Robotech

[Retu]

You really haven't watched Macross, until you've seen it dubbed in Swedish and with Finnish subtitles on a poor quality VHS tape. That's how I saw Macross - Do you remember love for the first time. Somehow all the foreign children's animated shows were translated like that during that time. I still have a Transformers "movie" (actually the first three episodes of the first G1 season) and a pilot of some obscure anime series called "Balatack" on VHS and both are dubbed in Swedish.

[Bishop76]

My first copy of Ai Oboeteimasuka that I tracked down was an Australian dub of the film. It was TERRIBLE. But, it was the only thing I could find back in the early 90s so I made do.

[DWF]

Robotech is my favorite anime series, it's a wild ride though all three stories, amazing character development, epic events and some fantastic music. It's also the only anime series that ends in my home town of Columbus, Ohio or what left of it by that time.

[Robotech Master]

Yeah, I'm a fan of it (obviously).

Seen all the animation, read all the novels, read most of the comics, have all the art books and rpg books...

[davejames]

Ian Keldon wrote:

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And I wouldn't suggest even MENTIONING Robotech among hard-core anime fans...it's not well regarded to the point people get extremely and vocally upset when it comes up. I've personally been a victim of this both on-line and face-to-face.

Huh. That must explain why I've never been able to get into any OTHER anime since, and find most of it completely and utterly baffling. Lol

I guess Robotech was just kind of it's own thing.

[Ian Keldon]

^Anime fans (esp the hard-core) are real "stick up the arse" purists. They don't even like English voice dubs. I suspect most of them only put up with English subtitles because they don't want to bother learning Japanese.

[Kaijima]

American anime fans, unfortunately, tend to see themselves as (and call themselves) "Otaku" without realizing that in Japan, that word has negative associations. Not exactly a pride label.

The hatred for Robotech is based largely in ignorance and inability to grasp that the anime market in the US didn't exist in the 80s, and that the only way to get serialized cartoons in syndication was to sell a package with at least 65 contiguous episodes already available. No action-oriented anime aimed at teens and young adults really fit the bill, so Robotech was created out of 3 series.

Carl Macek, who has posthumously suffered an insanely exaggerated reputation in American anime fandom, was in fact one of the early underground western anime fans. He was going to anime clubs and watching un-subtitled VHS tapes with the rest of them. He had to write an original story to make Robotech work, but still consulted translation notes from the original series involved and respected the original characters and their personalities. Besides, much of Robotech's plot isn't really changed from the original material that much. Mostly the same, just with world-building details woven in to connect the 3 shows together. It helps that all 3 shows originated from similar creators with similar aesthetic styles - so the mecha in the 3rd act of Robotech, for instance, look like futuristic evolutions of the earlier mecha in act 1. Fate was actually at Robotech's back.

Even though Robotech was a pioneering project, I personally don't think it's aged quite that well - by and large the voice acting direction is pretty grating, even though many of Robotech's cast would go on to gain experience and become noted western voice actors of good ability.

[milo bloom]

I'm grossly behind on watching the complete series from start to finish (have watched large chunks), but I wanted to throw this out there.

http://robotech.wikia.com/wiki/Robot...e,_Live,_Alive

Supposed to help setup the sequel to Shadow Chronicles 2.

[Bishop76]

? Love, Live, Alive is just a music video more or less. A half hour music video using footage from MOSPEADA. Not sure how that would work. And as much as I do still love old Robotech, Shadow Chronicles was pretty awful. I'd rather see them do nothing than half-hearted attempts to revive the series.

[Hound of UIster]

Sentinels and the Mckinney novels is probably the best you are going to get.

[C.E. Evans]

Bishop76 wrote:

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? Love, Live, Alive is just a music video more or less.

Actually, the upcoming new version is quite a bit more. While the main story of LLA centers around a concert celebrating the end of the Third Robotech War, it also features new animation to show some never-before-seen stuff set between and after the three individual wars.

And as much as I do still love old Robotech, Shadow Chronicles was pretty awful. I'd rather see them do nothing than half-hearted attempts to revive the series.

I loved Shadow Chronicles and thought it continued the Robotech story nicely in a new direction with both new and old characters. I just wish the sequel, Shadow Rising, hadn't been tied to the Warner Bros. attempt to make a live-action Robotech movie (currently stuck in development hell).

[Epsilon IX]

The only thing I know about this series is that the voice of Scott Bernard in the English dub was provided by Gregory Snegoff. What's interesting about this guy is that he seems to have a knack of ending up providing his voice in all three of these really awful animated movies from Italy about the RMS Titanic disaster. One such character is this rapping dog. Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxHNztg0X3s (watch at your peril!)

[Angel4576]

I remember in the UK, the first three episodes of Robotech were released on VHS on a single sampler tape. I thought that was it, that it must have been cancelled before they could make more. It was years until it made its way onto the telly over here and I stumbled onto the rest of the series.

I know some people get their knickers/panties in a twist over the whole Macross vs Robotech thing, but tbh, I couldn't care less. I love Robotech as it was what introduced me to anime, and then I love Macross, because it wasn't as sanitized. I never really cared for the Southern Cross section of Robotech, nor the Mospeada section.

Re the purists and dubbing - I can empathize to a certain degree, many dubs in the early days were just plain awful. I wouldn't say that's true of Robotech though.

Re the extended Macross universe - I think I'd agree with the consensus - DYRL is a brilliant alternative telling of the latter portion of the Macross story. The only other essential view is Macross Plus. I can take or leave Zero and Frontier, but Macross II and Macross 7 weren't really my cup of tea. Shadow Chronicles - meh, it was alright.

[Ian Keldon]

Kaijima wrote:

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American anime fans, unfortunately, tend to see themselves as (and call themselves) "Otaku" without realizing that in Japan, that word has negative associations. Not exactly a pride label.

True.

The hatred for Robotech is based largely in ignorance and inability to grasp that the anime market in the US didn't exist in the 80s, and that the only way to get serialized cartoons in syndication was to sell a package with at least 65 contiguous episodes already available. No action-oriented anime aimed at teens and young adults really fit the bill, so Robotech was created out of 3 series.

The fact that Harmony Gold was and is a corporate douchebag and the things they did to "keep out the competition" certainly didn't help either.

[Ian Keldon]

C.E. Evans wrote:

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Actually, the upcoming new version is quite a bit more. While the main story of LLA centers around a concert celebrating the end of the Third Robotech War, it also features new animation to show some never-before-seen stuff set between and after the three individual wars.

Cool...I'd never heard any plot details.

I loved Shadow Chronicles and thought it continued the Robotech story nicely in a new direction with both new and old characters. I just wish the sequel, Shadow Rising, hadn't been tied to the Warner Bros. attempt to make a live-action Robotech movie (currently stuck in development hell).

Seems like EVERYthing related to RT is stuck there...Harmony Gold's business people should be tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail.