The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

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Seto Kaiba
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

False Prophet wrote: Tue Aug 23, 2022 11:18 am How popular was Macross II when it came to the States anyway? I recently listened to a podcast talking about Plus, and it seems like for a lot of fans back then put Plus on the pedestal.
Both Macross II: Lovers Again and Macross Plus were more popular in the West than they were in their native Japan.

Macross II was a hotly anticipated title that was reasonably well-received but did not live up to the (frankly excessive by any standard) hype that the hobby press of the time built up for it. It still did well enough to have plamodels and a successful RPG line and some other odds and ends even though merchandising was somewhat frustrated by the PC Engine/Turbografx-16's failure to launch here in the US.

Macross Plus came along a bit later with less hype, but garnered a lot more praise for its more American-friendly premise and high production values.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

It seems like it was decently popular (some even say more so in the States than Japan), it helps that it is also one of the few Macross titles not caught up in that whole legal mess. It's worth noting that there was actually an English language comic book sequel to the series (The Micron Conspiracy). Whether the comic is any good is not clear , and it is long out of print anyway, but it's worth noting they did design new Mech's for the story, so it's probably a case that Macross II was popular, Plus was just more popular.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Seems shipping of preorders for Absolute Live!!!!!! has started.

I got my shipment notice in the wee hours of this morning.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Got my copy today. Seems like they kinda phoned it in on the liner notes... there's no information about any of the new mecha from the movie and almost nothing about the characters.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Well, I watched Macross Frontier: the Labyrinth of Time and Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!! today.

Macross Frontier: the Labyrinth of Time's a ~12 minute musical short that is 100% worth the expense of importing the Blu-ray.
Spoiler
Some time after the events of the Frontier movies, Ranka is on tour across the galaxy and is making side trips to Protoculture ruins and relics in the hopes of somehow using one to contact Alto and awaken Sheryl from her coma. She uses the titular Labyrinth of Time in an attempt to reach Alto, and may have actually succeeded.
Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!! is a beautifully animated, clumsily-executed mess of a story that is honestly a massive letdown after watching the Labyrinth of Time.
Spoiler
Set a year after Macross Delta's first movie, the planet Windermere is attacked by the paramilitary organization Heimdall shortly after a Walkure live concert to celebrate the cessation of hostilities there. Heimdall quickly forces Xaos and the remaining Aerial Knights to flee using new, state of the art Ghosts controlled by a quantum AI computer. After seizing Windermere IV, Heimdall announce to the galaxy their intention to locate and destroy the mysterious Lady M for her role in manipulating the New UN Government. They intend to use the Protoculture System to open super fold gates to Lady M's location, the long lost Megaroad-01, and destroy it to free the galaxy from her influence.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

I watched both and well... Delta movie is ... i have no idea why it exists. There is no point in having it otherwise than spoiling who is Lady M:
Spoiler
I did not figured it out sooner because i kept using Misa's Robotech name - Lisa Hayes instead of Misa Hayase.
Of course Misa is Lady M! Not Minmay obviously. Mentioning Megaroad-01 made that clear. Unfortunately dimension fault did not let them pull it through. Which IMO was biggest disappointment in entire movie. Teasing it through entire Delta and then showing us middle finger - X-Files style. Nothing gets resolved.
Valkyrie fights were ... well "J.J. Abrams style" flash edits, jumping from place to place, very disappointing. I could not figure out are they using same VF-31s or upgraded models (VF-33s?)
Some plot points from Plus - virtuoid idol use+Ghost AI fighters
Very messy movie.
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Seto Kaiba
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

pirx wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 6:20 am There is no point in having it otherwise than spoiling who is Lady M:
The irony there is that it doesn't actually do THAT either... the "M" in "Lady M" is revealed to mean:
Spoiler
Megaroad-01.
So we're never given any actual indication of WHO it is, and indeed neither the nominal protagonists (Xaos) nor the nominal antagonists (Heimdall) are aware of the identity of "Lady M". All they know is where "she" is.

pirx wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 6:20 am
Spoiler
I did not figured it out sooner because i kept using Misa's Robotech name - Lisa Hayes instead of Misa Hayase.
Of course Misa is Lady M! Not Minmay obviously.
In fact, the movie never even HINTS at Lady M's actual identity... only where they are. It's unlikely it's either of them, and since it's an alias based on the name of the location they live rather than their actual identity there is no guarantee that "Lady M" is even female (since ships are referred to with feminine pronouns) or that their name contains an "M".

pirx wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 6:20 am
Spoiler
Unfortunately dimension fault did not let them pull it through. Which IMO was biggest disappointment in entire movie. Teasing it through entire Delta and then showing us middle finger - X-Files style. Nothing gets resolved.
Really, it was about par for the course for Delta... lots of meaningless buildup and no payoff, and Xaos are only the protagonist because the film's got Protagonist Centered Morality in full effect. (At one point, a member of Delta Flight even acknowledges that Lady M is no better than the movie's villain.)

pirx wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 6:20 am
Spoiler
I could not figure out are they using same VF-31s or upgraded models (VF-33s?)
Some plot points from Plus - virtuoid idol use+Ghost AI fighters
The movie actually does answer that question, albeit as part of a larger conversation that is interrupted for fanservice.
Spoiler
Xaos's VF-31 Custom "Siegfried" units were outclassed by Heimdall's Sv-303 Vivasvat unmanned fighters, and took a lot of damage in combat with them on Windermere IV. Because Delta Flight's mothership, the carrier Aether and the greater Macross Elysion, are still being repaired in the wake of the recently-concluded war between Windermere and the New UN Government the ship that evacuates Delta Flight from Windermere is a different ship from a different branch of Xaos (Listania's Macross Gigasion) they have few or no spare parts for the customized Siegfrieds.

Makina and the Macross Gigasion's maintenance teams are forced to repair Delta Flight's custom VF-31s using parts from the trial production VF-31A Kairos in order to get them flying again, and make some modifications to their Fold Wave systems to improve their performance a bit further.
The new custom type is renamed VF-31AX Kairos Plus.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Spoiler
Well i wasn't thinking about Megaroad-01 as "M". More like what it contains. So from Delta's viewpoint Megaroad-01 is shadowy government/gray cardinals of the Milky Way. Emperor Hikaru, heh. Or more like Empress Misa
Spoiler
As for Vivasvat fighters - Seto do they also look to you like crossover of Sv-51 and that "bird human" ... protoculture thing ... AFOS from Macross Zero? Especially head part in Battroid mode.
Minus horrible neon lighting which indicates they are operational. Like some kid found RGB features of motherboard and tuned them up to the max. Hurts eyes.
Everything in this movie is over... colored, oversaturated. At lest for my taste.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

pirx wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:19 am
Spoiler
Well i wasn't thinking about Megaroad-01 as "M". More like what it contains. So from Delta's viewpoint Megaroad-01 is shadowy government/gray cardinals of the Milky Way. Emperor Hikaru, heh. Or more like Empress Misa
If nothing else, that is certainly how Ian Cromwell and his organization Heimdall see "Lady M"... an oligarch or plutocrat who has used their influence to manipulate the workings of the New UN Government and New UN Forces to their own advantage and to place themselves above the law.

This becomes rather problematic for the movie, because even in the Macross Delta TV series Heimdall would've had a pretty good point.
Spoiler
Perhaps the most noteworthy problem that the series almost completely ignores is that Lady M uses her influence to get the New UN Forces to accept Xaos's participation in the war against Windermere IV's Kingdom of the Wind even though it violates the laws of war to do so. When Freyja, Hayate, and Mirage are arrested on Windermere IV they try to claim prisoner of war protections only for the Windermereans to quite reasonably point out that Xaos are mercenaries and therefore legally are considered unlawful combatants.

There was also the time Lady M used her influence to slow down the New UN Forces evacuation of Ragna's Barette City to make Xaos look good. Her actions meant that there were still many civilians in the blast area when the New UN Forces were forced to detonate the reaction weapon they'd set to destroy the ruins. Chuck's family were hurt because of that.

Ian Cromwell, of course, has more personal bones to pick like the fact that Lady M's reluctance to allow MDE weapons to be used at all meant that his entire home planet and fleet were destroyed.
pirx wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:19 am
Spoiler
As for Vivasvat fighters - Seto do they also look to you like crossover of Sv-51 and that "bird human" ... protoculture thing ... AFOS from Macross Zero? Especially head part in Battroid mode.
Minus horrible neon lighting which indicates they are operational. Like some kid found RGB features of motherboard and tuned them up to the max. Hurts eyes.
Everything in this movie is over... colored, oversaturated. At lest for my taste.
The Sv-303 Vivasvat has some pretty standard General Galaxy-based design touches common to many SV Works projects... being a "conehead" with a large monoeye like the VF-9 and VF-14, or the SV-51 which was developed by one of GG's cofounders.

The TRON lines are apparently a new kind of energy conversion armor system that is augmented with fold waves.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

So, anyone here going to buy the upcoming Chogokin DX VF-25F? Or are you saving money for the Chogokin YF-29 that they teased on Twitter?

Personally, I'm broke, so no for me.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

I'm not exactly a serious collector, so I'm passing on both. I typically only bother collecting the machines for the characters I particularly like. I've got an older Alto VF-25F already, and have zero interest in another YF-29 since I already have Isamu's and Rod Baltemar's from Macross 30.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

I'd probably save my money for the Blu Rays.

That being said if I run across any Draken models for a decent price locally, I'd definitely buy those.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

False Prophet wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 11:17 pm So, anyone here going to buy the upcoming Chogokin DX VF-25F? Or are you saving money for the Chogokin YF-29 that they teased on Twitter?

Personally, I'm broke, so no for me.
The YF-29 is next on Bandai's HG 1/100 plamo line after the YF-19 so might just get that instead (though part of me still wished we got a YF-21 instead).
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Don't know if this belong to here, but there is a pretty interesting interview with Shinichiro Watanabe: www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2023/0 ... f6d4543945

The part about Kawamori kind of track with what I've already heard about him. Wonder if we'll ever see the day Kawamori takes a step back and delegates some of his duties to other people when it comes to Macross. I just hope that he is not too busy with whatever he is doing and has some time to make designs for Armored Core VI.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

False Prophet wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 11:30 pm Don't know if this belong to here, but there is a pretty interesting interview with Shinichiro Watanabe: www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2023/0 ... f6d4543945

The part about Kawamori kind of track with what I've already heard about him. Wonder if we'll ever see the day Kawamori takes a step back and delegates some of his duties to other people when it comes to Macross. I just hope that he is not too busy with whatever he is doing and has some time to make designs for Armored Core VI.
Yeah, pretty much everyone who talks about working with Kawamori - including Kawamori himself - is pretty open about Kawamori being an eccentric or an out-and-out weirdo. His non-Macross work reflects a lot of his weirder obsessions, like Escaflowne growing out of his trip to Tibet and sudden interest in fortune telling, while his Macross work tends to reflect whatever sociopolitical topic has taken his fancy lately.

Kawamori has a long-running collaboration with Junya Ishigaki since Macross Zero and has more recently taken Tenjin Hidetaka onboard as a supporting designer in Macross the Ride and Macross Delta. While nothing official has been said, I know many fans believe that Kawamori is grooming Hidetaka to take over Macross when he finally decides to retire or simply gets bored with Macross and wanders off like he did after Flash Back 2012.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

So is there any word yet on when they will release Macross internationally? Big West seemed to indicate that several of the titles will be released or re-released this year.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Mafty wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 12:27 pm So is there any word yet on when they will release Macross internationally? Big West seemed to indicate that several of the titles will be released or re-released this year.
It's known that several different distributors are working on it, and several episodes of the Macross 7 localization have been teased at events.

I am not sure if specific release dates have been announced yet or not, and to a small extent things may have been slowed down by several of those distributors being acquired by longtime Macross partner Sony.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

A little trivia time: What kind of weird projects were worked on by people involved with Macross? I recently discovered an old eroge game by the name of Critical Point, which was the creation of a Matsuzaki Kenichi, writer of SDF Macross and Gundam.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Quite a few creator's have worked in Eroge or H-Manga or Doujin. In fact several Sci-Fi creators often worked in Sci-Fi related Adult media (Critical Point is a post apocalyptic Lunar mystery, Muv-Luv deals with robots fighting an alien invasion, Zeorymer and Iczer One are both Super Robot themed and then you have a lot of Masamune Shirow's work ).

As for other work Haruhiko Mikimoto worked on several mech styled OVA's like Hi-Speed Jecy and Delpower, in addition to actually writing École du Ciel.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

False Prophet wrote: Mon Feb 13, 2023 12:19 pm A little trivia time: What kind of weird projects were worked on by people involved with Macross? I recently discovered an old eroge game by the name of Critical Point, which was the creation of a Matsuzaki Kenichi, writer of SDF Macross and Gundam.
Define "weird". Macross has had a lot of people work on it over the years, and most creators have at least one slightly bizarre entry in their portfolios.

Considering Kawamori's auteur tendencies, practically his entire filmography counts.
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