http://www.fortressofsolitude.co.za/comicbook/robotech-1-review/ I preordered this and I am cautiously optimistic. I figured there are probably some other 80s kids on here who were/are fans of the show. (Yes Harmony Gold are a bunch of dicks, but the show/localization was amazing for its time and I'll always be a fan, I don't care about the purists). Supposed to be a more edgy reimagining. Not clear what they've changed yet, aside from bulkier Veritechs in jet form and spec ops guys in military armor running around. My biggest hope is that Minmay becomes less of a passive-aggressive irritating character.
OMG. I loved Robotech as a kid. I would get up at 5am and watch it on our local station before heading to school. I only hope they do something about Min's horrible singing. Seriously, it's like nails on a chalkboard But this exciting thanks!
I was never a big Robotech fan, but I have watched it. For me, it always was... Space Battleship Yamato
I think Robotech is what gave me the first inkling of romance in an animated cartoon as a kid. Like, REAL romance. That and Lion-o and Cheetara ; ) credit: http://cgnauta.deviantart.com/art/LiChee-Final-Version-370745863
I didn't see Star Blazers in sequence until I finally caught the first season on Amazon streaming about 8 yrs. ago. At the time that it was originally on my local UHF station, I was a little young for it and it aired at 7:30 just when I had to leave for school (I don't think we had a VCR then). I found the first series, at least, to be incredible fun. I've heard there's a reboot in Japan that's awesome too? Didn't see Comet Empire (season 2) because Amazon didn't have it then. The live action film was kinda meh to me. I couldn't finish watching it, it all seemed to be about the virtues of the kamikaze ethic and every character was suicidal. Maybe the original Japanese script of the anime had more of that too, I don't know, but I didn't like it. Robotech and Star Blazers/Yamato have in common massive ships with BIG ASS CANNONS. I love me some big ass cannons, a couple of my books have ships with 'em too
I actually met the voice actress Reba West at one of the first Robotech conventions in Pittsburgh. I think it might have been in ’86? She was very nice and friendly and even sang acapella versions of the songs for us. She was even dressed in a Chinese dress like MinMay. The thing is, that voice—MinMay’s voice—was her REAL everyday voice. My friends and I were shocked and we had assumed she was doing it higher-pitched for the character. But no, that was just her voice. Nice lady though. The producer Carl Macek was there too, chatting with fans. It was one of the best geek experiences of my life. Still bummed Sentinels got canned.
Oh wow. This is an odd thing to bring up but I am fascinated by 80s anime culture. What I find the most intriguing was that during that time, it was kind of underground. One of the coolest stories I heard was from my uncle about anime watch parties they had. One person who knew Japanese would stand beside a TV, and since they didn't have many dubs in those days, that person would tell the audience what was going on. My uncle said he watched the entirety of the original Captain Harlock like this. I love older anime. I am currently watching Yabuki Joe right now.
We never had a guy speaking Japanese, probably because we lived in Pittsburgh and no one there did. But we did have big binders of photocopied plot summaries of various films and shows that were copied over and over again and passed amongst fan groups. We’d look at those and watch some bad 10th generation VHS copy of a film and try to figure out what was going on. There were video copying parties where people used splitters to have 5 VCRs copying at once. Also we bought pirate copies of anime tapes for $10 a pop at small local comic conventions. I know nowadays people would scream entitlement and cheap ass pirates, but back in the day, it was the only way to see most of these shows. You might try to buy them through importers, but it was ridiculous… I think a copy of the Macross movie cost over $200 and 6-8 weeks for delivery from the one importer I checked into. We DID buy whatever was released in the US, though. Including some bad stuff---badly localized or just plain bad. But we were desperate to find the next Robotech or Star Blazers. I honestly think my own hardcore anime fan ended at the same time it began for many others… With the release of Akira. I hated that movie, which I thought was style over substance and nihilistic. Then I kind of realized that I was a fan of cool, uplifting anime space operas, and not necessarily anime in general.
I read a lot about those pirate copies being sold at anime conventions and my uncle told me about copying parties they used to have. He said that there was a person he knew that had a side business receiving tapes and copying them for people. The guy used to get a lot of requests for Astroboy (even though it had an American release I think), Lupin III, Mobile Suit Gundam, Urusei Yatsura, and Macross. He did get a few others. He mentioned occasionally some of his friends would have "trench coat" parties where they would watch some of the "Cream Lemon" animes. I have watched a few of these. One I saw was a reimagining of "The Little Mermaid" (the real one not the one with the Disney happy ending) and even though I didn't understand what was being said, I felt really sad for the protagonist. I saw another that had a short about a guy trying to seduce a woman in a Gundam suit, it was kind of funny. When they were "doing the deed" the suit flailed around and smashed the enemy they were fighting to bits. Since those shows didn't have much of a release outside of Japan that was the only way you could really watch them. I was told that buying any anime that was localized was a huge risk because not only was it expensive, but if you were unlucky you might end up with 3 or 4 episodes of nothing but boob waving fan service. Apparently, you had to be really "in the know" to know which anime to get. I sometimes think it would have been cool to be an anime fan back in those days, even if the tapes were hard to get a hold of. I really love Space Operas, and have wanted to write a novel in that genre. I still might if I get the motivation to do it.
