A Geek History of Time - Episode 254 - Robotech's Anime-ted Past Part III

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

I don't want to get the grocery store item to laundry. I didn't three over through capitalism. You know, for somebody who taught that your inability to pronounce French like hurts. Oh, look at you getting to the end of my stuff. Motherfucker. But seriously, I do think that this bucolic, luxurious, live your weird fucking dreams kind of life

is something worth noting. Because of course he had. I got new an argument essentially with some folks as to whether or not punching Nazis is something you should do. And they're like, no, then you're just as bad as the Nazis. And I was like, the Nazis committed genocide. I'm talking about breaking noses.

Drink scotch and eat strict nine. All right, you can't leave that lying there luxury poultry. Yes, yes. Fancy chickens. Yes, fancy chickens. Pet, pet fancy chickens. Pet fancy chickens. Pet fancy chickens. This is a Geek History of Time. Where we connect Nurgury to the real world.

My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a world history and English teacher here in Northern California. And as we record this in the morning tomorrow, I will be attending my son's first sports practice for organized sports, specifically for flag football and There is absolutely no way he's gonna be going into tackle football

Because his mother will will not will not allow that and I I am not I like if if he really wanted to do it I would be fine with that, but I'm not one of those dads is like no football football. No um It doesn't matter to me Unless it matters to him and and his mother does not care. He will not do it. So Uh flag football is is going to be it as far as football goes, but he is very interested in soccer, which I'm 100% behind him doing. That'll be great because that's a whole lot of running and the Lord knows anything we can do to make this boy fall asleep faster

at night. I am going to be supportive of unless you give me good reasons not to be. So that's what I have going on and ahead of me. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a US history teacher up here in Northern California at the high school level. And I was watching a TV show with my children about a character who is deaf and disabled physically as well in that she is an amputee. And forgive me if I've used the inappropriate terms for those as I was going off of IMDB.

So we're watching this and it's a very good series. It's very good stuff. I won't be mentioning the names, but we're watching it and at one point, the song Centerfold by Jay Giles Band comes on. Okay. The lyrics, we always watch everything close caption because it just helps

Part of it's I got used to it while my son was really little and never sleeping because I'd have to watch something really low volume Yeah, okay, that's fair and yeah, we just all got used to it So there the the lyrics come on as well and it's does she walk, does she talk, does she come complete? Mm hmm. And my son says, well, that was a clever song to put in there when they just talked about her disability and her not being able to to hear. I was like, God damn, boy. All right. That's that's perceptive. Well done. Yeah. All right. So's the fountain. That's perceptive. Well done. Yeah, so I was very impressed.

Like that's, and he did it with like, okay, if any number of the people I know in the comedy community did it, it would be a bit. If any number of teenagers did it, it would be look at what a clever bit this is. My son did it completely like just, wow, well done. Good. Absolutely no guile in life.

Right. Other than the band. Yeah, the J-guiles. Yeah. Multiple guile. Yeah, it's true. So anyway, that's what I've got. So what have you got tonight?

Last night, I heard we were Robotech. Yeah, a continuation of talking about Robotech. And when I left off, I had, in a roundabout way, gotten around to talking about Robotech's introduction to the United States, that it started in the US in 84. It was based on super dimensional Fortress Macross, a series produced in Japan in 1982. And an important figure in the show is Shojo Kawamori, who was also responsible for the creation of the Transformers characters for Takara Toys, which in a very Japan since World War II way,

Takara Toys is related to Ben Dynamico, who are related to Sunrise Productions, which is another anime studio. It's like lateral integration. I talked briefly about that whole economic model. But the important thing for our purposes is that Studio Nue came up with the idea in 1980. I'm going to blast through this because I think I went over it before but I want to... It's important to get this. To reset. Yeah.

Yeah. The concept was developed by Studio Nui and Wiz about what they wanted to do. Eventually Wiz went out of business. And Studio Nue bought out the rights, so they wholly owned it at that point. But then they got mostly an advertising firm called Big West, who had plenty of money, but no anime experience. They got them to sign on to sponsor. And then Big West looked at it and went, okay, yeah, this is still going to take more budget

and more work than we know what to do. And they went to an anime production company, Tatsunoko Productions. And so we have Studio Nui came up with the idea. Right. And that was the super dimension Fortress Macross. Yeah, super dimensional Fortress Macross. Okay. And the and the Valkyrie transforming fighters and the destroyed, you know, big stomping robot Max and the SFDF one, all that stuff and the destroyed, you know, big stomping robot mechs and the SDF one, all that stuff, and the characters. And then they brought in Big West. Big West eventually made a deal with Tatsunoko. Tatsunoko, as part of that deal, Tatsunoko got the international distribution rights.

Okay. So everybody has a piece of this pie, but Tatsunoko controls the rights to take this and do stuff with it outside of Japan. Okay. Okay, is that where Harmony Gold gets involved? Yes, it is. Okay, that that where Harmony Gold gets involved? Yes, it is. Okay, that's that.

Oh God, was it Jordanian? The guy that was in? Egyptian. Okay, okay. Egyptian. Yeah. I'm gonna get to that. Okay, okay.

Egyptian with friends in high places in Taiwan and- Right. Italy. And in light, as a matter of fact. Yeah, it's this weird fucking, yeah, globe trotting. Yeah, I'm gonna get to it. So there was... I never watched the cartoon,

but in other researches that I did for G.I. Joe, I sidebarred into this stuff because Sunbow. Fell down a wiki hole. Yeah, yeah. And then I saw Harmony Gold. I'm like, is that like Golden Harvest? No, it's very different. Very, very different. And then you remember when we talked about toxic crusaders, it's what was that studio called? Deke? No. No, Teffen or something like that or. Yeah, yeah. or something like that or yeah, yeah

It's like really well-known studio of schlocky B film stuff bad bad Yeah, but like and so I was just yeah. Yeah, okay. Sorry I had nothing substantial to say other than to name drop something that was in advance of what you were gonna get to so yes So in 1984 sure Harmony Gold Productions bought the rights to Macross from Tatsunoko. And this is Macross, not Southern Cross, but Macross. Well also... Oh, fucking Christ. So, well, okay.

Because I was confused about the different crosses, too. Okay, yeah. So, Macross was just a word they came up with. Okay. Southern Cross is a reference to the constellation of the Southern Cross. Oh, okay. I thought it was some sort of like weird Confederacy thing, Hokkaido.

No, no. So Harmony Gold hired Carl Masek to adapt three anime series into one to do a mashup, which is something he did with other properties and which other people had done with anime series to bring him into the United States before. But Harmony Gold had also purchased super dimensional fortress Southern Cross Okay, was an unrelated anime The you know borrowed concepts and some ideas right you have lateral thinking going on there Yeah, and and Genesis Climber Mosbita and Mosbita is a very long acronym

and so Climber Mospita and Mospita is a very long acronym. And so Harmony Gold said, OK, we're going to take all three of these series. We're going to mash them up into one, like three part thing. It was all going to be it's all going to be one very long series with three clearly defined arcs. Oh, because the gold standard there is you don't want just 48 episodes. You need like over 100 so you can do syndication. Yes. Got it. Was Mospita the one where? No, I'm sorry. That was mask. Never find where he was writing the no.

No, it was sentient scooter. No, but Mosp the have like weird guns or something, right? Like, Well, most of most of it was just weird. Like, it is, it is an alien invasion meets real robot Mecca kind of kind of show. Sure. Okay. So to kind of explain a little bit about the original source material Mm-hmm Macross we talked about it's it's you know alien You know thousands of years old alien starship crashes and brings an end to World War three and everybody tries to rebuild it And then the aliens show up to get their ship back and we have to fight them

To way simplify Which it's superman is is even like hard for Americans to wrap our heads around because there's no like, like there is no clear white hat, black hat there. Well, I mean. Because they're coming to get their shit back. Yeah. You know, it's, it's,

they are coming to get through. We can quibble on their methods, but like also we all have to unite to fight them for a thing that's kind of theirs kind of ended us fighting each other like yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Superdimensional fortress southern cross also involves an alien invasion. But in this case, instead of being, you know, 10 meter tall, you know, giants who are, you know, raised in clone vats, it is a clone

society, but clones operate in groups of three, and they're modulated and kind of controlled by psychically attuned singers who operate in choruses of three. And it's a whole thing. And the Mecca, in Macross, the transforming robots turned into recognizable, this is a jet plane. And Southern Cross, The mecha that transformed went from frankly an ugly robot form into a really kind of like, it just looks like a

brick with a gun on it tank form. And I'm sure there's some Southern Cross fans somewhere out there that are going to just think I'm a complete heretic for that Or whatever I said what I said And and the characters spend a lot more time in In Southern in the original anime they they wear Very heavy body armor. That's kind of an environmental suit. It's anyway So and then the third series that the Tottenoko sold the rights to to many gold for is Genesis Climber Mosbita where a slug like alien race kind of reminiscent of ideas that come out

of war of the world. Okay. Show up. And they are, they devastate Earth and leave much of it a blasted wasteland. And they are performing weird experiments to try to unlock the secrets of evolution. And so we, in Robotech, we see this a little bit with the Genesis pits. But it's, the themes of the original series are different. But what we have in Mospeda is the defining Mecca of Mospeda is the motorcycle that, in Robotech, it's referred to as a cyclone, a motorcycle that converts into body armor. So it's jump jets and, you know, bigger, heavier weapons than an ordinary soldier would carry.

Right. So kind of drawing on Akira. Well, the motorcycle. I have to actually look at release dates because this might redate Akira. So it could again be lateral. Well, lateral thinking and also part of the idea in Akira was that Kaneda was a delinquent who was working his way toward becoming a member of a Bosa Zoku motorcycle gang. And so as a character point, and like when they're in school, you see them in auto shop where they're working on their motorcycles in the delinquent.

You know, you've always been sent to this high school because school is not for you. So we're going to try to teach you a trade, but you don't care about that. You want to go out and wreak ultra violence, you know, situation. So, okay., right situation. So, okay, so yeah, yeah, Harmony Gold took these three not really connected series at all and handed them to Carl Maysak and said, do what you do and turn this into one saga with three kind of independent but connected story arcs. And Masek originally just said, no, I just, I want to do Macross. I want to, because this is awesome. I want to adapt this. And they said, well, you can adapt that, but if you're going

to adapt that, we're only going to pay you to do it if you bring these other two series in. Okay. So, so Maysak did it and gave us Robotech the series. Right. the series. Maysake is one of the most influential figures in anime history outside of Japan and fans who of that tend to have strong opinions one way or the other about that whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. For a very long time there were a lot of people within

an anime fandom who kind of villainized him. I don't think he deserves it. Okay. I for a long time, I was one of those people. What's the nature of his villainization? That that that the original series, he had to take a lot of liberties with Macross in order to adapt it. And the opinion of many fans is that the series got dumbed down, it got kiddified. You know, and, you know, he was pointed to as being this villain for having done this to this series that otherwise was so, you know, amazing. Sure. pivotal moment when we were in this collective cultural moment of being horrified, fascinated with Japan. And when this was also at the time of, you know, there being so many channels on TV, and as I mentioned in the last episode, there were other Japanese series that got Americanified

In order to be in order to take up time on on the airwaves and in cable on on general general access cable not general access what's what I'm looking basic cable, right and So Robo tech went directly it was a direct to syndication series And it got broadcast in the afternoon in in and around that same time slot that we talked about with GI Joe, right? When I was in Hawaii, it was Robo tech. Well, there'd be Try to remember I'd get home from school Robotech while there'd be trying to remember I'd get home from school At like 330. Okay. If I busted my butt getting home

Come in coming from the boat dock on on my bike if I busted my butt I'd be home by a little actually the laughter three if I'm remembering right and Gijo would come on at like 330 And G.I. Joe would come on at like 330. Robotech would come on at like 430. And there's something in there I'm forgetting. Transformers might have been in there too. And then Voltron was on at five o'clock. And as much as it was a huge Robotech fan, Voltron was like, if I miss Voltron, like I'm pissed.

That's so interesting. Cause where I was in San Francisco, Gijo 3 30 or three o'clock Transformers 3 30 that was the prime slot and it might have been 4 4 30. But then in the hour before that was stuff that was like easier to miss, but like prime slot was Gijo Transformers. Yeah. Honestly, I think Voltron was a Saturday morning and it wasn't one of the channels that I would watch.

Okay. But it could also be that because the 230 slot was like the ugly slot. And it was like, that's where you put dumb shit, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what it was. 230 was the beginning of after-school cartoons for me. So it was 230, and then there was a three and a 330, a four and a 430.

Four was G.I. Joe, 430 was Transformers. 230 was often one of, it was either Robotech or Voltron and then Heathcliff was after that. And then it was whatever else they were trying to put. Yeah. Wow. Different markets, man. Like that's what's wild about it. Like, and there were plenty of friends I had that watched the hell out of Robotech and Voltron. And I remember in one house, I watched Voltron more often than my parents and I moved. And I didn't watch Voltron as often.

And I think it's because that school got out later. Oh yeah, okay, That makes sense. Yeah That's that's so that's wild like how and again you were closer to Japan like we talked about this before living in Hawaii you had access to all kinds of shit that I would never have heard of because Hawaii was kind of the test market in a lot of ways. Yeah. Yeah. In a lot of ways it was. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. Go on. All right. Yeah. No, not at all. So now Masek had to do what he did for a variety of reasons. Part of it was broadcast standards because there's a lot of stuff in the original series

that American sensors would look at and go, I didn't know, you just just know right you you need you need to cut that or find a way around it But there's also the need to link the series together Mm-hmm The original series has a much more kind of globalist feel Captain global is a Russian Roy Fokker is a German Hikaru Ichijo who becomes Rick Hunter in Robotech is Japanese. Now it's worth noting that this is globalistic in a very 1980s Japanese way, which is to say it plays very hard on national stereotypes.

Yes. Global is a drunk. The American squadron member is cartoonishly loud and obnoxious. Lin Min-mei's Chinese-ness is played up very heavily in some ways that they would be day class say right say By comparison the robotech TV series pays lip service to this being a global effort But the national origins of the individual characters get completely glossed over and it just it's America It's Cold War, you know

As already mentioned because of differences in Japanese and American more is about animation Because animation ghetto in the US is a very different thing that animation ghetto in Japan, right? I was a lot of things got edited out of Robotech for Americans indication. The most notable example is Roy Foker, spoiler alert, Roy Foker dies in both series. Narratively he has to. Right. Like being, being, being the mentor figure to the hero is not a good gig and

So in Robotech Roy Foker collapses in his girlfriend's apartment We see him slump forward and then the shot cuts from Claudia his girlfriend gasping To then a shot of seeing her kneeling beside his collapsed form from a low shot above his head. So we never actually see his back. So no blood.

In the original material, yeah, there's another shot in the middle where the viewer sees that he's slumped forward and he's bleeding through his uniform from the wounds in his back from his dogfight earlier. Because of the animation ghetto in American media, there are also a lot of moments trimmed from the original series, involving other instances of violence that were considered too graphic moments where, you know, characters were behaving in an intoxicated manner because, you know, they're fighter pilots, they go out drinking, like, it's a thing. Or the implication of nudity or sex,

because there are love triangles involved and things happen. And there are like, you know, it's things like, you know, shower scenes, that kind of stuff. It's not like, you know, it's things like, you know, shower scenes, that kind of stuff. It's not anything, I mean, it's not anything really brilliant, but it's, you know, more than an American censor would think was appropriate for a show being watched by, you know, nine and 10 year olds. Right. And remember, as we did in the G.I. Joe series, like there is a lot of effort to deregulate the FCC. Yeah. And so that toy companies could just run commercials as cartoons. You can't deregulate the FCC and have kids see stuff like that because then the mother's groups will be like,

stuff like that because then the mother's groups will be like, excuse me. Yeah, public outcry will lead to regulation that you absolutely do not want. Right. And in all honesty, if it happens right as Reagan's deregulating the FCC, it's one of those fun things is like, you need to censor these so that we can continue deregulation Yeah, you need to censor these so we can fire the sensors What yeah because we wait a minute We we don't want the sensors to get in the way of a selling shit. So you need to make sure that like it's just Yeah, it needs to be made it needs to be made corn flakes Plain and palatable right it's it's so you're what's the word I'm looking for like a

Scheme that you draw across it like it's it's a show and that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah a shell game or a scrim. Yeah, so Okay, yeah So those those editorial choices all got made But the single biggest shift that was intellectual, both Macross and Robotech, referenced the idea of proto-culture. But it means very different things depending on which version of the story you're following. In Macross, the proto-culture is an intellectual idea. It's literally the first humanoid culture to arise in the galaxy and in the in the deep lore and mythology of Macross

humanity are descended from the the Essentially, we were engineered from the same proto race as a bunch of other humanoid, very human-looking races that are out there in the galaxy. And so, it's ancient aliens. It's a cartoon version of ancient aliens. You're basically there. Now, in Robotech, Protoculture is a resource.

Protoculture stands in for oil. Okay. It is a very powerful source of energy that also has semi mystical powers. So all of the Destroids, all of the Valkyries and the SDF-1 are all powered by Protoculture Generators and Protoculture is derived from the flower of life. Valkyries and the SDF-1 are all powered by proto-culture generators and proto-culture is derived from the flower of life and It is this incredibly powerful clean energy source

but it also has the effect of Being kind of semi psychic and so if you are piloting a proto culture powered vehicle, there is a kind of psychic oneness with your robot that exists that wouldn't be there if it was being powered by a micronuclear reactor. For example, there's this, you know, which is kind of some hand-wavium for all the cool shit that Mecha are able to do in the series, basically. But it also becomes aotech, the Zentradi have shown up to

get the ship because they've been sent by the Robotech masters. And the Robotech masters have been looking for the ship for 10,000 years, whatever, because everywhere else in the galaxy, they are running out of the flower of life. And Zor, one of the original Robotech masters, had come to space Jesus' moment and realized how corrupt and awful the Robotech Masters culture was, and he had taken a huge portion of their supply of seeds for the flower of life and fled in this ship on his own and then crash landed on earth. So they're looking for the ship mostly because they're looking for the seeds of the flower of life. Okay. So there's the whole first Robotech War. At the end of the first Robotech War,

this is Robotech timeline. This is not Japanese Mad Cross. This is all Robotech, Carl Maysec that I'm talking about now. At the end of the first Robotech war, Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes and a bunch of other folks from the UN Spacey form the Sentinels group and an expeditionary force, the REF instead of the RDF Robotech Defense Force. It's the REF Robotech Expeditionary Force. They build the SDF-3 and they head out into the galaxy because they figured out we need to find we need to find the Robotech masters We need to tell them fuck off leave us alone. Sure. Okay they leave and

The second series which is a Robotech Southern Cross focuses on Max and Myrius Sterling's daughter, Dana, who is serving in the Southern Cross Army on Earth as essentially trying to defend Earth, now that the expeditionary forces left. And basically the REF and the Robotech masters pass each other in space and the Robotech masters, the Tirolians show up in orbit over Earth. And they, they are convinced, no, no, no, you have, we can, we

can detect a, a proto culture, right? You know, know you have it we're here to take it you know fuck you right and then all of the events of southern cross kickoff This is a whole long story and I was never a huge fan of southern cross but That leads to the second robotech war against the masters and their Bioroid Mecha. Hmm. Humanity wins. Yay.

Okay. And then after that, the invids show up and we find this out and in the first episode of the third series, we find out, oh yeah, all that stuff Dana and all of her friends did. Yeah, that was great. They won, but they all died. Because I remember the in vid being mentioned. Yes, I remember hearing about them. Yes, because the Robotech Masters had originally stolen the flower of life from the in vid

who had started out as a hive. had originally stolen the Flower of Life from the Envid, who had started out as a hive, well, they remained, they're a hive mind species. And they had started out being vegetarian pacifist. They didn't want for anything because they had the Flower of Life, so they didn't develop a very advanced technology culture. And the Robotech Master showed up and their most brilliant scientist, Zor, looked at the Flower of Life and went, oh my god, this has so much potential. And he developed all of this magical

whizbang stuff. And the Robotech Masters went, yeah, yeah, that's really cool. Hey, what's going on over there? And while Zor wasn't looking, they raided the Invid's homeworld, stole all of the Flower of Life from them that they could carry and set fire to the planet, which caused a psychic, I mean, the trauma of that caused the Invid Hive Mind to divide into two halves and one of those halves ruled by the Regis now showed up on Earth after the Robotech Masters had been there because they were coming after the Robotech Masters for their stuff and they just devastated the planet, turned it into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. And then, you know, set about ignoring the few humans that were surviving as long as they didn't, you know, get in their way.

And then they were trying to evolve into a better form. Okay. And the plucky heroes of the third series are resistance fighters against the invids. Scott Bernard was on Mars base with the REF and he was part of the force that tried to fight the infant off when they showed up in our solar system and you know, crash landed on earth. Okay. You know, and so it's a it's a resistance story against an alien occupation.

And so, um, proto culture as a thing becomes a load bearing plot point. And and kind of the whole reason for the second and third series happening at all. Okay. And I mean, I could, I could spend a lot of time talking about just the plots of those two series and the way they play with the idea of hydraulic empire, imperialism, colonialism, oil, you know, all of that. And, you know, it would, it would, the people who villainize Maysak and talk about how, how dumb down the series was, don't look at the subtext because there's, there's a lot going on there.

Sure. But right now that's not the focus. And so it's fashionable and it has been fashionable for a long time in fandom circles to beat up on Robotech because you know I like the original better. Right. And you know that makes you a more sophisticated fan makes you cooler whatever. Sure. And may set gets beaten up about it. And there's actually even the phrase that he maysackered the source material. Okay. I'm going to counter that Maysec isn't, if you are going to villainize anybody, don't

villainize him, villainize Harmony Gold. Okay. Because they're the ones that said, you can't just do Macross because there's only 48 episodes of it We need enough to get syndication right out the gate. So it's all three series or nothing So, you know sure Now localization of anime We already talked a little bit about what was going on on basic cable at this time, but it dates back to the 1960s with Astro Boy and Speed Racer

being imported and and heavily edited Speed Racer in fact wasn't so much as so much edited as completely rewritten Because the production company that was doing it would receive the re the film reels In in the mail, you know every week they get the new they get the new episode They'd screen the new episode and they'd get a copy of the script But the script was in Japanese and nobody on the animation staff knew Japanese. Right.

So, they couldn't translate the original at all. They made massive changes and some of the things that they did made the series surrealist and batshit crazy. The resulting American series has whole sub plots and character relationships that didn't exist and And because of stuff that they had to cut out again because of localization and censorship and whatever Like there's there's parts of speed racer that just do not make a goddamn lick of sense Like it's it's it's it is it is a cartoon cartoon on some kind of hard rug sometimes, which tangentially is part of what makes the Wachowski live action air quotes because oh my God, the CGI. Right.

But the Wachowski production of Speed Racer is wonderful. And it got lambasted because people didn't understand what it was they were doing. Like, they were like, oh, hey, I know it's based on this cartoon. And oh my God, it's a fucking cartoon Yes, it's a fucking cartoon. That's the whole point. It is a live-action cartoon Based on an American adaptation that was done with a lot of booze in the room Mm-hmm. This was the 60s. So it's a little early for cocaine, but I don't know it right No, no, they're they're, they're adapting Speed Racer.

And no, if you don't go into this movie expecting just completely bad shit, crazy. You're, you're going in the wrong movie theater. It's like when people complain about Sonic, like the movie Sonic, like, I don, like I don't, I don't, Sonic the Hedgehog, right? Yeah, yeah. When they complain about Sonic, how it's like, well, it's just too light and whimsical.

It's like, it's a blue hedgehog and sneakers. Yeah, have you played the video game? Like, should we look at the antagonist? Like, what do you expect? Like, what are you, what are you doing like, what do you expect? Like, what do you, what do you need? What seriousness do you need? What pathos are you looking for? Yeah, what did you go into this movie expecting?

Right. Like, I want to interrogate what, you went in here thinking you were going to get. Right. When you paid your, I don't have many dollars to spend for a movie ticket, like, what did you think you were paying for?

You know, dude. So yeah. And so, you know, Speed Racer was more an improv exercise than an adaptation. Astro Boy was not quite as dramatic a, what the fuck is this? Mm-hmm. But there was still an awful lot of stuff that had to be changed. Um, and, and, you know, given, given more American sensibilities. And so, you know, again, Masek looked at Macross and said, I want to do that.

Right. And Harmony Gold said, no, no, you got to build something that lasts over three series. So he had to do what he had to do in order to get the show in front of an audience. And now that brings us back to Harmony Gold and the whole intellectual property issue. Okay.

Now, a while ago, back in the previous episode, I said, put a pin into the international distribution rights issue. Okay. Now, a while ago, back on the previous episode, I said, put a pin into the international distribution rights issue. Right. Which went to Harmony Gold. Yes. Okay. So, Tatsunoko and Big West, and Big West Studio knew a kind of effectively become one entity for the purposes of this thesis going forward. In order for Macristic, Macristic had made it in the first place, and now we're going to pull that pin out and watch the bomb go off. So when, and Sean and Tessa were on here to talk about Fanfic, we spent a lot of time talking about copyright. For our purposes right now, what I want to remind everybody of is that legally an idea or a story can be sold like any other commodity.

And ownership of that intellectual property means you get to say who can and can't make money off of it. to say who can and can't make money off of it. Right. And now we have this weird intersection between the three companies on the Japanese side. Studio New Inc came up with the original idea. They brought in Big West and then Big West brought in Tatsunoko Productions. Now, Tatsunoko had animators on their staff. Big West, nobody at Big West knew anything about, they were not artists, they did not do animation, that was not their thing. And Big West partially brought in Tatsunoko because you have animators and Studio Nui is small enough that we don't have enough people we don't have enough hands on deck

We need Somebody to come in here and do more of the animation. Okay, okay Because this is the early 80s remember this is before any of this shit could be done on a computer. This is all hand Right sell sell animation. Yeah so Right. Cell by cell. Cell animation, yeah. So, Tatsunoko's animators worked with Studio Nui to put the series out, and part of that deal was what gave Tatsunoko the international rights. And so, there is the idea of, hey, we have authorship rights, then there's the idea that, well, we have rights, you know, we have some authorship rights because we help with the animation. There's the idea that, well, okay, who's the one who came up with the idea?

Like, yeah, you drew the pictures, but the idea belonged to this other guy. Right. So, Tatsunoko, who in this deal, they got distribution rights, they sold it to Harmony Gold. Now we're gonna talk about Harmony Gold for a minute. Okay. Harmony Gold was founded in, Harmony Gold USA, was founded in 1983 by Frank Agrama. Okay, that's the fellow-

And Egyptian-American, yeah. In cooperation with international investors, including future Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. And anybody who is old enough to have been tangentially listening to international news for the last 10 years. Right. You can already hear the anvil being hung like yes from the ceiling right now. Harmony Gold's first major success was the purchase and distribution of the miniseries Chaka Zulu. Yep. Okay. Now, I grew up watching that. Yes, I did too. Yeah. I grew up watching that. Yes, I did too. Yeah.

That actor who played Shaka had just such a interesting baritone. Oh Steady voice like the intensity in him like residence like wonderful cast out. Yeah, no, amazing So what I what I didn't know until I researched this this episode Was that the mini series had been developed by the South African Broadcasting Corporation? No Yeah Yeah, that's like We're starting to divest in shit

And I'm gonna go and harmony gold bought the rights and distributed outside South Africa. So yeah, you had great Lovely people here, right? Yeah Harmony gold purchased it despite sanctions over the years harmony gold entered into multiple agreements with international distribution companies to purchase and resell shows in various global markets. So like somebody production company in Europe would have something that they owned and Harmony Gold would enter into a deal with them, okay, we'll pay you this money to distribute it here in the States and Canada. And then they'd make the money from that distribution from selling that to be broadcast. And they also entered into partnerships where they were going to produce stuff and then sell it to companies in Europe for distribution. So it was this

back and forth kind of scratching each other's backs kind of things. Ultimately, these business dealings would lead to a drama being convicted in Italian court for fraud and embezzlement as part of the legal scandal surrounding Bear Lusconi's company, Media Set, in 2012. Wow. Okay. That's that's a long way in the future. That's 30 years out. 2012 Wow Okay, that's that's a long way in the future. That's 30 years out. Let's get back to the 80s. Yeah, okay, so Tatinoko sold licensing rights for Macross super dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, which was the original Southern Cross series, okay. And Genesis Climber Mospita to Harmony Gold in 1984.

Or yeah. Now the Southern Cross and Mospita series were ones wholly produced by Tatsunoko. They, they had done all of that in-house. So there's no ambiguity about ownership in either of those cases. Sure. But Macross was the big hit. That was the thing that turned into a multi-series universe in Japan that paved the way for media invasion by Anime in the United States via Robotech. Right. The ownership of that one caused some issues. When I say the following things mm-hmm Archer

Rifleman Warhammer Marauder Longbow Stinger Phoenix Hawk wasp Crusader What do all those names have in common well they all said the half of them are

guns that we can find in video games now. Most of them are some sort of firearm though, like everything that you said. Okay, like, yeah. Okay, I'll sound like video game weapons. Okay weapons. Yes Now they are pre clan So I'm gonna want you to think about mech warrior for a minute. Okay Archer That's a right. That's a Mac. That's a Mac. Oh, okay. Yeah, our longbow stinger Yeah, okay. Those are all things that I have in cold storage right now. Yeah, it's old. Yeah You damn it. I can't seem to get like I can't stay or climb above

539 million like I'm just having the damn time. Yeah humble brag all you want to I'm just having the DM this time. Yeah, humble brag all you want to Fassa included all of those mechs in the early material for battle tech and they are Signature mechs the visual design of those mechs Was was distinctive as hell very distinctive and it was taken from design work out of Superdimensional fortress macros Okay And it was taken from design work out of super dimensional fortress Macross. Okay.

The Stinger, Wasp, Phoenix Hawk and Crusader were all derived from different variants of the Veritech, the fighter jet. Right. And the others, the Arch of the Rifleman, Warhammer, Marauder and the Longbow, they were all ground to Destroids that showed up in the background of the series. Okay, the big, big stompy missile robots and the, you know, those guys. The ones that you see in the trailer that they go crash into, whip around and then punch and shit.

Well, no, those are like the Marauder was based on the was based on the Zhentradi officer pod. But Archer Rifleman, Warhammer, Longbow were robot, basically piloted robots, human piloted robots that were anti-aircraft or artillery or stuff like that. But all of them were on screen at some point during Macross. Okay. And they all got used along with stuff

from some other anime series by FASA in designing the game, which I talked about when I talked about BattleTech in like episode two or whatever it was, or three. And so FASA had released, or did release their battle game in 1984. The original title was Battle Droids. They immediately got slapped with an infringement suit because Lucas films that no, no, you cannot use droid. Droid is a core part of the Star Wars brand identity. Right.

Fessa went, whoa, all right. He's put the hate breaks. Okay, cool. And they retitled the game battle tech re-released it in 1985 As much as any niche game can be one Battle tech became a really big hit and it spawned a whole universe of novels and video games, right? And so they're they're making a lot of money off of this I mean, you know a lot of money know, a gaming company in the 1980s, but you get what I'm saying. It's a success. Yeah. They had purchased the rights to these designs from a company called 20th Century Imports. 20th Century Imports, or TCI, had been importing model kits from a number of different anime series including Macross series called Fang of the Sun do Grom and Crusher Joe All of these designs feature prominently on three 1996 battle tech books and box sets

Remember the Locust mech? Yes, two big spender legs. Yeah that and several of the aero fighter designs and drop ship designs are taken from Crusher Joe Okay, the shadow Hawk, which is my absolute fit from battle tech my absolute favorite mech design ever The Wolverine the Thunderbolt the battle master and the Griffin All of them awesome. I is not so much the Wolverine doesn't do it for me, but the rest of them are amazing Are all from Fang of the Sun Dogrum. Okay? Now TCI Seems to have obtained the rights from an agreement with studio new a

Who were the originators originators of the Macross idea? Mm-hmm and who were responsible for the anime productions of Crusher Joe. Dugram was a Bandai project. At a guess, TCI granted these rights to FASA based on their licensing and marketing agreement with Bandai and the Japanese producers of the model kits. So, in other words, yeah, we'll work with them because they've got experience for getting

these things out and... Yeah. Yeah. So, everything is pretty much okay until 1996. In 1996, it came to light that based on Japanese copyright law, TCI may not actually have had the rights to those designs. Harmony gold immediately jumped on it, sued based on their agreement with Tatsunoko. TCI at this point disappears from the historical record Fassa

Immediately entered into a settlement. They didn't go to court. They were not directly sued But they immediately entered into a settlement that meant all of the all of their TCI derived designs Not just the ones from Macross, but all of the others Which had been a central portion of the game's original neck designs Had to be removed from game materials And this led to a book all of these max and a whole bunch of others being referred to as the unseen So starting in 1996 your mech recognition books, your new scenario packs, all of the

stuff they were publishing, they wound up all of the visual reference to those mechs went away. You could not find a picture of a Marauder. You could not find a picture of a Shadowhawk. Okay. They went on to try, well, FASA eventually went the way of the Dodo, and the intellectual property for Atletek wound up going to a couple of different companies in succession. And Catalyst game labs who are the current owners of it Or might not have been CGL anyway one one of the companies in the early 2000s

Did a thing called the re-seen where they said okay, we're gonna redesign We're gonna come up with our own in-house designs for these Macs sure and The re-house designs for these Macs. Sure. And the re-seeing designs vary wildly. Some of them are, you know, right? It's a Mac like I can recognize that and I can see all the parts okay. And some of them just suck. And one of the reasons for the negative reputation some of them have is because when models got made for the Resine Max, many of them had very fiddly kind of bits and they were really

hard to fit together and make sure, you know, prevent from falling apart. The Resine had a negative reputation and nobody was happy about it. Right. And so this led to a whole lot of people in the Battle Tech fandom cursing Harmony Gold and, you know, for that reason. And Harmony Gold continued to act as a fly in the ointment for BattleTech fans for years in 2009

This one's a famous one. They issued a cease and desist letter to Internet gaming news Okay, an internet video game website. Uh-huh IGN IGN over IGN showing a trailer for mech warrior 5 IGN showing a trailer for Mac Warrior 5. Because that trailer included a redesigned Warhammer Mac that Harmony Gold went, no, no, no, that infringes on our copyright. Right. They didn't go after the video game publisher, mind you. They just sent a cease and desist to IGN. Okay. Because and the refrain within the fan community is well,

yeah, cause they know it's been redesigned. It's, you know, it's redrawn. Like they can't claim it as owned, but like, so they're not actually gonna try to take them to court cause they know they won't win, but they're gonna go after IGN, you know. Uh-huh. And this is my favorite one.

This is the point where Harmony Gold really, really overstepped. In 2013, they went after Hasbro. Now, remember Hasbro were a huge part in the last episode because of the Transformers and the importation of transforming robots into American media, right? Like Hasbro brought it over from Tanaka Toys. Right. That's akin to McCarthy going after Eisenhower.

Yeah, right. It's like, oh, you couldn't see any other path forward. Could you? You know, just keep jumping up to crazy. Yeah, clearly you had to. Yeah. So because because Hasbro at Comic Con 2013, they had sold a Comic Con exclusive toy set. G.I. Joe and Transformers, the epic conclusion. And Harmony Gold insisted that those toys infringed on their rights. Now the set included a Sky Striker toy. Remember the G.I. Joe Sky Striker?

Yeah. Which was the F-14. Right. Yeah, it was a Tomcat. Yeah. They had the wings that came out and it also had a really hard rubber nose. Yes. Yeah. It was a Tomcat. They had the wings that came out and also had a really hard rubber nose. Yes. Yeah. And the set also included a Jeep or a Humvee slash Jeep looking vehicle.

Right. And I don't remember what the what the G.I. Joe name for it was, but that that ground vehicle was meant to look like cup. Whichever one of the Autobots was the Jeep. Oh, that's Hound. Hound was a Jeep, but also the Humvee looking thing you could have been. His cup was a little bit more futuristic despite him being a grumpy old man. Because he and RC and Springer were all kind of that made on Cybertron not quite our kind of shit.

Yeah, no, it was Hound. Okay, it was Hound. It was Hound. But it was the G.I. Joe toy painted to look like hound and the sky striker toy was painted to look like jet fire. OK. Jet fire famously was the Autobot who could transform into a jet. And he was also basically a Macross Valkyrie.

And he was also basically a Macross Valkyrie Notice Hasbro not being idiots hadn't re-released jet fire They had read they had released a toy f14 Tomcat in the colors of the toy no longer on the shelves That had been based on the Macross IP. But Harmony Gold said, nope, nope, we own it. Transforming robots into jets, that's our thing. The case was dismissed with prejudice and basically established. It was a major black eye for Harmony Gold.

Okay. And they had to pay Hasbro money. Okay. Because dismissed, that's what dismissed with prejudice means. It's not only do you lose, but you're going to have to pay the other side's legal fees. Gotcha. So in 2017, Harmony Gold took harebrained schemes and piranha gaming to court over another back over another Mac warrior game. Okay.

HBS and PGI took the case to the mattresses this time. There had been there had been other times where Harmony Gold had basically, you know, slapped people with with copyright infringement and people had just knuckled under because why fight it? But this time, HBS and PGI went all the way said, No, we'll see you in fucking court. Right. Yeah. And they asserted that the next that they had introduced into the game because they did reintroduce the shadow Hawk they reintroduced the war hammer they reintroduced the Phoenix Hawk there were a bunch there were a bunch that had been that had been potentially infringing on Macross but they had they had had artists go back and go, okay, look, we want this to be recognizable as being this thing, but it has to look, but you know, we need you to

redesign it so it's not copyright infringement, right? Right, right. And so, hair brain schemes and piranha gaming spent a lot of time and a lot of money doing that. And they asserted that none of these are visually distinct. Like it is, you can look at them and say, okay, they're related, but no, it's not the same. It's got that 10%. Yeah, it's, it's, it's enough has been changed that this you can't claim this. Right. So in a move that made a lot of fans cackle with shot and Freud, Harmony Gold's lawyers

asserted visual similarities between a number of Mac warrior designs and Robotech or Macross designs that were ridiculous on their faces. They were essentially trying to claim ownership of giant robot war machines as a trademark. Okay. Like they tried to argue, um, trying to think what it was, but like they had a picture of an archer, which was based on Macross. And they said, this is a Robotech Mecca. And they were trying to claim that like an Atlas was, was a copy of that. Yeah. The Atlas, which was an, which had been an in-house design from FASA in the first place.

And for those of you who don't play Battle Tech, they look nothing alike. Yeah, to draw a bit of a picture here. An Atlas looks like essentially a guy who never skipped leg day or traps day. Like it's just it is as humanoid as it can be, but it is thick with four C's. The head is sunk into the body a little bit just kind of poking out. There's no neck. There's no neck. It's all shoulders, arms, and just thick all the way down. Like it is a very thick bipedal, two arms and a sunk in dome of a head with, you know, two windows for eyes, essentially. Yeah. And that is modeled to look like a death's head skull.

And that head is modeled to look like a death's head skull. Yeah, whereas, go ahead and describe the archer. The archer is, I mean, it's blocky, but it doesn't have the same weight to its look as the Atlas. It's the leaner. It's leaner, the shapes of the arms are different, and it is notably lacking in any identifiable head Right. It's the head is I believe sunk in between two very large shoulders

Right. Yeah, I mean it's it's it's the cockpit where you would kind of assume the head is is Located almost in the center of the chest, right, and it's these two columns of shoulders. It almost looks like two tower computers sticking up. Yeah, that's a good comparison. Yeah, there's two rectangular shapes sticking up. And so anyway, it's a farcical comparison. Like it is very clear that they were just reaching for anything they could find right

In the case was again dismissed with prejudice and the ruling effectively cleared the way for the redesigned But still familiar unseen to be used in the battle tech video games and in the tabletop game going forward So this is where we we get the reintroduction of a whole bunch of these mechs. The Warhammer, the Marauder, the Shadow Hawk, Phoenix Hawk, all of them gradually showing up in the video games in the tabletop game. And this is because Harmony Gold had taken everything a step too far and gotten stomped. Now in a related but slightly tangential legal development, Japanese courts ruled in 2021. And this is where we go back to that tangled weird three-way kind of agreement of like, we all own this intellectual

property. Big West is apparently the owner of the Mecha Designs from Macross, while Tatsunoko owns the original Macross series. Okay. So like this set of 48 episodes belongs to Tatanoke. You can, you can tell people what to do with that, however you like. But the intellectual property of the Veratex and all the robots and everything, no, no, that belongs to Big West Studio, Neway, because they're the ones who came up with the idea in the

first place. You have some authorship rights to the series because your people did the drawing for the animation cells, but you didn't originate the idea. Okay. So that's effectively I'm simplifying and painting with a brush, but that's that's effectively how that breaks down Ownership of the sequels and spin-offs is still a little bit of a gray area, but tatsunoko Was not involved in later productions of macros and so it has less of a leg to stand on. Okay Now um in the 1990s, Big West released in internationally the amazing film Macross Plus. And before that, the pretty good sequel Macross 2, and when I say sequel, I mean to the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross.

Later on, I will worry, basically decided that, you know, Macross 2 was okay and all, but that's not the direction I really wanted to take the series. So that's not official canon. That's like an alternate universe sequel, but Macross plus became the basis for a Number of later series and films and video games Expanding the Macross universe And whether Harmony Gold hadn't figured out how to be patent trolls yet Or if they simply weren't paying sufficient detention

or they realized their hold on the IP wasn't as rock solid as they thought. We don't know. Somehow these two films got Western releases and were big hits in fandom circles and on the convention circuit. Okay. But then after that, nothing outside of Japan, we have gotten bubkus. Okay. Because Harmony

Gold started asserting their, what they say are their rights, and they've sat on the IP for almost 30 years. And there have been, there has been attempt after attempt that have all languished in development hell of them trying to do sequels to Robotech. There was a film, Robotech, The Shadow Chronicles, Robotech the shadow chronicles That that came out I but like you still have to hunt to see it. It didn't really get a really wide release Because like Harmony Gold wants to Own the material they want to make money off of the material But they're not willing to throw the money at the material in order to accomplish that goal. Mm-hmm and throw the money at the material in order to accomplish that goal.

And they've slapped nuisance lawsuits on anybody else who's trying to do anything with giant robots in Western media. They insist that they want to try to continue the story, but they haven't followed through successfully on extending or continuing Robotech as a franchise Because somebody in the ownership of the company like the founder son has this idea of like well We want to do a live-action movie and They've never been able to figure out well, okay We're not gonna be able to release that in Japan because of the way the rights work. So if we can't like

So it just hasn't ever gone anywhere. And so they've stood as this monopolistic barrier to anything else Macross getting developed or released outside of Japan. So all of the video games that got made for the PlayStation are all Japan coded and you can't get them in the West all of the TV series are Japan coated you can't find them anywhere unless you want to put on an ipatch and go on to the internet Sure, I've heard of that. Yes. Yes There's a developed fandom and They're significant lore. There's a whole universe of Macross stuff.

Valkyrie, there are whole new Valkyrie designs that have evolved. New wrinkles have been introduced in the ongoing story of humanity's expansion into the greater galaxy. And this is all awesome, amazing, wonderful stuff. And because a convicted crook bought the Macross rights in the 1980s, nobody in the US has been allowed to see any of it without pirating it or ordering blue rays from Japan. And this is why this is the hate portion of my love hate relationship with Robotech, right? Harmony gold just squatted on top of this IP like a malignant toad fleeing their tongue and anyone who got even close

Without doing anything with it. Mm-hmm All because IP law allows them to do it so long as they keep re-upping the agreement with Tatsunoko, which they did again in 2021. For how much money though? I haven't been able to find that. That's what gets me. It's all, yeah. There's probably, it's probably a lower amount than we have in mind. Probably.

Because it's just enough to make it not worth it for you to pursue. Yeah. You know? Yep. So there's also in in in with this whole thing. There's there's also the issue of the harmony called controlling again they have the licensing rights to it. So many called controlling again, they have the licensing rights to it. So back in the 1980s, the role playing game for Robotech was picked up by Palladium Games. Okay. I remember that. And I, that was actually my introduction to Palladium was through Robotech. And then I discovered that was my introduction to Robotech through Palladium. Yeah. Yeah. Well, because because it was after that that I saw, oh, hey, they do it. They do a game of TMNT too. All right.

Well, right. Whoa. And so and then of course, we get into rifts, which like, I'm gonna have to do an episode about, but I'm gonna have to do an episode about Palladium books. Really is what it is. But in 2021, Palladium books lost the role playing games, right? Partially because in 2019 or 2020, they had tried to do a kickstarter they had tried to do a Kickstarter for a tabletop battle game like battle tech, but Robo tech that greatered. They failed to like they got all the money. And then they, I don't remember whether it was tied. There was a whole issue that also came up with palladium books around the same time

where a long time employee, close friend of Kevin Shambiata basically was found to have been embezzling huge amounts of money from the company for like years. And they were on the verge of bankruptcy. And I think that might have had something to do with it. But they completely crapped the bathtub with the Kickstarter. And as a result of that, it is my understanding. And this is all, you know, fifth hand, of course, but because I because of the way that fell apart They they lost the role-playing game rights to Robotech

And so another company is taking it over and there they've got a whole anyway, that's that's a whole thing but you know, it's just interesting how because of What it is we're doing with this podcast, something like, you know, the intellectual property rights to, you know, a cartoon can spin off in so many different directions. Oh, yeah. You know. So yeah, I mean, that's essentially what that brings us to the end of my prepared note. Basically I love Robotech because it brought me into anime and introduced me to the idea

of, you know, giant robot drama. Right. a drama. It was this critically important moment in the development, in the growth of my understanding of narratives. And like to this day, while I was doing research for this, there were a couple of times where I wound up, the opening theme would start playing in my head to Robotech. And for whatever reason, one, it would get stuck in my head and I'd be singing it sort of,

because it's instrumental, but you know the dot, dot, dot, dot, kind of singing it under my breath for like half an hour. And it just, it has this emotional space in my psyche. So I love it intensely. And unfortunately, its existence was born out of the situation that means I don't get more of it. Yeah, it is kind of like Jack from Titanic for Rose. Yeah, exists only in my memory. Yeah, kind of. But now you know, he did exist. He did exist. Like, yeah.

Yeah, kind of. But now you know, he did exist. He did exist. Yeah. Oh, you know, you could have let him in the boat. Like no, she couldn't know she was on a door. No, that's right. Number one, she was on a door. Number two, they tested this shit out.

And the buoyancy of the door was such that it was already kind of almost going to take on water with her on it. Yeah. It wasn't the tipsy-topsy thing. It was the collective weight would have shut it up. Would have just shut it up. Okay. But yeah, that's some bullshit.

And I know that Leo DiCaprio is like, it was a pretty big thing. It's like, bro, you don't date women as old as that movie. Shut the fuck up. Like, and know that doesn't have anything to do with your argument, but you lack a sophistication, sir. So yeah. Yeah, no, 10-4. But anyway.

But on, so and I- Rick Focker could have fit on the door. Yeah, yeah, Rick Hunter. Roy Foker. Roy Foker, sorry. Roy Foker could have fit on the door. Probably. Because he was already aerated. So he would have... That's awful. I knew that was coming, but that's awful. It's like one of those rafts on a pool, you know, it's got the balls in it. It's got the hair, yeah.

Yeah. That's terrible. That's a good thing they're fictional characters because oh my god. But so I have this intense love hate thing going on. But you know, I was wrestling with this and I was talking about, you know, fuck Harmony Gold forever, you know, and I was venting about this to friend of the show, Sean. And what he pointed out to me,

and I will end on this note, is that without Robotech, we would not have things like Crunchyroll, the streaming service for Onime that we have now. We would not have live action adaptations being made of Onime films like Ghost in the Shell. We would not have a theatrical release for Ghost in the Shell, the anime. There is a whole vast genre of entertainment that would not have achieved mainstream status in our culture without

Harmony Gold having bought the rights and said we're gonna make money off of this thing by throwing it into syndication and Right, right. So there's the good Yeah, and and so I do you know in the interest of Intellectual honesty, I do have to say that yes, that is that is part of this legacy You know, I'm just really frustrated that I can't watch Macross Delta or Macross Zero, which to the follow on series from Japan, without, again, having to put on an iPad and go to

not really great websites. Right. To endanger the safety of my hard drive In order to in order to find this stuff and if I want to get it, you know properly translated and sub subtitled That's like even harder So yeah, that's that's that's pretty much it that is the story of this particular intellectual property and how it fucked a lot of things. So how it came to be frozen, like just, yeah, it's not moving. Now, and a final, final note.

Later that year in 2021, Harmony Gold did reach an agreement with Big West slash Studio Nui, which will end this whole thing on a more hopeful note because Big West is now allowed to release macro stories outside Japan with cooperation from Harmony Gold. While Harmony Gold will be allowed to release any future Robo tech media within Japan Assuming they ever actually get anything fucking made Do you think that's because the fans demanded enough that they both are like there's enough money on that table or I well I Yeah, I mean I died in those companies and then Roboch fans have come up in place of them

Well, I certainly not the second one I think what it what it might be is that the folks at Harmony Gold See the popularity of what's gone on with Macross in Japan and they're like We could be getting something of a cut from the licensing of this for, you know, the video game money and the, you know, and the distribution money for the for the blue rays or whatever. So like we we realized now there's enough money to be made that it's worth it to cooperate with them. is I think the most likely thing. Also, I think that the son of the original owner of Harmony Gold really, really, really like as his prestige project, he wants a live action Robotech movie is also part of my read. And like being able to do that and have that be screened in Japan is a big deal. Sure.

So, yeah, hopefully we're gonna see more stuff going forward. Fingers crossed. But yeah, so based on all of that, what do you take from this? I don't think I said this in the previous two episodes. Maybe I did, but I think it's worth restating. You know, my kids and I, my daughter and I specifically, have talked about on the meta-oculus or any number of VR things, that it's a goddamn shame that there's these beautiful worlds

that have been created that are intellectual properties that have not licensed out the rights and have not been asked to or not been approached to or have not found anyone to do it for them, I don't know. But the fact is it's a damn shame these things are missing that the intellectual property for the world of thrall, for instance, for the dark crystal, or the intellectual property for your Macross Plus,

or the intellectual property for Avatar, or the, you know, and on and on and on, that the intellectual property for just the worlds to walk around in as sandboxes doesn't exist, to the point where like nobody's taking it up and said, okay, well, you know, if you want to pay this $20 price point would be a perfectly good price point. There's no fucking game attached. You can just walk around.

I'm a little surprised Hasbro hasn't done this with D&D shit. Like, you know, for 20 bucks, you can do, you know, water deep. And for then DLC, you can be like, oh, I wanna actually go down to the docks or whatever. I mean, they could just milk people, you know? Oh yeah. And if I put in the money to get an Oculus, I would, yeah.

My wallet would be blood dry. Yeah, and the thing is, I think that's money they're leaving on the table, but it's like, it's almost as though their imagination was so wrapped up with something else that it has blunted anything else from happening. And at the same time, it is very naive of my daughter and I, myself more than her, that we're like,

God, why doesn't somebody just make a world for us to walk around in from these licensed properties? Because like, I mean, what we're really talking about is holodex, you know, but like, why doesn't somebody just do this? It's like, well, there's a lot of IP shit going on. Like, you know, to get me a fucking cartoon made or a live action movie made of this one thing, you know, to get a fucking cartoon made or a live action movie made of this one thing, you have to go through like the entire cast of hair

to get to it, you know? And then you have to work your way backward through them again. And it just, yeah, it's unnecessarily messy, and it's keeping us from getting to simply enjoy cool shit, but it would be really cool to, you know, to do, and that's why I'm always back and forth on Disney buying all of my favorite things.

It's Disney, so I hate them, but by buying all my favorite things. It's Disney. I hate them. But by buying all my favorite things, they're making it a lot easier to access the IP for the consumers. Yeah. Well, it's like what we, it's like the issue of digitization of libraries. On the one hand, there's the peril of, well, okay, where are you storing it? How secure is this going to be as a medium long term for the next 100 years? Whereas, I have a physical book. I can store this in a way that I know what will last. On the other hand, it is now accessible by anybody anywhere on the planet via the magic of the internet. And yeah, it's this trade-off.

And honestly, like you've democratized the access. That is more people can access it. But I can't smell it anymore. So yeah, I wish to hell that it wasn't that complicated. I wish to hell I could just look it up on IMDB.com and be like, oh, okay, it's streaming over here. They've got the rights to it for the next two years. Yeah. Yeah. God, I wish I could do that with my- This is why I always buy physical media of stuff that I'm gonna wanna see though.

Yeah, that's true. Like, and I, unfortunately, had to spend like 50 bucks on Iron Monkey, but I got tired of wanting to see it for the last eight years and never getting to. That makes sense. So, it'll be like I took my kids to a theater for it. Yeah.

But yeah, that's what I've got. What you're reading or what do you want us to read? Well, I'm actually not gonna recommend so much something to read as to kind of scratch the itch that not having Macross available has left me with. I very strongly recommend anybody interested in giant robots look up and find Mobile Suit Gundam, which was actually kind of the inspiration for Macross. It is the first iteration of what's called the real robot genre in giant robot fiction. And once you go down that rabbit hole, you will have so much material available

because there have been so many spin-off series and you can in fact find them a bunch of places on streaming services and get a hold of the DVDs or Blu-rays. And it is similar in tone and even more operatic than Macross. And so, very highly recommend that this time around. How about you? Well this will be far, far worse. I'm going to recommend Hitler's American Model, the United States, and the Making of Nazi Race Law by James Q. Whitman. Right. Yeah. It sounds like some wonderful light reading.

Yeah, it'll just depress you. I got nothing beyond that in terms of like what it'll do to you emotionally, but it's an important read. It's, you know, if you go back to our Henry Ford Square Dancing episodes, we exported a lot of our awfulness. Um, and, uh, some really awful people took it up enthusiastically.

Uh, but really, really, I mean, you could honestly go back to our idiocracy episodes too. Uh, we, we literally sent bad people over to Germany to help them fine tune what they were doing. So, um, yeah, that's, uh, it's all terrible, everything's awful. Everything's okay. You can watch cartoons that you want. Yeah, yeah.

Where do people find you besides at the end of a rope? Oh. Well, presently I am a shadow, I remain a shadow in warp, but we collectively can be found on Twitter as Geek History of Time. You can find our website, Wubba, Wubba, Wubba, dot geekhistorytime.com. And since you were listening to us, as I always say, you have found us in one of several places, either on the Apple Podcast app on Amazon or on Spotify.

Wherever it is that you found us, you need to please take the time to give us the five star rating you know we deserve and to subscribe more importantly. And where can you be found, sir? Let's see, by the time this drops, we'll say April 5th, May 3rd, or June 7th at the Sacramento Comedy Spot, 9 p.m. $12 with capital punishment. Come on down, check us out, see what we do, spin that wheel, pun, battle, win.

No, it'll be great. I've, I've, I, I love doing that show. I, but, you know, it's, it's, it's a new thing every time. So come on down and check it out. So, yeah. Well, for a Geek History of Time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock. And until next time, keep rolling, 20s.