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Tribladeofchaos posted:I dunno did people even want more Delta? Not many people seem to think highly of it after it wasted all the good stuff in the first half. I really liked the cast and music of Delta and thought everything else ranged from "disappointing" to "terrible". I wouldn't be opposed to "hey, let's use those fun characters and put them in a better story".
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Sep 28, 2019 23:44
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Darth Walrus posted:They also need to polish up the action sequences. Macross Frontier blew Delta out of the water, and that came out a decade ago. I'd have much more sympathy for Delta's fights if technical problems were the main issue, the sort of thing time and better software can help with. The real shame is the failure of ambition. Fights in Delta are mostly just two planes shooting at each other for a bit, then one of them ditching. Some of it, of course, is a structural problem. By having the bad guys just field a handful of named pilots, you're forced away from the standard "Hero carves through an army" fights. You could have it be "Each Wind Knight is a total motherfucker of a slugfest that takes the entire Delta Squadron to down", structuring it in the Monster Hunter style instead, but by keeping all of them around for almost the whole series it makes most of the fights unsatisfying. Nobody really wins, nobody really loses, nothing really changes. (It's the same issue that most Re:Creators fights had for the first half of the show.) In addition, Delta had much less transformation and robot mode action than Macross's standard. It's just... planes. Getting sung at.
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Sep 29, 2019 00:38
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I wonder if the film will just straight up be about Lady M and Mikumo's past, because that's the main thing the show introduced late and did absolutely nothing with. If it does end up that, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason those plot threads were introduced and then immediately dropped was because they were in a previous version of the show's outline, dropped for time/budget, and then left in as a sequel hook.
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Sep 29, 2019 00:55
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It would be cool if the movie actually resolved the main conflict, unlike the show.
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Sep 29, 2019 01:23
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Tribladeofchaos posted:I dunno did people even want more Delta? Not many people seem to think highly of it after it wasted all the good stuff in the first half. I think Delta probably has the strongest opening episode of the franchise, and one of the stronger opening episodes of anime full stop really because it introduces a lot of new stuff for the setting along with it's cast really well, and ends on an energetic and fun fight, but while the next few episodes are fairly decent; by episode 6 or 7 the show has already become rather dull. I never even finished the show because I found everything rather boring past that point, including the mid-season episode a lot of people seemed to enjoy. I can see why some people found it exciting, but for my own part I hated the big fight between Hayate and Keith, because Hayate shooting Keith down in Messer's plane felt completely unearned. Messer had only just died the previous episode, and Hayate had been portrayed as a rather mediocre pilot up to that point who was mostly surviving because of the buff Freyja's singing gives him. Then he shoots down the best enemy ace in the show specifically because Freyja is buffing him once again, and it never feels like he earned that accolade. Hell, it doesn't even really feel like he earned Messer's plane, because he never had to improve on his own; he just leant further on Freyja's singing. I loved how Delta Squad operated with Walkure as almost an emergency response group in the first episode, appearing to help civilians in trouble while calming the population as they dealt with the unfolding emergency, I loved Hayate breakdancing his VF both for fun as a way of expressing himself and mid-combat, I loved Mikumo and Walkure in general interacting with the battlefield mid-concert in various ways instead of being a passive background presence mostly providing a backing track and the use of mini-drones to aid them in various ways (parachutes, shields, projectors). Then the show dropped every single one of those interesting new elements; Walkure spent every battle in a protected dome singing while Delta flew around in generic plane fights, the drones were hacked once and then dropped completely, Hayate only danced once or twice more in the next couple of episodes and then never does it again and the conflict centered on var becomes an open war with Windermere where every fight takes place high in the sky or out in open space where the emergency response aspect can never play a part again. The characters are never followed up on in an interesting way either, not even secondary or tertiary characters. The mystery of Mikumo is drawn out for 15 or 16 episodes like it's something major, and then revealed to be the most boring poo poo in the world. She's a clone. Wow. Cool. So is almost every single adult in the setting after Space War I, because Zentradi micloning tech was used so extensively to repopulate Earth. None of the cast even give a poo poo, and it generates no drama or insight of any kind. I remember being really excited at the Zentradi captain (Ernest something I think) having a reputation of never winning a battle and being the companies martial arts instructor too, imagining that his first win would involve him making their Macross do martial arts or something. Or even that he'd instruct some of the new cast in techniques that'd be integral in some fashion. Nope, nothing on that either. I'd probably be less down on the show if the first episode had been mediocre or dull, but as is, it's so strong and nothing in the rest of the show comes close to the excitement it generates while instead dropping everything interesting or cool it introduced. I hope Kawamori moves on after this movie, because if the movie is a direct sequel then it's unlikely to touch any of those parts again, given the weren't a focus in the first movie from what I gather and I just want a new entry that'll hopefully either re-introduce those concepts and actually make use of them, or introduce some new ones that it'll do justice to instead of abandoning them almost immediately. Here's the concept for the new VF in the movie by the way, for anyone who hasn't seen it. It's cool at least, even if I have no faith the movie will be any good.  It's profile looks a bit like the VF-14 from older side-material, though it'll presumably differ a good bit by the time it's final design is done and all the details are filled in etc. tsob fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Sep 29, 2019 |
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Sep 29, 2019 17:28
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tsob posted:I think Delta probably has the strongest opening episode of the franchise, and I honestly completely agree with pretty much all of this. Delta's first episode is loving amazing, and the entire rest of the series basically drops all the cool poo poo it introduces. I'm going to guess that it was mostly an issue of storyboarding elaborate dancing VF/idol fights is time consuming and hard and storyboarding generic plane shooting fights is a lot easier.
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Sep 29, 2019 18:47
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Kanos posted:I honestly completely agree with pretty much all of this. Delta's first episode is loving amazing, and the entire rest of the series basically drops all the cool poo poo it introduces. I'm going to guess that it was mostly an issue of storyboarding elaborate dancing VF/idol fights is time consuming and hard and storyboarding generic plane shooting fights is a lot easier. Same. I know why they hype that new VFs are being designed and will feature in this but I'm just, well, tired of it. How about making a good solid watch instead? I liked how in 7 the VF-19 was still brand new and rare as gently caress and the Macross 7 fleet was still largely using VF-11s.
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Sep 29, 2019 21:03
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My big problem is that Hayate and Freyja get what they wanted very early in the series. Hyatt finds a place to belong and do what he's good at, and Freyja joins Waljurie. Both by the 4th episode. After that, their characters have no development and worse, no struggle. All they have is the lopsided love triangle with Mirage. I give Mirage a lot of credit for bowing out of it, but she's Hayate's training officer, she has no business feeling anything romantic for him. There is the episode after Hayate shoots down his first enemy and has to deal with being a killer, but that's about it for development. I do appreciate that they put this in; Alto never had to deal with it because he wasn't fighting people. If you go back to Frontier, you get a whole slate of characters who struggle throughout the series. Sheryl is still dealing with PTSD from her childhood on the streets, Ranka grows up into a professional performer, and works through her crush on Alto, Alto gets what he wanted - to fly Valkyries - but he keeps growing and even ends up in a leadership role with the UN Spacy, even Michael has his grief over his sister and tragic crush on Klan to deal with. There's just so much less substance to Delta.
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Sep 29, 2019 23:36
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Yeah i'm definitely also in the "love all the pieces, but not the actual assembled product" camp, excluding the piece that is whatever the hell Windemere's plan was exactly
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Sep 29, 2019 23:45
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So, watched more VOTOMs stuff. The original series still feels slower and much more repetitive than it has to be. If the plot of an episode is that Gotho, Coconna, and Vanilla put their lives on the line and throw away almost all of their hard earned loot to bail out Chirico for no other reason than because he's their friend, maybe you should wait at least one episode before having the most dramatic scene revolve around Gotho and Vanilla having to be guilted into risking their necks to help Chirico. Just a thought. In a worse show, I'd have quit already. But it's a real looker for a TV anime of its age, the way mechs break is a nice change of pace, and the central cast bounces off each other well. I don't think it'd be my favorite even if it didn't feel like so much like crawling through mud, but I can already see some of why people like it so much. Just... it can be rough going getting to those things people like sometimes. (That said, it did drop my opinion of anyone who complains about IBO's pacing and praises VOTOMs. I'm willing to admit that IBO has some rough patches, but compared to early VOTOMs it's the second coming of Space Patrol Luluco.) I also checked out Finder and Case Irving, just for a change of pace. The OVAs might not be good (I'd gotten my share of warning), but if nothing else, they'd be quick. Case Irvine was actually kind of a pleasant surprise. Most of it was by the numbers, and none of the characters were particularly compelling, but the final fight was quite good. The overloaded custom mechs the two fighters were using meant they could beat the poo poo out of each other for a good bit and show the damage, the skates meant the fight had a good clip, and the last moment of it was about the only time the OVA's main antagonist was interesting. If I went in expecting it to be good, I'd be cursing its name right now, but going in expecting nothing, I got some fun action and one or two mildly amusing gags in with the by the numbers plot. I've seen worse. Like VOTOMS Finder. While Irvine was barely connected to VOTOMS proper, only sharing a broad setting and mech designs, Finder's a full on new setting, with its own mech designs, giant monsters, and a bog standard rich person city and poor person wasteland. The action is CG rather than hand animated, and none of the fights really stood out to me, which removes the one thing Irvine did right. It's a big pile of nothing, and I doubt I'll remember it in a week. So, yeah. Overall, my favorite part of VOTOMS is still Mellowlink. That was a show that knew what it wanted to do, and did it. No muss, no fuss.
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Oct 5, 2019 10:45
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mllaneza posted:My big problem is that Hayate and Freyja get what they wanted very early in the series. Hyatt finds a place to belong and do what he's good at, and Freyja joins Waljurie. Both by the 4th episode. After that, their characters have no development and worse, no struggle. I'd actually say it's worse than that, because I think the show does present the cast with struggles; it just immediately sweeps those opportunities to the side after presenting them. Hayate being the prime example. When Messer dies for instance, Arad talks about how he'll have to recruit someone new in to Delta Squad. Hayate then tells Arad he'll fly hard enough for both of them, so Arad has no need to recruit a new pilot. Which Arad, Chuck, Mirage, Ernest etc. all accept for no reason. No-one pulls Hayate aside and tells him that he's being a stupid child for it, and that he's obviously just scared of Messer being replaced, but that bringing someone in to take his place physically doesn't mean replacing him emotionally. Also, that they're in a loving war and that even if Hayate could fly hard enough for both himself and Messer (despite the fact Messer was the team ace and Hayate was decidedly average up till that point), that having an extra body around would just improve them that bit more and not be negated by Hayate's improved performance. Hayate comes across a moment where he should be forced to reflect on himself, grow up and change; but no, he pushes it aside, and everyone else accepts it while he remains the same as before. Much the same thing happens when the cast realize that Freyja's singing is affecting Hayate, and may be causing something similar to Var in him. They bring the two in to a lab, under completely controlled conditions where Freyja can instantly stop singing if something bad happens and Hayate can be sedated or helped if necessary and yet, when Mikumo realizes that Freyja isn't actually trying while singing because she's afraid to hurt Hayate, there's a brief scene with Mikumo slapping Freyja and then it's all invalidated because Hayate declares that he'll just never suffer those effects again. Which he doesn't. Because apparently willpower was the cure all along. If only Messer had tried having some will power when struggling to control his infection for years. What an idiot. Freyja and Hayate both came in to a situation where they really should have been forced to confront their problems and change to overcome them, but instead, the show almost instantly negates any drama or growth those situations could achieve and moves on while acting like neither was ever really at fault in the first place. There were several other similar situations in the second half: Hayate never really confronting anything about his father, or his father ever really having any bad moments in the first place, Mikumo's entire past and it's revelations to the cast etc. Mirage should really have had to overcome something to find her place, whether that was as a pilot, a commander, an idol (I'm glad it wasn't this though, personally), a regular civilian (a doctor like her father apparently was, for instance) or whatever; instead she just goes away and improves off-screen for no discernible reason, and her insecurities around her family and heritage amount to nothing. Freyja and Hayate never confront the transience of their relationship, or her shorter lifespan etc. Even going in to secondary characters like Kaname, you could find ample grounds for drama, and yet it's never utilized. Kaname's background is that she's a failed idol, and could only succeed while supporting others. We're never given any drama around her own feelings on that, or how she dealt with Messer's death really. Delta had ample opportunity to change the cast, or push them through melodrama and/or growth; it just wasn't ever interested in doing so. The writer just seemed to want to present the cast as flawed or imperfect and then resolve or reward the cast without going through any of the intervening process. It's really unsatisfying. I don't think Frontier is great in this regard either (though I really like the show on the whole), since I don't think the writing did a great job of resolving Alto's situation with his family for instance, or resolving Alto and Sheryl's relationship. I think it did a fantastic job setting it up, up until the end of the show. Then Sheryl talks about wanting to break up with Alto just before the final battle so he won't have anything holding him back or something, and there's never any concrete resolution after that point. Michael and Klan's relationship is pretty insubstantial as well. His reasons for refusing to confront his feelings are pretty understandable, but rely on just kind of forgetting macronization is a thing (even if only in DYRL), rather than setting it out in any meaningful way, and it's barely brought up until he dies. It's stellar next to Delta's treatment though. tsob fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Oct 5, 2019 |
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Oct 5, 2019 23:02
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https://sakugabooru.com/data/305b3e3e7e837af0e4024417decf68df.mp4
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Oct 18, 2019 19:04
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Concrete Revolutio was pretty fun, yeah. Did kind of make me wish I had a degree in postwar Japanese history, though.
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Oct 18, 2019 19:07
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It's a masterpiece of animation and storytelling and i love it to bits.
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Oct 18, 2019 19:09
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The first episode of fafner the beyond has been fansubbed https://nyaa.si/view/1188364
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Oct 28, 2019 02:13
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Droyer posted:The first episode of fafner the beyond has been fansubbed Yeeeeees. I've been waiting for my dose of suffering for so long, and now it is here.
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Oct 28, 2019 03:04
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp-eeqPhWE0&feature=youtu.be Looks like we're getting a new Wataru anime next year, I wonder if they'll keep the original voice actors for it.
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Oct 29, 2019 04:36
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So, managed to watch a bunch more stuff. With no particular focus... 1) Patlabor: The Early Files is great and has convinced me that my love for Patlabor prior to actually watching it was well placed. I'm excited to check out the movies and the show, but until I get around to that, I can be content with a spot-on Godzilla parody, a Scooby Doo hoax, a dramatic battle to save Japan from a rogue nuclear coup, and a dream sequence where Izumi gets a super robot. 2) Big O? Also good so far. I can really see what people mean when they talk about a Batman the Animate Series visual influence. Currently, the cast seems fun, the cinematography is atmospheric, and the plot plays with interesting mysteries while keeping expectations for the grand reveals in check. The people who most seek the truth tend to be mad, and those who find some of it seem to wind up disappointed. 3) VOTOMs is still slow going into Space Vietnam, but this arc at least seems like a bit of a step up. Still got a lot of the same issues, though. After years of fans and SRW hyping Chirico up, he's not living up to his legend, and the show keeps repeating the same plots over, and over, and over. Will Chirico's friends abandon their own self interest to come to his aid? It's always tense, because maybe the ten millionth time, they won't agree that friendship is more important than money! And Fyana's repeated kidnappings didn't exactly do much to make her interesting. 4) Gunbuster the Movie is basically Gunbuster: The Good Parts version for me. All it's missing is Peter Falk narrating things to Fred Savage. And like I kind of suspected it would going in, it doesn't work as well. I didn't like most of the first three episodes, but the endgame needed them, or more properly, events like them, for the payoff to have its full weight. They might not have been perfect, but they did ground Noriko's struggles, and made her being a big hero more satisfying.
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Oct 29, 2019 12:37
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Honestly, VOTOMs is a bit like Gunbuster in pacing, just massively stretched out. All the gritty space vietnams soften you up for the impact of the final arc when things get really wild. There are some midpoint revelations you're approaching, though. I think. It's been a bit.
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Oct 29, 2019 20:48
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chiasaur11 posted:Big O? Also good so far. I can really see what people mean when they talk about a Batman the Animate Series visual influence.
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Oct 29, 2019 23:11
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Its downright uncanny when you know that and see say, the freeze ray that freeze builds in heart of ice.
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Oct 29, 2019 23:25
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Hope you enjoy Big O, I love that series to death. Not sure if this is a spoiler but just in case: there's an amazing Samuel Delany book called Dhalgren about an amnesiac in a weird rear end isolated city called Bellona that reminds me of Paradigm City so much it gives me chills, does anyone know if that book was an influence on the show?
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Oct 30, 2019 01:18
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Marx Headroom posted:Hope you enjoy Big O, I love that series to death. Welp I know what I’m looking for at the used bookstore this weekend.
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Oct 30, 2019 01:47
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Marx Headroom posted:Hope you enjoy Big O, I love that series to death.
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Nov 4, 2019 19:53
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Second ep of fafner the beyond's been translated https://nyaa.si/view/1192298
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Nov 9, 2019 19:53
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So my four year old is way into reviews of robot toys, and it's forcing me to confront some really hard questions about what it means to be a parent. Specifically, why does every combining mecha need to have a drill tank? Can anyone tell me what started this obsession with a vehicle that, as far as I can tell, doesn't exist? I know there are huge tunnel drilling machines and such that would fit the bill but I've never in my life seen an actual tank with a huge screw drill on the front.
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Nov 10, 2019 21:03
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Droyer posted:Second ep of fafner the beyond's been translated Did I miss something? I went into this yesterday, and I watched The Exile a while ago so maybe I forgot something, but am I meant to know who Maris and Spectre are? Why is Soushi under their control, wasn't he with Kazuki before?
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Nov 10, 2019 21:10
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The Muffinlord posted:So my four year old is way into reviews of robot toys, and it's forcing me to confront some really hard questions about what it means to be a parent. Specifically, why does every combining mecha need to have a drill tank? Can anyone tell me what started this obsession with a vehicle that, as far as I can tell, doesn't exist? I know there are huge tunnel drilling machines and such that would fit the bill but I've never in my life seen an actual tank with a huge screw drill on the front. Because drills are cool.
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Nov 10, 2019 21:11
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Blaze Dragon posted:Did I miss something? I went into this yesterday, and I watched The Exile a while ago so maybe I forgot something, but am I meant to know who Maris and Spectre are? Why is Soushi under their control, wasn't he with Kazuki before? Maris and spectre are both new, though considering how they're keeping spectre's real face secret he might be revealed to be an older character. Soushi was reincarnated at the end of Exodus and kindapped in the first Beyond ep (which I linked to earlier in this thread). Either the idea is he was kidnapped before he was old enough to develop long-term memories or they messed with his mind.
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Nov 10, 2019 21:57
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What are some robots with drill tanks? I know GGG, I'm guessing some other Braves, and Gravion.
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Nov 10, 2019 22:04
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Caphi posted:What are some robots with drill tanks? I know GGG, I'm guessing some other Braves, and Gravion. Every brave show has at least one drill tank (except dagwon which has a drill train instead). They show up fairly often in toku stuff too AFAIK but i'll admit that's out of my field.
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Nov 10, 2019 22:06
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Drills are cool and tanks are cool, and I guess a realistic battle tank would be too militaristic and mature for a children's show, considering the other transforming parts are usually civilian vehicles or something.
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Nov 10, 2019 22:07
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Caphi posted:What are some robots with drill tanks? I know GGG, I'm guessing some other Braves, and Gravion. Gridman, though it's technically not a robot and instead a big dude.
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Nov 10, 2019 22:08
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The Muffinlord posted:So my four year old is way into reviews of robot toys, and it's forcing me to confront some really hard questions about what it means to be a parent. Specifically, why does every combining mecha need to have a drill tank? Can anyone tell me what started this obsession with a vehicle that, as far as I can tell, doesn't exist? I know there are huge tunnel drilling machines and such that would fit the bill but I've never in my life seen an actual tank with a huge screw drill on the front. Because of Thunderbirds 
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Nov 10, 2019 23:18
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Droyer posted:Maris and spectre are both new, though considering how they're keeping spectre's real face secret he might be revealed to be an older character. Soushi was reincarnated at the end of Exodus and kindapped in the first Beyond ep (which I linked to earlier in this thread). Either the idea is he was kidnapped before he was old enough to develop long-term memories or they messed with his mind. I watched the first episode and missed Soushi getting kidnapped, but I guess I wasn't paying enough attention. Still, it feels like there was something there that we should've seen but didn't, like how Miwa ended up as a Fafner pilot, like we just...skipped a few episodes here.
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Nov 11, 2019 00:54
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Caphi posted:What are some robots with drill tanks? I know GGG, I'm guessing some other Braves, and Gravion. Wasn't one of the Getter's a drill tank? Or am I just mixing up 2 and 3?
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Nov 11, 2019 20:51
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Neito posted:Wasn't one of the Getter's a drill tank? Or am I just mixing up 2 and 3? Not until getter robo go. Getter 3 is a tank with a pointy bit at the front, but it's not a drill.
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Nov 11, 2019 21:35
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There is also a trope that each of the 'combining' mecha is a classical element: Earth, Fire, Wind, Water. A big excavation drill goes with the 'Earth' element.
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Nov 12, 2019 01:03
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I'm serious, it's because of Thunderbirds. Thunderbirds was huge and super influential in Japan
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Nov 12, 2019 02:54
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Gripweed posted:I'm serious, it's because of Thunderbirds. Thunderbirds was huge and super influential in Japan Can you go into detail?
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Nov 12, 2019 03:46
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