The Official Aim for the Top! Gunbuster Thread

[Mercurial Morpheus]

Personally, i think this shot in particular works better in widescreen. In the widescreen version, the focus is entirely on her face. The open version has so much around her face(her knees and arms, so on). It's more focused original. It's also not the same as a 16:9 film cropped to 4:3. In that, you're losing footage the director intended to be seen. Here you're gaining footage that wasn't meant to be seen. In both cases, the look and feel of the shot can change. The focus can be lost.

I wouldn't call it minor either. There are quite a few shots where one can tell where the matte goes. Just flipping though it I saw plenty of unfinished backgrounds. From carpets and walls that just blur out to a picture that disappears halfway down. It's understandable that they would cut corners like this, but it gives things a rough look. i'll have to really watch it to see just how much it affects the overall feel.

Basically, the open-matte is a nice opertunity to see a different take on Gunbuster six, but I'll probably still watch the widescreen.

This one's my favorite so far. The tabls gone mysteriously transparent, and Jung and Noriko are missing their bottom halves. This just looks odd.

Edited March 31, 2005 by Mercurial Morpheus

[Gui]

Just to let french-speaking persons know: Beez will release the original Gunbuster in France during the next week. Hopefully, it will be available to other french-speaking countries aswell such as Quebec or Benelux...

The ones interested in can take a look to this page for more technical infos

[Jemstone]

Just to let french-speaking persons know: Beez will release the original Gunbuster in France during the next week. Hopefully, it will be available to other french-speaking countries aswell such as Quebec or Benelux...

The ones interested in can take a look to this page for more technical infos

Damn... Guess I'll get that too.

[Keith]

Downside being, looks like it's still the old masters, & no extra's.

[Gui]

No extra's indeed, except some trailers. As for the masters, I'll tell you more in a moment, when I'll have got my order...

Edit: typo...

Edited April 1, 2005 by Gui

[bsu legato]

Ok, so I'm coming into this discusion a little late (about 15 years late) but I just wanted one thing clarified. The recent fansub of episode 6 was only one variation of it, and there's also a matted "widescreen" version in the works? Also, there's differences between this "renewal" version and the original version. From what I understand, the original version actually had more footage in the final scene of the earth, unlike the renewal version which has the credits over a blank screen. Am I undestanding this right?

[Fortress_Maximus]

I prefer the open matted images that shows the entire cel and background. Sure I might see some cropped areas that were never meant to be filmed. But as a fellow animator I find it interesting to learn more about the shots, framing and the beauty of the cels in its entirety. Showing the open matted images IMO gives you a behind the scenes look at what the talented creators, animators of this classic OVA series saw many years ago. I think it is safe to assume, as a consumer if the dvd ever comes stateside it will most likely be in letterbox format and not open matted. So enjoy the open matted images how often do you ever even have the opportunity to see them in any anime series?

Lastly, as for adding all the text onto the image, I say reduce it to just an icon or shortened url and make it a watermark that's semi-transparent. All the extra text not only is an eyesore it detracts from studying the shot itself.

[JELEINEN]

I prefer the open matted images that shows the entire cel and background. Sure I might see some cropped areas that were never meant to be filmed. But as a fellow animator I find it interesting to learn more about the shots, framing and the beauty of the cels in its entirety. Showing the open matted images IMO gives you a behind the scenes look at what the talented creators, animators of this classic OVA series saw many years ago. I think it is safe to assume, as a consumer if the dvd ever comes stateside it will most likely be in letterbox format and not open matted. So enjoy the open matted images how often do you ever even have the opportunity to see them in any anime series?

Lastly, as for adding all the text onto the image, I say reduce it to just an icon or shortened url and make it a watermark that's semi-transparent. All the extra text not only is an eyesore it detracts from studying the shot itself.

This is probably why the uncropped version was included on the extras disc. It's not the way the show was meant to be watched, but it is something cool to see from a technical standpoint.

[Fortress_Maximus]

Yes and I'd like to see the other OVA episodes in the same fashion too. I mean unless you have access to the vast majority of the original backgrounds, gengas, and cels (and believe me I know the guy that has them), you will never have a chance to examine the details and efforts placed into the cels and the backgrounds used. This is especially true for the climatic moments, i.e. when Noriko is reborn and KICKS ASS! High end cels from GB OVAs are really expensive and rare and it isn't just b/c Gainax make GB, it is also b/c the character designs and story is still well loved to this day.

[Renato]

Yes and I'd like to see the other OVA episodes in the same fashion too. I mean unless you have access to the vast majority of the original backgrounds, gengas, and cels (and believe me I know the guy that has them), you will never have a chance to examine the details and efforts placed into the cels and the backgrounds used. This is especially true for the climatic moments, i.e. when Noriko is reborn and KICKS ASS! High end cels from GB OVAs are really expensive and rare and it isn't just b/c Gainax make GB, it is also b/c the character designs and story is still well loved to this day.

But the other OVA episodes were done in 4:3 ratio, without letterboxing.

One thing, I just watched the three mini-films (thanks for the download file!), and in the Sizzler one at the end the subtitle of Jung's phrase is "You're thinking too much, Yumiko". Where the hell did that come from? Isn't she just saying the Russian equivalent of "goodbye?" (I am not typing it because I have no idea how to spell it... Oh, all right, here goes: "Dos Vitagna". Laugh away.)

[Mercurial Morpheus]

I found this on Digital Panic's forum. I thought you all might find it interesting.

Physics

For the hell of it, we're gonna post these. I had an astro physics professor I know who likes anime look over the 6 science lessons of Gunbuster as well as the thing that flashed by the screen in episode 3. Here is what he said:

Lesson 1

QUOTE

Here's what I can figure out from science lesson 1.

It's sort of a commentary, rather than any correction

or suggestion for your translation.  Please let me know if

this is the sort of thing you wish me to provide.

                                        Stupendous Man

-----------------------------------------------------------------

  Commentary on Science Lesson 1:

    - Takaya's description of space is half right.

      Yes, virtual particles do exist (briefly) in space;

      but a spacefaring race would be more concerned with

      the ordinary matter in space: very tenuous hydrogen and helium gas.

      Any ship moving at relativistic speeds would run into

      this gas continuously, generating high-energy radiation

      which would be a danger to the crew.

      She's absolutely right about the temperature being

      3 K when one is far from any star.

    - Dividing history of physics into 3 phases is a nice

      touch.  Right now, we teach that there are the same

      3 phases: ancient, classic, modern.  But we assign

      "classic" to Newton and "modern" to Einstein.

      Shifting Newton and Einstein back one phase puts

      us, the audience, in our place  :-)

    - the real Starbow has nothing to do with black holes

      (more on it in a future commentary)

    - the background illustration for the discussion of the

      Tannhauser gate is cute.  On the right side, there's a box

      with three bullets which is scientifically correct:

      black holes have just three properties which one can

      measure: "spin" (usually called angular momentum),

      "mass", and "volt" (usually called electric charge).

    - the equation below the box,

              rg  =  2 KM / c2

      is the equation for the Schwarzschild radius of a black

      hole.  This is the distance at which the escape velocity

      from the black hole is exactly the speed of light, c.

      The usual way this is written is

              R  =  2 GM / c2

      where the letter "G" is used instead of "K" to denote

      the constant of universal gravitation.

    - any binary black holes within one Schwarszchild radius

      of each other would within seconds spiral towards

      each other, emitting large amounts of gravitational radiation,

      and then merge into a single black hole.

    - the phase "Tannhauser Gate" is probably an homage to

      the classic SF film "Blade Runner."  At the end of his

      life, the android Roy (who worked in space) laments the

      memories which will be lost when he dies:

        "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe ... attack ships

        on fire off the shoulder of Orion ... I watched C-beams glittering

        in the dark at Tannhauser Gate ... All those moments will

        be lost ... in time ... like ... tears ... in rain."

  - Ice II is magic.

Lesson 2

QUOTE

Again, let me know if this is what you want.

                          Stupendous Man

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

  Science Lesson 2: Light Speed

    - the Starbow effect is a real (or at least really predicted)

      phenomenon.  People in ships travelling _very_ close to the speed

      of light will see stars change in two ways:

          a. those in the forward half of the sky will migrate

                towards the location directly in front of the ship

                as the ship approaches c.  That is, stars which

                were, say, 50 degrees away from "straight ahead"

                will move to be 40 degrees away, then 30, then 20,

                then 10 degrees away.  A zone of no stars will

                appear perpendicular to the ship's motion and

                expand as the ship's speed increases.  Likewise,

                all the stars in the aft section of sky will

                migrate towards the location directly behind

                the ship.

            b. at the same time, the Doppler shift will cause the

                light from stars ahead of the ship to be shifted

                towards the blue, and those behind the ship will

                be shifted towards the red.  It will also boost

                the apparent brightness of stars towards the front,

                and dim the apparent brightness of stars towards

                the rear.

    - however, I'm not sure that one gets that pretty multi-color

      ring effect in real life.  I think that all the stars towards

      the front of the ship would appear blueish, so the Starbow

      would be more like a solid blue.

    - you can see some simulated pictures here:

            http://quasar.cc.osaka-kyoiku.ac.jp/~fukue/VISUAL/visual.htm

    - another good resource is

            http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/Jan20...27085.Ph.r.html

    - now, the "Urashima effect" appears to be simply what we

      normally call "time dilation".  Clocks moving at relativistic

      speeds do not keep the same time.  According to a person who

      remains on Earth, the clock on a spaceship which travels

      away and then returns at relativistic speed will have advanced

      more slowly than local clocks.  The factor by which time

      is slowed is

                                          1

                    gamma  =  sqrt ( -------------- )

                                      1  - v2/c2

      Now, Takaya mentions two specific examples:

            a) her father's ship experienced 2 days while she

                experienced 7 years.  This corresponds to a contraction of

                gamma = 1277, which would occur if her father's ship

                was travelling at 0.999 999 39 c.

            cool.gif on their training session, 12 seconds of ship time

                corresponded to 6 months of land time.  This is

                a _much_ larger contraction, by a factor

                gamma = 1,314,000.  That corresponds to a speed

                _very_ close to c, 0.999 999 999 999 996 c.

 

    - Lorentz and Fitzgerald were two scientists who devised

      a set of transformations connecting the time and space

      values measured by one observer to the time and space

      values measured by another observer, moving relative to the

      first.  Einstein showed how their equations fit into

      his theory of special relativity in 1905.  The equations

      behind the Coach are these Lorentz transformations, as

      they are commonly called.

      I don't know why Gamow is included in the group, since he

      didn't develop any of the ideas.  He did quite a bit to

      popularize relativity, thirty and forty years after it

      was developed; maybe that's why.  The portrait on the right

      is _maybe_ Gamow.  The portrait on the left doesn't look

      like any picture of Einstein, or Lorentz, or Fitzgerald,

      as far as I can tell.

Lessons 3-6

QUOTE

Lesson 3: no science, no commentary

  Lesson 4: no science, no commentary

  Lesson 5: Spaceships: the translation makes sense as far as it

            pertains to real ships.  The 10,000 lyr radius of

            destruction matches the picture on the screen behind the

            speakers -- good.

            One typo: in the phrase "it's final destination",

            remove the apostrophe from "it's".

  Lesson 6: Planets in the Solar System.

            In case you care, the numbers next to the picture

            of each planet are

                        orbital radius (AU)

                        orbital eccentricity

                        orbital period (days, usually)

                        equatorial radius (km)

                        mass (Earth = 1)

                        density (gm/cubic cm)

                        rotational period (days)

                        surface gravity (Earth = 1)

                        number of moons

            All the real planets are fine.  Most of the new planets

            are fine, too; I'm surprised to see terrestrial

            objects like Metis and Kam... out beyond Pluto,

            but who am I to object to the discoveries of the future?

       

            The only jarring note is that the numbers for the

            planet "Lucifer" indicate that it's a super-gas giant,

            MUCH larger than Jupiter.  Wierd.

            Nemesis is real, sort of.  Back in 1984, some

            astronomers looked at reports about mass extinctions:

            there was some evidence (which has since, in my opinion,

            been shown to be false) that extinctions occurred at

            regular intervals of about 26 million years.  The

            astronomers thought, "Hmmm.  26 million years would

            be the period of an object orbiting the Sun at

            a large distance, around 80,000 AU.  Maybe there is a

            low-mass companion to our Sun which is out there.

            When it in its orbit close to the inner solar system,

            it might perturb the orbits of comets, which would

            then come into the inner solar system.  Some of the

            comets would hit the Earth -- bam, mass extinction."

            The people who came up with the idea named the

            hypothetical companion "Nemesis."

            Since that time, the evidence for periodicity in

            mass extinctions has decreased, and several searches

            for Nemesis -- which should appear as a faint, red

            star -- have failed to find it.  As a result, most

            astronomers now think that the Nemesis theory was

            a nice idea, but wrong.

            The properties of this hypothetical object do match

            pretty closely the properties of "Nemesis" described

            in the science lesson.  The orbital radius should be

            more like 1 light year than half a light year to have

            a period of 26 million years, but, what the heck.

                                      Stupendous Man

Episode 3's Physics Lecture at the beginning

QUOTE

The Physics Lesson notes look pretty good.  Minor

typos and corrections:

      - remove the commas between "quantum, mechanical"

        and "partition, function" in the first block of text

      - add a closing curly bracket to the equation

      - "expounded on in" should be "expounded in", I think

      - the name "Salam" should be spelled "Salaam", with a third "a"

  Lots of typos near the end:

      - "either corresponds" should be "ether corresponds"

     

      - "withich" should be "which"

      - "descibes" should be "describes"

   

      - "scatering" should be "scattering"

     

      - "obtained by by" should be "obtained by"

     

  I think that wraps it up.

Thanks a lot Professor Stupendous Man!

[Gui]

Thanks: that's a cool bunch of infos

[lord_breetai]

I just want to say I finally got the game (just came in the mail today)... I'll post more about it once I play it.

[Dangard Ace]

That bit of research just makes me more impressed with the original Gunbuster. Shows all that attention to detail they tried to incorporate into the show.

Dosvedanya=Russian Goodbye. All those years of reading X-men paid off!!

[lord_breetai]

I just want to say I finally got the game (just came in the mail today)... I'll post more about it once I play it.

Okay finnished the game once (I screwed up and missed a bunch of episodes but there is a new game plus feature)... there are three endings as far as I can tell... one of Jung, Kazumi and Coach (you get to pick who the co-pilot of the Gunbuster is). I took Jung first time around and this changed things quite a bit.

Though the ending was much the same... to paraphrase some of the dialouge from the end

"Checkmate. You should really give up on Chess Nuriko. We've been playing for 12, 000 years... but it's almost over... look there's the Earth". (that's a lot of paraphrasing)

Anyways... I'll write up a full review for the game and maybe try to work on a FAQ my next time through... Nuriko, would you be interested in hosting them?

[Keith]

How playable is the game with no knowledge of Japanese?

[UN Spacy]

They finally released the second episode!

Lunar version.

[Commander McBride]

Hey, can anyone tell me who did the OP and ED themes for the new series, and possibly where to get them? (legitimately or not....) Can't read Japanese....

[lord_breetai]

How playable is the game with no knowledge of Japanese?

Umm... well on the plus side everything is voiced... but it's pretty language intensive. I missed a lot of things the first time around. cause while I can speak Japanese I'm nowhere near fluent yet.

Commander: the opening is Groovin Magic by Round Table Featuring Nino. ^^ I got it off Share.

[Mercurial Morpheus]

Hey, can anyone tell me who did the OP and ED themes for the new series, and possibly where to get them? (legitimately or not....) Can't read Japanese....

I believe Tokyo Tosho still has the bittorrent of the single up.

[Keith]

Bah, it looks cool too. I guess what my major question is, aside from the story, how easy to navigate is the menu system & basic play mechanics if you don't know any japanese?

[JValk]

No one is talking about the subbed Gunbuster 2 2nd episode OAV yet? I actually liked it - a bit more character development, explains some odd things in episode 1, and threw me for a loop with one revealed tidbit. don't want to put spoilers here, i'll wait till you all get the DL from the usual places.

[wolfx]

No one is talking about the subbed Gunbuster 2 2nd episode OAV yet? I actually liked it - a bit more character development, explains some odd things in episode 1, and threw me for a loop with one revealed tidbit. don't want to put spoilers here, i'll wait till you all get the DL from the usual places.

The random "revelation" in the bathroom scene was boggling...sure reveal that now to make things more believable.

The episodes art and animation is top notch....but I still can't get over the fact of the trippy powers of the new Buster Machine. This has really turned into FLCL in space.....

[Gui]

I found this episode cool: I eagerly awaits for the next one

[Seven]

I enjoyed the second episode. I liked the other Buster Machine, although Deux Neuf still looks like a Jojo's Bizzare Mecha instead of a proper robot. I've always thought the animation and music was top notch, but with other stuff like Aquarion out there, this doesn't capture my attention as much. That may change since Aquarion may be a lot more conventional in plot while Gainax might actually throw some innovation in there.

After seeing two episodes now, I definitely don't like the characters that much except for Nono and that's only because she's an entertaining nude bubblehead half the time.

When the space monster attacked, I loved how they worked in the old Gunbuster battle theme into there. I wonder how well this is selling in Japan?

[lord_breetai]

Bah, it looks cool too. I guess what my major question is, aside from the story, how easy to navigate is the menu system & basic play mechanics if you don't know any japanese?

weird my original post didn't seem to well post... It's pretty easy to work the basic mechanics... You get new topics by talking to people and when talking to people you hit triangle to select a topic... other then that there is a lot of button mashing in the game... Circle twice for special attacks, square for regular attacks, x for dash...

The game isn't hard to play... but your essentially watching a TV series... so it's very language intensive... I found after you get the Gunbuster the game gets very fun though... though the second time through the game once I got an upgraded Buster Beam it became very easy... Buster Beam is by far the most useful attack in the game... and as long as you only have a level on Buster Beam it's quite hard... I don't think you can upgrade Buster Beam your first time through... unless you get an amazing ammount of levels (you get levels by doing well in the battles, talking to people or working out with gym equipment).

And you go into the repair bay in the gym to purchase new upgrades for your mechs. Either new attacks for the RX, Gunbuster or Sizzler (there is one point where you may have to use a Sizzler) or selecting which color scheme you want for your RX (I personally like the Jung Color scheme).

Edit: As for Episode 2 of Diebuster I enjoyed it... I watched it raw and my Japanese isn't 100% perfect... I think I missed whatever the revelation was...

Edited April 24, 2005 by lord_breetai

[Keith]

Cool, I'll definately put it on my "when i get the extra cash" list.

[lord_breetai]

Does anyone know of this manga, Top O Nerae! The Next Generation? I downloaded the first 6 chapters and it seems pretty cool (I can't read it cause there's no furigana). But it's got Jung and it looks funny ^^. Here are some samples of it.

If anyone has anymore or can tell me anything about it it, I'd like that.

Edited May 2, 2005 by lord_breetai

[Gunbuster]

WOW!!!

[lord_breetai]

Oh hey I forgot to post this...

In the Gunbuster game as I said you get new paint schemes by challanging and defeating other RXs... well I got three interesting paint schemes Unit 00, Unit 01 and Unit 02... that's right it has the paint schemes of the different Evas.

Unit 02 is now my new favorite paint scheme... they look a little weired in the RXs but cool none the less.

I also noticed this time around when I did the tournament ep, the first team I fought used Unit 01 and 02 paint schemes meaning they were Shinji and Asuka ^^, I don't know if its them all the time or just sometimes I never noticed before (first time around I lost to the first team flat)... after you beat them you go onto fight Jung and Linda (well Linda anyway as Jung's too busy with Kazumi)...

But I thought that was kinda cool.

The Unit paint schemes have shown up a few times since I unlocked them... fighting all three EVA RXs was interesting.

[Dangard Ace]

Sah-weet! That looks cool. Really like that pic of Gunbuster rocketing by the RX machine. That's vintage Gunbuster. I sorta see a GP02 influence on Gunbuster 2 but that's cool. Where'd you d/l the 6 chapters from?

[lord_breetai]

Sah-weet!  That looks cool.  Really like that pic of Gunbuster rocketing by the RX machine.  That's vintage Gunbuster.    I sorta see a GP02 influence on Gunbuster 2 but that's cool.  Where'd you d/l the 6 chapters from?

I downloaded them from a Japanese P2P program called share.

BTW what I did get out of that... is the first question Jung asks is if "those two have returned" she's told "no" and they go on... I think she actually froze herself so that she would be there to say welcome back... maybe she is the one who threw the switch at the end of the OVA after all ^^. *btw I do only understand bits of what's going on*

Edited May 2, 2005 by lord_breetai

[lord_breetai]

Um is this it? or what is this... none of the characters look right but the title is the same. The author dosn't seem right either... now I'm confused.

Edited May 2, 2005 by lord_breetai

[Valkyrie]

I have that book... It's definitely not the same as those first pages you posted.

Leads me to wonder where they were printed...

Could be in Bandai's old Cyber Comix books... but I had thought all of those stories were reprinted in the two volumes of Comic Gunbuster.

There's also a Gunbuster Next Generation novel, which I don't have, but judging from the cover, it looks different from both incarnations we've seen here.

[Fortress_Maximus]

If Jung is in the NG manga storylines, where is Noriko?