FYI

The new episode of The Roboblog Chronicles will be up by Tuesday morning. This week's show is a little more complicated than I'm used to, so it's going to take another night's worth of work. You'll see why when it's up.

Update: Make that Wednesday morning. Hey, you can't rush art, and what's in the works this week is about as close to art as you're ever going to get on this show.

So I suppose it's doing well.

No real reason for this screen shot -- just thought it looked cool.

Comics/pop culture retailer news site ICv2 has produced their list of the top ten anime properties for the 1st quarter of 2007. Guess what's on there.

1. Dragon Ball Z
2. Pokemon
3. Voltron
4. Naruto
5. Robotech Shadow Chronicles
6. Fullmetal Alchemist
7. Hellsing Ultimate
8. Howl's Moving Castle
9. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
10. Bleach

Yes, that's The Shadow Chronicles hanging snugly between Cartoon Network anime phenomenons Naruto and Fullmetal Alchemist, but below Voltron, which had a very well-publicized DVD release through Media Blasters. Y'know, not to be a Monday morning quarterback, but looking at it on this list, I wonder how well Shadow Chronicles would be doing if it had some stronger marketing up front.

The rest of the ICv2 article is about how anime DVD releases have dropped since this time last year and how in contrast manga sales are hanging in pretty well. Kind of interesting reading for the armchair anime & manga pundit crowd. See it here.

The Roboblog Chronicles: Episode 4.5

Again with the Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles sequel speculation stuff, since that's what the people want to talk about. I admit it's fun, but there are bits here where I feel like I'm going in circles. Maybe I am. It was about 3:00 a.m. by the time I wrapped up and I didn't really feel like watching the finished product ...

Do we have a Japanese language expert in the house?

Reader Mark Munoz found an intriguing Mospeada-related image on the Macross World forums and sent it along. Unfortunately, I'm not the Japanese language expert in the family -- that would be my sister -- so I have no worldly clue what this is. He suggested maybe Mospeada 2 designs, or something Tatsunoko did for Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles 2, but it doesn't look official to me -- more like a game of "what if" or "redesign the mecha" being played in an issue of Hobby Japan or something. Notice that for some reason the TLEAD/Tread is being referred to as a DREAD, which suggests a lack of familiarity with the material, and that the large image of the redesign looks AWFULLY rough and lop-sided. I would think something designed to give us a taste of a new series would be a little sharper and more polished.

What do YOU think? Or better, if you know for sure what we're looking at here, please share!

Taking the New Generation with you.

In one of those funny moments of synchronicity that seem to happen on occasion, just as the Robotech.com store finally got the New Generation deck for Hero Factory's ROBOTECH card game in stock, they also posted the news that the cell phone game Tommy Yune's been trying to hype for about half a year now is launching on AT&T's Cingular phone network next week, with more carriers to come later. Mind you, neither of these things are anything I'm personally into -- I'm still iffy on whether I'm getting that Robotech Masters deck, tempting though it may be, and I just don't need the distraction of Alpha Fighters on my cell phone, no matter how much that game looks like something I would have been shoving quarters into at the local arcade about twelve years ago -- but y'know, it's something and probably worth mentioning.

In other gaming news, The Masters has Palladium Books' latest press release regarding the upcoming Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles RPG book. You expect me to copy & paste? Nah, I'd rather you hop on over and take a look at his blog, because I'm a nice guy like that.

The Roboblog Chronicles: Episode 4

Who from The New Generation do I think should be in the next ROBOTECH animation? You probably know if you watched last Thursday's show, but find out why. And what lovely little ROBOTECH-related trinket did I just recently score, and how does it tie into a possible promotional scheme I have for The Shadow Chronicles? Find out on today's episode of The Roboblog Chronicles!

Post #300 - Merch & More ...

• Well, someone's going to get to look at The Art of Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles early. This weekend Stone Bridge Press will be unveiling it for attendees at the Alternative Press Expo. According to Robotech.com, in-store dates are forthcoming. Probably pretty quick here, unless they look that one copy over and find it riddled with errors ...


• Also, in case you haven't heard, the Shadow Chronicles soundtrack is on iTunes, in case you aren't interested in having it as a tangible object.


• Next weekend, Kevin McKeever is going to be in China. Bring us back something nice, Kev!


• And Harmony Gold has signed a number of new deals with companies worldwide. In the wake of this, Chris Meadows talked this afternoon with ROBOTECH's brand manager at FUNimation, Jonathan Brands. Tommy Yune was also there. Listen here, like I'm doing as I type this.


• Revealed at the tail end of the aforementioned interview was the fact that the Aoshima Mospeada toys will have more differences under the hood than just the joints, even if they will be identical to the Masterpiece Alphas on the surface, and that George Sohn of Toynami will be talking to Aoshima and CM's (Beagle, too?) about bringing their Mospeada products into the States in an official way. Hey, if it means they'll be less expensive for me, the end consumer, I'm all for it!


• Oh, and yes, this is the 300th post on this blog. Phew!

The Roboblog Chronicles: Episode 3.5

I did not know that.

According to this article at Toybox DX, which itself is heavily derived from this Japanese-language post at Yacolog, Aoshima's upcoming 1/48 Mospeada Legioss fighters will not be wholly original new molds -- rather they'll be officially licensed retooled versions of the Toynami Masterpiece Collection Alpha Fighters, featuring stronger joints and, they claim, "new versions with different weapons." (Oh, you mean like this?) They'll be hitting in late July at 10,290 yen apiece in blue, red, and green flavors, but before then they'll be on display at the Shizuoka Hobby Show, so hopefully someone will be able to get some photography so that we can get a good look at how different they are and what these new weapons are, if in fact they're part of the initial release.

Aoshima is also considering releasing Toynami's as-of-yet-unreleased Masterpiece Beta Fighter. Honestly, I can see Aoshima doing it before Toynami at this point, though if Aoshima does it stands to reason that we might wind up with some overpriced import TLEADs in "Robotech Masterpiece Beta Fighter" boxes hitting the ol' Robotech.com store.

This venture is not to be confused with CM's Legioss & TLEAD combination set, due in the more vague "this summer" timeframe.

Not Quite Robotech: Orguss on cable & DVD in the U.S.

According to Anime News Network, Super Dimension Century Orguss, Big West and Studio Nue's 1983 follow-up to Macross featuring character designs by Haruhiko Mikimoto and mechanical design by Kazutaka Miyatake, is going to be airing weekdays on iaTV beginning June 5 and will subsequently be released on DVD directly through parent company ImaginAsian on eight discs at $12.99 for the first disc and $9.99 for each additional disc.

This release is part of a larger block called "TMS Presents: Anime Classics," which also includes the anime adaptation of Tsukasa Hojo (City Hunter)'s Cat's Eye and Nobody's Boy Remi. For more details see the ANN article.

The Roboblog Chronicles: Episode 3

Speculation on possible returning ROBOTECH characters in the next animation ho!

Random Robotech linkage

• Your random Shadow Chronicles screen grab for the day: Is that a faraway look in Scott Bernard's eyes, or is he just sleepy?


• As The Masters pointed out yesterday, Harmony Gold's Kevin McKeever has been working on a secret thing, and Steve Yun is tirelessly working to put the thing on Robotech.com. I guess we'll see what it is when Steve's done.


• AnimeNewsNetwork reports that AIC is celebrating the 23rd anniversary of Megazone 23 (the first part of which was adapted into Robotech The Movie: The Untold Story) with a big live event on May 13 in Tokyo. The part of it that those of us here on this side of the Pacific can appreciate is the fact that they're also cranking out a new artbook this month, the Megazone 23 Maneuver Book, and a new video game for the PlayStation 3 this summer. More details here at ANN or if you can read Japanese you can go straight to the source.
  
  Wow, a reason to buy a PS3. Hadn't seen one of those yet.


• Comic book fandom webcomic "New Book Day" encounters The Shadow Chronicles. I believe I agree with the author on the execution -- it kind of falls flat -- but hey, it's a ROBOTECH reference.


• Look, it's someone else who hated The Shadow Chronicles! Hey, at least people are watching it.


• And here's someone who liked it. Also, he mentions that he had to keep explaining things to friends watching with him who weren't down with the lingo -- yeah, I've had to do that twice now. I really hope Team HG didn't honestly think the final product was all that n00b friendly.


• Robotech/Macross toy reviews within the past week or so:
  
  JHC reviews Toynami's 1/100 VF-1A Valkyrie.
  
  ilike29394 reviews Toynami's Masterpiece VFA-6Z Alpha Fighter.
  
  Sanjeev reviews the big 1985 Matchbox/Bandai/Takatoku Robotech SDF-1 Battle Fortress.


• wwwmwww tracked down, scanned, and posted to Macross World's forums a text-heavy Mospeada doujinshi (fan publication). Lots of Ride Armor/Cyclone art in among the pages upon pages of Japanese text. Also a lot of neat Mospeada pics further down in the thread from magazines contemporary with the show's release. Nifty, nifty, nifty ...

The Roboblog Chronicles: Episode 2.5

Covering, of course, the comments on this episode, which you should watch, even though I think I said more interesting things tonight.

Chris has just hit the jackpot.

Saturday, April 14 @ 6:00 p.m. EDT, Chris Meadows will welcome Carl Macek, producer and story editor of the original ROBOTECH television series and consultant on Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles to his Space Station Liberty talkcast show. Macek also headed up one of the early anime home video companies, Streamline Pictures, directed many of the English adaptations they produced, and has since worked on projects for ADV Films as a writer and ADR director. His most recent anime credit is as one of the writers working on the English adaptation of the hit shonen action TV series Bleach.

Methinks this is one installment of Space Station Liberty you're going to want to listen to live. When the fans think of people involved in the production of the ROBOTECH TV series to half-jokingly refer to as the "Robotech Masters," Macek's usually first on the list.

The Roboblog Chronicles: Episode 2

If you're wondering about that scene transition at the end, I had to do that because I was about half a minute over the YouTube free account ten minute time limit. I'll get to the guys I was talking about in the bit I clipped out next week anyway -- they fit better there.

The Roboblog Chronicles: Episode 1.5 [FIXED]

This covers comments made to this episode of the show. Be sure to watch it before feasting your eyes on this one, 'kay?

Oh, and while you're at it, watch MedMapGuy's new Flash animated ROBOTECH open. The link's in the next post down. Yeah, under the Alpha Fighter posing against the Sentinels-era SDF-3 bridge. Go. Watch. Enjoy.

Robotech Intro Redux

MedMapGuy has crafted a spiffy-keen new Flash animated version of the ROBOTECH opening sequence based on, it seems, a roughly pre-Robotech Masters timeframe. It is awesome. Watch it NOW.

He's also making a PDF file ROBOTECH fan art book. Read about it here. If he's seriously accepting submissions, I'm thinking I should probably get back to the ol' drawing table.

New Masterpiece Preorders

BigBadToyStore.com has opened up preorders for the second and third Toynami Masterpiece Collection Cyclones, Lancer & Rand's, with tentative release dates of 1st and 2nd Quarter 2008, respectively. See them here -- or rather, see where they should be, since there are no pictures up. They still only have pictures of Scott Bernard, who's coming up in November.

This comes in the wake of news of Aoshima's upcoming 1/48 Legioss (Alpha Fighter) toys in July, CM's Legioss & TLEAD (Alpha & Beta) combination, and Beagle's 1/12 Ride Armors (Cyclones) coming up next year. (All links point back to The Masters's Robotech Companion blog.) If you're a Mospeada/Robotech: The New Generation fan, you're going to either need a lot of money during the course of the next year, or you're going to have a lot of choices to make.

(Screen grab nicked from Robotech Research.)

Another year goes by.

It's my birthday again. Twenty-six this year. God, now I'm totally on the other side of my twenties. What the hell? Where's the time going? What am I doing with my life? Why do I ask myself these questions every year? Ugh. I always wondered when I was a kid why grown-ups didn't much care for birthdays. I think I'm finally getting a handle on the reason ... though if I wind up with, say, a Masterpiece Megatron tomorrow, I may reconsider that line of thinking.

While I'm up and typing, thanks for all the responses to the video. Really means a lot to me that people are watching and commenting. I'll be recording and posting "episode 1.5" tomorrow night to address all the comments, so if you've got a thought to share, drop it in the comments thread for the video and I'll try and get to it tomorrow evening.

The Roboblog Chronicles: Episode 1

Yes, henceforth you will be getting weekly video rants like the above. Consider yourself warned. Leave your comments and complaints in the comment jar and I'll address them in the next episode.

Note: The final issue of Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles sold approx. 8,200 copies in the direct market, not "about 6,000-something" as I state in the video. But that's still pathetic by DC Comics standards. Not as pathetic as that Ninja Scroll series being published by DC/WildStorm that was at the 6,000-something mark as of January and is still inexplicably ongoing, but certainly far from good ...

*slaps forehead*

Okay, you realize what today is, right?

Good, so you know what to expect on Robotech.com today, right?

For purposes of the record, this year's annual tomfoolery looks like this:


Robohint: The period at the end of the "The requested URL ..." blahbiddy-blah is clickable.

And now that I've said that, I suppose they'll have something else in store for the afternoon ...

Now this is just getting out of hand.

This auction is for the first issue of Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles with a starting bid of 99 cents, but a "Buy it Now" price of $6.99. That seems a little unreasonable.

But this auction ... well ... it's the whole enchilada -- all five issues -- for $99.99. Good gravy! Is anyone crazy enough to pay that much for that series? Apparently someone thinks so.

They may well be right. Looking back at completed auctions within the past couple of weeks, I see the first three issues selling for $20.50, the first issue on its own selling for $8.20 and $10.50 in two different auctions, and the whole lot going for a whopping $56.00. Wow!

The point: it seems there's actually demand out there for the series, and not enough supplies to go 'round. I guess the Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles DVD has reignited some people's interest in ROBOTECH, and those folks willing to sell Prelude over the internet are reaping the benefits.