Sergorn

Wait a second... is Macross The First starting over ? It also looks like part of the first chapter has been redrawn compared to what was in the existing volume. What the eck ? -Sergorn

As I've mentionned earlier in the thread, they have actually trademarked Macross in Europe just two month ago, have trademarked "Delta Macross" for South-East asia countries and Europe in December 2016, and Macross in South-East Asia at the same date. At the same time, attempts from Harmony Gold to do the same over the last year have all been blocked and disputed. Feel free to feel it's irrelevant because it's Europe and SE Asia, but something IS happening here guys. -Sergorn

I would assume Harmony Gold would keep the "Robotech" brand as they created it to begin with... but they wouldn't be able to use any of the series if they revert back to Japan so basically all they would be able to do would be created something new and totally unrelated under the name Robotech -Sergorn

Not just Macross Delta. They made a demand to trademark *Macross* as a whole for Australia, Russia, Singapour and Vietnam in December 2016 and it's been approved for Australia and Singapour. And they made a demand to trademark MACROSS for Europe in June 2017 AND every latest attempt for Harmony Golds to do Macross related trademarks are being automically disputed. And this also concerns merchandising rights, including videos and streaming exploitation. Nope something is happening here, it's not "business as usual" as we've known it for all the Macross related rights for the last 20 years. Crossing fingers something positive comes out of it. -Sergorn

Oh ? My bad, I thought all these "prequel" Chapters published on Comic Walker were new. -Sergorn

I wouldn't count two month between chapter a looooong time personnally. I've followed some mangas which had years of hiatus.... That said there are already around 120-125 pages published page for this new volume, so in a couple of chapters there'll be enough material for a new tanbokon. Si this could happens before the end of the year if there isn't another unexpected hiatus. -Sergorn

Anyone know if there would be a way to buy these from Book Walker even outside Japan (like ie. when you create a Japanese Account for the PSN or some stuff), I'd really like to buy them digitally. You can DL the Book Walker app easily enough... but it's all in Japanese so... -Sergorn

I wouldn't be surprised if they begin releasing all the remastered "classic Macross" animes on Blu-Ray next year for the 30 years of Macross actually. This would seem fitting. -Sergorn

The market has changed since then so I don't know how that would apply now, but I do remember that in the '90 (before HG came and claimed all ownership over anything Macross), several US companies including Manga Entertainment expressed interest into bringing Macross 7 there but that it didn't happened because music had to be licensed separately and cost a gazillion of bucks. I recall someone from of these company saying that to bring Macross 7, they'd need to have all US anime companies working together due to the cost. So I don't know why Macross 7 would be different from other anime series ; perhaps there is something in the original contracts of the series - but unless the guys at Manga Entertainment&co were full of sh*t it seemed to be the case. -Sergorn

Yeah well I'd argue western producers havea view that is both wrong of stupid. We had plenty of (often poorly) dubbed anime in France without any extra added narration or stupid thing like that and we watched them. A lot. American cartoon though, now those were boring -Sergorn

Yeah they often add more dialogue and narration in US dubs... because whoever decide Kids programming seems think Kids are just dumb and wouldn't understand anything without that. This is actually true about voice acting as well - a lot of cartoon aimed at kid feels like they're 'dubbed' as if the watcher was slow and stupid and need to have everything carefully laid out and spoken like a school teacher because you know kids are too dumb and wouldn't understand otherwise. Except that actually, kids are not dumb. -Sergorn

Didn't Kawamori said they were reworking some stuff for the DVD release à la Evangelion 1.11 ? That would explain the long wait, because the movie still being in theatre does not necesarrilly prevent its home video release. -Sergorn

Doesn't the October 10th date come from a teaser shown at the Tokyo Anime Fair ? -Sergorn

Yeah you know what, you're right Renato. I'm tired of dealing with Internet trolls so I'll just leave it at that. -Sergorn

Denial of what ? What I am supposed to do with a Blu Ray Disc that I couldn't even read because of regional coding ? A coaster ? Puh-lease. (See ? I can use a silly condescending tone as well) You ARE kidding, right ? Or just trolling maybe. Yo do realize that any Macross related rights and licensing outside of Japan are for all intend and purpose frozen because of the HG legal issues, and that even Bandai themselves could not self publish Macross Frontier outside of Japan even if they wanted to and admitted so themselves ? Until this situation is resolved either in or out of court, you can start any anime importa/translation company you want, that still won't get a legitimate license and release outside of Japan I'd love to buy books like Macross Chronicles or the Macross the First manga volumes too (like I bought well... the french edition of Macross 7 Trash ten years ago)... but you know what ? It's in Japanese. Gosh. Yeah sorry but no I'm not in the habit of buying stuff that has no use to me since I can't understand it. As for toys and models, I have no interest in that kind of stuff - sorry if I don't force myself to buy anything with the name Macross on it because I'm a "fan". You are just ridiculous. Again this is NOT our fault or reponsibility of Macross is blocked out of Japan. I'm sure most of us would be very happy to spend money on domestic releases of all Macross-related stuff. But heh, if Big West and Bandai start adding english subs to their Japanese release (take a hint from Unicorn guys, please), I'll be happy to oblige. As such since they obviously don't care about potential customers outside of Japan, well sorry if I prefer to keep my money. It's their loss. But hey, if you follow your "logic" maybe I should just have bought a plane ticket and got to Japan just to see the Macross Frontier movie. Bah. -Sergorn

Believe it or not, the french edition was even worse that the US/UK one... since they somehow decided to split the "Movie Edition" over two side of double-sided DVD There was actually another editor (the one who had released Macross on VHS) who also published Macross II on DVD roughly at the same time as Manga Video, but it was even worst because their release didn't have any kind of subtitles because of some copyright issues due to Manga Video -Sergorn Edit : And I've just realised you're french too judging from your signature, so I guess you already know that

Exactly. I'm perfectly willing to pay and buy Macross DVDs and Blu-Rays and support the legitimate owners. (Hell I bought all the Macross DVDs that were released in France, even the crappy Manga Video editions of Macross II and Plus). The is no way in hell however that I will pay a fortune to buy some Japanese Blu-Ray of Macross Frontier that : A. Don't have any subtitles in a langage I can understand. B. I wouldn't be able to read anyway since Europe does not have the same region coding. I'm sorry but I see no reason why we should "support the original creators" by importing stuff from Japan if we don't speak any Japanese. It's not our fault or responsibility that Macross can't get out of Japan and I'm sure a lot of us would LOVE to buy official domestic DVD/Blu Ray release of Frontier, Zero and so on... Now if Bandai decided to go the Gundam Unicorn way with the Frontier movie and release a region free Blu-Ray that would also include subtiles in languages such English and French, I'd be perfectly willing to buy it full price from Japan. Unfortunately I believe we all know how unlikely this it to happen -Sergorn

Except all these cases of animes DVD or BD with english subs are anime which have ALREADY got official release in the west with english subtitles. This is why it happens - because the english version already exists so it costs barely nothing to add them to the official R2 Release. In the case of Macross Frontier it will never happens because there is NO official english version of the series - to add subtitles that would require paying people to translate, adapta, time, and QC the whole thing in English and the Japanese won't do that because it'll cost them money for very little benenit (because let's face face it - very few people would buy original Japaneses DVD/BD animes even if they have english subs, if only because of how freaking expansive they are). -Sergorn

For an anime that has never been released in any english speaking country on a official fashion - I'd say about as much chance as seeing Kawamori create a Macross II sequel -Sergorn

Any word on the length of film ? I hope for a two hour flick like DYRL, but I expect more something like 90 minutes... -Sergorn

I'm gonna say : "To each his own." As great as Macross Plus' soundtrack is... I feel it pales in comparison to Yoko Kanno's later work personally. -Sergorn

Of course. But creators and artists rarely see eye to eye with their fans, which is why you often end up with part of a fandom bashing the original creator for doing what he wants instead of pampering the fans Which is a good thing IMO - because when you basically end up creating work only to please fans, you get a license like Gundam which has basically been doing the same thing over and over again for the last 30 years (with a few exception... which did not please fans much but were probably the best quality wise). I think Tomino is a good example for this kind of stuff... I'd say a V-Gundam was a Gundam the fan wanted, while Turn A while the Gundam HE wanted to make - and we all know which one he liked more, and yet which one had the most fans :-P It's a valid point. But none of the Macross spin-off really claimed to be a sequel - Kawamori never tried to do an actual "Macross II" and its sequels are more about expanding the universe than the characters of the original (so it's no Zeta Gundam in that) Altough I would argue that Macross 7 is very much an actual sequel to SDMF in many aspect. Sure none of the main character remains, but Max, Milia and Exedore were significant secondary characters in the original and provide a real tie. Also I feel Macross 7 is very much the continuation of the original thematically and even story-wise by the way the Protodevilins ties with the mysteries about the Protoculture from the original. -Sergorn

Unable ? Forced ? While I guess you could somewhat have argued this point in the '90 because of how he was forced to make Macross Plus a Macross story to do it, Kawamori does a LOT of stuff outside of Macross now - so I doubt he is forced to do anything. If he didn't want to do anymore Macross - he has more than enough on his plate to keep working with Macross, and I'm sure Big West could produce more Macross without him. Nay, he does Macross because he wants too. -Sergorn

I think it might be a "budget" re-release of the game much like the Greatest Hits and Platinum releases in the US and Europe -Sergorn

I think it was in 1995. I had heard of Macross Plus a few month before along with the other Macross sequels when Animeland (which was pretty much the only french magazine about anime at the time) wrote several articles on Macross and its sequels. That was pretty much the beginning of the whole Anime VHS Market here, and we got quite a bit of Macross in a short time - DYRL was released in late '94... and Manga Video came over here around that time as well and they started releasing Macross Plus fairly quickly. I was pretty much blow away by the first OAV - the opening scene really was awesome with a big A. Ironically I only rented Macross Plus because I felt paying full price for a single episode was rip-off - I instead bought Macross II instead which was released at the same time by another editor (but I liked it too ! ). The first three OAVs were released pretty quickly (though the third came a bit later... and with pretty half the cast of the dub replaced :-P) but then nothing and it felt for a long tim ewe would never get the final OAV. It eventually came a couple of years later when the full series was aired on TV (with a brand new dub of episode 3 even which has been lost in time now ) and that was very much a kick ass ending too ! We never got an official release of the movie here though -Sergorn