stray

Funimation is Sony, and probably a big part of how this deal went through.

There's still music rights to consider but if they can bring over Symphogear and whatnot I'm sure they can bring over Macross.

Sort of looks like a Tales game with Valks... I'm intrigued.

My patience for harems is pretty thin but I sort of like Testament so far... kind of like High School DxD with more of a Fate/stay night feel. Owarimonogatari is living up to expectations so far. Not sure what else looks interesting this season.

Really tempted now to gorge on spoilers for Owari and Zoku...

Kirishima is best boat bear.

(brings a whole new definition to "shipping", though)

True enough. But... but... those engines. Looking at Yuki-chan in your avatar I suppose I don't see it happening without a Pinocchio but it would be entertaining. Also, speaking of Satelight... who will get the gradient hair?

That aside I sort of thought when Δ was the code name it might just be a clever way to refer to it as the 4th broadcast Macross series with undertones of romance more than death and whatnot. I suppose we'll see.

Theory: Valks are now the idols and are smart enough to sing by themselves. CALLING IT!!

Are you talking AI harem kinda like Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio (of Blue Steel)? Cause I would be ok with that.

Takao is best boat, BTW. Jury still out on best valk.

Are you talking about Suruga Devil or Yotsugi Doll? Kanbaru's arc was slow (worthwhile though) but Ononoki's is the intro to Final Season.

Also, epic battles ensue.

Only if you follow the movie continuity... I don't know why I just said that like it was a bad thing... I guess I just preferred the series over the movies...

Uh oh... Valkyrie are you a closet Ranka shipper? I didn't mean to hit a nerve.

I dunno, I really liked the series but I thought it was flawed in a lot of ways especially towards the end; the movies (and the care that went into making them) just floored me. Definitely one of my favorite parts of the Macross universe.

yeah she's a cutie alright!

She's the essence of Macross 7!!!! Also, the Fire Bomber rhythm section. Ray and Veffidas don't get enough love.

Macross is so much about triangles and ensembles but if I had to pick a proper favorite it's a toss up between Basara and Sheryl.

Although in fairness Sheryl technically was a flower girl so... hrm.

Flower girl.

And maybe that's why I have such an issue with it. Because up to this point, my perception of Macross (I had seen M2, SDFM, Plus, and Frontier before M7) was that it was very concerned with consequences, and how the character relates to them, and that it was more realistic in this regard.

It sounds from what you said before like you maybe prefer side stories in existing continuities; that's not my thing at all but its perfectly okay. IMO "realism" is relative to setting in SF/F or even alternative history, especially if the world that's being portrayed has a different set of values. Somewhere along the line those worlds and those values have to be defined; mostly through the extenuating circumstances that led to that world being different from our own as well as the characters living in that world.

To that end... it seems much more jaded over time but this is the galaxy that Minmay built. Its 30 some years on, and Space War I is a probably a fading memory. But... for me, anyway, that the ideal that 'music is the answer' carried over (if tepidly at first) is what really grounds it as a successor to SDFM and not a rehash or something and a large part of why Basara "growing" would have been a disservice.

I dunno... if you didn't like Macross 7 that's your prerogative but it feels like you're trying to judge it by a standard that shouldn't apply.

Kaifun's "pacifism" was really inappropriate, given the context of Space War I. Basara's (which isn't really pacifism as much as it's intense desire for his music to accomplish anything he wants it to) is precisely what was needed in the Varauta Conflict.

I feel like that's a tough distinction, cause Kaifun claimed it but was basically a douche and more than likely just a coward; Basara on at least a couple of occasions I can think of refused to let someone resort to violence but would probably never call himself that.

Regardless, I kind of appreciate Basara's persistence so I'm kind of glad he didn't "grow". To each their own I suppose.

As for Basara, I have so many issues with him as a character, because I think he was overused, and under-realized. I thought that the Gamlin-Mylene dynamic would have been a much more fulfilling avenue, as they were from such different worlds. I also thought that done the way he was, he made a lousy central character, as he was just so one dimensional. Sure he tried to gain some depth, but then he charged off into a dogfight singing in this garishly colored, bonkers valkyrie, and then it was just back to square one. He was kinda disconnected from the plot and everything going on around him. He didn't grow (as I remember it, I'm trying to rewatch the series).

So much hate for the Kai around here I thought Tenjin did Sound Force justice...

I know the premise of BT is more or less space empires in perpetual war; It sounds like you're more interested in grunts and action than something like Dune of Game of Thrones but as far as an anime take in line with the latter you may want to check out Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Its older (80's-90's) but it actually got licensed recently. Its pretty long and drawn out and honestly I could never make it through all of it but its definitely epic.

The -monogatari series is amazing but its not for everyone. I just caught up recently.

I'm kind of meh on Aquarion in general but I really like the character design in Logos for some reason. Shimoneta is a lot of fun so far as well.

I'm not saying that makes it better, just different. If you sit down and read a star trek novel, or a star wars novel, you'll see something very similar, where you get fewer nameless red shirts, and more detail. The Next Generation era Star Trek series were better about this, not leaving so many nameless corpses.

Like I said, it's a difference in format that really makes the difference. I can't speak to the Macross novels or manga, as I can't read them, but the shows are lacking that kind of detail, and rightly so. Who wants to keep track of a million different named characters in a 30 minute episode? I came for sweet space fighter battles, kickass mecha fights, and sappy love triangles, with some music thrown in for flavor. I don't care about those one off characters that fly out and die just so the hero can look like a badass.

I feel like you're trying to compare something like Star Trek to 2001 because they both take place on spaceships in space.

Fundamentally Macross is about making peace a lot more than about war; I don't mean to discount your reasons for enjoying it but music (or its performer) isn't there for flavor as much as being a pillar of the franchise along with the mecha and the love triangles. Its been the predominant catalyst for making peace. And characters like Basara, Alto, or even Shin have been pacifists outright or threw down their arms entirely.

Invoking "professional soldiers" just seems like its a setup to an entirely different story with an entirely different theme. Which isn't to say that story would be bad or good, but I'm still a bit puzzled as to what it would look like or where it necessarily intersects.

You're right, I think I worded it a bit wonky. I should have specified, the idea being that these Mecha would be piloted by professional soldiers (highly trained and capable individuals) rather than an untrained civilian kid (like Amuro Ray, or some of the other gundam type pilots we've seen). Granted Macross doesn't suffer this too much (Basara isn't exactly a kid at 21, and Alto isn't exactly untrained), and it isn't unheard of for us to have 15 or 16 yr old kids fighting on the front lines (kids would lie about their ages to enlist during WW2).

Anime seems to involve some kind of extenuating circumstances, that allow younger people to participate in military actions, to get around the fact that most Professional soldiers in developed nations are over 18 years of age.

I can't help but feeling like these highly trained specialists should be wearing red shirts while eating pineapple salad and won't make it 15 minutes into the plot...

Can you give any examples beyond BT?

As I understand it, Battletech originally set out as a "what if" project with japanese mecha. What if highly trained military pilots were operating these mecha instead of 15 year old kids with little to no training? And that it set out to ground it firmly in science fiction (attempting explanations of how things worked).

So as I understand it (now, I could be very wrong, I'm not 100% on the particulars), Battletech was an attempt to adapt Japanese real robot mecha, to a western cultural understanding. I like battletech, it's a fun universe to play around in, it's a rich and creative setting, with an original take on the real robot genre. In fact it's probably the single largest influence in the western understanding of the genre.

I'm indifferent to BT aside from picking up a MechWarrior game a long time ago that I could never really get into but...

I think you're talking subgenres rather than cultural norms. Its perfectly fine if you prefer gruff space marines or whatever with your mecha but its not exactly an anomaly in "western" SF/F to have young characters in mature stories. Even Starship Troopers was basically a coming of age story... somewhere, anyway, inbetween the military propaganda. Luke Skywalker was only 19 or so, Paul Atreides was 15, Ender Wiggin, etc.

Not to call you out necessarily, but to see it framed it as East vs. West is disingenuous IMO. In the grand scheme, its just a preference.

I think the reason I want to see some sort of Komillia reference is Mac7. Max and Millia returned, with a kid. They could've at least had a phone call from their eldest in one episode or something instead of play it like Mylene is an only child.

stray

Mostly all the writing around the Galactic Parallel Thought Network Plan. The anime itself seemed to eschew any development of these story elements for "infer from how the plot plays out". It's just not present in any significant way in the series to lend dramatic gravitas to either Grace or the Macross Galaxy. Watching the series I felt far more confused than tense, unable to generate a sense of dread because the palyers, the reasons and the motives behind all these machinations seemed so ill-defined. I never understood Grace at all until reading the Chronicle trivia.

I don't disagree, but I do question whether some of that exposition was intended to serve as anything but a primer; the movies rolled back a lot of what was set up in the series, up to and including redeeming Grace. Although I'm on the verge of talking canon, which I suppose both are and neither are. But... how can an Isamu cameo not be canon?!

Not sure if you felt the motives as presented in the movies were any clearer. I will say that thematically I thought the movies did really well with providing exposition on the fold network, as well as contrasting the cerebral Galaxy with the emotional Vajra.

What was told of the Macross Galaxy, the leaders, the cyborgs and all that was almost completely absent from the Macross Frontier series itself. I know I didn't make much sense of it all until the Macross Chronicle began documenting everything.

What kind of further exposition was there in the Chronicle? Moreover, was it in regard to the series or movie?

In hindsight, though, I really want to give them the benefit of the doubt; that they more or less decided the series would be the DYRL equivalent early on. Its Macross, so canon going forward comes down to whatever mix and match Kawamori feels like going with, but the the hand waving was pretty much blatant with Galaxy, the Vajra, and elsewhere in favor of sticking the homages and selling the harem.

I think what that ended up becoming was its ability to execute a space fold. Could have been a translation issue, as well.

Maybe... but Sara's visions were clearly prescient, which is inconsistent with the fold network as we've seen it since.

The AFOS was a bio-engineered sentry vehicle, able to function autonomously or with a pilot. I would suspect it was near the pinnacle of PC tech before the EVIL series were developed. If humanity were to encounter PC remnants I would expect they would see similar looking mecha piloted by PC pilots.

I thought the implication was that the Bird Human (if less awesome than anything from M7) was pretty much the most recent thing we'd seen from the PC. I watched it pretty recently, and I definitely remember it being stated it had some kind of time manipulation abilities.

I dunno, I suppose its possible we'll see the PC but I got the impression Zero was their swansong or passing of the torch. If they are still around they've gone hyperdimensional.

I don't think the movies left any doubt as to Galaxy's fate, though.

Good question... I don't think the Bird Human looks or acts much like the Vajra Queen, though...

Ah yeah... It... kinda doesn't, but I know that interpretation was fairly prevalent at least after the series.

I wouldn't mind seeing a new galaxy at this point...

They mentioned it at the end of the series, that the Protoculture revered and basically deified the Vajra. So yeah, although they never come out and say it, I think, in-universe, the Glaug was inspired by the red Vajra and the Regult by the green Vajra.

Tangential but aside from visual similarlity and both being fundamentally telempathetic is there necessarily a link between Vajra queen and bird human? Just wondering; there's a pretty wide gulf between 'inspired by' and 'bioengineered/genetically modified variant of' especially considering the reverence the Protoculture held towards the Vajra.

it has some gritty idol activities

Speaking of idols (gritty or otherwise) the performance bits in Aikatsu! are predominantly cel shaded 3D aren't they? AKB0048 had some 2D <-> 3D transitions that were really well done but a lot that were jarring; I wonder how much (if at all) Satelight is going to push towards full 3D for a new Macross. I know reception to CG characters can be mixed but its evolved pretty rapidly over a fairly short amount of time.

I really did like the updated/CG d Shudisuta b concert scenes but I will say the facial expressions threw me.