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Ranzear
Jul 25, 2013

As a long time Mechwarrior/Battletech fan:

Omnicrom posted:

Get hosed Harmony Gold

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Babysitter Super Sleuth
Apr 26, 2012

my posts are as bad the Current Releases review of Gone Girl

cannot wait to see how they try to renege on their side of the agreement in like six months

Gripweed
Nov 8, 2018

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I wonder if the agreement is because of the development hell Robotech movie. Maybe one of the issues was that production companies didn't want to get involved when the rights were in such a weird situation. So Harmony Gold compromised with Big West in the hopes that it would clear the way for the Robotech movie.

Blockhouse
Sep 7, 2014

You Win!

Gripweed posted:

I wonder if the agreement is because of the development hell Robotech movie. Maybe one of the issues was that production companies didn't want to get involved when the rights were in such a weird situation. So Harmony Gold compromised with Big West in the hopes that it would clear the way for the Robotech movie.

From my understand that's exactly the situation since the other half is Big West can't interfere with Robotech

Omnicrom
Aug 3, 2007
Snorlax Afficionado


Gripweed posted:

I wonder if the agreement is because of the development hell Robotech movie. Maybe one of the issues was that production companies didn't want to get involved when the rights were in such a weird situation. So Harmony Gold compromised with Big West in the hopes that it would clear the way for the Robotech movie.

Blockhouse posted:

From my understand that's exactly the situation since the other half is Big West can't interfere with Robotech

This is roughly the scuttlebutt I heard as well.

So the secondhand account which I heard, which is making a lot of assumptions and which you should definitely take with a heaping mountain of salt, is that Harmony Gold may be staking it all on that live-action Robotech movie. Allegedly, the license renewal they got for Macross in 2019 actually came with a bunch of pretty major caveats and exceptions, one of which is that if Big West et. al. have the right to call for a third party audit when it's time for a renewal of the license deal to see if Harmony Gold have been making good use of that license, and if the auditors say no then that license might just get taken away from them. If true that means Harmony Gold is over the barrel because as a brand Robotech is dead. What have they done since Shadow Chronicles some 15 years ago? They've failed a couple of kickstarters for making new animation, got a comic book running, and did a few tabletop things. Meanwhile, Harmony Gold being the lovely people they are, presumably continued to stand stalwart against any release of Macross internationally except as Robotech (that brand that they aren't doing anything with).

Their license deal was renewed in 2019, but the next renewal date is allegedly either this year or the next year and what have they got to show for it? They have successfully made nothing and prevented further monetization of the Macross IP. If you were the hypothetical third-party auditors you'd probably slap Harmony Gold in the face and be done with it, not only are they not doing anything with the license they are actively PREVENTING other people from doing stuff with that license and therefore leaving money on the table. That's just about the opposite of making good use of a license. On the other hand, if Harmony Gold can say honestly and truthfully that they're making a $100 million live-action Hollywood blockbuster based on their license, well that's a totally different story isn't it? If you are the auditor you probably let them have a license for at least another cycle to see if they can make it at the big screen.

And so the deal that got made was made. Harmony Gold gives up pretending they have the rights to anything but the stuff in the original Robotech and lets Big West and Nue and Tatsunoko and Funimation and Sony and whoever else release Macross internationally including the model kits and other paraphernalia, and meanwhile Big West and Nue and Tatsunoko all the rest leave Harmony Gold to their devices. Macross gets to go international, and all it cost was presumably agreeing to let the Robotech movie be made and screened internationally, should it ever emerge. It's a pragmatic move in many ways, if you're Big West and Nue and hate Harmony Gold's guts than all you've done is give them enough rope to let them hang themselves. You can now finally just ignore them and keep doing what you've been doing and wait for their movie to presumably bomb and wipe themselves out. Problem solved, finally.

Hell, if you're feeling cheeky you might be able to turn around and buy the IP to the Robotech brand off of the corpse of HG.

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



Tatsunoko also could have simply not signed another deal with Harmony Gold a couple of years ago, which would have been a much easier way to end the whole problem.

RangerKarl
Oct 7, 2013
My understanding was that Tatsunoko didn't really give a hoot either way, and saw the license as being more free money.

Omnicrom
Aug 3, 2007
Snorlax Afficionado


RangerKarl posted:

My understanding was that Tatsunoko didn't really give a hoot either way, and saw the license as being more free money.

Tatsunoko's primary concern in this mess is probably confirming that they were in the right when they sold the license to Harmony Gold in the first place, which was a point of contention between them and Big West/Nue and which the courts have basically affirmed was legal as of a couple of years ago. I imagine that victory being about Harmony Gold is why they didn't just yank HG immediately and instead just allegedly shuffled around of the deck chairs with the allegedly renegotiated license deal. Of course I imagine Harmony Gold being who they are is why allegedly there is the alleged right to "are you using this license in a non-stupid way" arbitration.

HG, Big West and Nue, and Tatsunoko have all been slapping at each other for every given "other" over the rights to this one Singing Transforming Robot Jet Love Triangle Space Opera anime franchise for about as long as Robotech has existed. No matter how it went down it was messy as hell, no alleged needed for that.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moZH0tKUT8o

I had no idea there was a Manga Entertainment dub of Patlabor. I think I've seen Patlabor 2 maybe once, years ago, and it was the Bandai released dub from 2003.

Darth TNT
Sep 20, 2013
Halfway into the second episode of Orgun and I have no idea what's going on and who's who. Is it just me, or is this a very confusing series?

Like, you see Orgun fleeing. Then Earth. Then someone built a suit, who is in fact Orgun who wants a guy who doesn't want him because life is hard. Suck it up Tomoru! :argh: It's not like you're being told to kill your family after hearing your dad get melted in order to stop the world from being enslaved.

But man I love me some 90s animation. There's something much more organic about it compared to the slicker newer animation. And those suits and designs are definitely scratching my Tekkaman itch.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
Is mellowlink worth my time if I want to see people fight Scopedogs on foot?

Gripweed
Nov 8, 2018

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Arcsquad12 posted:

Is mellowlink worth my time

YES

TheCoach
Mar 11, 2014
2004 Appleseed movie still looks good. The rendering tech is dated but it's compensated by them having a budget to do the entire film in full framerate and since I learned to appreciate the 2000s cgi aesthetic it just kinda rules.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rjhm3umrXc

TheCoach fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Apr 28, 2021

Fivemarks
Feb 21, 2015

Arcsquad12 posted:

Is mellowlink worth my time if I want to see people fight Scopedogs on foot?

Yes.

Gaius Marius
Oct 9, 2012

We ever get better rips of mellow link?

GorfZaplen
Jan 20, 2012

Tekkaman Blade's willingness to seed character moments and plotlines 20-30 episodes ahead of payoff is completely crazy and awesome to me lol. Would any Japanese schoolchild remember that Noal played a wistful game of soccer in episode 10 twenty weeks later when we learn he was soccer club captain as a child?

ACES CURE PLANES
Oct 21, 2010



Crossposting from the VN thread but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljulqkkw6Ik

I started the series a week or two ago and chugged all the way up to relatively early in Alternative, so I'm gonna have to finish it soon before I hear/see something from further in than I am.

Gripweed
Nov 8, 2018

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There's a kickstarter up for a bluray of Metal Skin Panic Madox 01

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/madoverlord/metal-skin-panic-madox-01-unobtanium-edition?ref=ksr_email_user_new_friend_project

Raxivace
Sep 9, 2014

ACES CURE PLANES posted:

Crossposting from the VN thread but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljulqkkw6Ik

I started the series a week or two ago and chugged all the way up to relatively early in Alternative, so I'm gonna have to finish it soon before I hear/see something from further in than I am.
I still can't believe they're just starting with Alternative.

Like even ignoring how that's easily the worst of the trilogy, its such a bad decision.

Gaius Marius
Oct 9, 2012

It's gonna be a poo poo show. Has there ever even been a good adaption of a visual novel. Every one seems to come out hugely lacking.

Sakurazuka
Jan 24, 2004

NANI?

Steins; Gate was pretty good

Gaius Marius
Oct 9, 2012

Knew I forgot the good one.

Blaze Dragon
Aug 28, 2013
LOWTAX'S SPINE FUND

Gaius Marius posted:

It's gonna be a poo poo show. Has there ever even been a good adaption of a visual novel. Every one seems to come out hugely lacking.

The Ufotable Fate adaptations (well, haven't watched the Heaven's Feel trilogy yet but I've heard good things about it and I have no reason to doubt it)

Sakurazuka
Jan 24, 2004

NANI?

One advantage is that Alternative doesn't have a bunch of different routes they have to make coherent in something linear so the only problem is the sheer length

Gaius Marius
Oct 9, 2012

But the entire emotional core of the story is gone without extra and unlimited.

Blaze Dragon posted:

The Ufotable Fate adaptations (well, haven't watched the Heaven's Feel trilogy yet but I've heard good things about it and I have no reason to doubt it)

It looks nice, but without the inner monologue of Shirou's it loses a lot of what makes the novel special.

Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 17:35 on May 1, 2021

Tribladeofchaos
Jul 2, 2008

IT'S SHOWTIME!

Amagami was a good VN anime!

It just did 4 episodes for each girl’s route before starting another one.

RangerKarl
Oct 7, 2013

Sakurazuka posted:

One advantage is that Alternative doesn't have a bunch of different routes they have to make coherent in something linear so the only problem is the sheer length

I wonder how they're going to get across the bits where people have 2 hour long conversations in 5 minutes.

Gripweed
Nov 8, 2018

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RangerKarl posted:

I wonder how they're going to get across the bits where people have 2 hour long conversations in 5 minutes.

Oh yeah, anime definitely has trouble with depicting characters having extremely long dialogue during brief periods of action. It's a notable problem of the medium.

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

Gripweed posted:

Oh yeah, anime definitely has trouble with depicting characters having extremely long dialogue during brief periods of action. It's a notable problem of the medium.

This may be intended as sarcasm, but it genuinely is a problem. A whole bunch of manga and visual novels, whether they be action, drama, or comedy, had their pacing and timing go to complete poo poo when they were adapted to TV because it takes so much longer to have something voiced out loud than to have it in a quick panel or two on a page (or as a page of quickly-skippable dialogue).

In visual novel terms, the UBW anime definitely suffered once it turned into a bunch of extremely long, extremely repetitive philosophical discussions over a background of exploding swords. When you edit a VN to anime, you usually need precision, care, a sincere understanding of the spirit and themes of the original work, and a very large and powerful chainsaw.

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



Darth Walrus posted:

This may be intended as sarcasm, but it genuinely is a problem. A whole bunch of manga and visual novels, whether they be action, drama, or comedy, had their pacing and timing go to complete poo poo when they were adapted to TV because it takes so much longer to have something voiced out loud than to have it in a quick panel or two on a page (or as a page of quickly-skippable dialogue).

In visual novel terms, the UBW anime definitely suffered once it turned into a bunch of extremely long, extremely repetitive philosophical discussions over a background of exploding swords. When you edit a VN to anime, you usually need precision, care, a sincere understanding of the spirit and themes of the original work, and a very large and powerful chainsaw.

Are we talking large or large?

Either way, yeah, it's a tricky part of adapting things. Visual novels are known for being absolute doorstoppers, and anime these days tend towards 26 episodes on the high end. Even taking advantage of the medium, there's a need to cut a lot, which probably includes someone's favorite moments, just to have something that finishes.

(Of course, this season also has an example of a mech anime doing the opposite, with 86 expanding out the first volume of the series to fill a whole cour. But that's a different set of complications when adapting.)

Moving back to older content, I finished the New Files for Patlabor, which ranged from good to amazing. Ota's amnesia episode was a real treat, CLAT's return was just as goofy, and ending on such a mellow note was just right for the show.

Meanwhile, The Last Red Shoulder was... alright. Fyana's still a terrible character, and the plotline around Ypsilon didn't quite land (I love the idea of Pailsen only thinking a perfect soldier can be perfect if he experiences normal human emotion and rejects it, but it needed one line to explain why he was so obsessed with making perfect soldiers) but it generally felt like the 80s action movie that VOTOMs wants to be a lot of the time, with a crew of grim military archetypes with just enough characterization to tell them apart going on One Last Mission.

(That said, Chirico didn't really sell the whole "There's something too human about him" so well. I think VOTOMs would do better to lean into his sidekicks bringing out the humanity he buried over him having some inherent virtue. He feels too perfect soldier as a default for the 'oh, no, Chirico was too kind' lines to have weight.)

Not sure what I'm seeing next now that Patlabor is finished. If I knew how to watch the live action show, I'd try to track it down, but for now, I'm pretty much set on that front. Wondering what's left that I haven't poked at.

chiasaur11 fucked around with this message at 21:08 on May 2, 2021

Darth TNT
Sep 20, 2013

GorfZaplen posted:

Tekkaman Blade's willingness to seed character moments and plotlines 20-30 episodes ahead of payoff is completely crazy and awesome to me lol. Would any Japanese schoolchild remember that Noal played a wistful game of soccer in episode 10 twenty weeks later when we learn he was soccer club captain as a child?

There’s quite a few of those moments. But I also really like how the war escalates and you see the humans develop better stuff throughout the series usually with help from a previous mission. Like the factory they liberate makes the Ammo for the sol tekkamen.
That you see the commander making the first prototype for a sol tekkaman only to give the plans to ballzack who later shows up in a fully military developed suit.

Sakurazuka
Jan 24, 2004

NANI?

Heh ballzack

RangerKarl
Oct 7, 2013

Darth Walrus posted:

This may be intended as sarcasm, but it genuinely is a problem. A whole bunch of manga and visual novels, whether they be action, drama, or comedy, had their pacing and timing go to complete poo poo when they were adapted to TV because it takes so much longer to have something voiced out loud than to have it in a quick panel or two on a page (or as a page of quickly-skippable dialogue).

In visual novel terms, the UBW anime definitely suffered once it turned into a bunch of extremely long, extremely repetitive philosophical discussions over a background of exploding swords. When you edit a VN to anime, you usually need precision, care, a sincere understanding of the spirit and themes of the original work, and a very large and powerful chainsaw.

Between the recasts and redesigns I'm pretty sure this will be an Alternative's Greatest Hits sort of show, with a pitch for the VN at the very end. I can't see this being a satisfying watch as a standalone product.

Raxivace
Sep 9, 2014

I saw someone online suggest the anime will be a Higurashi Gou style followup to Alternative and if that ends up being true I'm going to laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh.

Gaius Marius
Oct 9, 2012

I saw the designs theiyre using for the characters and it killed the very small amount of interest I had remaining.

What a mismanaged franchise

ACES CURE PLANES
Oct 21, 2010



Yeah having literally just finished alternative even I can tell that there is absolutely no way they could possibly do it justice. Not even a matter of skill or anything, just too much content/context.

Also on the redesigns, between this and tsukihime remake is it just me or is there this weird trend going around on redesigning characters from that era? They just seem to take a belt sander to various standout character design elements and I don't quite get it. Stuff like v-peaked hair, hair intakes, large accessories like kasumi's ribbon or ciel's glasses, etc. It's kinda lame to see, honestly.

Raxivace
Sep 9, 2014

I think its just modernizing designs for trends of newer/younger audiences. Something like Kasumi's ribbon or Ciel's huge glasses might have appealed to moe feelings of audiences of 90's/early 2000's anime and related mediums, but well its not the 90's anymore and what grabs people isn't the same.

Like Ciel's huge glasses might seem offputtingly old-fashioned to people coming to Tsukihime Remake from FGO or whatever.

Tribladeofchaos
Jul 2, 2008

IT'S SHOWTIME!

Ciel's new look is better anyway, Arcuied's on the other hand should look more old fashioned imo.

ACES CURE PLANES
Oct 21, 2010



No way, the big glasses and peaked hair are the best.

Which, funnily enough in going back to muv luv, also applies to Chizuru.

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Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

Darth Walrus posted:

This may be intended as sarcasm, but it genuinely is a problem. A whole bunch of manga and visual novels, whether they be action, drama, or comedy, had their pacing and timing go to complete poo poo when they were adapted to TV because it takes so much longer to have something voiced out loud than to have it in a quick panel or two on a page (or as a page of quickly-skippable dialogue).

I might get heat for this but Jojo's part 4 and 5 really suffered heavily from this. They were still decent enough because the source material was good, but they could have been excellent if they weren't such direct adaptations.

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