Robotech
susan
Has anyone ever heard of Robotech?
It just recently started playing here in the afternoons, and....
I'm hooked.
Some questions I have:
1. Is it new
2. Does it come in comic-book form (if so, where can I
get it?)
3. Does anyone watch it beside me...has anyone HEARD of it
besides me?
I would love to hear from anyone having ANY info on this
animated sf series.
A lonely Micronian & Centratti fan....(sp may be wrong)
*susan*
Bob Halloran
> Has anyone ever heard of Robotech?
>It just recently started playing here in the afternoons, and....
>I'm hooked.
>
>Some questions I have:
>
> 1. Is it new
> 2. Does it come in comic-book form (if so, where can I
> get it?)
> 3. Does anyone watch it beside me...has anyone HEARD of it
> besides me?
1)) It's new in THIS country; it is a translation of (I gather) a three-
part Japanese series; Macross (What I'm seeing here in NYC metro
on Sat mornings 7:30AM; having to get up w/ toddlers on weekends
has its advantages :-) ), Southern Cross, and Orguss. It has been
reviewed somewhat in net.comics; general opinion is that it is
probably the best of the 'giant robot' cartoon series brought over
from Japan.
2)) Yes, it IS available in comic form; the closing credits for the
episodes I see say as much. However, since the publisher (Comico)
is one of the independents, you probably have to find a comics
specialty shop in order to get them. I have seen three titles
on the shelves; 'Robotech - The Macross Saga', 'Robotech Masters'
and 'Robotech - The New Age (?)'. Try an inquiry in net.comics
about mail-order or where you might find it locally.
3)) As I said, getting up with little ones on weekends has its pluses. :-)
Bob Halloran
Sr MTS, Perkin-Elmer DSG
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Disclaimer: My opinions are my own.
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JoLinda Ross
I don't know how old the series is, but I saw it in Hawaii in May
and June of this year. It seeme to me that I came in on the middle
of the story. Even so I became hooked very quickly, and was upset
because I could not see them all (Robotech is not show in Indpls.).
That is all I know about it; I hope it helps.
Joland
Old English for "land of the sunrise"
Sean Yoda Rouse
not too many people out there know that Captain Harlock is in release.
Captain Harlock is being shown in the bay area on channel 36 at 4:30pm
on weekdays under the title "Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand
Years". Yes, it is being distributed by Harmony Gold, and yes it is a
combination of Captain Harlock and Queen Millenia(sp?).
If you have never seen Captain Harlock or seens from it, and you have
watched Macross, Sothern Cross, and Mospeoda (i.e. Robotech), be warned
Captain Harlock is done in a different animation style from Robotech.
Some friends of mine who liked Robotech thought that Harlock would be
just like it, since the advertisements up here said "From the same people
who brought you Robotech." They thought that meant the same animators, but
when they saw different, they didn't like it. Unfortunately, I haven't had
the chance to see too many Harlocks, so I don't know how well Harmony Gold
combined the two series. Hopefully they've done a good job.
Sean "Yoda" Rouse
Mike Ciaraldi
Aha! Robotech strikes again!
This has shown up in net.comics before, but the basic answers to your questions are
the following:
1) Robotech is actually three Japanese animated series from the same
company, reshuffled somwhat and dubbed into English by an American
company, Harmony Gold. The three Japanese sereis were called
MACROSS, SOUTHERN CROSS, and MOSPEADA. Two were in the same
"universe" and the other wasn't, but has been rescripted to make
it compatible.
They are considered quite good examples of Japanimation.
Each of the series has roughly 30 epsiodes, for a total of
about 90. As rescripted into English, the 3 series relate like this:
Macross is the first. It concerns an alien spaceship which crashed
on Earth a long time ago. Earthlings finally figure out how to
run it, and are just getting it ready for its first flight
when the Zentraedi arrive. The ship (called SDF-1 for "Space
Defense Fortress", I think) comes to life and attacks
the aliens, and the Earthlings are plunged into battle.
20 years later, aliens attack again, and again Earthlings in
battle armor and convertible vehicles defend the Earth.
I don't know whwere the term "Southern Cross" fits in,
but I remember a reference to "The Army of the Southern Cross".
Another 20 years later (I think), there is another invasion,
and the Earth is overwhelmed. As Mospeada opens, our hero crashlands
in Central America and has to make his way to the former USA
and Earth HQ. As I understand it, there is less space battle
in this one.
2) Comico--The Comic Company is publishing the entire Robotech series
in comic book form (there is a line in the closing credits to
that effect). They are publishing it as three interlocking series.
ROBOTECH--The MACROSS SAGA covers the first set of episodes,
ROBOTECH MASTERS is the middle set, and ROBOTECH--THE NEW GENERATION
is the final set.
Because the whole series is so long, and being shown at different
rates in different parts of the country, the comics publishing
sachedule is a little funny. Each of the 3 series publishes a
new issue every 6 weeks (nominally, anyway), staggered so a
new episode hits the stores every 2 weeks.
Each series does its 30 or so consecuitve epsiodes in the same number
(i.e. 30 or so) of issues.
So, Macross Saga has about 6 issues out so far (the very first issue
was called simply MACROSS, without "Robotech"), adapting the first
6 episoded. Masters has about 3 issues, adapting the first 3 episodes
of Southern Cross, or what appears to the unsuspecting TV viewer
as episodes 31-33 of Robotech, and New Generation similarly has
aboyut 3 issues out.
So, where do you get them? Comico I think sells only throughj
comics stores and certain magazine stores, not regular newsstands
or 7-11's. All three series are also avaialble from Comico
by subscription, or from comics stores that sell mail order.
If your local comics shop doesnt have back issues, try a biggie
like Bud Plant in CA.
3) Does anyone else watch them? I habve been reading all the issues,
but finally last week saw my very first episode, discussed in
the next news item.
I hope this was helpful, and I hope I didn't get too many facts
wrong, since I did this all from memory.
Mike Ciaraldi
seismo!rochester!ciaraldi
j...@wdl1.uucp
Macross
Southern Cross
and
Mospeada
rather than
Macross
Southern Cross
and
Orguss.
It seems to me that Orguss takes place too far in the future (significantly
farther than Mospeada). The shows are rather more loosely connected in the
original.
John R Blaker
UUCP: ...!fortune!wdl1!jrb
ARPA: jrb@FORD-WDL1
and blaker@FORD-WDL2
John Pipkins x257
>
> Has anyone ever heard of Robotech?
> It just recently started playing here in the afternoons, and....
> I'm hooked.
>
> Some questions I have:
>
> 1. Is it new
No! I've seen the entire series from the centrani (sp) to the invids(sp)
and it ended in July or some past time.
> 2. Does it come in comic-book form (if so, where can I
> get it?)
I don't know. But Heavy Metal magazine (I got them all except issue #2,
May 1977, because it wasn't available on the west coast) offers a
video tape (perhaps more) for 39.95. (Heavy Metal, Dept. 985, 635 Madi-
son Ave., New York, NY, 10032).
> 3. Does anyone watch it beside me...has anyone HEARD of it
> besides me?
I have and consider it the best animated series on Los Angeles TV in
many years. All the elements I want in that type of series is present.
>
> I would love to hear from anyone having ANY info on this
> animated sf series.
Me too. Reply via E-mail or here.
>
> A lonely Micronian & Centratti fan....(sp may be wrong)
>
> *susan*
John Pipkins
...!trwrb!scgvaxd!felix!birtch!john
ciar...@rochester.uucp
(reposted)
> Salutations!
>
> Has anyone ever heard of Robotech?
> It just recently started playing here in the afternoons, and....
> I'm hooked.
>
> Some questions I have:
>
> 1. Is it new
> 2. Does it come in comic-book form (if so, where can I
> get it?)
> 3. Does anyone watch it beside me...has anyone HEARD of it
> besides me?
>
> I would love to hear from anyone having ANY info on this
> animated sf series.
>
> A lonely Micronian & Centratti fan....(sp may be wrong)
>
> *susan*
Thomas Richard Holtz
>As I've spent my past two hours catching up on old news it seems that
>not too many people out there know that Captain Harlock is in release.
You're darn right not many of us know it's out. Have (any of) you heard
when (or if) it will be coming to the East Coast, preferably the Baltimore
D.C. area. I've always liked Harlock, and my girlfriend is a fanatic
about the pirate AND Queen Millenia.
>Captain Harlock is being shown in the bay area on channel 36 at 4:30pm
>on weekdays under the title "Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand
>Years". Yes, it is being distributed by Harmony Gold, and yes it is a
>combination of Captain Harlock and Queen Millenia(sp?).
>
>If you have never seen Captain Harlock or seens from it, and you have
>watched Macross, Sothern Cross, and Mospeoda (i.e. Robotech), be warned
>Captain Harlock is done in a different animation style from Robotech.
>Some friends of mine who liked Robotech thought that Harlock would be
>just like it, since the advertisements up here said "From the same people
>who brought you Robotech." They thought that meant the same animators, but
>when they saw different, they didn't like it. Unfortunately, I haven't had
>the chance to see too many Harlocks, so I don't know how well Harmony Gold
>combined the two series. Hopefully they've done a good job.
>
> Sean "Yoda" Rouse
P.S. To all you Japanamation Fen out there: please post a message
about ANY new things (in English or otherwise) to come to America,
so that the rest of us can go out and find it.
(I've got to see this Harlock stuff. If you've ever seen the older
English translations of it, you'll know why some of us call it
"Captain Hardup: Space Pervert".)
Sean Yoda Rouse
Date: 5 Nov 85 22:28:56 GMT
Date-Received: 6 Nov 85 03:49:22 GMT
Mary Ann, thanks for the comments. Sorry I misspelled your named
on my Robotech-thing (under the subject of the Jean Grey Shuffle.
Sheesh! Sorry, guys, I will definitely learn how to use this thing
soon!)
The main comment I wanted to make was that I think Carl Macek
isn't doing anything horrendous to the shows. I know he's cut scenes,
rearranged them, changed names. But I think he's justified. He may
not be right, but he's justified.
The main viewing public isn't aware of Japanese animation. Face it,
the percentage of people who have actually SEEN Macross versus ROBOTECH
is very low. And what Macek has done really hasn't cheated the
public, because they've never seen the original. The choice he's making
is whether to make it more palatable to thirty new viewers, or to annoy
one old friend who'll watch it anyways. Unfair, but logical. More
people now know about Macross than ever before, and they love it in
the form of Robotech.
I LIKE what Harmony Gold has done, basically because I don't understand
Japanese. I prefer a mediocre translation to no translation at all.
I have friends in CFO who feel differently, of course, and I'm sure
the Japanimation people are also a little disgruntled at what Harmony
Gold turns out, but the thing that I think every purist overlooks is
that the American audience isn't Japanese, and that Harmony Gold has
at least preserved some semblance of intelligence in its interpretation.
And they do pick the good stuff to bring over.
Besides from what I gathered about the Harlock and Milennia series from
your writing, Macek has managed to keep the overall "feel" of the characters
and series, though not to the actual letter. (Besides, won't you have more fun
seeing a "new" story, and analyzing where and when it came from, than
seeing what you've seen before translated?) I don't think it's necessarily
evil that the original has been changed. The original is still there for
those who want to see it.(It's just SO damn frustrating to watch when no one
tells you what's going on, and you don't understand Japanese!!!!!!! written
plot synopsis on Japanese animation aren't that easy to come by. Neither
is the animation itself.)
I think these are points that shouldn't be overlooked when criticizing
what goes on that screen.
The following are original comments, replies and rebuttals.
>> As I've said, I've only heard this, so it doesn't upset me that
>> Harlock's been made psionic, and that they've put Queen Millenia in
>> the same timeline as Harlock.
>It certainly upset me. The timeline isn't too bad a problem since the
>shows were set in the same universe and they just moved them closer
>together. But where did they ever get the idea to make Harlock psionic?
>The plot must be radically changed if this is a relavant detail.
It isn't THAT relevant. Most of the writing changes are results
of the splicing. The idea was to bring the two groups into communication
with each other. Now, think. You have scenes of people, solo face
shots, etc. No phones, radios and no shots of them actually face to
face. How would you get them to communicate?
I didn't actually see any scenes of Harlock being psionic. I simply
heard Christopher mention that occasionally, in times of great distress people
could reach Harlock psionically. It is NOT part of every story, but used as
sparingly as possible. Sorry I didn't make that clear.
>Now we come to the worst offense - "spliced episode by episode", even
>Voltron didn't stoop that low. At least in Robotech some semblence of
>the original continuity was left.
Right. And when Lisa and Rick disappeared, everyone kept waiting
for them to come back in the next few episodes. Their names were
constantly being mentioned, but they were always offscreen. Bad
continuity that raised false expectations for those who didn't know
that Rick and Lisa and Minmei, etc.etc. were never coming back.
And the links between the series were the weakest writing. For chrissake!
They make Zor seem like a total idiot by bringing the world-ravaging Invid down
upon the earth, while in the original Southern Cross, he saved the
world, and died a hero! I think what Harmony Gold is trying to do is
to overcome those writing obstacles. Of course, they're creating
new ones in getting rid of the old ones, but at least they're trying!
They're as aware as anyone else what their weak points are.
>> Harlock also has an alien woman named Melody, who never seems to be
>> quite in this world, who counsels him, and listens to his problems.
>> She also saves his ass a lot.
>I suppose I can understand renaming Mimei Melody, since she is usually
>sitting in Harlock's quarters playing the harp. But did they leave
>in the detail that she lives entirely on alcohol? At least Kei got to
>keep her name. Do they ever refer to the computer by "name" or address
>it directly?
And they could have changed her name because the old one was a little too
close to that of an annoying twit we all know. (Although I will never
forgive Macek for making up the name "Nova" for everyone's favorite GMP
officer.)
I don't know about the alcohol. I didn't seen enough episodes for
that. They call the computer "Roger", and refer to it as a "him". I love
his lines. (e.g. "The missiles are coming straight across your trajectory.
They'll be at point blank range. This is no challenge, Harlock; I'm turning
control back over to you." and "I don't have time to explain what I'm about
to do, but if it doesn't work, it's been nice knowing you.")
>> The story opens with scientists being murdered
>> by blue-skinned female assasins, the Mezone (Mazone? Meson?).
>Unless they have mentioned that the Mazone are sexless plants, they'll
>have to write themselves out of a corner later on.
Whoops. My fault. Sorry. They did mention that they were sexless
plants. I just called them female 'cause that's how I kept thinking of
them for the first couple of weeks. They had long hair and breasts, so I
kept thinking of them as "women." Silly of me. They kept the scene, where they
analyze the cell-structure of the dead Mezone. I think I must have
forgot because of the painful line "The Chlorophyll carries oxygen in
the bloodstreem" or some such basic un-science writing.
>> A subplot to all this is the little girl Maia (Minmei's
>Maiu is the daughter of Emeraldas and Tochiro,
uhhhh.... sorry, they changed Tochiro to Charles Devlin.
>> the reason Robotech and Harlock had to be combinations of series is
>> because for American syndication, an animated series must have a
>> particular number of episodes. Neither Macross, nor Captain Harlock
>> had enough. That's why they added on.
>OK, so if they wanted a long-enough series from Matsumoto's universe,
>why didn't they just buy the 115 episodes and two movies of Galaxy
>Express 999.
I don't know. How many episodes are there in a season? And do
independant stations buy by the season?
> And when they wanted to lengthen Macross, why didn't
>they buy it's actual sequels - Orguss and Southern Cross, instead of
>Southern Cross and the unrelated Mospeada.
*Tatsunoko* didn't have the rights to Orguss, and so couldn't sell
them to Macek and Harmony Gold. Besides, just how much of a sequel
to Macross is Orguss? I'd heard the only link between the two was the
fever-dream where Minmei and Lisa float by for about two seconds.
>It would also make more
>sense for them to buy shows actually made for children if they don't
>want to have to cut the adult stuff,
I don't know about this. It's a sad fact, but true that the majority
of the populace out there believes that animation, like comics, is for
kids. Honestly, when you went to see the Black Cauldron, how many other
"adults" were there to watch the movie? Not to shut the kids up for a while,
to watch and enjoy the movie? Not a lot, eh?
Then, how many stations would consider a series labelled: "cartoon
science fiction show of Japanese animation made for adults" as a show they
had to get? Face it, if it's animated and it ain't Garfield, or Peanuts, it
won't get prime time and it won't sell as anything but a kiddie show.
It's an attitude that has to be changed.
I think that Robotech, and Harmony Gold are helping, by trying, hook and
crook, to GET those adult shows on the air under any guise they can. They're
really changing the way people think about "cartoons." Animation needs to be
reevaluated by the American public, and bless 'em, Harmony Gold is helping 'em
take a look, even if it's a little crooked.
Of course, if you simply sit someone down in front of Nausicaa,
or the Macross movie, it could accomplish the same thing,
but that's rather difficult to do to an entire population, and most
people really aren't willing to watch two hours of animation, where they
can't understand what's being said, until after they've seen it. [does this
line make sense?] (Although I had heard that a version of Nausicaa had been
released in L.A. Dubbed.)
Anyways, I'd love to hear more from anyone on this subject 'cause
it's a crying shame that so many people pass over animation the
way they pass over comics. It's time we showed 'em what's really out
there.
--Kathy Li . .
\___/