lord_breetai

The thing is if you're at all equated with Japanese society, English is considered "cool", a lot of younger Japanese will use english they picked up to sound cool (I could tell you a story about a band my girlfriend's friend works with in Japan, misusing random english but it'd get me banned). So the aesthetic is a huge part of it. The original Macross had poems going across the screen about cats swiming and playing with fish... I guess we shouldn't take that as an aesthetic choice... that's really the file the Zentraedi (who despite their cultural failings are master linguists and codebreakers) sent to the Macross and the dumb bridge crew didn't think that was strange at all. I guess we should ignore the French and the Japanese that show up in Macross Frontier, and the fact that Fire Bomber has a cover band who released an album called English Fire (they apparantly have a cover band that released their songs in Zolan too) and yes English fire is Canon... you hear the space poachers listening to it in Dynamite 7. Why would a band need to cover you in English and make a specific point of it "this is Fire Bomber American!" if it was already in English to start with? Yes there's enough evidence to support that air traffic control is in English... they make a point of pointing that out. "all systems green good luck to you" "Frontier Control this is _____ belong to Galaxy Starliner, respond to me Frontier Control" Why bother making these an exception if everyone is talking in English all the time? Then they could still be talking in Japanese and it would be English right? But if Japanese is one of the prevalant languages in the galaxy after Space War 1, then you still have to contend with the Japanese post-war fascination with the English language born out of the love/hate/awe/fear mix of feelings that they have towards the United Sates. So the Aesthetic arguement is valid and can't be dismissed so lightly, nor can the real life Japanese fascination with English be dismissed either. Yes English is probably one of the dominate languages out there, but why put signs in Japanese on Frontier if there arn't Japanese speakers out there. And why would Sheryl write a note in French if it's a dead language, she's not that much of a scholar or even that much of a primadona... to use a dead language just to give herself airs (though she's kinda close on that last point). but I don't think one screencap proves anything. There are probably different fleets that have different languages at the very least we've got three known active languages in the Universe: Zolan, Zentraedi and English (per English Fire, and actual dialog in English in the series we have to accept that as at least one living human language). Now if different fleets and different planets use different languages. DYRL probably got released in diffferent languages and it might have even had an international cast. We don't know who the ficticious screenwriter or director of DYRL are... how do we know that wasn't a stylistic choice on his account. Or that Misa's actress only knew how to work a computer in English so had to do the scene that way? There are too many variables. Now Frontier I'll give you, I think the official language of the Frontier fleet is English (proably also Chinese and Japanese speakers on board as has already been mentioned). We see them reading information about a play in English... that's reasonably solid (taking aside the fact that it was copy pasta lazyness) , but we also see multilingual signs... are you just going to ignore that and say it's a convention for the Japanese audience? You cant have it both ways. The way I see it there are multiple languages... the list we have is Human: Japanese Chinese French English Zentraedi and Zolan representing the only other major race we know of. There may be more surviving human languages, and more alien languages for all we know. But to say because Misa translated a song into English in a movie in the ficticious world of Macross means the bulk of the survivors speak that language dosn't hold ground. I see Macross 7 as a Japanese speaking fleet. Macross 11 as an English Speaking fleet Macross 5 as a Zentraedi speaking fleet Macross Frontier being a country unto itself and not just a city is probably multi-lingual with English being the official language. Earth is probably multi-lingual. I reserve judgement on Eden, I'd have to rewatch Macross Plus. on Zola, the locals speak Zolan and some human language. edit: I was being slightly silly before, but now I hope you can respect my arguement a bit more. but here's an old joke for you Q: What do you call someone who speaks two languages? A: Bilingual Q: What do you call someone who speaks three languages? A: Trilingual Q: 4 or more? A: Multilingual Q: How about just one? A: American from the North American stand point it's hard to invision tons of people knowing multiple languages, when in much of the world this is the Norm... in Germany they are required to learn multiple languages for example. And not just a brief exposure. So one isolated instance of a language proves nothing, especially when it's in a work of fiction of a people who like using english and exotic languages to give things flavour, and that work of fiction is a work of fiction in the fictious world where people might have the same tendencies.

lol... just that there are obvious examples that there are multiple human languages still in existance after the rain of death. I don't really have a side on the official language thing. I'm just pointing out that you can't neccisarly use that to prove the point.

Did you watch the youtube link in my first post? that scene is almost exactly the same as the scene with Hibiki and Ishtar at the Mouth of Truth. It's obvious from that alone that there is some homage to Roman Holiday in Macross II... and that's a big reason why that to have all that relocated Roman architecture too. Hmm now I recall Roman holiday was also referenced in the .hack anime too wasn't it?

Interesting to know. I should be going to Japan for my practicum in less then a year... can't wait to kinda learn this insider culture stuff first hand.

Logic failure! 1) Lots of Anime use english even ones where the language should obviously be something else (including Japanese) it might have been a design estethic rather then anything else. 2) Again Misa could have been multi-lingual 3) It was a movie inside the macross continuity, so the rule about it possibly being a design esthtic holds doubly true.

I just made a very hard decision I'm going to be parting with my G1 Optimus Prime (almost complete and has box and everything)... I've had some tough times lately and I decided even though I love collecting different Primes... a re-issue will do just as nicely and I can pick one up down the road for a lot less then I can sell the G1 for... oh well. it was nice to have it.

Oh no problem, I'm hoping to get a new video camera by Christmas and hope to start a couple of video blogs (as well as some independent film projects)... this is one I deffinitly want to do as a video blog (I also want to do a trailer of Macross II using audio from the Roman Holiday trailer)... so I've been debating on posting this comparison for a while... but decided to go ahead.

Didn't want to de-rail the thread too much... but no I'm totally serious. Check out the Series forum for more info.

Of course speaking as a future linguist, and culturist, you also have to take into account if it's a high or low context/contact culture, it's not just the language itself. And I think I'd have to agree, though I'd say the romance languages in general... especially for an English speaker (English is Germanic not Romance but it has a lot of ties to romance languages). French, Spanish, Portugese, Itallian, Latin. I really do want to learn them.. and from what I've been told once you learn two romance languages it's very, very easy to pick up the rest of them really quickly.

If I can get my hands on a copy I'll try and help (if you want the help of someone who's experience is limited to being in third year university Japanese and self study that is)

I wonder if it's in Canadian Toys R' Us stores... and that makes me wonder. you say in the review that it's 1/32 (or so), I have never even considered looking at 1/32 scale vehicles for GI Joes... I just assumed they'd never work and look silly. I guess on a bigger item like armour or a plane it matters less and less as you get bigger. But have you ever picked up any other 1/32 items that are 25th Compatible?

Did you know the United States dosn't have an "official language"? Neither English nor Spanish is the official language... English is just the default language because that's what most of the population speaks. The US's official language was almost German (not even kidding). When I worked at a phone company this actually came up, we had a customer complaining that our having a spanish prompt was illegal since we should have only the official language or every language spoken by anyone in the US (no I'm not American, this was outsourced call center work). Anyway... Since we have English Fire... a band which (in canon?) covers Fire Bomber's songs for an english speaking audience (their music being featured in Dynamite 7... it would seem that the Macross World is more diverse in languages then we would expect given the low survival rate of the rain of death. Languages that seem to be in use -Japanese (many people on South Ataria seemed to be Japanese likely scientists and technicians who brother their familes, who opened other buisnesses) Remember that the Lynn's were part-Japanese themeselves. -Chinese -French -English -Zolan -Zentraedi Since we have Zolan's as a known humanoid race who added another language into the mix, there might be more.

Mentioned this in another thread and did a search so this appears not to have been discussed before. But to those who might not be aware, Macross II carries a lot of homages to a 1950s film called Roman Holiday staring Audrey Hepburn. So much is borrowed infact that Macross II is in itself bascially a scifi retelling of the story. This is the most obvious scene refenced by Macross II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Uoezs6Nm0 There's more but the story itself is very, very close. We have a Princess who ends up meetng a irresponsible American reporter on a European tour (after she's run away from the embassy where she was staying), the reporter takes her to spend the night at his apartment when she apparantly has nowhere to go other then wanting to see the colleseum and the sites of Rome; the reporter at this point as no idea who she is. The next day his irresponsible ways get him in trouble (he skipped out on the princesses press conferance which got cancelled because she was "ill", and he lied making up fake details about it) it's at this point he sees a picture of the princess and realizes who he agreed to show around Rome. He then makes a deal with his editor promising to bring in an exclusive interview with the princess so that he won't get fired. He promises to show Anya (the Princess) around Rome, but gets his photographer friend to follow along so they can take pictures and get a killer scoop. He meets up with her she gets "her hair cut short in a barbershop facing the famous Trevi Fountain"(wiki), just like Ishtar getting her hair cut as Mash's. He takes her around Rome, shows her the face of truth(see above). Gov't agents eventually tack them down and try to get the Princess back, they have a big scuffle and escape. The Princess falls in love with the reporter, Joe... but realizes her duty won't allow them to be together and leaves to go back to the embassy without revealing who she is. In the end Joe refuses to tell his editor what he knew about the Princess' disaperance and the Princess' press conferance the photogapher gives the pictures back to the Princess as a momento of her time with Joe, instead of selling them to the newspaper. Now... combine the photographer and Joe into one person, and you have Hibiki... make the Princess Ishtar, and you have about 1/3rd of Macross II's plot. Thematically the inclusion of extra love interests for both characters just represent their own respective worlds they have to go back too after their short time together. And the music and war, well of course it'd just be Roman Holiday the anime and not Macross without those I don't know if this film is famous among Japanese or was well liked in it's time... it might be because it did make a brief apperance as a play in Sakura Taisen (from the Dramatic card game) but that is an anacronism. But it deffinity was a big inspiration for the plot of Macross II.

On the other hand, it happens in othe countries too, Macross II is just a remake of Roman Holiday... but with ROBOTS and killer bikini-singers. We wll discuss this at a later point in time.

It seems to me there's a lot more sexual humour in Macross F's 25 episodes then in Macross 7's 49... and no fanservice in the closing theme dosn't count. though now that I think about it, that might be cause Basara is largly A-sexual... to an even greater extent that the sky is Alto's love, music is Basara's.

hmm I have to disagree... Music is just as important in Robotech as it is in Macross, I mean all three sagas had it (of course this is thanks to it being borrowed from the Japanese OSM), Bowie and Musica come to understand each other through their music and through that the Tirolian clones get infected by culture because of Musica's spreading it. While Lancer didn't have a direct impact on the war through his music his singer personae was important (blah I can't stand either New Generation or MOSPEADA). the Sentinels novels had Minmay getting bullshit psychic singing powers, the Lancers Rockers RPG book had bullshit music weapons. And Shadow Chronicles had Janice Em, who was originally designed as Minmay's singing partner and I have no doubt there will be some importance to her music in the future sequals... remember in none of the series (except Frontier but we didn't understand that until it was revealed later) was singing an important factor in the war right off the bat. Even Basara seemed like he was wasting his time for quite a few of the early episodes. With Shadow Chron we've only got half the movie being original plot, the rest is a rehash of the last couple episodes from a different perspective... So we gotta give it some time to see where it goes, but the pwoer of music (even in stupid ways) is as much a part of the Robotech heritage as the Macross heritage. Again, I'm not saying I'm a total prude, I don't mind nudity and sex... but it just seemed over the top in Macross F. Yes DYRL had Hikaru trying to sneek a peek on Minmay, DYRL did have the upskirt and the actual naked Zero G shower. But these weren't just silly gags they served to give Minmay an innocent air, which was espcially needed in DYRL where we're already introduced to her as a mega-star of film and music. The Sara stuff likewise didn't come off as being juevy because to her being naked was being in touch with nature and the spirits and was a natural thing, it showed us Shin's immaturety but didn't have that sorta jeuvenille joking atmosphere. Hikaru in the lengire store on the other hand... yes you're right there's nothing wrong with this kinda joke on occasion, humans do get into embarassing situations and there's nothing wrong with laughing about it. But Macross F kinda pushed it too far, into typical anime slapstick humour. That's just my opinion. Robotech did maintain some of that... it had humour, it just had to cut out the stuff that would obviously not be allowed on TV in the 80s. Did it suffer for it? For sure... but, I don't think the over all product was something super dark and serious that didn't have any sense of lightness. It did keep the Lengire scene after all...

And Frontier had grope and slap jokes, food items designed to invoke imagery of breasts. Under aged girls bouncing up and down in skimpy hospital gowns exposing their crotch... etc etc etc Not that I'm a prude or anything (far from it) but that seemed a tad junvenille. The problem is Robotech the Movie will probably be a tad juvenille too... but in a less pleasing fashion.

hmm interesting the reviewer says he's not talking about Robotech not because he's a purist otaku, but because it has more of the same problems... personally I think it would have been worth talking about how Robotech: Battlecry tackled the issue of the Gerwalk. I thought that was one of the things it really shined at was giving it a specific purpose... as a search and rescue, thing for picking up hostages and such... giving you a reason to use it. It was a little clunky but I thought it wasn't too hard to use compared to the other modes and it was good for doing a missle barrage while standing still in the air too. Anyway Macross Ace Frontier... I want it, but is that and Sakura Taisen 1 and 2 handheld version enough reason for me to pick up a PSP? I'm not sure.

I don't remember that episode... which one was it (I do have the whole series on my laptop). I mean there are obvious examples of when Mac 7 reached low ground (the pointless lesbian rape scene in Dynamite for example), but it didn't seem to have as much stupid humour based on it... what episode are you talking about?

At least Macross 7 didn't have to rely on juevenille sexual humour and fanservice (at least not much of it). Mylene never chased Gubaba around for half an episode after he stole her panties. Don't get me wrong I likes Macross F... but Macross 7 is better in many aspects.

I think Gubaba is incredelous because the Licensing thread has been locked for many, many months but still people get directed to it.

okay Sakura in the console version.. I'm officially interested now! Sakura FTW lord_breetai *who most certainly did not comission Udon Studio's artist Omar Dogun to do a sketch of Sakura in a UN Spacy Uniform after finding out he did art on both Udon's Street Fighter comics and on Robotech Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles, when I met him at the Calgary Comic Expo... oh wait I did*

okay still havn't played it but since I read the comic version and knew the plot anyway decided to watch all the FMVs and the story just works better on video then it does in the Graphic Novel and since the GN is all told narrative style from Proxy's point of view I think that didn't work for me as well either. Though this is one game where you deffinitly know which is the "canon" ending. Anyway I will play the actual game... at somepoint.

oh most of the comics were bad I'll give you that... there where a few though that really tried to do different things within the Robotech Universe. And I've found that the guys at Palladium always come up with really rich contents to their worlds... no one likes Rifts and Palladium? I'm not so sure about that.... the company manged to surrive a major embezelment scandle that promised to put it under, it's obviously go it's supporters. The system isn't the greatest but the Rifts story and characters are pretty cool at least. (at least I think so, and I know many haters of the system who agree). But that digresses from the point. By the time the license was published by Academy HG's seemed to stop paying attention for sure (even then you have to wonder with Eternity and the "adult" issues of the Sentinels). And all american comics can be considered a Niche market... so can direct to DVD movies like the Shadow Chronicles... that dosn't mean they don't count. Just cause they're not considerered "canon" outside of Tommy Yune's Wildstorm comics (of which only Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles had any merit) dosn't mean they don't count. Yes a lot of them are a tangled mess... a lot of them have suffer a not-so subtle attempt to make them more Macrossy then Robotechy... and many of them are simply vapid works with no merit. But a few really tried to do different things with the characters that are better then the offerings by Tommy Yune (I don't hate Tommy's works either.... but some of what came before was better IMO) anyway my main point was that this movie should not be judged on any of what has come before or on Harmony Gold's buisness practices, let's see what the people who get attatched to it come up with.

yeah I just found that myself, amazing that it's still there after a year. That's BAD! oh god thats awful