Rivin

Oh, and I actually enjoy Mari Iijima's sometimes quite soulful sounds, particularly "Cinderella", and "Tenshi no enogu" (the two songs, interestingly, that she wrote herself). I even bop my head to "Sunset Beach" and have always enjoyed "Ai, Oboeteimasu ka"....and usually I can't stand J-pop. Much rather hear her and the outstanding Sharon Apple than the screeching caterwailing of Fire Bomber (which ranks right about with the Robotech Lynn Minmei songs IMHO).

I'd definitely rather watch Macross II than Macross 7....actually, I'd also rather have someone sandpaper my genitals than watch Macross 7. My opinion was generated from Macross Dynamite 7...the OVA and movie, which I have the misfortune of owning. I have a number of complaints. 1. It's very jarring to have gone from the serious, intellectually stimulating and beautiful Macross Plus, to "LISTEN TO MY SONG!" 2. Nutjobs flying around with giant speakers on their mechs playing guitars in the cockpit. 3. Space whales.... 4. Lesbian "roofie" rape scene. 5. Macross 7 was obviously aimed at a much younger, much more vapid crowd. Apparently they were hoping to capture the same crowd that George Lucas was aiming for with Episode I. 6. Ahab the Zentraedi. C'mon, work with me here... 7. Animation that doesn't even match DYRL, let alone Macross Plus. 8. Really, really disinteresting storylines. 9. This is what happens when you take a concept (music as a means of bridging the culture gap) to an insane degree (duels between mechas using giant sonic speakers). 10. By the 150th time that idiot said "Listen to my song!" I was ready for someone to take that silly guitar and give him a six-string enema.

Couple facts on the creation of the first Robotech RPG. When Palladium first got the license, Harmony Gold supplied them with the research material, plus some they scrounged on their own. Unfortunately, much of the japanese anime research material wasn't as thorough then as it is now. All the sources, for example, on the original valkyrie listed the standard number of missiles as "many." In addition to that, they did have problems getting fine details out of harmony gold. One famous conversation between Kevin Siembieda and Carl Macek involved them going over the sensor systems for the veritech. Macek told Siembieda that he thought "nightvision" was a bit too advanced and science fiction-y for robotech. Yeah, nightvision. There's a different batch of writers there now, freelancers. They're delving deeper than the original books in accuracy. Many of them are diehard Macross fans. As in distinct and different from Robotech. Though they are robotech fans as well. Of course the new stuff will be shadow chronicles if they get the license (and from what I've heard it's a virtual done deal). Harmony Gold allegedly fielded it to other companies, but were never as satisfied as they were with Palladium, which says either good things about Palladium or really bad things about the other companies that tried to pick it up, or maybe both.