Anime/manga megathread
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Wutwutwut? New Steins;Gate? Time to stock some Dr Pepper and start watching.
And tissues. Get tissues. You'll fucking need them. Shit isn't any less brutal.
takotakumi
Well-Known Member
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KnightBrolaire
SSO's unofficial pickup tester
I got distracted and started up Grappler Baki again. God I love it. It's so ridiculous.
Probably going to start watching Yu Yu Hakusho again too. I loved that show when I was younger and always wanted to check out the unedited versions.
Probably going to start watching Yu Yu Hakusho again too. I loved that show when I was younger and always wanted to check out the unedited versions.
wat
Well-Known Member
Finally my dream of having someone to watch the Fate series with (so I can explain as we go) has come true, and we'll finish up just in time to catch a screening of Heaven's Feel part 1 at a nearby theater. Can't fucking wait.
NotDonVito
molesta la breastas
I DO NOT like FLCL Progressive so far. That is all...
M3CHK1LLA
angel sword guardian
just finished watching attach on titan l movie...cant wait to see the second one.
prob get some hate, but i enjoyed it lol. im gonna go ahead and watch the anime soon
prob get some hate, but i enjoyed it lol. im gonna go ahead and watch the anime soon
couverdure
No Gear Day
Trigger's answer to everything.
wat
Well-Known Member
I honestly couldn't recommend it to be honest after finishing it. The pacing is what kills it, and there's 3-4 episodes that focus on individual characters that didn't need to be there that could have been used to smooth that out. I'm actually really disappointed because this had some amazing potential but shit execution. You can tell which episodes A-1 wrote and which ones Trigger wrote.
Bloody_Inferno
Silence is Violence
While I wait weekly for every new episode of Persona 5, I've gone on an overdue Netflix binge on a few shows. Then I noticed all episodes of Robotech are on there. I've been slowly going through those again, despite seeing them way too many times before.
I wanted to bring Robotech up in this thread for a while. I've said before that the series was my gateway to the anime medium, the dead parents to my Batman if you will. So it still holds dear to me and will continue to defend the overall medium, despite loving Macross beforehand, which is crazy in the most snobbiest anime circles. Aesthetically it's showing it's age, but amazingly as a whole, Robotech still holds up today. Unlike say other of its contemporaries that are also on Netflix like He-Man. Seriously I DARE YOU to sit through an entire episode of He-Man with a straight face.
Time for a good old fashioned wall of text write up.
First some backstory: During the mid 80s a lot of the cartoons I was exposed to were all about trying to get me to convince my parents to buy as many toys as possible. So I was largely watching anime about mecha. Be it a space flying submarine, five vehicles or lions as vehicles turning into a giant robot, or a car driving into a truck that turns into a giant robot, all were certainly good fun, albeit formulaic. But one that really struck me the most as a child was Super Dimension Fortress: Macross, it was different. It wasn't structured as bad guy of the week affair. It was a long continuous story that was just as much about it's characters than the toys it was selling, which was both confusing and mind blowing to me as kid. Then I moved to Melbourne. There were still cartoons like Transformers, M.A.S.K and GI Joe, but I missed the anime aesthetic dearly. A trip to the Video store down the road fixed that fast as I saw most of my favorites on rent... well, maybe not Space Carrier Blue Noah or Tosho Daimos but I took what I got. But Macross was different: it was called Robotech instead. But I instantly recognized the art and jumped on it anyway. It was largely the same... well until the first arc was done anyway. Which leads me to the main crux of why Robotech is so controversial especially for it's time, and it remains one of the most baffling properties to this day.
Back in the 80s, one of the big ways to sell anime to the western audience was to buy the trademark of a series from Japan and then rebrand them from renaming to censorship. And because Japan was a goldmine for toy manufacturing, it made sense. But the amount of effort and changes were simply baffling. It happened with Transformers with multiple toy lines (more on them later), it happened with Voltron with 2 separate mecha series, hell Science Ninja Team Gatchaman got the opposite treatment and was adapted THREE TIMES in different eras. Carl Macek masterminded Robotech with Harmony Gold and took the Voltron approach by taking 3 separate series (SDF Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada) and turning them into one epic odyssey spanning 3 generations. Unlike the previous examples that were hacked to the bone for western audiences, Robotech is one of the few examples that actually worked for the better. (The other being Samurai Pizza Cats... but that's for another time.)
Aside from the odd sexual innuendo a few scenes and subplots removed and the main definition of Protoculture, Robotech remained largely unchanged, if not faithful to their original Japanese counterparts. It was actually quite genius for it's time. 2 main characters from the Macross arc give birth to the main character in Southern Cross. That arc also copped the most changes thanks to the original being set outside Earth. The biggest change was it's ending that leads to the New Generation arc, which to me as a kid was sheer brilliance and one of my favorite transitions in any medium ever. The character were already awesome in their original forms and no different here. They're all fully realized and humane with their weaknesses often taking the spotlight (a refreshing change from whatever else was going on). It was as much of a soap opera as it was a space opera. And I loved every minute of it. My sister loved every minute of it. Hell even my mum loved it as we watched it together before school. It's no wonder Robotech even has a bloody SDF1 Barbie Doll house for the female leads.
And that was also the problem with Robotech.
Anime purists will scoff at the idea of Robotech, even those who grew up loving with it then suddenly turning against it after seeing the originals using false hipster logic while groping their Minmay waifu pillows. I get that with Voltron, but definitely not Robotech. After seeing it side by side with the 3 original forms, there are parts where Robotech actually faired better. The narration helped for younger audiences. The soundtrack actually felt like a war story over the more whimsical originals, and even the songs sung are pretty good too. The dialogue was sharp witted and even gave certain characters more depth.
But there was another issue about Robotech that's actually prevented the original and long lasting Macross series being widely popular in the West. One reason was thanks to Transformers. They bought the rights of the Valkyrie/Veritech fighter toy from Takara for their character Jetfire/Skyfire and beaten Robotech to the punch in the mecha toyline. Thus prevented the cool transforming fighter/robot as part of their main line. There was a large fighter plane toy, but sadly didn't transform. Even more baffling is that Jetfire in the cartoons looked nothing like the toy.
The other and more pressing reason is that since Harmony Gold own the international distribution rights to Macross, and continues to hold authority to it, none of the new Macross series have been shown in the West (sans streaming sites). Macross 2 and Plus slipped thanks to a loophole with other companies, but nothing after the 90s. A massive shame as Macross is on par with Gundam as a premier mecha anime that's also lived a long rich continuity on it's own.
Robotech itself isn't fairing too well outside it's main series either. A series that bridged the first and third arcs together called Robotech The Sentinels were in the works, with an ok movie and some comics, but it's since been retconned as secondary continuity. Carl Macek released a Robotech animated movie by repeating the formula and using the Megazone 23 anime as a template, and while that was ok too, it didn't fare too well. It had little relation to the main story and some of the violence and sex from Megazone remained intact and didn't go well with the censorship regulation. This also got the secondary retcon. In between a ton of abandoned projects, there was Robotech The Shadow Chronicles, one of the first signs of new life in the franchise. Unfortunately it suffered from a convoluted plot, shoe horning new characters too quickly and regulars acting way out of what they've been known for. Robotech Love Live Alive was a dedication to Macek's passing, based right after the final act of the Third Generation arc, which was actually not bad, closest we have in the spirit of the original. Top off a few mediocre and cancelled games and we have a series that in the similar dilemma as the Star Wars franchise.
And of course there's that proposed live action film that's been comfortably living in development hell. Tobey MacGuire was helmed as producer and even got so far as trying to get Leonardo DiCaprio in. Not sure what the status of either are at the moment. James Wan was penned as director at one point, but opted out to focus on Aquaman. Currently Andy Muschietti of IT reboot is on the director chair and Wonder Woman scribe Jason Fuchs on script. Imdb shows a 2019 scheduled release but despite being more possible than ever, I won't hold my breath.
So there you have it. One of the most baffling and confusing anime properties that is both loved and hated. I like to be in the former that loves both it's incarnations, as it was a major reason that made me take anime as a serious medium after all. Still highly recommended, anime fan or otherwise.
TL/DR: Unless you're a Macross Nazi Purist (fair enough I understand), Robotech is still worth your time.
I wanted to bring Robotech up in this thread for a while. I've said before that the series was my gateway to the anime medium, the dead parents to my Batman if you will. So it still holds dear to me and will continue to defend the overall medium, despite loving Macross beforehand, which is crazy in the most snobbiest anime circles. Aesthetically it's showing it's age, but amazingly as a whole, Robotech still holds up today. Unlike say other of its contemporaries that are also on Netflix like He-Man. Seriously I DARE YOU to sit through an entire episode of He-Man with a straight face.
Time for a good old fashioned wall of text write up.
First some backstory: During the mid 80s a lot of the cartoons I was exposed to were all about trying to get me to convince my parents to buy as many toys as possible. So I was largely watching anime about mecha. Be it a space flying submarine, five vehicles or lions as vehicles turning into a giant robot, or a car driving into a truck that turns into a giant robot, all were certainly good fun, albeit formulaic. But one that really struck me the most as a child was Super Dimension Fortress: Macross, it was different. It wasn't structured as bad guy of the week affair. It was a long continuous story that was just as much about it's characters than the toys it was selling, which was both confusing and mind blowing to me as kid. Then I moved to Melbourne. There were still cartoons like Transformers, M.A.S.K and GI Joe, but I missed the anime aesthetic dearly. A trip to the Video store down the road fixed that fast as I saw most of my favorites on rent... well, maybe not Space Carrier Blue Noah or Tosho Daimos but I took what I got. But Macross was different: it was called Robotech instead. But I instantly recognized the art and jumped on it anyway. It was largely the same... well until the first arc was done anyway. Which leads me to the main crux of why Robotech is so controversial especially for it's time, and it remains one of the most baffling properties to this day.
Back in the 80s, one of the big ways to sell anime to the western audience was to buy the trademark of a series from Japan and then rebrand them from renaming to censorship. And because Japan was a goldmine for toy manufacturing, it made sense. But the amount of effort and changes were simply baffling. It happened with Transformers with multiple toy lines (more on them later), it happened with Voltron with 2 separate mecha series, hell Science Ninja Team Gatchaman got the opposite treatment and was adapted THREE TIMES in different eras.
Carl Macek masterminded Robotech with Harmony Gold and took the Voltron approach by taking 3 separate series (SDF Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada) and turning them into one epic odyssey spanning 3 generations. Unlike the previous examples that were hacked to the bone for western audiences, Robotech is one of the few examples that actually worked for the better. (The other being Samurai Pizza Cats... but that's for another time.) Aside from the odd sexual innuendo a few scenes and subplots removed and the main definition of Protoculture, Robotech remained largely unchanged, if not faithful to their original Japanese counterparts. It was actually quite genius for it's time. 2 main characters from the Macross arc give birth to the main character in Southern Cross. That arc also copped the most changes thanks to the original being set outside Earth. The biggest change was it's ending that leads to the New Generation arc, which to me as a kid was sheer brilliance and one of my favorite transitions in any medium ever. The character were already awesome in their original forms and no different here. They're all fully realized and humane with their weaknesses often taking the spotlight (a refreshing change from whatever else was going on). It was as much of a soap opera as it was a space opera. And I loved every minute of it. My sister loved every minute of it. Hell even my mum loved it as we watched it together before school. It's no wonder Robotech even has a bloody SDF1 Barbie Doll house for the female leads.
And that was also the problem with Robotech.
Anime purists will scoff at the idea of Robotech, even those who grew up loving with it then suddenly turning against it after seeing the originals using false hipster logic while groping their Minmay waifu pillows. I get that with Voltron, but definitely not Robotech. After seeing it side by side with the 3 original forms, there are parts where Robotech actually faired better. The narration helped for younger audiences. The soundtrack actually felt like a war story over the more whimsical originals, and even the songs sung are pretty good too. The dialogue was sharp witted and even gave certain characters more depth.
But there was another issue about Robotech that's actually prevented the original and long lasting Macross series being widely popular in the West. One reason was thanks to Transformers. They bought the rights of the Valkyrie/Veritech fighter toy from Takara for their character Jetfire/Skyfire and beaten Robotech to the punch in the mecha toyline. Thus prevented the cool transforming fighter/robot as part of their main line. There was a large fighter plane toy, but sadly didn't transform. Even more baffling is that Jetfire in the cartoons looked nothing like the toy.
The other and more pressing reason is that since Harmony Gold own the international distribution rights to Macross, and continues to hold authority to it, none of the new Macross series have been shown in the West (sans streaming sites). Macross 2 and Plus slipped thanks to a loophole with other companies, but nothing after the 90s. A massive shame as Macross is on par with Gundam as a premier mecha anime that's also lived a long rich continuity on it's own.
Robotech itself isn't fairing too well outside it's main series either. A series that bridged the first and third arcs together called Robotech The Sentinels were in the works, with an ok movie and some comics, but it's since been retconned as secondary continuity. Carl Macek released a Robotech animated movie by repeating the formula and using the Megazone 23 anime as a template, and while that was ok too, it didn't fare too well. It had little relation to the main story and some of the violence and sex from Megazone remained intact and didn't go well with the censorship regulation. This also got the secondary retcon. In between a ton of abandoned projects, there was Robotech The Shadow Chronicles, one of the first signs of new life in the franchise. Unfortunately it suffered from a convoluted plot, shoe horning new characters too quickly and regulars acting way out of what they've been known for. Robotech Love Live Alive was a dedication to Macek's passing, based right after the final act of the Third Generation arc, which was actually not bad, closest we have in the spirit of the original. Top off a few mediocre and cancelled games and we have a series that in the similar dilemma as the Star Wars franchise.
And of course there's that proposed live action film that's been comfortably living in development hell. Tobey MacGuire was helmed as producer and even got so far as trying to get Leonardo DiCaprio in. Not sure what the status of either are at the moment. James Wan was penned as director at one point, but opted out to focus on Aquaman. Currently Andy Muschietti of IT reboot is on the director chair and Wonder Woman scribe Jason Fuchs on script. Imdb shows a 2019 scheduled release but despite being more possible than ever, I won't hold my breath.
So there you have it. One of the most baffling and confusing anime properties that is both loved and hated. I like to be in the former that loves both it's incarnations, as it was a major reason that made me take anime as a serious medium after all. Still highly recommended, anime fan or otherwise.
TL/DR: Unless you're a Macross Nazi Purist (fair enough I understand), Robotech is still worth your time.
mrdm53
Well-Known Member
Is there anyone here who watched Asobi Asobase? Best ED of the Year IMO
KnightBrolaire
SSO's unofficial pickup tester
just found out that there's a live action version of Jin Roh :Wolf Brigade. I think I'm going to watch the original again and see how they compare
M3CHK1LLA
angel sword guardian
@Bloody_Inferno
enjoyed the read. ive always intended to watch both. in what order would you suggest one watch the entire series?
my brother-in-law was a huge fan of robotech. he even gave several models many years ago
enjoyed the read. ive always intended to watch both. in what order would you suggest one watch the entire series?
my brother-in-law was a huge fan of robotech. he even gave several models many years ago
NotDonVito
molesta la breastas
Watched the 1999 Hunter X Hunter. I like the animation and impact fullness of the fight scenes, as well as the slightly more dramatic tone(in comparison to the other series).
I also caught the new SnK episode, but I'm so lost in the story at this point I couldn't pay attention.
I also caught the new SnK episode, but I'm so lost in the story at this point I couldn't pay attention.
Bloody_Inferno
Silence is Violence
You can get away with both, as they both start off with essentially, the same origin story but once that season ends, they veer of into their own. Consider it 2 parallel universes.
Robotech is much easier to consume. After going through the 3 arcs, you can pretty much be done with it. The New Generation arc does get a little overbearing with annoying bits but it's still watchable. Love Live Alive and Shadow Chronicles are optional viewing but unessential.
Macross is a little more extensive and requires a bit more investment, but the payoff is rewarding for those who persevere... well up to Frontier at least. To watch in canonical order:
Zero
SDF Macross (original)
Plus (Movie) *
Seven (and it's OVAs)
Frontier
Delta **
Two **
* Skip the Macross Plus OVA and watch the movie instead as it cuts out the superfluous fat. Plus is actually a gaiden (side story) so it's not essential, but I thought it was awesome enough to include.
** You can actually stop at Frontier if you want. Delta was a huge disappointment, and Two is fun, but retconned thus unessential to the canon.
I didn't count the Macross movies Do You Remember Love/Flash Back 2012 as they're just alternate retellings of the original SDF series. They're still fun to watch though, that is if you're planning to speed up the process and substitute the series with the movies instead. You can do the same with the Frontier movies also.
M3CHK1LLA
angel sword guardian
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