what Hasbro does with Transformers. Do you see HG doing that? Do you see Toynami products in Walmart? If HG got a cut of the action all that would effectively mean is that you'd have your imported Yammies turned away at the border while your domestic USA hobby retailers like BBTS would be charging you EVEN MORE for their HG-approved, HG-Stickered Yammies and other Macross products. It would not be good. Pete

Have these been posted? Sheryl is to my liking in this one. Ranka so-so. Klan...well... at least she's got the costume right. Is she trying to be "cute" with that pose/facial expression? I think what's missing are the eye brows. Klan had these thunderclap lightning strike eyebrows.... In any case - Klan is actually probably the hardest to pull off... Pete

The dude on the left is very JEEGish I remember briefly playing this on NES Pete

Don't worry Ray - we loooooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee you even without Mylene in that suit! But Polidread - that's definitely one of the best Mylene renderings out there - I love the face! Her eyes are really alive! And considering that she is the Brera of Macross 7 fashion - she needs a duds-update for her concert wardrobe for sure Pete

I dunno. On the other hand - my view is kind of "if it ain't broken - don't fix it." I'm actually glad that the Japanese are just doing Macross their way and HG is doing Robotech their way. Their cooperation led to a lame dub, a mangled mish-mash series, legal problems, and a badly animated no-plot movie, and Toynami toys. I can only shudder to think what Macross: Frontier might have looked like had it not been done purely by the Japanese, but instead been some kind of "joint effort." I like everything Kawamorii has done to date; I like his direction for Macross. I like Yamato and Bandai's figures. I don't want any of it to change for the worse ONLY BECAUSE that would mean people at HG would get to cut a deal, or Michael Bay would get to make a Robotech movie starring Britney Spears and call it "Macross" I would rather things remained as they were. If this means Yammies can't be sold at Wal-Mart and people have to fly to Japan to see movies or download them - fine. Whatever. Who watches television these days anyways? Pete

Yeah; saw that... I appreciate that they are experimenting. Putting a revolver joints in for the knees is risky - but then again the area is black... But it's risky still... But the thighs looks good - and you can see that they have advanced on the old ELF model yet again in terms of thigh poseability and the upper body. The problem is - this figure looks like it's half way between a great old idea and a great new idea - hasn't quite gotten there yet... Pete

All I know is that the one forum that I am permanently banned on now has about 3 people actively on it. Down from 200+ active members when I was there. Heck - not even the Admin even posts there anymore... So not only are other people to blame, but once I'm gone, apparently the fun ends How's that for internet megalomania? Pete

Yes! I've been waiting for this baby to come out! I remember when Hikaru Ichijo flew it to rescue Misa from Mars Base! AND THEN in Macross 7, Bassara... oh wait... Pete

Saw the trailer. Opinion: Well - the trailer testifies to just how excellent Macross: Frontier the SERIES is. The animation in the trailer for the new movie is not markedly better than what we saw in the series, which IMO was excellent. Abstracting from the recycled scenes, the new stuff does not look earth shattering. Certainly - this is not DYRL vs. SDFM:TV. The characters were already extremely well designed, and only Brera was made to look less ridiculous, and if I'm not mistaken - Sheryl was given puckier lips, or we just get some scenes where she has more lipstick. Ranka seems to have fuller hair too - as if she'd just walked out of a shampoo commercial - in some of the scenes. But overall - given that the series was by and large animated to the standards of Macross:Zero, which itself was animated to the Standards of DYRL... it's little wonder that this movie seems like it's not going to break new ground. This is not meant to be a negative opinion - it's just that the series is so good that, based on the trailer alone, the movie's going to find it hard to make an impact similar to the one that DYRL made. Pete

I much prefer the second rendition of Yoko to the first Pete

How I miss being able to walk into something like that... *sniff* :-) Thank goodness for the internets though In any event - the classroom setting looks great. I have always wished that dioramas were a more steady production option in all series; whether Suzumiya or Macross or Gundam or whatever - but they are sadly a rarity... Pete

Nice I'm still waiting on my 1/5... Pete

Yeah, I know - that why I qualified by writing that it's not so much that he's at fault as that when I hear the name "Macek" I instinctively think of the mess rather than the lovely nostalgia of bringing anime to an unsuspecting western world in the 80s and the wonderful palladium role playing games I played. So there's that. But, on the subject of licensing rights et al... I know I know...the law is the law... but often times a law is written that tries to uphold justice in a given circumstance. Then the circumstances change dynamically, and the law ends up being arcane. Even if HG is right about their license... well - fat lot of good it does them or American Robotech fans. It would make better business sense for them to burry the hachet. Also, demanding a cut off of Yamato USA valkyrie is just insane. I mean - it's just such a lousy MO. It is basically "yeah - these Japanese guys that made the original Macross series - we got them to sign a contract that gives us international rights to it. Ha hah. Oh - and those other Japanese guys that make superior toys to the stuff we're putting out -well - we'll let them sell it here if they give us a cut." The point is - HG seems to be a company that exists off of legalese twists. Instead of putting out a quality product of their own - they try to use legal muscle. Even if they win this legal battle - they still loose. They loose because all of their resources and focus goes into this stupid fight over a market that is dwindling, that is on life support, and where progress exists only in Japan. I mean - come on. Look at the Yamatos. Look at Macross Frontier. Look at the Bandai models and DXs and the gashapons and the Macross Ace manga and the upcoming Movie and the EVA 2.0 and...on and on. And now look at Shadow Chronicles. I'm not speaking now from a qualitative point of view - I will remain quality neutral here - let's say the question of quality is completely a subjective matter... But look at it just from a business angle: Where is there more dynamism? More innovation? More attempts at creating new sustainable markets and nurturing long term demand? As a retailer - If I'm gonna go bankrupt one of these dismal Great Depression II days - you can bet your boat I'd rather go down with a ton of Yammies than with a ton of Toynamis in stock. Also - who would ever - as a retailer - want to do business with HG or carry their product or anything like that given their wacko business practices? Given what they tried with BBTS? (which apparently didn't work since BBTS is carrying Macross Yamato products anyways).... Most large producers pay retailers for shelf space if the retailer is a chain and big enough. Retail chains don't really make money off of "sales" but off of big producers buying shelf space - and PRIME shelf space at that (for the ones that can). Retail chains market themselves as offering great stuff for cheap and if they succeed in marketing themselves thus, producers will pay just to have their stuff on the shelves. But the hobby market doesn't work like that IMO. The hobby market is too much of a niche. This market has people that are way more connected with eachother and in touch to an extent that is much bigger than the regular physical-shelf retail market. I just can't imagine having a good working relationship with guys like HG after what I've read about their business practices. And I for the life of me don't understand where the silver lining in this kind of strategy is for HG. I mean - maybe they have enough of a profit margin just by virtue of wider access to the US market? Maybe it's the fact that (at least up until just before the version 2.0 Yammies came out) their 'Veritechs' were cheaper than the ubber priced 1/48s? It just feels like they are doing something that should be a labor of love with no love whatsoever. I guess from their point of view- they paid for the license and therefore should have the "rights." But see - they are assuming that these rights will always actually mean something. It's like having the rights to proceeds from the sales of a book that will not sell for very much longer. Better to help write a new and better book. I think they instinctively know this - which is why they are so desperately trying to create new mythology with the Robotech movies or to "break through" into Holywood with a live action film - anything to take them off of life support and give them real independence as a franchise that has less and less to do with Macross. Shadow Chronicles basically showed that they want to escape the Macross ties, and are not worried about Mospedea making a comeback in Japan... But - I just can't see it working. The further they run from the source and try to pretend it didn't and doesn't have a life of their own - the less appealing they become. Robotech becomes an empty shell - an emptier shell... Pete

I will happily answer this question. WHY DO I FEEL HOSTILITY TOWARDS MACEK & CO? Because: If it were just a case of them trying to bring a cool little Japanese anime over here, having to redo it and stick two random other anime on just to meet the TV criteria of the time - fine. Of course I wouldn't have anything against him; I would just consider Robotech in the same way that I look at other franchises which have a similar history of being "brought over" or re-worked or redone or whatever. But where the hostility begins is in Harmony Gold's attempt to pretend that reality is different than what it is. Robotech.com seems to authentically like to pretend that there's no such thing as the original Japanese Macross and the continuing series, and that there is certainly no such thing as Yamato VF-1 valkyrie, and that either way- even if there are such things - DON'T WORRY- they're actually no better than the gems that HG and Toynami bring us. This is not just a statement of opinion on their part - but they have used the law to back them up by attacking little dealers and bigger dealers who have "dared" carry Japanese products. Arcane copyright agreements are being used as an excuse to deprive people of a choice between stories and to deprive them of access to figures. It is beside the point that these methods "don't work" - because obviously they don't since everyone can go download the original Macross and its' continuations and can get Yamato Valkyrie through third party channels. But what I hate is when some people try to pretend that reality is different and get mad at you for pointing out that actually it looks a certain way that it is forbidden to point out. This is not Macek's fault as such - but this is what Robotech, and therefore the public persona of Macek in general - have become. Honestly - before I heard of HG's shenanigans, I had a lot of fond feelings for Robotech and for the entire franchise. I thought Toynami was crap, but I didn't hold any hostility towards them - it's just a company like any other. You either like their product or don't. Whatever. But unfortunately - they don't behave like other companies and production studios - just confining themselves to trying to market their goods. They play dirty and they insult people's intelligence by creating a fantasy make believe world that's just not true. When it is legal to go to a store in America and see a Toynami VF next to a Yamato USA VF - and CHOSE which one you want - I will no longer be hostile towards Macek and RT and HG. And yeah - I know - I'm putting them all in one bag. Someone will say but Macek has nothing to do with what's going on now" - fair enough. My point is not to argue that he does, but rather that ironically the reputation and credibility of Robotech has been harmed, has been morphed from a wonderful attempt to introduce Western audiences to Japanese anime into this ridiculous farse that trys to pretend that better products, ideas and shows don't and didn't exist. That's where the hostility is from IMO. Pete

He's not! Keith has seen the light! Hanluya! Proof perfect that Robotech is flourishing by leaps and bounds is that they are in talks to go into talks to talk about having talks about talking about talks over the talks about the talks on the talks regarding the talks about the LIVE ACTION ROBOTECH MOVIE! SO THERE!!!!! Pete

I don't think that's Sheryl. That's somebody else... Isn't it? We must know who's ass that is so we can find the rest Pete

Looks ready to die in mass numbers! Good job Pete

I don't have it either, but the Youtube AMV featuring DYRL and DYNAMITE scenes is really really well done and I like watching and listening to it often. Pete Edit: Oh yeah - and just to ...er...be on topic...umm... Basara is the greatest pilot because he can sing a duet with Minmey and fly a Valkyrie at the same time

VF1A-Fan: You just became my new favorite cannon fodder. Did you make that classroom diorama or is it a set that can be picked up? Excellent photography too! Pete