Radd

As an on-again, off-again fan of Chung, and promoter of western aimed animation, I hope this is good and does well.

I don't think it's an exaggeration at all. Look at the American animation industry. It's in ruins. The vast majority of American animators are unemployed. Companies are cutting costs in productions, then those productions flop, so the studios close their doors. I speak as an unemployed animator with firsthand experience in how this effects animation when I say it will hurt the industry as a whole, and in a very big way.

That's a nice argument. But the reality is that it wouldn't stand very long in court, here or in Japan (I'd think) in cases involving sex with minors. And that argument doesn't begin to make barely-teens-as-sexual-objects resound as acceptable or justifiable in most modern folks' minds. Not that I think M0 Ep 4 is kiddie porn, as I haven't seen it yet. Just because it's possible to label something most of society sees as divergent as being "a relatively new, modern, and western idea" doesn't justify it or excuse it under the brush of moral and cultural relativity. The age of sexual and emotional maturity is entirely in our heads. Sure. So's anything else that has to do with "morality", standards, and acceptable behavior, really. And at the risk of sounding like a bigot or some ig'nant Westerner-- just because some other culture that allows for sex with small children, multiple partners and wives, and condones what we would consider incest-- doesn't make it automatically healthy and acceptable if only we were open minded enough to cast off our "Western" inhibitions and if we were only able to see things from their perspective. And it doesn't make one ethnocentric saying so. I imagine there's plenty things wrong with Western culture from the eyes of other civilizations. And you know what? They'd probably be right on plenty counts. Lastly, while the case can be tenuously made that the decision to have sex lies largely with the individual, and different cultures allow for different ages where that decision is respected and considered valid-- Depictions of young individuals engaging in sexually related activity have nearly nothing to do with standards on at what ages humans should partake in certain behavior. It has almost everything to do with facination of and fixation on semi-children of that age as sexual objects, usually by individuals many years removed. That's what creeps me out, but I'm just a ig'nant and ethnocentric Westerner. -Al You wouldn't see me argue otherwise. However, a few things I'd like to point out. You bring up sexual situations with barely teens as the primary focus of your idea of "kiddie porn". At the risk of giving a spoiler, there are no sexual situations in Macross Zero episode 4. And a bit of counterpoint. Just because some cultures abhor multiple wives, women experiencing any sort of pleasure during the act of sex, sex with those they consider 'minors' despite physical and mental maturity, sex with a partner of another race, or sex with a partner of the same gender, or sex using birth control, does not does not automatically make it unhealthy or unnacceptable to other cultures. As for whether or not such believes make one ethnocentric, I would argue that you're wrong and saying such things would make one ethnocentric if they were speaking of another culture. However, I think taking that as a completely negative thing is missing the point. It's not an insult to point out ethnocentric beliefs. I hold many, myself. Nor does it mean the person holding those ideas should change them. Being insulted by such a statement is like a black person getting offended because someone points out that they are indeed black. You're right that there's plenty wrong with western culture from other perspectives, but I think it's also completely valid to say there's plenty wrong with other cultures from a western perspective. I think it goes further than that, as many hold their own personal set of values that may or may not correspond with those around them. To put things in another perspective, Western society's view of such things is still continually changing. Child porn is still any porn featuring those under the age of 18, though the age of consent is still younger than that in some states. In some states, people are by law not allowed to purchase pornographic material until the age of 21, despite being old enough to legally consent to the activites depicted wherein at 18. There are many who believe any depictions of nudity are pornographic, hence you get petitions to cover up the statue of David lest some individual below the legal age of adulthood sees it. There are also areas of the country where some sexual acts are legal and others illegal, while in the privacy of your own home. To see any of this as "right" or "wrong" is an ethnocentric stand, your own cultural beliefs leading you to a moral decision about another culture. To not make a "moral judgement" at all would be the only way to not be ethnocentric. To simply know there's cultural differences that vary from your own, and accept that. Of course, we're only human. We're taught "right" and "wrong" from an early age, and we hate to believe those teachings might be innacurate in any way. Grok? On a side note, when I was in elementary school, they still taught us that the Brontosaurus was a real dinosaur.

That's ridiculous. Japanese culture? Into violence? Nah. It must be evil America's doing! Well it is a stereotypically american reaction to blame something that is obviously not the source of the problem, instead of confronting the problem itself. Actually, on the article itself, I was glad they didn't go and blame music or cartoons, or anything like that, and instead simply stated that people must be taught to understand the value of life. Whenever this sort of thing happens here in America, we see fingerpointing that never even comes close to the real problem.

Probably the latter, as domain names are first come, first serve. That's why squatters make so much money.

I still say that they must be either rebuilt, or built from scratch using a mix of Zentradi and Earth technology, as just looking at them you can see the difference. They look less organic and more mechanicle, as per Earth asthetics.

Wow, I'd seriously pay $50 right now to get my hands one one of those, and that's digging into food money! Seriously man, you shoulda got the dealer's name and found out if they have a website! As for hurting Toynami's MPC Alpha, I hope so only insomuch as making them rethink their rediculous prices. I'd pick up a Toynami Alpha if they were priced realistically.

See this thread: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=8187

Gotta love it!

Who would win? Only Mentok knows! Because Mentok knows everything! You see? That's taking the mind! Taking!

Not neccesarily. Perhaps they're simply playing dirty. Domain names are first come, first serve. Even if they have no rights to the shows, they can hold onto the domain names to spite BW, or to charge them way too much money for them.

Because in the future, any cable guy using an Apple iBook can hack into a completely alien computer system and shut down their shields. of course, in the future, the United States airforce will consist of nothing but F-18 Hornets. All this will really happen in the distant future year of 1996. Of course, none of this matters because Goku can go Super Saijin 3258u894368796438+2 and kik al tir @$$3s!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111eleven

It's not a question whether or not it did happen. I could go thru that stupid thread over and over and it wouldn't reveal one thing. I'm just wondering if anyone here ever considered the fact of it's possibilty. I mean we all know that HG is a blood sucking leech of a company... but what if it's a blood sucking leech of a company that has a contract? Actually, whenever new facts became available on the topic, the debate thread has become very informative. It's unfortunate that people like to rehash baseless arguments and make snide comments over and over again at times when there is no new news. The majority of the thread is useless, sure, but there are nuggets of information, such as two independantly translated versions of at least one court case, the verdicts of several other court cases (all between Big West and Tatsunoko who sold HG whatever rights they own). The revalation that HG has been unwilling to enforce the cease and desist letters they have sent out, and all sorts of other things dating way, way back to the thread's inception and even stuff before that. People have called for the thread to be closed at several points, but whenever something new is brought to light, that thread becomes a vital forum for debate and information. And to answer your question, yes the possiblity that HG has a contract that makes some of their claims, and even all of their claims, has been brought u;p and debated over several times. There are those on these boards that firmly believe HG does have a contract that puts them in the right. I'm hoping that sometime, someone with more free time than myself decides to go through the thread, checking all the facts and seperating them from all of the conjecture, and organizes a website based around the entire legal debate around Macross, simply because the debate thread itself is so unreadable due to all the filler.

I don't think it would really "make up" for anything, but it would be a huge step in the right direction, provided they went through all the proper channels and released with with BW's and Kawamori's blessing. Now, helping the release of Yamato, Bandai, and other Macross merchandise over here, instead of hindering such releases, that would go a long way towards making up for past grievances. You're right, though. Too many people have decided to label HG as Evil, no matter what they do. However, I think at this point in time they have ample reason to be angry as we've yet to see HG prove itself to be acting in the interest of the Macross franchise and it's fans.

I like the action scenes, i think the scenes are great. The only think i think this series mising is the music. You know, Macross is about action scenes, love triangules, mechas and music. The original series have great music, DYRL have great music too, M+ too, even M7 have music as a central part of the history. Maross Zero don't have any music at all. Thats my opinion!! There's a couple songs I really, really like in the series, but not many. Music doesn't seem nearly as central to this series as any of the others.

There's proof to the exact opposite of some of HG's claims, go read the thread sometime. But then there's a whole lot to wich there is no proof either way, since neither company seems very forthcoming.

Harmony Gold has also had the domain name of http://www.mospeada.com/ set to take you to robotech.com for the longest time. But now when you go to that address, HG now has a fully developed Mospeada website in the works! As for HG and www.macross7.com, I wonder if this has anything to do with the aborted Macross 7 Trash? Anyway the next few weeks leading up to the Anime Expo are going to be interesting. Again, I hate thier choice of cartoony, oversaturated colours. I do look forward to them expanding the site, though.

Saw it on Cable a few weeks ago. It was Crap. So they are straying true to the first movie, eh?

Didn't know that they wanted to understand each other in the first place. Unfortunately I don't think either side will come away with anything but frustration.

I believe that if Kawamori had his way, there'd be a plethora of well translated subtitle options to choose from, so that anyone in the world could enjoy his work. I'd love to have my work available to the entire world, and being able to support myself off of it would be icing on the cake. Unfortunately, I doubt corporate types see it this way. An extra expense they could do without. Understandable, from a business point of view.

What we have here is a complete lack of balance. With neither side even trying to understand the other, neither can produce an effective argument.

Not really. While I'm really curious as to how the story is going to be wrapped up in the final episode I've really been digging what we've gotten so far. I am dissapointed in the lack of character developement, Shin being the only really well handled character in my opinion, with Roy getting the benefit of what we all already know about him, we just haven't seen that much of Edgar, Mao is alright and would probably be developed a lot better over the course of a longer series, Sera too. There's a lot of characters that look like they could be incredibly interesting that just don't get much screentime. I'm a little worried about the pace of the story, only one more episode to wrap things up. If they can pull it off, then hats off to them. I've loved the action sequences. Itano has been in top form. The overall action has a flow that is easy to appreciate at a glance, despite the speed, but because of the speed there's so much happening that you can appreciate something new with each viewing.

I think this clearly shows a lack of Big West involvement, as both Macross 2 and Macross Plus have Big West marking on the packing, along with Manga's. Agreed, this doesn't exactly inspire confidence in me. Still, we'll hear HG's side of things at Expo, and if it's not on the up and up, we'll hopefully hear Big West's side of things soon after.

Recently they announced they had acquired the rights to DYRL? and have been mostl quiet about it aside from the announcement of DYRL? based superposable toys, and now this HG run DYRL? website they have. Apparently all will be revealed at AnimeExpo or something. Right now no one knows if HG did this in a legit fashion, or if they're claiming to own more than they really do.

How much we hate HG, even if they suddenly turned good, made a mutually beneficial deal with Big West, brought us high quality products at low cost, and gave us each a kitten.