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!  :)

Gundam AGE Episode 14

A Flash of Sorrow

We're almost to the end of the first arc now, and in typical Gundam fashion, we finish out with a dose of tragedy. 

But before we get to that, some explanation is once again needed. I’m partly behind once again, considering that episode 15 just broadcast a few days ago. However, they were really slow in getting the English subs up, so I actually have only seen the episode raw. So, I’ll get caught up with 14 and do 15 later and then it’ll be time for my Gundam AGE half-time report… even though this is supposed to be the first third of this series…

In any case, on with the show! As I said, episode 14 delivers a tragedy that we saw coming from at least the previous couple of episodes. Some said Yurin was doomed the second she appeared on screen, and I guess they were right. The set-up is that the battle against the UE continues, and Flit has a Newtype moment (no X-Rounders here!) and goes off from the main battle. Here he runs into none other than Desil Galette, everyone’s favorite pocket-sized psychopath. Now, I gotta take a moment here and talk about Desil. When he first appeared all the way back in episode 5, I really hated this kid, mostly because he was this annoying little kid. But now I hate him for a whole different reason: he’s completely certifiable! This kid is the kind of kid that fries ants with a magnifying glass and enjoys it. No, that’s not quite right. This is the kind of kid that has deep and complex mental problems that result in him flaying the family cat alive. Desil is in the battle with Flit purely to have fun, blow things up and prove he’s better than Flit. And his secret weapon turns out to be none other than Yurin in her own customized pink mecha. ‘Cause, girls would totally pilot pink mobile suits… ‘cause they’re pink… and pink is for girls. Riiiiiigggghhhhhtttt.

Anyway, the Farsia is kind of neat because it’s the first AG mobiles suit we’ve seen with bits/funnels. And they do remind me somewhat of George DeSand’s rose bits from Mobile Fighter G Gundam. The kicker here is that either Yurin has no control over the Farsia or she does but is getting constantly overridden by Desil. The only reason she’s here is because apparently when two AG Newtypes are close to each other, their powers resonate. So basically she’s just a 1-Up mushroom for Desil. The fight itself is actually pretty well done, with Flit getting kicked around some but just when Desil is about to get the drop on him, Yurin breaks control and puts the Farsia between the two and gets her suit stabbed through the torso.

We then get to have a Flit/Yurin Newtype moment, but thankfully they do something fairly unique instead of weird naked Newtype space. Considering its Flit and Yurin, that’d be pretty pedo. What we get is Flit and Yurin in a forest, which gradually fades away as Yurin dies. Not too shabby, I would say. We shift back to reality where Yurin has a last line and then her helmet visor cracks and the Farsia ‘splodes. This of course, was Desil’s Big Mistake, and bragging about it doesn’t help as Flit goes into Gundam RAGE mode and absolutely decimates him. Remember future villains; don’t EVER kill the protagonist’s Newtype girlfriend.

Here, Desil’s childishness is reemphasized as he starts to lose, he begins to have a serious freak out, especially when the Age-1 does its glowing-eyes-rape-face-look. But instead of killing Desil, Flit tosses him off into space. I really don’t know why he did that besides the obvious answer to have Desil come back in the next arc.

All in all, even though the Newtype girlfriend death is one of the oldest tropes in Gundam, AGE manages to make it still tug at your heartstrings, especially when you consider that Flit has been ignoring Emily for quite a few episodes now. Really makes you wonder how their relationship in the next arc is going to be, but I’ll talk more about that in my “half-time show.” Also, even though this was the main focus of the episode, you still get some more moments with other characters here. Wuulf and Largan still cheat death even though I was kind of expecting at least Largan to die at this point. The Titus armor for the Gundam Age-1 makes a return appearance and gets trashed just like the Sparrow armor but at least it gets to awesomely ‘splode UE mechas and pulls a Superman.

The Diva has landed and the crew, led by the fearless DAT BEARD/Cool Hand Grodek, prepares to charge into battle, which may or may not be a good idea. And at the last, Yark Dole or whatever-the-crap-his-name-is, boards a monstrous looking mobile suit called the Defurze or something, which was apparently made for combat on Earth. Guess it’s time for the last hurrah.

Gundam AGE Episode 13

Beginning of The End... of The First Arc

 

We're finally nearing the end... of the first arc! There's been some highs and some lows and this last arc seems to gearing up for a Gundam-style high octane finisher. As the picture above indicates, Desil suits up at the end of the episode to get in his Zedas and wreck some crap. And of course, right behind him, being restrained by the EDEN Sith Lords, is poor Yurin. Now if they don't actually end up killing her in the next episode or the one after that, I will be enormously and pleasantly surprised. But having said that, I'm 98% certain that she will die, that she and Flit will have a Lockon and Anew moment right before Desil blows her up like the little brat he is. I almost think that this HAS to happen because I'm not sure if they could have Yurin survive and have Emily end up as Flit's wife and the mother of his son.

Anyway, as far as episode 13 is concerned, the battle of this arc begins as the Diva and their Zalam/Euba allies engage the UE's mysterious space fortress Ambat. The mysterious UE Dreadnought shows up from some optical camoflouge and strangely enough, as big as it is, it doesn't absolutely wreck the Diva and the other ships. Doesn't really matter as the Diva's secret upgrade is revealed: The Diva is a new model of Macross!! No, not really but it does turn into...

Yep, that's right. It turns into White Base. Really Sunrise? Are you so worried about how AGE is going that you need all these wink wink nudge nudge visual UC references? Now some of you might say I'm being too anal about this but that's why it's my opinion and everyone's is different. I mean, it's not even a CREATIVE redesign of the White Base, not like the Archangel from Gundam SEED. So no, I don't really care for the Diva's Assault Landing Mode, I actually do prefer the way it used to be and I'm now kinda worried that we're going to get some kind of Argama ripoff in the second arc and a Nahel Argama or Ra Cailum ripoff in the third arc.

Moving on, the battle was really good with the Zalam and Euba suits finally getting equipped with proper weapons and actually getting some. Largan and Wuulf also get some but they've also thrown up some death flags so we'll see what happens. Flit does some more conscious Newtype syuff (I refuse to use the term X-Rounder) and awesomely 'splodes a whole cluster of UE MS. We see Yark Dole in a patently ridiculous outfit and some other kid we've never seen before talk strategy and Yark even says that the Diva looks like a "Trojan Horse." (rolls eyes)

The Diva then unleashes its supermegaultrastupendousawesomecool BFG cannon and decimates the UE ship Fa Bose. But at the last minute a section detaches and heads straight for the Diva! At the last moment its blown to crap by the Hyper Mega Cannon of Mukured madorna and his custom red Shalldol.

Hmm, a white-haired guy in a red MS? This possible reference I'm actually cool with and the fact that this guy has such wonderful toys. The good guys regroup to attack but waiting in the wings are Decil and--

Oh poor Yurin!! But it is possible she might survive, because I saw a picture of a new UE type that is colored in pink and purple. We'll see although i think we're more likely to see the tears of time.

All in all this was an awesome episode marred only by bad UC references. Its been said that the second arc will begin with episode 16 so we've only got two more episodes to go for this arc, although if I was in charge, I'd use 14 and 15 for the last battle, 16 as the wrap up and use 17 as the first of the second arc episodes. In any case, here's hoping that this'll be one heckuva finale!  :)