Radd

http://tagruato.jp/headlines.php?story=news_08_01_03_1 Anyone want to be the one to call the number on the site? Heh.

Open up your copies of the Shoji Kawamori Design Works. Turn to page 56, top of the page. The VF-25 armour reminds me of that. Not the "Hikaru" version, but the "Skull leader" version.

I doubt Alto' co-workers (doesn't sound like they're classmates, meaning we've only met one of his classmates so far and that is the girl in glasses we see working at the chinese restaurant) don't strike me as being pansies. It's been heavily hinted (well, they might as well have said it outright, and depending on the quality of the translations we've seen I'd say they actually did say it outright and Mikhail's name just gets translated differently when different people say it) that they work for SMS when they're not doing flight performances and camera work for concerts. Another thing to consider, are those X-Gears school issue? Or did Mikhail and company get them through their work at SMS for private, civilian use? These are a few things being taken for granted that I'm not certain are accurate.

I can agree to that. I love the 1/48, but it does make concessions for the fighter. I don't dislike that aspect of it, as the "realistic" interpretation appeals to me, however I'm also digging the battroid on this new 1/60. I preferred the 1/48 battroid to the old 1/60s because they had such flat, uninteresting lines, and huge, bulbous hip joints that look worse than any swing bars and wound up getting loose and unstable very quickly. If they do go all out on the new 1/60 VF-1 line, I can see myself getting in to it in a way I never did with the previous versions. Assuming I have the money, and the quality on the first one I get impresses me, and doesn't leave me feeling flat like the VF-0's floppy joints and inability to hold its own gunpod. I'm still wary about price, though. If they're a hundred bucks a pop, without FAST packs, I might get a couple now and then, but...well, not exactly made of money and the year is already looking a bit bleak on the financial front.

Lots of companies do lots of market research, and yet can sometimes look at a set of evidence and come to the utterly wrong conclusion. Kinda like how a bunch of good movies come out, all sharing one aspect. Maybe they're all CG, maybe they're all sequels. Anyways, the movies do well, and the conclusion drawn is that all movies sharing that aspect are popular now. So a glut of mediocre-bad movies with that aspect hit, and utterly bomb. Fingers are pointed at piracy, videogames, and the studios all agree that the public no longer wants movies with that aspect. Thing they miss? The movies that bombed were all trash. I wouldn't be surprised if Shin and others were on to something in mentioning that in some previous Transformers toy lines, RiD springs instantly to mind, the villains just were not that good. The RiD villains were pretty terrible, with the exception of Scourge/Black Convoy who was a repaint of a G2 toy. Does that affect Hasbro's market research? It's generally accepted that bad guy toys sell terribly in Japan. Though Takara handles the sales on that side of the ocean, does that knowledge affect Hasbro's perception of the American market? That's also why I worry about multiple lines being produced at the same time. Pretty much every time (with the exception of sparsely released collectibles such as the masterpiece toys) one line or another gets neglected. Will Classics suffer because both the movie toys and the cartoon toys have something the kids can sit down to watch on tv or DVD? Would Alternators have done better if there'd been a show to go with them (or if Hasbro had done a series of related lines and so expanded it beyond just cars)? Would it have mattered at all? I suspect eventually Classics will become mainly collectors, while the kids go for the toys based on the show (and unless the next movie comes out soon, I suspect the movie line will have a lull in sales). Of course, collectors alone can't carry a full production line, so Classics will get produced in smaller numbers and eventually dropped. What lesson will Hasbro take from that? That the old style look doesn't sell anymore, but the Cartoon Network look does? Probably. I do agree the story sells the toys for many kids, though I see it as somewhat of a balance between memorable characters from the show, and what toy looks "freakin' sweet" at the toy store. If a character has neither going for them, they're not going to sell. However, you can have fiction with the heroes being the victorious ones all the time, and still have some really memorable villains that pull the kids in and make them want their toys. After all, the heroes can't be all that heroic if their villains aren't all that interesting.

Before I dig up my copy of the game and reinstall it, does anyone know how easy it is to pull and edit the textures? I just wanted to play with them a bit, see if I could use them for something.

As far as Alto, I think people are putting far too much on...man, it wasn't even the first impression of him. His first impression was more like Isamu. Confident and obsessed with flight. The moments of brooding frustration seem to fit a teenaged character, though the writers don't linger on it. They even turn his bishonen look into a funny quirk. Yeah, he tends to snap at people who bring it up, but he obviously likes the way he looks enough not to change it, and I wouldn't be surprised if only his friends and coworkers get off easy ribbing him about it. I kinda feel the same way about people's perception of Shin as being a joyless angst machine. He was all brooding and serious at the beginning of the episode, but this from a guy who was only in his teens, had seen his family gunned down in front of him, and who was caught up in World War III. Past that opening scene, the lighter side to him gets brought up more often than not. A brooding angst machine doesn't violently hug and noogie a crippled man in front of his superior officer. Yah, he retains his serious side, but come on, even Isamu and Hikaru had that side to them, and it was about as prevalent in both of them. I wonder if the stereotype of the brooding hero hasn't become so ingrained, that people are seeing it even when it isn't there.

Agreed, 100%. Also, once again, Galactic waterfall? Stick to our crazy guns?

Gah, I hate it when this happens. I want to buy the DVDs because I want to support what is unquestionably one of the best shows of 2007...and yet I do not want to support a sub-par sub translation. If I stick with my fansubs and don't buy the DVDs, the suits will undoubtedly blame the excellent show for the poor sales and it's one more loss for the anime industry which seems to be suffering poor performance across the board. No strong feelings about the dub, though. It really takes an excellent dub job to make me even care, otherwise I just stick with the subs.

I dunno, I hear people saying this about Alto, and I recall lots of people making the same statements about Shin. Generic young angry man. Meanwhile, in Zero, they really deflated Shin's "generic rage" and gave him a humourous side pretty quickly. It seems they pushed it even further with Alto, giving him a quirk that really brings his brooding side down several notches and even pokes fun at it. He seems to like Ranka, already planning on taking her up on her offer to drop by the restaraunt, and he isn't so much of a loner that he has no friends. I'm thinking people tend to latch on to an immediate first impression and stick with it, even if that impression is shattered within the same episode, or in the case of Frontier, within that first introductory scene.

I'd like to know that, too. I've not been able to find the Hasbro version, I figure I'll most likely get the Takara version. From what I've seen of the Hasbro version, I'm really kinda hoping the Takara version has a better paint job. Does the Hasbro Starscream have all the little details? I've got Skywarp, and love that he's got all the little jet fighter details such as the little "No Step" details all over the wings. If Hasbro's SS doesn't have that, I certainly hope Takara's does. Then again, I really would like to see their original MP SS colour scheme get rereleased with the Skywarp fixes. The only reason I never bought it was the horror stories on how frail it was.

If the company is doing it right, those subscription fees are also going towards a continuous stream of new content. A lot of my friends who play WoW say Blizzard is exceptionally good about that, but I don't know myself. The grind mechanics behind pretty much every MMO, and what I've seen of the majority of players, is enough to keep the genre off the radar of my gaming interests.

I would like the ones I want to buy to be released at infrequent, yet regular schedules, allowing me to buy them at a leisurely pace as I have the money, and not be forced to pass them over and then come back to them later paying twice as much.

I'm not at all concerned with the price of the 1/48ths going up. I don't intend to buy anymore, and I don't intend to sell the ones I have. That said, it would surprise me if they didn't go up in value once they've become harder to find. I'm not expecting them to hit the the $1000+ prices we saw for Takatokus and Bandais in the late 90's, early 00s, but I don't see them sitting at their original prices, or devaluing, once they've become rare.

Sounds like a good idea to me. One for the toy lines and general TF info, one for the show. Makes sense. Just now finished watching the first episode myself. It was alright. There were things that really impressed me, and others that I really didn't care for. Dialog got more than a tad preachy-cheesy too many times, and the whole story seemed incredibly rushed. Also, as the show played out, the disparity between the story and the artwork seemed to stand out even more. It seems to me the art style could have benefited from being more Justice League and less Teen Titans. Also, humanity seems awfully understanding in this show. Robots come from space, and very quickly become our friends, more robots show up, and there's absolutely no confusion as to what's going on, and it's all priase to the Autobots for saving us from the enemies they lead here. I tend to dislike those overused story elements myself, so I suspect that it's simply a matter of how quickly the show rushed through these things that bothers me the most. The animation seemed very consistent, though. I love the sound effects. There were a few that really stood out. Loved most of the voice acting, especially Starscream's voice, the actor did a good job making it sound like the old Starscream. Not perfect, but good enough for me. Overall, I'm still kinda on the fence. I'll probably watch more episodes as they come out. I'm more interested in this show than the past several series, but it's not something that grabs me either. One thing, I can't help but think of the Batman Animated/Big O art style and wonder how a Transformers series like that might look. It's something I think I'd like to see, though it will never happen.

Makes me think that she's going through the motions she believes she has to, even though they don't sit right with her.

Yes, but not to this degree. The people making the game have even said as much, this is a deliberate design move to make the game more visually appealing to western audience.

I'd still love to see a 1/48 VF-4, but I seriously doubt I'll ever see my favourite Valkyrie in any scale. As for larger Valkyries and two-seaters...it's going to be the 1/60 line for cost and space reasons. Not really much seems to have changed. For the completionists, the 1/60 line is where it's at. However, I'd still say it's worth owning at least one 1/48 VF-1. Out of all the Yamato toy's I've picked up, my 1/48ths are consistently the highest quality.

My main beefs are the concessions made "for western preferences", such as the huge, overmuscled characters. Other than that, the shading and such reminded me of the old, old SF2 sprites, before they made the sprites look more like low-res anime cels.I thought that was a neat touch. Also, as others have stated, the facial expressions and animations need serious work. Especially given how expressive Capcom's 2D fighting game sprites have been for such a long time now. Other than that, it does appear as if there is some camera movement and embellishments, which make use of the 3D models, rather than having a flat, side on view at all times. I think this makes it look a lot nicer than just keeping the view to what you'd see in a 2D game and so not really taking any advantage of having 3D models. On the other hand, I really would love to see some more high-quality, hi-def 2D fighters made using high-res sprites. The more I see of the Hi-Def remake of SF2, the more it appears it will not be as impressive as I'd hoped. A while ago I saw what appeared to be a high-res looking 2D fighter based on Fist of the North Star and I seem to recall that looking better. Maybe I'm misremembering though.

I'll likely pick one up. 100 bucks a pop, with shipping and no FAST packs? Not likely to dive headfirst into them. If the fast packs are cheap, I might buy a couple. I really dislike the old 1/60 line. I'm surprised that it seems so few people are bothered by the hideous hip bulges on the things. To me they're an eyesore worse than any swing bars, or skeleton hands. Also, I imagine this new 1/60 line will continue the trend towards less die-cast, for better or for worse. I just don't know, the price seems a bit steep to me. Though I have to admit, the pics we have so far look nice.

I agree with Duke. That's the most likely explanation. Same as why not every Valkyrie in SDF:M got Super packs right after they were introduced.

I'd have to agree with Chrono to some extent on his opinions regarding the 3D animation and how well, or poorly, it meshes with the 2D. However, despite my misgivings of the use of 3D in general, I'd have to add to my own opinion that this is some of the best 2D/3D mixing I've seen in an animated series length production. Sure, it's lacking compared to Zero, and the CG in general could be called poor compared to ILM's CG work in the Star Wars movies...but those are hardly fair comparisons for reasons that ought to be obvious. I'd also have to agree with Zinjo's observation that they seem to be working towards a better balance in visual quality, rather than the highly detailed obvious CG of Zero (I wouldn't use the term "photorealistic", but it kinda sways more in that direction), the texture work and shading seems more in line with the 2D work in Frontier, which seems to at least try to look more like the 2D work it's combined with. Some of my complaints would be more of the early fleet shots, where you had what appeared to be 2D renders of ships sliding across the screen in front of the 3D colony ships, and it looked utterly out of place, it reminded me a lot of some of the videogame movies in either VF-X2 or maybe M3 for Dreamcast. Thankfully there was less of that as the episode progressed. Also, there's the issue with the disappearing/reappearing VF-171 arm panels that were pointed out a few pages back. Also, I'm with Graham, I just do not see this "super robot" vibe, here. Even the VF-25's seemed only marginally effective against the aliens, despite their massive FAST packs (as I mentioned in another thread, I'm not really a fan of these Stampeed like augmentations). The gun pods don't seem to do any damage at all, and the missles only seem effective when they actually hit. And even then, the red thing seemed to shrug off a direct volley.

You know....I'm not entirely certain how I got here, or when. Who are you people?! A part of me thinks it must have been after I moved out to the midwest, which was February of 2001. But...at the same time a part of me has vague recollections of being here prior to leaving Pittsburgh, were I went to art school. I'm not really sure what's correct. I do know that I was already a huge Macross fan before finding my way here. Was big on Robotech in the 80's, though the plot holes and characters were really grating on me by the early to mid 90's. Luckily, before I'd dropped it outright, I'd managed to follow the trail of bread crumbs from Robotech to Macross. Whenever it was that I finally found my way to Macrossworld, it was likely a random web search for Macross info. Maybe it was when the Bandai reissues were coming? Dunno. Glad I did, though. I tend to drop web forums after a few months, or at least fall out of posting for months at a time. This one I've been with at least 5 years now.

You know, over the years I've seen many threads like this. Tribute or plagiarism? I'd think the answer is pretty clear. These artists don't stumble across these things from shows they've never heard of, then just toss them into whatever they're working on at the moment because they suddenly found themselves at a complete and utter lack of ideas (especially not when it's a licensed work, with plenty of designs they could have drawn from that).

You clearly see a New Macross Class battle fortress at the front of the colony as it's flying at the screen in that shot right at the end of the history recap.