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From: mae@aplvax.UUCP (Mary Anne Espenshade)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: Re: Animation review and follies
Message-ID: <162@aplvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 1-Oct-85 17:17:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: aplvax.162
Posted: Tue Oct  1 17:17:43 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Oct-85 03:14:25 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: JHU/Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, MD
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>quotes are from Bill Flanagan's review of animated tv shows, posted
 by Jay Parks
I liked Bill's rating scale and I'm glad to find someone else interested
in quality animation.

> I'll also review the Voltrons (Voltage 5, and Go Lions.  
That's Diarugger XV and Go Lion, unless you are watching something
different from what I have seen.  Admittedly, I got disgusted and gave
up trying to watch it.

> Minmay's opening song is played 
> far too much.  It is perfect for her debut, especially when you 
> consider her personality, but they play it over and over, always 
> calling it her new song.  Over, and over, and over, and 
> AAAAUUUGGHHHHH!
It's also a real pity they didn't find an actress who could sing.
Minmay had many more songs in the original Macross and actually had a
singing voice, though the character was still an annoying twit.

> And the word "Protoculture" gets very 
> confusing. (This is the fault of the translators. ed)
It certainly is the fault of the "translators".  The word protoculture
was actually used once in Macross - by the Zentradi leader to describe
what they considered the primitive society of the humans - a
"proto"-culture.  Makes some sense that way.  The term has no
relevance what so ever to the other two shows used in Robotech,
the "translators" just picked it up as a neat, meaningless term to throw
around and mean whatever they needed an unusual word for in each
episode.

> Harmony Gold treated it with the class it deserved.  Here is one of 
> the best parts for all of you who watch Voltron and groan every time 
> some one uses the word "robot", or "escape ship": people die in 
> Macross!!  No one flies "robot ships" and even characters bite it.  
Harmony Gold destroyed the music, something I find it very hard to
forgive them for, but they did do a more reasonable translation than
most.  Of course, in the original series Diarugger XV and Go Lion,
people died as well.  This is a very common form of censorship by
translation - StarBlazers is another big victim, there are especially
large holes in the last few episodes.

> Tranzor Z--    I never thought the Japanese could create trash on the 
> order of He-Man, but they did.  It was by The Toei animation company. 
Though I agree with the low rating, this needs to be put in perspective.
Tranzor Z is Mazinger Z, the first major giant robot show of its kind,
made around 1970.  It can not fairly be compared to recent shows like
Macross, that were made toward the end of the 15 year reign of giant
robot shows' popularity.  The U.S. may have just discovered them, but,
according to a review in the latest C/FO newsletter of recent animated
shows currently in production for Japanese TV, giant robots are on their
way out over there.

			Mary Anne Espenshade
			...!{allegra, seismo}!umcp-cs!aplvax!mae