It's coming, it's coming ...

As I force you to wait for the completed notes on Prelude #2, I present to you this wretched thing. Yes, that's Korean accompanying the shoddy art of Rick/Hikaru's VF-1J soaring through space like it's Superman or something. A little explanation for those not in the know.

Lately at Wal-Mart stores there have mysteriously appeared a bunch of cheap rip-off psuedo-anime DVD from Korea, dubbed badly into English, with names like "Defenders of Space," "Protectors of Universe," and the like. Each disc is a dollar, so I bought one of each -- there were only three, but I wonder if there will be more coming, since Korea famously cranked out a lot of knock-off robot anime while that particular iron was hot. The animation dates back to the late 1970's and early 1980's, and features designs lifted wholesale from genuine anime and Japanese toy lines, like Gundam's White Base battleship, the classic Transformer Inferno (the fire truck), and sometimes you wind up with something with parts of a Gundam and parts of Mazinger Z.

The image above is not from one of these discs, but is from a similar Korean production I found a bad ripped-from-VHS copy of the opening sequence to on the internet. The title? "Space Gundam V!" (I know it's not a Gundam, and you know it's not a Gundam ...) The opening sequence is entirely constructed of pan shots of the VF-1J, or "Space Gundam V," in various static poses against the space backdrop. Kind of makes me curious about the in-show animation ...

In researching this abomination, I discovered that it has actually lovingly been put on DVD in Korea, complete with cover art swiped from a Macross model box. If I ever get my mits on a copy, I will be, err, kind enough to share some quality screencaps. In the meantime ... I've got images to scan. Ta-ta.