JB0

Hey now... Mecha masturbation is what these shows are all about.

Man, I'm gonna have to hunt one down. Mirage was one of those ones I always wanted as a kid, but never had.

Meh. I took an instant and intense dislike to him when he launched into his speech to Haruhi about how only special people could change the world and that everyone should just kick back and enjoy what was set before them insetad of trying to change things(I can't help but wonder if the SOS Brigade was as much to slap Kyon in the face for that pathetic waste of verbosity as actually INSPIRED by it). He may be normal, but he's a painfully dull normal. They actually touch upon it a bit more in the book. At least their initial conversations. Kyon's success in engaging her in conversation seems to have a lot to do with that he doesn't wander into the same generic smalltalk everyone else does. He attempts to engage her on her terms, which is more than the rest of her classmates are apparently willing to do. It's okay if you don't think about work. It's best to assume the narrator of a story is sane and giving a more or less accurate account of events unless the story gives evidence to the contrary. So far, Kyon's narration meshes with what the rest of the characters say and do. So I assume he's sane. Given Koizumi's life got a LOT more complicated 3 years ago, it probably matters more to him than most. Most of the people in the world just went about like nothing had happened(indeed, they were totally unaware anything happened), but Koizumi and a handful of other people wound up with psychic powers and a host of other issues. Random book excerpt... "I don't know what really happened three years ago. All I do know is, I suddenly realized I possessed paranormal powers one day three years ago. I was really scared, I didn't know what to do. Luckily for me, it wasn't long before the 'Organization' took me in, or I would've killed myself thinking something is wrong with my brain." They had more time to examine things like this, since they weren't limited by the half-hour weekly format. They touch on it in Koizumi's introduction in the book and just barely at the very end of Melancholy. Koizumi is his usual good-natured self about it. He's apparently of the opinion that if he can't tell, it doesn't matter. It's an interesting angle to explore, but not feasable with the tone they're going for. The only way they know it's happened before is by the effects it had. Mikuru's group can't go back to before the Haruhi Bang, and Koizumi & company developed magic powers. Yuki's group just "saw it happen." Taking the assumptions at face value(though it conflicts with Koizumi's statements that a large closed space would become the "real" world)... What happens if Haruhi is killed is unknown, and likely to remain that way. It's even possible she CAN'T be killed. Since she affects reality on a subconcious level, it affects her luck greatly. It could prove very difficult to successfully harm her to any signifigant degree. ... That could actually factor into why Ryoko went after Kyon instead of Haruhi(Koizumi's group is the only one that views her as anything akin to a god, so there's no nagging issues about what happens when you kill the creator of your world for Ryoko). Ryoko's goal was to get Haruhi to do something. Haruhi should react far stronger to a threat on her own life than the death of a friend. But it could turn out that Ryoko "accidentally brought" the rubber knife instead of the real one. Haruhi laughs, Ryoko laughs while trying to figure out WTF just happened, and everyone goes on with business as usual. And she didn't rush the SOS Brigade/Literary Club room. She intentionally brought Kyon to her through a roundabout method to ensure no outside involvement. Partially to avoid Yuki trouble I'm sure, but it's also possible she wanted to keep Haruhi uninvolved until after the deed was done. But who knows what Haruhi's next "good idea" would be? The next world could suck for those mere mortals unlucky enough to be caught in Haruhi's path. Imagine if the closed space golems were running around rampaging in real space. Relatively speaking, the current world isn't all that bad(if you live in the right nation, which Koizumi does and the various members of his shadowy "agency" all seem to). And the current world IS reality. Just because one person can alter reality doesn't mean it isn't still real. Arguably he's the most pivotal character after Haruhi by the end of Melancholy. To say more would spoil it, so... And I don't think he's boring like any normal person. I think he's actually another supernatural character, his defining trait is just his awe-inspiring powers of boredom capable of bringing even the strongest of warriors to their knees. Koizumi's crippled esper powers suck by comparison. Though Yuki still rocks. It wasn't originally intended to go beyond the Melancholy arc, so you can guess the writer's intent from that one book. Kyon's being "nameless" is just because it wasn't really important. The important thing is that everyone calls him Kyon. And since everyone calls him Kyon, his real name isn't likely to come up. He has no need to refer to himself by name. Also, Crono DOES speak. The lack of text and lack of voice are diffrent issues entirely. He's "mute" because the player is meant to edit in his dialogue, thereby making him their avatar in the game world. Though this is hampered by the fact that the player is forced to do what Crono would do instead of Crono being forced to do what the player would do. The mute protagonist is a lost art, sadly. Alex in Lunar: The Silver Star and Crono in Chrono Trigger were the last high-profile mute RPG protagonists(Zelda is action-adventure, kthx), and they were VERY out of place for the era.

Cutoff for analog in the US is scheduled for 2009, last I heard. It's been floating, but they think DTV adoption is picking up enough that they won't roll this one back.

HDTVs are falling in price, and are expected to become the standard in the next few years. HDMI isn't strictly necessary unless a disk has enabled HDCP. The sound system is only required if you want the better audio as well as the better video.

Melancholy will run for 14 eps so there's just 1 more ep left. I hope they'll continue the anime for the next volumes. I'm guessing this episode takes place right before the baseball game and after the class president disappears. AFK's assembled a timeline that shows what print stories and anime episodes land where, if you'd care to see it. http://www12.brinkster.com/stratoct/haruhitimetable.txt Baseball game does indeed occur right after the end of the Melancholy arc, whereas Ryoko obviously dies during it. Near as I can tell, she was already mopey, she was just hiding it. And she likes Kyon, whether she admits it or not, so she's more willing to open up to him. Anthropic principle. Which he demonstrates a gross misunderstanding of. It basically says that if something must be true for us to exist, the fact that we exist is proof that it is true. So Koizumi's first sentence about it is accurate. It's NOT saying that the universe was shaped by, created by, or created for our existence, though that's a common misunderstanding of it. The original sentiment was more along the lines of we shouldn't be surprised that the laws of physics allow life to exist because if they didn't we wouldn't be around. Everything else is philsophical and religious embellishments on it. That was back in the introduction of the character, actually. Episode 2 of the anime. Only he never wished for their existence. As a kid he was sure they DID exist, so there was no need for him to wish they existed. The wish was that he could go on grand adventures with them. Really, Kyon and Haruhi are very similar. They both want the world to be a lot diffrent than it is, and unless Koizumi is totally nuts* both realize that it "isn't that way" and "can't possibly be that way"(Muwahahahahaha!!!!!). They just reacted to that realization diffrently. Kyon basically gave up on life. He's not running around jumping off bridges or anything, but he has no ambition, no dreams, nothing. He just exists. Very depressing character, actually. Haruhi, on the other hand, refused to admit it. She went the other direction and now she runs around making a spectacle of herself in defiance of what she knows to be reality. That's why she doesn't believe that the SOS Brigade has already fulfilled it's mission, because she's pretty sure it CAN'T fulfill it's mission. *Koizumi's sanity is important because he provides major insights into Haruhi's mental state. If he actually has no connection with Haruhi whatsoever, then he's just a rambling madman. But the fact that he actually HAS supernatural powers lends support to the rest of his story, since the HARDEST part to believe is demonstrably true. Unless Kyon is nuts, in which case the entire story is nothing more than a product of his imagination, and it's no diffrent than any other fictional universe except this one has a fictional author created by the real author. That would be an interesting twist. And would actually fit within Kyon's wishes. He didn't want to BE the star of the story, because they tend to wind up in mortal peril. He wanted to be a sidekick. Which he is. ... Of course, he HAS wound up in mortal peril, so that would be a really big "whoops," and seems to contradict the idea that it was his will instead of Haruhi's(we have plausible explanations for why no one's been outed to Haruhi if it was her will that they exist and come to her). There's other seeds scattered about that imply Haruhi runs the world. Like her ability to sleep through an entire day's worth of classes totally un-noticed. Some things can be waved off as pure coincidence, but others are a bit harder to do. Tangental side note: Would Kyon or Haruhi have left the old world when they created a new one? Could they, even if they wanted to? Anything before 3 years ago is an unknown. No one knows if the old world still exists or if it was annihilated. No one even knows if multiple complete worlds CAN exist. That's part of why Koizumi's group(or at least, the part he's aligned with) wants to keep Haruhi happy. They don't know for sure that they will continue existence if Haruhi snaps again, so it's better for them if she remains unannoyed, if not exactly happy(which she was until Kyon inspired the SOS Brigade. Is it just me, or does Koizumi sound annoyed when he mentions this?). And arguably, if she destroys and remakes the world, they won't continue existence even if they're recreated in the new world. It gets into a bit of a philosophical debate. Are you still you if you're destroyed and recreated, or did the old you die and the new you is a distinctly seperate person? Bah. I hereby declare Eva a plague upon humanity. Kyon isn't actually the main character, IMO. The story's told from his perspective, but he's too dull to carry it. Everything revolves around Haruhi. It's like saying the narrator is the main character. Haruhi's narrator just happens to be a "real person." You could argue that Kyon is left largely undefined(and a normal human) to let the reader/viewer more readily identify with him. That would help engage the audience in the story more readily. But personally, I think he's been defined as much as everyone else. He's just such an inherently uninteresting person that it FEELS like he's been left out. For what it's worth, I gather Kyon DOES wind up taking a trip back to 3 years ago with Mikuru. As for the actual events in that trip... no one's translated it yet, so I dunno.

A. Both HD-DVD and BluRay players are backwards-compatible. So your DVDs will work. B. No one said you had to throw out your existing player. I've still got a big pile of VHS that I never upgraded for whatever reason. C. By the time HD media goes mainstream, the price will have fallen to something more resembling the 100-200$ level.

According to Nintendo.com it's out next month, with OG2 following in September. Mildly dismayed Atlus decided to go the retarded route and use Super Robot Taisen on the box instead of actually translating the title. Especially when Bandai uses the translated title regularly on the japanese media.

At least we can all be happy they didn't take the Pretender Starscream route. He had the tailfins detach and become pistols in robot mode. Clean legs, really lame guns.

GERWALK can't reverse. It's not in the feature set. And you CAN use GERWALK for an instant stop in Battlecry. Hit down on the transformation control. You just don't get the cinematic flailing about. 412236[/snapback] It actually can reverse as they occasionally do it. Most of the time it is for a quick direction change. They'll use it to stop, then roll over and face the other direction which can't be done in Battlecry. Gerwalk mode could provide rearward flight in space by pointing the feet forward although in an atmosphere it may not work and if it did it would be limited. I've seen it stop. Never reverse. It wasn't designed to fly backwards, and wouldn't be effective at all in such usage. Like I said, Battlecry gets the rapid stop down, just not the animation for it. I like the ground parts more than the aerial parts anyways. Battlecry did those nicely.

Even in the US there's non-HD widescreen sets. I know Japan, at least, had a few HD standards in the past. On Laserdisk, even.

I never said the dc was bad, It was better yet it lost. Again, you mentioned the Dreamcast DIRECTLY after a statement that "newer isn't better." http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/105241 412260[/snapback] You DO know that that article was before the system even launched in the US, right? While I WAS apparently mistaken about "any given overlap," it's hardly indicative of the thing's entire life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playstation Final totals SHIPPED might equal 10-1, but sales rates sure didn't, given the PS1 was in production for over a decade and the Dreamcast had a 3-year life. The Dreamcast's sales rate averaged 3x that of the PS1. In fact... That's the Dreamcast history before the PS2 launch. Record-breaking sales.

GERWALK can't reverse. It's not in the feature set. And you CAN use GERWALK for an instant stop in Battlecry. Hit down on the transformation control. You just don't get the cinematic flailing about.

It's not cheapness, since it usually costs more to fix a TV than it does to buy a new one. You DO know that VCRs cost an absurd sum of money when they were introduced, right? You just shot yourself in the foot. yeah they did. They also let you record stuff, which was why it sold. Please don't quote me out of context. How is it out of context? I presented your entire post. Removed not one word of it. Rearranged not one character. The entirity of your post to that point was "hd is overrated. People are also cheap bastards. Otherwise tapes would never have taken off nor vhs." HD is overrated can be discarded as relevant. HD wasn't an issue in the 70s, as technology hadn't made it feasable yet. Therefore, you're claiming the VCR took off because people are cheap. If not, the "otherwise" is connected to an argument that isn't present. I covered what Beta's failings were. And the Dreamcast WAS better. As far as commercial success... While I don't have any sales #s handy, I seriously doubt the PS1 was outselling the Dreamcast. Over it's entire life, I'm sure it had more units sold. But for any given overlap, I'd bet the Dreamcast had a much better rate of sale. I say you do. DVD didn't take off because it was cheaper than VHS. It took off because it was far better, without any major drawbacks other than lack of record capability. Max of 10 quote tags per post. That or there's a messed-up pair somewhere.

hd is overrated. Lies! Doesn't matter when HD sets will be all that's available in a few years. You DO know that VCRs cost an absurd sum of money when they were introduced, right? You just shot yourself in the foot. Beta had some issues of it's own. The big one was that you could make a LONGER VHS tape. The quality diffrence on the hardware available at the time was insignifigant, which didn't help matters. Also Beta never should've killed VHS. It was there first. LaserDisk had issues too. Aside from being grossly expensive, it was also huge and plagued with reliability issues. And again, there were serious issues with television quality for most of it's life. Had the home theater craze hit sooner, Laserdisk likely WOULD have become signifigant in the US market, though.

Are you watching it stretched to fill the screen? Assuming aspect correction, that'd do it, since it's a widescreen transfer. Probably it.

In short, they just didn't care. Blitzwing and Astrotrain were at least tolerable in all 3 modes, and they were the FIRST triplechangers. Aren't things supposed to get BETTER as time goes on? BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Does it matter what weapons they use? I mean if the movie follows the TV series, they'll never hit anything anyway. Graham 412028[/snapback] But if it follows the original movie, every last one will hit it's mark. ... Oh dear... please! No Rodimus! I BEG OF YOU!

Subs were just fine for me. Personal opinion: Closed space is a lot less imposing in the anime. This is admittedly due in part to inherent difficulties in capturing the exact nature of it. It would be very hard even with a huge budget in a good movie theater. It's far harder to demonstrate the absence of something than it is to show the presence of something, especially when a lot of what's missing usually isn't included in the production to start with. And closed space is defined largely by what's not there. Even in the book, they spend a lot of time just establishing the strangeness of the scene and getting the reader's imagination engaged. In a TV series, you don't have the luxury of spending as much time as you want setting up. As far as improving it... leaving out the background music would've done a lot for it. Emphasizing the life in the world around them before transitioning to closed space instead of ignoring it like usual would have helped even more. They made a little effort right as they entered closed space with a quick crowd shot and then a few quick pictures of the empty city sandwiched the actual transition, but overall it just felt like a gray version of the "real world." Adding some background noise to the "real world" side would have helped a lot, even though it's generally the LAST thing you want. Whereas it's usually just a distraction, in this case the noise would've provided a strong contrast when it suddenly stopped. As-is, the addition of background music after the transition from a dead-silent scene makes closed space feel MORE alive than the "real world." Adding a few lines to Kyon's thoughts would help a lot too. Let HIM emphasize it. All in all, it's a shame that part is signifigant, because it really feels like they didn't try very hard. The Haruhi half of the episode works quite nicely, though. Maybe they just don't care about Koizumi. </critic> If my bet on the reasoning behind the chaotic episode order is correct, we are indeed just days away from the final epispode. It's been a fun ride, and I really hope it gets some more episodes pinned on. If nothing else, they really ought to include the production of the "movie"(maybe it's been saved for season 2?).

I thought that was the intent. To send it out into the galaxy and see what we could see. The fact that Global was explicitly ordered not to fire first if they encountered an alien intelligence means that they were going to be out there in the stars and WEREN'T going to be picking fights. Essentially, Star Trek anime-style. Not that it worked that way(even in Star Trek). But to go out there unarmed would just be begging for trouble, and removing the main cannon would be more effort than it was really worth unless you wanted poeple to think you were easy pickings. All we knew at that point was that there were aliens out there, and they were hostile. We didn't know where they were, so we couldn't just avoid them. And yet, we actually DID threaten them, and even beat them(admittedly through dumb luck, but still...). Seriously, they were probably hoping that the ASS was one of their best ships, not indicative of the whole. And the ARMD-01 and -02 DID make a good showing against the initial zentradi assault(in that they smashed anything at all before being riddled with laser fire). Nukes don't really care how advanced you are, as long as you don't have good anti-missile systems(which the zentradi apparently lacked). We just had an overwhelming hardware deficit. 2 ARMDs, some number of Oberths(there were 125 in service for the final battle), and 1 untested alien gunboat. Exactly what it was... an exploration vessel with a really big gun.

Speaking of stuff we acquired before we got bored... I have a complete "Good"NES collection that I've never used.

Yeh he was...but that was just a passing thought. To him, it was still a SA gunboat, which carried 20,000 + 58,000 pieces of live and useful cargo. 411879[/snapback] Ya know, now that I think of it, it's no diffrent than me being surprised if a bunch of iron age people had rebuilt a corvette that someone rammed into their barn.

Doubly ironic since Hiro is probably the flattest, most emotionless, WORST example of "protoculture" in the game. Indeed.

You've said in ALL situations, a Valkyrie is better. The real-world utility of strafing is far diffrent than the video-game utility of strafing. In that it isn't all that useful. And not only can you strafe without hovering, you don't need to hover to move. In fact, hovering while firing makes you less accurate. The GBP also highlights the fact that there are many situations heavy armor is more valuable than speed and variability. Even with a GBP, a Valk is still lightly armored in the thighs and head. The head especially is a big easy to hit target that seriously cripples the mech. The Spartan's sensors are recessed and their locations aren't obvious. It's head is much smaller and only serves as a turret for a pair of anti-aircraft lasers. Have you ever heard the phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none?" It could have been written about a Valk. That's called realism. Specialized equipment does the job far better than slapping expansions onto another piece of equipment that was never intended to do the job. Hence, real militaries use specialized equipment. That's not the Valkyrie. There's a good reason that real-world forces are made up of lots of specialized vehicles instead of tons of helicopters and a few tanks and jets. The main purpose Bretaii stayed (strongly implied of course) was for the "Long lost Reaction Weapons". I don't recall as much of a reaction given to the microns ability to repair their ship. 411814[/snapback] I remember he was shocked that they managed to rebuild it. I may just be overemphasizing it in my head.

Hey! I've submitted that last one. 411780[/snapback] Then you, sir, are awesome. And the Wing Zero Custom in DYRL is just WRONG.