Ian Keldon
Fleet Captain
^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.
Robotech
- Thread starter Agent Richard07
- Start date
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.
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.
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/Robotech:_Love,_Live,_Alive
Supposed to help setup the sequel to Shadow Chronicles 2.
http://robotech.wikia.com/wiki/Robotech:_Love,_Live,_Alive
Supposed to help setup the sequel to Shadow Chronicles 2.
? 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.
Sentinels and the Mckinney novels is probably the best you are going to get.
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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.
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).
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!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxHNztg0X3s (watch at your peril!)
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.
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
Fleet Captain
True.
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
Fleet Captain
Cool...I'd never heard any plot details.
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.
It wasn't the best deal possible--it gave too much control of future Robotech productions to Warner Bros. I think we'd probably would have had two sequels to The Shadow Chronicles by now otherwise.
We're at 6 years out from Shadow Chronicles now and we still haven't seen anything. The franchise is a joke at this point. HG needs to sell off the rights to someone who knows what to do with it. And what to do with it is not make cheap shit like Shadow Chronicles. The digital animation would be considered sub-par for something from the early 90s - it's unforgivable for something made in the mid-00s.
No interest in Love, Live, Alive either. I wish I could get excited but Shadow Chronicles was just such a let down for me.
I'll stick with what I already have - the original series, The Sentinels, and the McKinney novels - no need to pay for or support any more trash.
No interest in Love, Live, Alive either. I wish I could get excited but Shadow Chronicles was just such a let down for me.
I'll stick with what I already have - the original series, The Sentinels, and the McKinney novels - no need to pay for or support any more trash.
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Ian Keldon
Fleet Captain
It isn't that so much (though it is a factor) as it is the bridges HG burned with Tatsunoko (sp?) which cost them the rights to the mecha designs, etc as well as generating so much bad-will that virtually no one wants to work with them.
That's not entirely true, because they are still able to use the mecha designs from Genesis Climber Mospeada in The Shadow Chronicles, and they're from Tatsunoko.
It's mecha and character designs from Macross--owned by Big West--that Harmony Gold can't use. But that really wasn't a big deal for HG since The Shadow Chronicles was set more than thirty years later, pretty much all of the mecha was no longer being used, and the few remaining characters were expected to have aged since then.
As far as no one wanting to work with them because of so much bad will, I really haven't seen any evidence of that. Seems like all of HG's problems getting new Robotech material out there is a result of tying it with Warner Bros' live-action movie project.
Ian Keldon
Fleet Captain
^That's what they'll tell you, but in no small part the problems with WB are directly tied to the rights dispute over the Macross mecha designs as well as arguing over whether HG even has the rights to DO a LA verision.
It's a great big legal mess, and HG has no one but themselves to blame for all their shady deal-making and legal maneuvering that has given them the worst business rep in the entire Anime/Japanimation field.
It's a great big legal mess, and HG has no one but themselves to blame for all their shady deal-making and legal maneuvering that has given them the worst business rep in the entire Anime/Japanimation field.
^^^
There's probably more opinion in that than fact, but the real issue--since a U.S. court ruling in 2003--is that Harmony Gold's claims to Macross doesn't extend beyond that of the original SDF Macross series (in the U.S. only). Big West can release or sell the rights to other Macross shows in the U.S. whenever they want. So that aspect is up to Big West, not Harmony Gold.
Where it gets truly ugly is in regards to the licensing and merchandising rights to the original SDF Macross series in the U.S., which Harmony Gold acquired from Tatsunoko (which acquired them from Big West).
As far as any rights dispute with Warner Bros., that's easily resolved by not using the exact same mecha and character designs from the original SDF Macross series, which they likely wouldn't for a live-action movie anyway.
There's probably more opinion in that than fact, but the real issue--since a U.S. court ruling in 2003--is that Harmony Gold's claims to Macross doesn't extend beyond that of the original SDF Macross series (in the U.S. only). Big West can release or sell the rights to other Macross shows in the U.S. whenever they want. So that aspect is up to Big West, not Harmony Gold.
Where it gets truly ugly is in regards to the licensing and merchandising rights to the original SDF Macross series in the U.S., which Harmony Gold acquired from Tatsunoko (which acquired them from Big West).
As far as any rights dispute with Warner Bros., that's easily resolved by not using the exact same mecha and character designs from the original SDF Macross series, which they likely wouldn't for a live-action movie anyway.
...Which pretty much scraps any reason to watch it in the first palce, IMO. I would pay to see a VF-1 series Valkyrie in live action. A Legioss or Mospeada, a little less so. NOT a hovertank or anything else, really.
Back int he day I met with the HG marketing folks a few times when they were doing their pre-Shadow Chronicles anime con tours. Kevin was a super nice guy and I saw he had a lot of passion for the brand. ALso he let me win a Masterpiece Shadow Fighter, which is an uber nice toy.
I think it would take a wholesale change to do anything further with the franchise, though.
Mark
Back int he day I met with the HG marketing folks a few times when they were doing their pre-Shadow Chronicles anime con tours. Kevin was a super nice guy and I saw he had a lot of passion for the brand. ALso he let me win a Masterpiece Shadow Fighter, which is an uber nice toy.
I think it would take a wholesale change to do anything further with the franchise, though.Mark
This exactly. First time I encountered these themes. I must have been 10 or so when this originally aired, and it affected me more than most shows I've seen in my life.
This has been getting quite some notice lately on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fp8hhXaMfQ&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fp8hhXaMfQ&feature=player_embedded
Bit of trivia about the novels-- "Jack McKinney" was a pseudonym for the writing team of the late, great Brian Daley and James Lucerno.
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