Ah memories…

Well about two months ago back in April I should have marked my 2nd blog anniversary but things have not really been normal to say the least. Well I suppose that this post will at least mark the start of my terrible twos in which case quality will plummet as will output (Mwahahahaha). I started the year off by getting my apartment broken into and making E-5. Now that my academic career is at an end it basically fell upon me to make good on my newfound responsibilities at work, which meant having a whacked out schedule of extended hyperactivity every now in then. In July it will be a brutal month as I get to fly to Virginia twice in the same month to the same place, knowing what I know now it basically means four or more red eye flights unless the paper work goes over well. Still I do get to make the traditional after graduation road trip, and hopefully that will be a bit more interesting than the usual. While summer looks to be a hit or a miss at least there is the promise of the Macross Movie (Which will be Gorgeous Delicious DECULCHA!). So here goes the mandatory late as hell rant I am supposed to do at the end of every blog year, which is conversely an opportunity to muse aimlessly in a futile effort to put together a post.

Oh Mazinger Z how I lament that your tale is shrouded in obscurity.

While Impz might have gone from gun monkey to desk jockey in the Singaporean Corps of Conscripts, I haven’t earned the right to chain myself to a desk just yet, to be perfectly honest I am finding just how magical a time being an E-5 is. I get the headaches of an E-6, and the physical exhaustion of being an E-4, but at least I do get a little extra here and there and most importantly I am still low enough on the great totem pole to evade responsibility. I also just lost my other half (partner in crime/co-worker) so I get to have twice the work load until I finish training the E-4, but at least she’s a good learner and I don’t have to baby sit an E-3 with “issues.” All in all I am edging towards the point that I might end up as exhausted as Zeon. I suppose this comes with the territory as I suspect that most bloggers are students rather than overworked soldaten, certainly there will probably come a point where the number of posts per week simply declines.

Also now that college is over and done with I actually got back into my other hobbies, and oddly enough while I have some issues with Valkyria the anime I still love the game to pieces to the point I actually want to do my Imperial Guard in Gallain colors and find some local saint who does resin casting for female Cadians/Kasrkin because I must have a model to represent Jane “Kill ‘em All” Turner (hey if anyone knows one drop a line). It also saddens me that there is very little enthusiasm for Shin Mazinger Z, but I suppose it might be time to bring out the reserves of stuff I have been meaning to watch but haven’t, Guin Saga, Eden of the East, etc. I still need to settle for a format on doing VOTOMS since condensing it into one post per arc would make it tl;dr, not that I think too many people are interested in going back in time to see what mecha was before yaoi, cowards, harem, and idiot soapbox preaching started taking hold.

I suppose it has been good going for the last two years plus some, but it has been a long time since I actually watched a shoujo series since Skip Beat! ended, though I am hoping there will be a point where the anime starts up again. Still the manga is still running along smoothly so it partially makes up for it. I suppose I am growing old if it’s becoming more fun to reminisce about the old days. If nothing else at least when Gundam 00 aired I could placate myself with the additional activity of praising the Immortal Colasour and his marrying above him. Well so far it’s been a good run even if productivity has slackened as of late. I hope that there will be a series that I will genuinely love to pieces that I can put into words come summer. As much as I like Shin Mazinger Z it’s pretty simple and I suppose very niche these days as it lacks modern aspects of mecha. Valkyria is turning out to be a re-interpretation of the game storyline that I don’t find terribly agreeable but it was always meant to be a festival of mediocrity that only fans of the game would stick with to the bitter end. Ah well with a Gundam Unicorn Movie due out within my life time and the promise of a Macross Frontier Movie with 70% redone animation I guess there is much to look forward to. So as a extremely premature celebration of a Macross Frontier largely free of QUALITY animation IMAGE DUMP GO!

There is a correlation…

Soon we will all get acquainted with just how tough Sergeant Major Chirico Cuvie really is…

Now that I am pretty much done with college I can finally get to taking care of some unfinished business namely watch the entire VOTOMS series in chronological order, sadly I only have the original series, Pailsen Files, Roots of Ambition, Last Red Shoulder, and Big Battle on hand. I hope to unearth Shining Heresy some time this century but I can’t seem to find it at the moment. Nevertheless I plan on watching it in chronological order instead of order of release. As an introductory movie I am not sure if it works or not since I saw Pailsen Files first which actually comes after this one. Still while Pailsen Files seemed chock full of huge cinematic mecha battles Roots of Ambition doesn’t seem to toss out as many Scopedogs on the screen, though since there was no CG I suppose doing it the old fashioned way prevented such a sight, not that it made it a terrible movie. As a starting point it does establish what Chirico is and gives a description of what Pailsen thinks he is.

In the end I kinda felt sad for Carson.

Chirico doesn’t really grow much as a character and to be honest I suppose the real main character is the Red Shoulder Unit that includes Chirico, Carson, Gregore, Byman, and Murza. For an elite unit even the Red Shoulders seem to suffer from horrible attrition though given how regular units suffer far worse I suppose percentage-wise Pailsen’s unit might actually suffer less than the regulars because of their intense and lethal training. As for the initiation I am surprised that the Red Shoulders could actually field two or more Corps though in the Gilgamesh military I suppose that number is hardly impressive considering the tens of millions of soldiers that can be fielded at any one time (up until this point in universe the biggest battle was 20 million men on the Gilgamesh side, late one upped to 120 for the Invasion of Monad) as Pailsen Files would later show. I like how Leeman basically denoted the last four standing as survivors and returns. Even if Chirico is nigh unkillable it seems that it still doesn’t prevent him from failing and having to rely on his comrades. During the cannibalism Chirico might have ended up a mere survivor instead of a return had it not been for his battle buddy Carson. While in Pailsen Files it seemed that the regulars actually function like a military unit the Red Shoulders are pretty much a penal battalion in all but name, certainly while their training is superior it is far more lethal and I can see why the Chief of Staff was pretty ticked off that Pailsen was killing off huge numbers of regulars (not to mention wasting Scopedogs) to find the guys he wanted for his Red Shoulders. Certainly as an exercise in economy of force Pailsen probably failed since even his Red Shoulders could be dragged down by a mass of Balalant troops.

Well at least things get better when Chirico has to shack up with the boys for Pailsen Files, and all the experimenting will be done on Kochak.

As an introduction to the VOTOMS universe I think they could have done a bit better, though since it came out after the main series I suppose they can’t be faulted much for it. Nevertheless calling it the Third Invasion of Sunsa, coupled with the LZ and planet in general as a desert wasteland one can sense that this really has been a 100 year war. Underlying much of the movie is the question of luck versus training, while there is a certain value to being well trained being lucky is more often or not better than being better trained, even in military history there are generals who emerge victorious due to dumb luck. I did chuckle a bit when Gregore asked if Chirico was immortal…perhaps old Patrick was somehow related. The only thing that sort of bugs me is that we never get to hear what it is that Chirico says to Pailsen, though I suspect that we will come to it eventually in the main series. I am not sure if Leeman really had his head on straight or if Pailsen was still on his rocker given how broad the events that are of great benefit to Chirico have very broad classifications, though I suppose Chirico really is that lucky, or at the very least insanely resilient with a high damage tolerance. After all he did fight with a broken pelvis and got pretty banged up from time to time. Still at least Chirico isn’t a one man army as he did need Carson to watch his back from time to time and needed Gregore, Murza, and Byman to put him back together. I did like the credits as there was a Type 61, and it seems that Gergore got himself a decent cigar, Byman was picking up chicks, Murza was looking pissed, and Chirico said something that put the fear in Pailsen. It was also a good set up after Carson dies, but not before passing off his information to set up the trial of Pailsen that we will see in Pailsen Files. It’s nice to see that Chirico was always this nonchalant when dealing with people, though I suppose having that high pitched sound every time one thinks about his past would probably engender the same reaction in most people.

Certainly few mecha pilots ever had such intense training.

Overall a fairly good film to introduce the lay person the VOTOMS saga, I think that the rest of the series will not disappoint even if there is the complete absence of CG created BIG HUEG battles. I can see why VOTOMS is considered on of the few remaining real robot series that have survived up until now, even if Chirico is super human he’s not some infallible Jesus, at this juncture it seems that Chirico has a long way to go to reach godhood, if that is even his goal. For now it seems that merely surviving is a victory for him, and I doubt he deludes himself with any romantic notions. If nothing else at least he acts like a disenchanted twenty something guy which is rather refreshing given the more recent trend of mecha pilots. I still love the poor humble Scopedog, even if it has armor made of paper at least it makes for more interesting and more importantly huge Heinlein-esque battles remiscent of Starship Troopers. Even with the elite Red Shoulders attrition still affects them.

I have to say that is one ugly baby…

Well to a degree, yes. As a defensive tactic it is unreliable, but highly reassuring.

You have no idea Gergore…

Say hello to my little friend…

You mean there is another whole Corps?

I’d like to see them try…

Indeed this is the first time Pailsen has actually been early.

Is Chirico Cuvie going to have to choke a bitch?

Perhaps it was luck, perhaps it was because Pailsen couldn’t shoot his way out of a paper bag…

I am surprised you even hit at all.

The red ones go faster.

Third time is a chram…right?

Gilgamesh Prevails!

Scopedog…

I need more Scopedogs!

Ah the Balalant Fattie, at least they look impressive.

At least it did not involve some contrived childhood promise or pinky swear.

Best confession EVAR.

ZOMG Carson got he ultra rare Red Shoulder Omnibus!

I take it Chirico already has a copy…

What else could he be doing other than waste valuable military resources?

This death was permenant…

Close combat with lumps of metal…

I have to wonder how annoying it must be to clean that out after combat, carbon build up must be nasty.

Hey Type 61s…

There are so many…

What ass kissers we have here…

Oh shit indeed…

Gregore took your smokes!

I had no idea Byman was into old men…

Murza is always mad…

Now that is a parting shot.

I have lots to do…

I won’t lie I think I am suffering a bit of this burn out thing after roughly two years of being the tl;dr guy I hope to recharge my batteries soon and get back to business as usual, but it seems the perpetual boredom of military life is going to be beyond my reach for the time being, assuming that everything goes according to my supervisors’ plans I will be out and about frolicking from one base to another across the country attending classes real soon methinks. Even when I am not moving about, as a newly minted E-5 as my first real responsibility I get to mentor an E-3 who seems to be having a bit of the troubles, professionally and perhaps otherwise. Then there is the issue of my family… Still I hope to be doing some VOTOMS posts real soon and catch up with the rest of the season. I suppose this is more for myself as once this gets published I will have to try and meet these goals.

I want my Kasrkin to look like these guys…

Once again I skipped Fanime and instead went to a gaming convention which reignited my passion for another hobby quite profoundly…Now that the Imperial Guard Codex is out I have a hankering to get cracking on that, and trust me I have plenty to do. I also promised 13sugars that I would paint up a 1:100 Union Flag for her as well so I suppose with all these tasks that I will have to start keeping things shorter and using less screen caps. I also have to do a proper two years on post now that I have felt the first pangs of burning out… ah well K-ON and VOTOMS: Roots of Ambition post sometime later I suppose I have to run up to Davis and back to try and snag two extra tickets for graduati0n first thing in the morning.

Yeah I think I can really get into this one.