National Shepard Day

To start off the celebrations for the arrival of Mass Effect 3, I went over to GameStop to pay off my pre-order and stopped by a certain store in the mall and bought myself an N7 t-shirt. Check it.

Another Top 10

I was asked what were my favorite non-Gundam mobile suits so here they are.

--OZ-00MS TALLGEESE

--RGC-83 GM Cannon II (White Coral)

--MSA-007 Nero

--RGM-79N GM Custom

--ZMT-S28S Gengaozo

--DT-6800A Daughtress

--MS-07B-3 Gouf Custom

--SVMS-01O Over Flag

--ZGMF-600 GuAIZ

--MVF-M11C Murasame 

 
   

Heads Up!

Big changes are coming. Keep an eye out.  :)

The Galaxy Is Calling Me!!

Fire Bomber Rides Again

Well, here we are at last. Even though it’s probably been 7 or 8 months since I first watched this, I’ve finally gotten around to writing down my thoughts on it. Now I’m not really going to go into a summary of the plot; I’m assuming that if you’re reading this you already seen Macross 7: The Galaxy is Calling Me! or are at least curious. So, here it goes.

Galaxy, as I’ll be calling it, is a movie sequel to the original Macross 7 TV show. Calling it a movie is a bit broad though as it’s only about ten or so minutes longer than a standard TV episode. It’d be more proper to call it a short film and that maybe why it was played on a double bill with the Macross Plus movie in 1995.

The basic plot is that Fire Bomber, consisting of Space John Lennon, uh, I mean Basara Nekki, Mylene Jenius, Ray Lovelock and Veffidas Feaze, along with Dr. Chiba are practicing with Sound Energy. They get a strange reading from the equipment and Basara runs off to find out what it is, finds another daughter of Max and Milia, fights more Protodeviln space monsters and saves the day. No, I’m not kidding, that’s pretty much it. Like I said, it’s only a half-hour. In any case, the strength of this short isn’t in the battles or fight scenes but the music and the way the characters interact. That said… WHO’S FRAKKING BRILLIANT IDEA WAS IT TO INCLUDE THAT GUNDAMN HIGH-VOICED BRAT IN THIS SHOW??!! I DON’T WATCH THESE DAMN CARTOONS TO BE ANNOYED BY SCREECHY-VOICED KIDS!! IT WAS BAD ENOUGH WHEN I HAD TO SUFFER THROUGH THE BABY IN VICTORY GUNDAM!! Ouch, gotta drink some water now. But seriously, the reason I’ve only watched this twice is because of that damn Pedro kid. Japanese already has a tendency to be high-pitched for some of its speakers but having a freakin’ five-year old following Basara around is the absolute limit. Some might say that he was put in there to make little kids pester their parents into buying toys and Fire Bomber albums but really I think they just wanted to give some character, ANY character an excuse to use Emilia’s macronized breasts as giant bounce bags. Who’s Emilia you ask? Why, she’s one of Max and Milia’s  seven daughters that we barely hear about. For whatever reason she’s macronized herself back to proper Zentradi size (meaning she’s probably around the size of her mother, about 27.8 feet tall) and is on this ice planet called Veil, practicing her singing. Because she’s full size, her voice carries on the winds and sounds like the wailing of demon, leading the planet’s colonists to think that the mountain she lives on his cursed. Basara isn’t intimidated in the least, and takes off in his Fire Valkyrie to find out what’s up. With the damn kid. (insert gnashing of teeth). He meets up with Emilia in her customized Queadluun-Quilqua Battle Suit and ends up having a sing off with her. 

Flash in the Dark!!!

Here we get to here one of the two new songs made up for Galaxy, “Flash in the Dark,” and I have to say, I actually prefer Emilia’s singing voice (Mica Okudoi) to her little sister’s. I dunno, I just never have thought that Chie Kajiura’s voice matched up that well with Yoshiki Fukuyama’s. Anyway, I really like the way Basara and Emilia interact, especially when Emilia takes Basara and Pedro back to her cave-house. We get to see a few interesting things, like Emilia’s home photos and her explanation of why she wants to sing. 

 Family Photos! In the top one, Emilia is either with her older sister

Miracle or her dad Max. In the bottom she's with one of the twins, either 

Muse or Therese.

Top: Emilia in some sort of training simulator.

Bottom: A photo taken soon after Mylene's birth. From left to right and down,

Komilia Maria, Milia and Max, Miracle, Muse and Therese, Miranda, baby Mylene and Emilia.

Moaramia isn't present because this movie was made before the Sega 

Dreamcast game Macross M3.

 

She was inspired by Lynn Minmay, but because she’s macronized, she can’t sing in town, so she lives up in the mountain. She can’t believe that someone small like Basara can outsing her, but Basara tells her that there’s no winning or losing in singing and just try to be the best she can be. And just like that she gets all doey-eyed and leans into to kiss him, which promptly is ruined by Pedro, damn him. For all of Basara’s flaws, you have to give him credit, any woman (except Milia) who spends more than two minutes talking to him, seems to fall in love with him!

 Her lips are almost the size of Basara's head!

I don't think she likes you kid. I certainly don't.

The stars and hearts are interrupted when Gavil or Glavil or whatever his name is shows up, also in search of the mysterious song energy. Now I gotta take a moment to go over something that I didn’t put much detail into in my Mac7 review and that is the Protodeviln. They are one of the reasons I just don’t like Mac7 as much as the other series. The PD just aren’t scary or intimidating. If they were more like the Reapers from the Mass Effect series or the Zerg from StarCraft, then yes I would be impressed. But they’re not. I’ve said before that original Macross was like Top Gun, Battlestar: Galactica and Transformers mixed with a dash of Star Wars but Mac7 and its sequels are more like Star Wars meets Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. Gepelnitch is too pretty in his human form to take seriously, Gigile isn’t much of a threat as he becomes something of a hero, Sivil is too sexy to be scary with her alien dominatrix thing, Gavil or whatever is A JOKE etc. etc. In fact I would give Gavil the Lynn Kaifun Award of Worst Character of the Series, what with his beauty of this and beauty of that. Hey man, how about the beauty of losing? Or the beauty of falling for the same trick of Gamlin’s every damn time except once? Ugh, I really mean this when I say that the Protodeviln are the kinds of villains I would expect out of a Power Rangers series. They only time they’re ever truly threatening is when they reveal the Spiritia Farm and when Gepelnitch’s true form threatens to suck all life out of the galaxy.

In the case of Galaxy is Calling Me! we have to deal with damn Gavil and his pet space monster again as well as a Protodeviln we've never seen before. This is a pretty big plot hole. What happened to this guy after the events of Galaxy? Of course the real life answer is he couldn’t show up again because he was created after the series was finished but in-universe it’s a pretty big stumble. This is also why you don’t create characters after the fact. Anyway, these guys all do a big Gattai with each other but get beat back by the power of HEART AND SSSOOOOOOOUUUUULLLLL!!!! 

 This is why I play Guitar Hero.

At least this whole sound energy thing seems to only work on the Protodeviln and isn’t brought up in the other Macross series that follow. Having said that, Heart and Soul is a great song, especially as sung by Emilia. For a moment there, you think she buys it in the final confrontation, but she does survive. Too bad she doesn’t go with them to the Fleet but I guess she couldn’t with her Quedluun destroyed.

We’re about at the end here, so some last comments. Basara is much more tolerable in this than in some episodes of the TV series. I honestly think he’s at his best when he’s out adventuring and not cooped up on the Fleet or just going out to sing at the Protodeviln. The colonists and the rest of Fire Bomber and Gamlin don’t get much screentime, but that’s okay. The spotlight on Emilia and her interactions with Basara are more than enough. I also like his reaction when he finds out that Emilia is Mylene's Onee-san.

Because this was meant to be movie quality if not movie length, the animation in Galaxy is MUCH much better than the TV series. The characters look crisp, the Valks and Queadluun are beautiful, Emilia is gorgeous and even Gavil and goons look great. Along with EmiliaxBasara, this is one of the high points of Galaxy.

All in all, while it may be short, Galaxy is a nicely done return to the world of Mac7 and is definitely worth a watch, if just for Emilia alone. Now if we only knew what happened to the rest of her sisters…

See you next deculture.

Valkyrie Colors

I've been messing around with Photoshop and I've come up with these color schemes for some of the famous Macross Valkyries. These are only first attempts so not all of them are that good, but I am particularly proud of the green and white VF-1J.

 

VF-1J Valkyrie

 

VF-1S Strike Valkyrie (Battroid Mode)

VF-19A Excalibur

 VF-1J Battroid

Gundam AGE Episode 15

Gundam AGE Episode 15:

Those Tears Fall in Space

It's been a somewhat long journey from October 9, 2011 to this, the last episode of Flit's arc. It is here that we finally learn who the mysterious Unknown Enemy are... they're martians. No not the ones from War of the Worlds or Mars Attacks or any of that other stuff, but humans who had emigrated to a group of colonies which had been built in the Mars Sphere, which is a fairly new term for Gundam as we usually just deal with the Earth Sphere. 

For those who might be kind WTF on what a Mars or Earth Sphere is, it is basically everything orbiting Earth and its five Lagrange Points, or in Mars' case, the martian Lagrange points. As for what a Lagrange point is, go look it up on Wikipedia, I aint your papa!  :)

These martian colonists, who call themselves the Vegans, were abandoned out at Mars by the Federation (why are we not surprised?), or so explains Yark Dole, when the Diva  crew confronts him inside Ambat's control center. 

It seems that some kinda cosmic rays produced by Mars' electromagnetic field or something caused a disease amongst the martian colonist's population. The Federation then abandoned them and they were forced to survive on their own. Now they have returned to the Earthsphere to claim Earth for themselves. How spending 14 years blowing up colonies and such is supposed to help them achieve such a goal is a little confusing at this point but it's nice to know who the UE finally are, even though I think it's a tad early for that revelation. Maybe if this was a more linear show, but AGE's nature seems to be playing this off well enough for now.

Other things in this episode: Flit's palpable rage is nice, giving the character a bit of an edge that he's been lacking. Would he have really shot Yark if Grodek hadn't done it first? Well , earlier he did try to beam saber the guy 

so I'm thinking he might actually have done it. But Grodek technically had the prior claim so he saves Flit the burden. 

I also like how immediately afterward, Yark's son comes in and sees his murdered father and Grodek just gets up in his face and is like, "Yeah, I'm the motherfrakker who shot your dad for revenge. Welcome to my world." 

I'm sure Grodek knew that with this kid seeing what he's done, that he'll have to accept the consequences of his actions as the UE have been made to feel theirs.

Flit's fight against Yark's Defurze mobile suit aka T-Rex Arms was a little disappointing but also goes to show how pumped up Flit is on anger.

Largan Drace actually not dying was pleasantly surprising. I'm glad AGE is avoiding at least a few tropes. Wuulf also isn't dead but there's yet another arc, so we'll see.

Also, the mention of this Sir Ezelcant, who's supposed to be the leader of the Vegans, has me a bit intrigued, as I want to know what this master plan of his is that's still kind of vague.

Emily and Flit also miss an opportunity to talk but I'm pretty sure she heard him mention Yurin. I have to wonder how this is going to affect their marriage in the future?

And now, the finale. In the aftermath of the Ambat operation, Grodek finally lets himself be arrested. During his court martial, he states emphatically that he threatened the Diva crew into going along with his plan and basically puts all the blame on himself. He's sentenced as a traitor and locked up and the Feddies take all the credit for Operation: Ambat Capture and it becomes know as the War of Bat Extermination. Um, what? WTF? The frak kinda name is that? Lastly Millais comments that this attitude of the Feddies' is what has caused this situation in the first place. 

We close the episode with a shot of some Vegan superstructure in Mars orbit and a new Vegan ship heading to the earthsphere with two new Vegan characters that comment about Ezelcant's plan.

All in all, this was definitely one of the best episodes of AGE so far, following on from the last episode and keeping the pace going. And having just watched episode 16, I can now say that I'm extremely confident in AGE's future. So to all the haters and trolls: STFU (shut the frak up) and peace out!  :)