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18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, a chance to see what I've been missing!, December 28, 2003
Like most American folks (and more'n a few non-American folks to be sure) who grew up watching 80s-era `toonage, my first look at the Macross series was in the form of the first chapter of Robotech. And even though I still hold a certain degree of sentimental nostalgia for the latter show, I gotta admit I like the original uncut Japanese version a fair bit more. Well, except for the background score-- the music used for Robotech seemed a better fit in my opinion, and wasn't quite as melodramatic as the original score. I'm sorry if this revelation offends you anime purists out there, but-- no wait, actually I'm not the least bit sorry. I could give less than two doots what'cha all think. Bite me!Naturally, the biggest attraction of the original Macross show is the chance to see all the stuff that Harmony Gold (the show's North American producers) changed and edited out of the series to conform to the various kidvid standards of the day. Stuff like excess violence, naughty bits, slightly coarse language, a few mature situations here & there, and stuff that might not have translated well to audiences on the opposite side of the Pacific and elsewhere. I saw a smattering of such moments and scenes (Minmay's bare tush and a few lascivious leers by Roy Focker for example), but they made up a rather miniscule part of the "restored" bits. The vast majority of no-longer-missing moments were rather innocuous (mostly incidental or "slice-of-life"-type scenes), and led me to wonder why they'd been shortened or removed from Robotech in the first place. Probably to help the networks airing the series cram in another toy commercial or two between the mid-show eyecatches... I was also curious to see the results of AnimEigo's extensive restoration efforts that I'd been reading about so much on Robotech.com and other anime news sites for months before its DVD debut. Although I still saw a few ever-so-slight flaws here `n' there, I thought they did a really good job making the show as clean and pristine as it likely was when it first hit the broadcast airwaves over twenty years ago. Just compare any of the restored eppies to their Robotech counterparts, and you'll see a fairly significant difference between the two in terms of picture clarity! Although the platters in this set lack any real special bonus features aside from show production and restoration credits, the liner notes-- which resemble mini file folders complete with subject tabs-- come close to making up for it: - Disc one's mini-file discusses the production evolution of the show's first twelve episodes, as well as the various in-gags one can find in each show, if he looks hard enough. - Disc two's little dossier is the lyric sheet to the Macross theme song, and five of Lynn Minmay's tunes. Both the English translation and the anglicized Japanese pronunciation of each song's lyrics are given. - The third platter includes brief character profiles of Ichijo Hikaru ("Rick Hunter" to all you Robotech freakos out there), Lynn Minmay, Milia Fallyna Jenius (Miriya), Hayase Misa (Lisa Hayes), Maximillian Jenius (Max Sterling) and Roy Focker (hee hee, that name's almost naughty). The basic info given for each character includes age, height and weight (in metric measurements, natch), occupation, bust-waist-hips measurements for the ladies, the episode each debuted in, the person who voiced the character, and... blood type? Hey, that's kinda personal don'cha think? Seriously though, I've never understood the deal with anime characters having blood types (shouldn't it be ink types? Heh, get it? Hee hee...). But then, I never really delved into the technical world of anime-- or the culture it reflects-- all that much. And why the heck does almost every Japanese anime character I've ever seen not look even remotely Japanese? What's up with all the honky-envy in animeland??? If you can explain these bits o' strangeness to me, drop me an e-mail, willya? Thanks... The only real disappointment I have with this collection is that they weren't able to put Macross and Robotech together into an all-in-one presentation, like Harmony Gold did a few years back when they put out the Robotech: Perfect Collection VHS series, featuring two Robotech eppies and their corresponding Japanese (Macross, Southern Cross, Mospeada) counterparts. It would've been nice to have something that appealed to both the `Techie and the anime purist in me, without havin' to take up quite as much shelf space in my video cabinet. No such luck, I'm afear'd; the licensing & rights situations just didn't pan out between the companies involved in the show's production & distribution. Them's the breaks in life... `Late
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