The CONTROVERSIAL History of Robotech

[@ViewpointProd]

For years, I have been trying to say that Revell Created the Robotech name, and that harmony gold approached them to promote their model kits with a tv show, it is nice to finally have someone put that in a damn video, because so many people are not even aware of revel’s Contribution, they’re the reason why the brand exists in the first place

[@schizoidboy]

For me it remains one of the best animes I can remember. It wasn't dumbed down like other versions we saw, when a character died, that character died, they had characters that had flaws yet were sympathetic, and even the bad guys were complex characters. Maybe for someone my age the transforming planes into robots might have drawn me in, but it was everything else that had me staying.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Well put lad, need a new series or game at some point!

[@jamesomeara2329]

Funny thing is that as a kid this was my intro to anime, and with a whole family of sci fi nerds, this was my thing, that no one else paid attention to. And it was a plotline that though I didn't understand that it all didn't fit at the time, just held me. People were at risk, and stood to lose so much, and as a kid it was such a different quality of story, I was spellbound getting up at five thirty every morning to see how the characters moved forward. Thank you for this memory.

[@rubadub79]

Harmony Gold is exactly why people hate lawyers. Robotech could have been a huge franchise, but instead it hasn't been relevant since it first aired. Meanwhile every other year Macross gets new content and is still going strong.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Yeah Lawyers and greedy companies are a dangerous combo

[@davidnemoseck9007]

I would have to slightly disagree. IMO, there have been some upticks in interest in Robotech over the years, and things that have kept it kind of a float. Like when it came out on DVD in the early 2000s, or Palladium Books turning it into an RPG, then getting it back after it allowed their contract to expire the first time, and when the movie came out. But ya, nothing really big.

[@trashboat5388]

Honestly fair. Macross deserves to be more popular.

[@kahnadah]

Boiled down even more: Harmony Gold bought Macross thinking they could syndicate it. They found out they couldn't. They asked Tatsunoko what else they had. They were given Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada. To make syndication they wrote an over-arching storyline to blend the three unrelated series together. The problems started when they realised that Tatsunoko only gave HG the rights to the animes for re-broadcast and not for licensing. No toy deal, no books etc. HG figured that the rights holders were in Japan and wouldn't be marketing in North America so it's all good. That was until someone re-read the contracts and thought they DID have merch rights. Three seperate, unrelated anime from three different creators made complete licensing impossible. So, HG decided to sue everyone in N.A. who had anything to do with Robotech (aside from themselves, of course!) and bully them with the contracts which didn't really say they could. S**t hit the fan, Tatsunoko sued, Big West sued and it all came to a head with everyone agreeing to play nice and not p*ss in anyone else's pools.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Excellent stuff! need to cover the court case some day

[@liljenborg2517]

@@brutallyhonestreviews4530 You'll need some very well designed info-graphics and flow charts. Because the legal Gordian Knot around Harmony Gold and Robotech is frustratingly complicated. For a couple of DECADES Harmony Gold was little more than a law office happily suing anyone who had a transforming jet fighter in their show/game/whatever because all their plans for sequel animated series never amounted to anything. If only they'd gone bankrupt and let all these Japanese companies license the stuff out to whoever they wanted. It would have made EVERYTHING simpler. One of the reasons FASA up and sold Battletech was because they simply wanted out, and I don't think WizKids knew what a legal mess they had picked up when they bought Robotech. Of course FASA had complicated this with the way they handled their own TV series and the conflict they had with Playmates over the Exo Squad animated series. Macross went on to become almost as big a franchise as Gundam in Japan - but none of it was allowed over here by Harmony Gold, because it conflicted with the "Robotech" storyline. They could have made a ton of money off all the Macross sequel movies, TV series, games, manga, models, toys, and merch - but they wanted _their_ "Robotech" story to be the only one, so they throttled it all, and have never been able to get either their own proprietary "Sentinels" series or other Robotech sequels or prequels off the ground, nor the live-action movie that's been in development hell since the turn of the millennium. Now that the case finally ended last year, I think (hope) HG has finally realized they've wasted three decades worth of profit they could have made off Macross and will start letting streaming services here pick up the movies and maybe even letting model companies sell the models (I've still got a couple of those Revell Robotech models, and I really love the look of the ones based off Fang of the Sun Dourgram - a series Harmony Gold had nothing to do with, but the mech designs Battletech used still were still somehow restricted by all these legal shenanigans).

[@danielcraig9666]

Don't forget the unfortunately not illegal but highly immoral Trademark squatting on UN Spacey and Kite symbol to block all subsequent Macross from being released world wide.

[@Mecca4BA]

But there were toys…. For a short while anyway. And then they vanished…. I understand now

[@rickmarr8784]

I was amazed when I found out about it being 3 different anime series and impress that they created a new story line out of it. But the whole reason they did that was because the original Macross series didn't have enough episodes for the American market, I don't remember the exact number they had to meet but they added the other two series in order to meet that number of episodes. It became a big hit, I was in the 6th grade when it came out. I was awe struck. The 80's and early 90's was the best time to grow up as a kid.

[@uncletiggermclaren7592]

Well, in your experience it was the best time, anyway. :) I have to say that for a natural life, the 70s had the 80s beat, and for games/movies/communication it isn't even CLOSE, the 2000s have ALL the wins.

[@chrismusix5669]

I graduated from Transformers over to Robotech when I was around 11 years old. And that was the perfect age to make the jump over to more serious storytelling. As a kid, some of the glaring weaknesses and holes in trying to combine these three animes into one mostly went unnoticed by me. Now that I'm older, sure, I can admit there's some things that are less than satisfactory to my older eyes now. But hey! I had the Scott Bernard full sized Cyclone Cycle toy and a Skull One Veritch toy I ganked from my friend and had something interesting to watch after school back then! What more can you ask for?

[@maikutsukino4743]

You had Scott's oversized toy cyclone to? You and me are the exiles because no one else I know even knew what the heck it was when they saw it! NICE!!

[@MaxPowerHouse23]

Ha ha! You said “ganked” 😂😂😂! Big LOL I use that word all the time and few now the meaning unless you lived in that time period and enjoyed the music from where that word comes from. I love Robotech even have the KidsLogic SDF1, which I share a quick video of on my channel. Anyway, I usually read some of the comments on videos every now and rarely comment but I just had to reading your comment and your choice of word. 👍👍👍 🖖 & 🤘 Max Power

[@maikutsukino4743]

@@MaxPowerHouse23 LOL! I still have the Matchbox SDF-1! Love those old memories! And you're right about "ganked". I used it on my much younger nieces and nephews and they had no clue what it meant. Ok. Time to take a little stroll down Memory Lane now....

[@MaxPowerHouse23]

@@maikutsukino4743 Word. 🖖 & 🤘 Max Power

[@akaiseigo]

My friends used to call this 'bastardised' version of Macross. Also refers to Westernized version of Japanese anime. Voltron, Saber Rider, Sailor Moon among others. It's a cruel term yet much more fitting to corporation for not releasing original anime series.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Yeah he ain't wrong lol, doesn't mean it's bad tho either

[@thanthanasiszamp4707]

If any anime is to be released directlfrom Japan without adaptation, better to be censored.

[@onedollarcomicbin5608]

Good job on this. To add to the Robotech pile, there also was a series of books using the Harmony Gold adaptation to put some continuity to the entire series and pad it out quite a bit. There even was role playing books covering the 3 stages of the Robotech series (Zentradi, Robotech Masters, Invid et all). Don’t forget the crazy tie in to Battletech too and the legal issues that created. And then there’s why Macross, which is a long running franchise in Japan, has never come to the west. Then there’s the long court case(s) involving Harmony Gold vs. the world 😅😂 What a mess. Several years back, I did myself the favor of collecting the three original series and found them compelling on their own. Maybe take the time to watch them and do an honest review on each one of them.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Cheers for the feedback, and I didn't even realize about the books lol, it keeps getting messier! and that sounds like a great idea, I really need to crack on with more video essays so these will definitely make it onto the list

[@selena8472]

*sighs* you forgot Skyfire/JetFire Legal case which Buried Skyfire/JetFire "back in the ice" at the end of his episode.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

@@selena8472 seems like there are so many moving parts to this whole story lol

[@selena8472]

@@brutallyhonestreviews4530 goes in disassembles it all and says there no more moving parts :P

[@Ikcatcher]

As someone who originally only watched the Macross portion of Robotech, I honestly feel like it’s one of the better English dubbed animes of the time imo. Even in terms of video games, I still think Robotech Battlecry is one of the better ‘Macross’ games to come out

[@kennethhummel4409]

Tatsunoko produced some great animation that made it to the US market. I grew up with the likes of Astro boy, Gigantor and speed racer as a kid of the 60s/70s.

[@theorncampbell4432]

Were they responsible for Star blazers as well?

[@kennethhummel4409]

I believe the opening and closing credits for star blazers/space battle cruiser Yamato was Tatsunoko Sunwagon and Claster television for the U.S. markets…. Another great anime out of the 1970s.@@theorncampbell4432

[@dease-mo9zg]

Thats actually hilarious. I only played the Ps2 game. Your video essays are well produced for only a few subs

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Cheers mate it means a lot, and hopefully more video essays coming once I have completed some games lol, and yeah it's a wacky story, the 80s am I right!

[@pens8766]

Fantastic show I still remember it to this day it left an indelible impression on me as a young teenager growing up.

[@ironwarmonger]

There is another snage in this history. In 1983 a Chicago based Wargaming company, FASA, produced a game called BattleTech, Originally BattleDroids, but that was changed because of Lucas' ownership of the word Droid. The original game used Mecha they designed as well as some from Macross, Crusher Joe, and Fang Sun Dogram. AKA most of the Revel Robotech Catalog. Both Revel and Harmony Gold saw this, but never make an issue out of issue out of this until FASA did something Stupid in the last 90's.

[@PhotonHerald]

FASA didn't do anything wrong. They were within the purview of their license for the property. HG essentially kept trying to milk the teat, not realizing it was a blood-from-stone thing. The entire case came to a close in 2018 after FASA's successor-in-interest, Catalyst Game Labs finally won the case. And before that, the entire franchise was happy to simply cut loose the artwork and declare the contested things "unseen".

[@ironwarmonger]

@@PhotonHerald IF that was true, and it was not, why did lose the right to use the original Battletech mechs?

[@troloinkto]

I will never call those "robotech" or "battletech" they modified great anime just to make their "own" western versions changing dialogues and names, If they just translated the original Macross or Dougram without modifications, we could have gotten more series and merchandise, but the people of that time made a lot of changes in anime dubs because they believed that they could do a better job creating "New stories" than just translating the original versions, that's why all the anime like dragon ball, yugioh and sailor moon were plagued with plot holes

[@lsporter88]

Wow, you really know your stuff. Great presentation.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Thanks man, it really means a lot!

[@aquarius5719]

Big West created Macross the audiovisual product. Studio Nue created mecha design and characters. Tatsunoko had distribution rights. Tatsunoko sold "all rights" to Harmony Gold so they believed to be the owners of the product, but no, they only own distribution rights. FASA Corporation licensed mecha toys to Twentieth Century Imports for Battletech but the owner of the designs was Studio Nue. Harmony Gold sued FASA and killed it. Later, Big West sued Tatsunoko and this is where all this mess was uncovered. In the end Harmony Gold had a secret undisclosed settlement with makers of Battletech products. And the final result is that you now see similar mechas in Battletech and Robotech. Mechwarrior is the videogame name used for Battletech universe.

[@Dynamodel48]

I could be wrong about my history, but i think Harmony Gold actually has done more to keep the fans from the various fabulous merch we could have had. palidium books, FASA or what ever company owns battle tech, big west, bandia, hasbro, revell, big west, kenner, and im sure their is a longer list in japan have all been to court with HG at some point over rights to robotech. Obviously, i am a fan and love the HG adaptation as well as the original japanese series and most of the macross sequels. The novels were a great read as a sixth-seventh grader. HG brought us this great serious and introduced the genre in a way, and then crapped on the fans and made sure no one in the us could have it unless they got a piece. Great video, but the more i found out about how HG handled things is why we will NEVER have a live action. I live action would be a hard transition, and i dont think it could be done. Unless tom cruise want s to ruin Rick Hunter.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

yeah to be honest some things don't need to be live-action, I think superhero movies have us thinking everything can transition to live-action well, and I need to over the full court case some day!

[@Rocketsong]

@@brutallyhonestreviews4530 The Japanese live action Space Battleship Yamato (2010) was actually quite good though. So, it's certainly doable.

[@johndunkelburg9495]

There was one more company involved in this mess through Tatsunoko not owning the full rights to the Macross artwork: FASA Games, who produced a tabletop war game called “BattleTech” and using the Macross artwork. There was an almost 20 year long legal battle between Harmony Gold and FASA as to who owned what and who had the precious copyrights to Macross. Toy Galaxy, a KZbin producer, did an excellent three-part series on this legal mess cause by the number of companies involved in “Macross” and its various properties.

[@Jhn-yl3xx]

The macross part for the most part is a good dub they just replaced the meaning of “protoculture” and also minmay’s songs were definitely better in the japanese I suggest you watch the original sdfm and its sequels, in my opinion they have better world building and the technological advancements for the vfs and ships are always a treat to watch

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

For sure, deffo a video to make at some point!

[@Kiyosuki]

The entire soundtrack of the original is way better imo. The unique guitar riff sound in Dog Fighter is damn iconic.

[@velowelder6333]

I spoke to a couple of representatives from harmony gold at a sci fi convention about 15 years ago about any future projects on robotech, sadly the rep said it ain’t gonna happen, and it hasn’t.

[@NebLleb]

Things are definitely looking brighter for both Macross and Robotech over here in the western world. I actually saw the uncut SDF Macross FIRST (with the uncut English dub starring Vic Mignogna as Hikaru and Mari Ijima pulling double duty as Minmay), though I will watch Robotech down the road. No matter which version of events you go for, the story of Love and War in space will never get old. [Macross Plus is even better, and we'll definitely get a new release of it and its cousin II: Lovers Again thanks to the 2021 agreement]

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Yeah, man, I need to watch Macross

[@NebLleb]

@@brutallyhonestreviews4530 If you're curious about the differences, there isn't that much between the original SDF Macross and Robotech's adaptation. However, the most notable one is the Protoculture: In Robotech, it refers to the energy source that gives the titular robotechnology its function and allowed the UN Spacy to make its Veritech Fighters, serving as the core thing that ties the three sagas together. In SDF Macross, it's used by the Zentraedi as a slang term for our culture, as well as the ancient civilisation who made them. Because the Zentraedi were afraid of human culture, the Culture Shock that the crew enacts to end Space War I/The First Robotech War makes a bit more sense. Other than that, it's meant to be REALLY accurate to the Japanese scripts. Hell, even LYNN KAIFUN stays the same in both versions, something quite shocking given you'd assume it to be a character change enacted due to Cold War paranoia at the time.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

@@NebLleb that's really interesting, reminds me of the protodermis from Bionicle

[@chadhOneAtl]

The problem with RT was that after the first season the storyline gets extremely confusing. You unfortunately have to read the books to get an idea of what happened. But even then it’s convoluted. Rick is no where to be seen and suddenly everything is happening on earth. Yeah it’s odd.

[@craigmorris4083]

And then there is the whole 'BattleTech Controversy" with HG as well. That's been going since the 1980's but kind of under the radar.

[@ZontarDow]

The fact the original contract was written on a napkin is kind of insane.

[@ichigen511]

This story is painful. I was made aware of all these details back in 1985 when a new 8th grade friend of mine explained to me what the hell was really going on. He introduced me to Japanese anime. Something I had never heard of. I watched Speed Racer and Star Blazers in the 70s as a kid but I did not know that these were Japanese anime. My firend in 8th grade took me to a store in the southwest side of town that sold Japanese toys and rented Japanese movies and anime on VHS. No subtitles. No dubs. Pure Japanese language imports. I rented and watched about 100 VHS tapesincluding movies and OVAs and TV show episode, this was in 1985 and I continued to visit the shop and rent tapes for the next few years. I saw the Macross movie. Orguss. Megazone 23 (all three parts). Nausicaa and Laputa. Lupin the 3rd. Dirty Pair. Area 88. Mospeada (the third Robotech show). Gunbuster. the list goes on and on I couldn't read Japanese (duh) so I didn't even know what the damn movies I was watching were called. It was all in Japanese! I didn't care! Shit was lit!. I remember watching Nausicaa and then thinking it reminded me a bit of Laputa because the fox squirells were in both movies. This was the beginning of me being able to decern different anime styles and whatnot. In fact, in my town, Tower Books sold the import magazine Animage and I bought something like 20 months of that mag back in 1985-7. At that dope store, I bought toys like Macross Valkyries and Megazone 23's Garland transformable bike. I still have these toys and in their original boxes to this day. Shit was lit in the 80s for me. I was the only one of my friends in high school that even knew what anime was. My friends didn't understand why I was into watching Japanese "cartoons" in Japanese language. I didn't give AF. I saw violence and titties and amazing robots and transformable mecha and serious stories where characters lived, loved and died. Obviously I was introduced to this concept earlier with Star Blazers (i.e. Space Battleship Yamato) but I didn't quite "get" it. Anyways. Carl Macek introduced me to this rabbit hole but once I learned what that asshole was all about (money) I learned to hate him. Love him for one thing, hate him for all the rest. Anyways. Thanks for the video it just brought up a ton of emtions and memories. Cheers!

[@lordgoobr]

One thing to Harmony Gold's credit, the edits they made to Super Dimensional Cavalry Southern Cross made the series a bit better than the original. I've watched both and the original Southern Cross is a bit of a train wreck, mainly because IIRC it did end up cancelled and had a very rushed ending ala Gundam X.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Yeah mate I get that, I may have made hamony gold out to be the bad guys, but ultimately I still think it's really impressive what they managed to create out of three separate anime, regardless of the legality of it.

[@lordgoobr]

@@brutallyhonestreviews4530 I'm not arguing that Harmony Gold are the "bad guys" I'm a battletech player... ;)

[@SenileOtaku]

I suspect the ONLY reason Harmony Gold came to their senses and decided to accept their rights on Macross ONLY covered TV distribution of their particular 'SDF Macross' adaptation is because they are planning that live-action version of 'Robotech'. Tatsunoko would have been sure to block a new Robotech from the very lucrative Asian markets. That would have hurt HG more that what little (or any) benefit they were getting by blocking all those later Macross series from western markets.

[@fblack9033]

Not to nitpick, but the Revell line was not a toy line; it was a line of model kits. And yes, it did cause a lot of licensing problems with Harmony Gold.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Na bro it ain't nitpicking if you are right haha and yeah it's such a messy story

[@mrvn000]

While a child I loved Robotech.

[@miklawson211]

As a Brit i only became aware of Robotech thanks to the release of Battledroids which later became Battletech. The mechs included in the original game were all taken from other franchises including Robotech. I still have a large amount of metal miniatures and some plastic models. When i finally did get to watch Robotech i thought it was rather disjointed and now i know why. I need to find the series to watch again so i can see if my initial judgement is still valid.

[@troloinkto]

Both robotech and battletech (very original names) just used designs and toys from Fang of the sun Dougram, Macross, xabungle and other mecha anime, Those people weren't the most creative ones, so they just used Dougram's story and added more designs to create "battletech", and with macross they mixed 3 unrelated series to make a single one with "seasons"

[@ryanellison1652]

I know people different opinions about show but of 2 Versions of original of the show, was brought both set version of it. It’s actually classic, it’s actually find them in online stores. One of best anime watch.

[@calvinevans8305]

I watched the Transformers, He-man, Voltron, GI Joe, the Go Bots, and others in the 80s. I didn't get Robotech back then. I came across it randomly around 2020. Lol

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

for me a friend randomly lent the Robotech dvds when I was younger haha

[@volts7230]

Someone forgot that BigWest funded the production with Studio Nue whose distribution rights for the international market was given to Tatsunoko Productions. So technically BigWest owns the franchise. But its all settled now BigWest won benefitting everyone else but USA since the Macross series and films are being released worldwide without Harmony Gold. But Harmony Gold keeps exclusive rights to the characters under The moral of the story to protect your copyright before syndication. By the way I am a bit biased since I'm one of those people who supports the BigWest claim to everything in the dispute.

[@Kiyosuki]

I think the whole thing is just kind of sad. Robotech didn't have to be such a reviled thing now, it's how my brother and I even first discovered the original SDF Macross (which, funny enough, even back then before we knew Robotech was 3 different series patched together, we always lamented about how much curiously better the Macross part was. 😅 ). Is it arguably something outdated nowadays? Maybe, I have mixed feelings about the retrospective idea of Robotech "covering up" Macross' own legacy outside of Japan because I love the latter so much...but Saban seems to allow Power Rangers and the various Sentai series' they're often inspired or lifted from to co-exist, allowing viewers to watch both, and that could have been the situation here. At worst, Robotech could have been an interesting curiousity of its time. But now its just a curse word, and fittingly so for its complicitness in stagnating efforts to localize the macross franchise as a whole. Though now even with the other parts of its franchise being freed from localization hell, the original SDF Macross being kept in localization jail just sucks. I certainly dont want to support anything Robotech while they hold the original hostage essentially, denying a whole generation easy access to both to judge for themselves.

[@DouglasMichaelCamero]

Holy crap!!!!! I knew that Robotech was a combination of three different Anime. But add in Revell, DC comics as that is one seriously convoluted mix there. But despite it all I still like it today & I have pretty much all the Robotech movies up to and including that one off Robotech Sentinels & finally the Robotech Shadow Chronicles (which I think is awesome). Plus don't forget Pallidum Games total mishandling of the Kickstarter project for the game which I lost a lot of money & no miniatures no game no refund. So this extra background is very helpful filling in some blanks for me on why it got so messed up but still I liked it anyways & still do despite it's many flaws!!!

[@lothean2099]

I loved robotech defender. Those models were cool. Yes, I know they didn't relate. But damn did I have fun building them. I wish I got the robotech factory..even today its always gets away on ebay. So I'm just going to build my own. And one day..we may get a live action movie.

[@darksideblues135]

1:54 what is the name of the song in this clip?

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

World Peace by Brian Ellis!

[@darksideblues135]

Thank you. Very much.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

@@darksideblues135 It's a tune bro, just a warning it's from a very controversial comedy show lol

[@maikutsukino4743]

Hey, I don't know about you, but I still have my RDF patch I mail ordered for back in 1985. I was and still am Rick Hunter in so many ways. Well, now-a-days I'm more like Kyron and Rick. Funny how life changes you. LOL

[@paulforder591]

I'm going to stick to Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada--the three separate and unrelated TV series, meaning the original Japanese versions. Harmony Gold did these series a disservice by combining them and dubbing the voices, hence the plot inconsistencies. Back in the 80s copyright laws existed but were not always strictly enforced, at least in Japan.

[@reecewatson5311]

Just had time to walk home from school...

[@onimenno]

HG is solely responsible for preventing ANY mecha anime from coming to the US after Robotech. They actively sued anyone who vaguely had any mecha HG thought looked like their mecha. They even sued Bandai. Yes Bandai....over Gundam. They lost. Bandai got Gundam Wing aired after the lawsuit. A greedy real estate agency prevented good mecha anime... any mecha anime from being released because they wanted to corner the market. That is Harmony Gold in a nutshell.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Damn, when you say it like that lol

[@onimenno]

@@brutallyhonestreviews4530 HG got a little too cocky after winning lawsuit after lawsuit against Battletech (seriously BT guys, like you didn't think anybody would notice you copypasted those mech designs?). So anything that looked like a Battloid or Destroid in any other anime they went after. It got so bad HG sued Big West for sole US distribution rights in the 90s. The court sided with Big West and we got Macross Plus and Macross 7 dubbed and released stateside as a result. Nowadays HG is still trying to sue anybody with mecha in their storyline.

[@MrFleem]

I'm glad Harmony Gold is dead. They licensed a thing once, then attempted to claim that gave them ownership for all time. A bunch of copyright trolls that blocked stuff that they really didn't own, but convinced people that they did.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Yeah that is seeming to be the case tbh

[@nivekab]

Suddenly it all makes sense, it's only been 30 years for the penny to drop 😂😂😂

[@torokun]

I am no fan of HG. But kudos to their business/legal team on holding on to the “licensing” rights to Macross franchise.

[@kleptordemagnifico]

Fascinating. But, don't look into the Cloverfield film 'series'. It didn't work so well there.

[@John-x7r7p]

Love em all 1) robetech 2) Gundam 3) even robojox

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Need to get into some Gundam, just such a large franchise lol

[@mr.s2005]

had the whole Robotech series for awhile, thought something was weird with the "sequels". Things they said didn't match what they showed, but can't say they weren't clever in how they combined the 3 different series.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Yeah it is an impressive feat to blend it all together

[@Hando316]

I loved this series when I was a teen. I was excited for Robotech II: The Sentinels which was the continuing story of Rick and the gang when they went after the Robotech Masters homeworld. Read all those books which were great, but never got the series other than the first 4 or 5 episodes. Harmony Gold went belly up. They did however turned it into a comicbook which I read too. There were some other films that came afterwards, but after seeing one of them and found it boring and not too interesting. We need someone to make the Sentinels anime series.

[@easyalpha1]

The Macross productions on the other hand went to really fantastic levels with Macross plus side stories.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Yeah same mate, I was always way more interested in the story of season 1 Robotech than the others, who knows maybe one day we will finally get a new Robotech

[@Hando316]

@@brutallyhonestreviews4530 I was wrong in the fact I thought all 3 series was 1 big story and not 3 different series entirely. I thought The Southern Cross and Mospeada were the shortened anime series made into movie form like Space Battleship Yamato was for it's series.

[@GutsOfRivia]

The only good thing about Robotech is that it introduced me to macross.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

hahah, Idk I think it's a time stamp to a really odd and interesting time in history

[@j-frame]

Robotech vs Battletech HG sue Fasa for using the same Mecha meanwhile HG don't own Macross's Mecha as Tatsunoko don't hold the right but Fasa got the permission to use the Mecha in their tabletop game from the true owner of Macross. Now Robotech dies while Battletech is still going strong.

[@CaptainRufus]

Ps: Revell mostly just did model kits, not toys.

[@chaikaomoua1169]

We also got the mess with transformers using the veritech fighter as Jetfire.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

I did think they looked similar lol

[@tonbopro]

the books gave a well rounded tale and the Palladium Game series tied in nicely where the anime production failed due to devaluation of the US$，using CG Animation for an entire film is bold back in the day but it's all CG now no more Cells

[@frankkilian7837]

you forgot to mention FASA corp and Battletech as part of the 30 year lawsuit that was finally settled against harmony gold.. there is no way that a live action (worth anything) will ever be made. Harmony Gold has an incredible history of mismanaging everything to do with Robotech.

[@thomascraiker6449]

Ahh, the little known Hanestic League i see

[@ZetaVec]

Bro why’d you show a starscream recolor when you could have shown jetfire

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

I'm only know realizing the Jetfire controversy

[@upandaljm]

Want your mind blown? Find Macross of the same time. You will not actually believe the quality difference.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Oh really, I was wondering if there was a big difference in the story and like order of events but That's wild

[@jonahrains7483]

The thing everyone needs to know about Robotech is Harmony Gold has repeatedly dropped the ball for decades and Tommy Yune and Kevin McKeever shouldn't be trusted stocking groceries. Robotech could've gone toe-to-toe with Transformers. There are groups on social media detected to highlighting just how awful Harmony Gold is.

[@FerrisSOCAL]

Enter Sony that came in almost two years ago swinging an SDF-1 sized big stick that got all the platyers in line to make a live action fim. Let's Git 'er Dun in '24!!

[@violet-kittychick]

I like saw some of this not so long ago but I can't buy it on my Apple TV hey!!

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

hey man, there are always ways to watch when it comes to Anime!!

[@robertr9188]

No wonder this never made sense and couldn't follow the few episodes i did manage to catch. Similar to the Banana Splits out of sequence shows and various hodge podge movies with the same plots and shared actors in the 1970s

[@trashboat5388]

Robotech is to Macross what Power Rangers is to Super Sentai 😂😂😂

[@uncletiggermclaren7592]

I watched it from the first time it was shown in Australia, in October 1986. It started out on the Saturday kids show, then for some reason moved to about 4 pm weekdays. Which meant changing my shift at work to the Morning shifts, then RACING to the train and home and if everything went right, I would get there just minutes before the show started. That is actually how I met one of my life long friends, because we were both waiting at the Town Hall train station for the Bondi train, an announcement came that it was canceled and we both were pissed off, and I can't remember which one of us kinda jokingly said "Gunna miss Robotech now, dammit" but we both had a laugh, and almost immediately started to argue about details of the show. Hard for you young kids to understand, but there was literally NO WAY AT ALL to find out information about shows like that in the 80s. No internet. And no one, in Australia at least, printed any kind of literature about "cartoons". You watched the show, tried to understand what was going on, then argued with friends about it who also knew nothing more than they had seen. The world was so different that is is like an alien memory now.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

I do love that about older shows, you watch it then it disappears into the ether

[@uncletiggermclaren7592]

I am literally old enough that the first British TV shows I watched were sent out to New Zealand on planes, on black and white film. The film stock was of a particular valuable type, that, strange as it seems to say, they could re-use it. After washing out the original images, they would re-treat the stock with emulsion and film shows with it here, and they did do that, with things they thought "Oh, no one will want to watch that again !". They did that to about 7 copies of the original year of Dr Who which was just considered a silly kids program. There was a kids show in the middle of the 70s, and they "owned" the half hour AFTER their show was on, and one of their gimmicks was they held a telephone vote during the morning show, asking Kiwi kids what show from the last week we wanted to see a repeat of, and then they would say "Right, the vote is in, we are going to replay last weeks episode of The Adventures of Black Beauty next Saturday, today we are playing the week BEFORE'S The Adventures of Black Beauty after today's show". It was always Black Beauty. :( For a long time after WW2 we still had rationing of many things that had to be imported, because the Government was trying to rebuild our economy and SAVAGELY restricted overseas spending. I remember quite clearly us getting the first Colour TV in our street, in time for the first colour broadcasts in 1973. One of the very first shows, if not THE first ( as I remember it it was the first actual colour TV show ) was Jacques Cousteau's "The Silent World" and it blew everyone away. And for the first four or five years, there would be only two or three half hour colour shows in a day. All the rest were black and white still. And one thing that was always happening to us kids was cartoon series would be played out of sequence, because the TV channel had to pay extra to get the series in its proper order, so they used to just buy episodes at random, from various different sources. They even did it with shows like The Incredible Hulk. ALL of these "troubles" can't really happen now, because the shows come in over the net, any advances in the technology happen almost overnight, and if you miss a particular episode you just "on demand" it. Can you imagine the screams if one of the TV channels just decided to run episodes of a TV show out of sequence today?. @@brutallyhonestreviews4530

[@ivansson4392]

what about the FASA (Battletech) angle?

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Yeah man there is loads I missed, feels like a follow up video is in order

[@hmmdoh7835]

So glad Bandai can sell macross cross the world now

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Yeah deffo, Macross for everyone!

[@ferallion3546]

Robotech and Battletech fan and mecha designer here. I remember when the Robotech epic debuted and got into BT in 89. I would love to see Robotech make a comeback but they have done a lot of damage to several industries and fandom. HG is a studio/company with a corrupt history. Something that turned a lot fans against them was when they lied about the IP rights they actually had and the extent of legal reach they possessed. This was very disgraceful and a complete insult to Macross and the mega corporations that had allowed HG (a studio with no reputation in the animation industry) the privilege to prove that they would responsibly act ethically with one of the biggest IPs and founding epic stories (Macross, Gundam, Space Battleship Yamato, & Votoms) that would impact international animation storytelling. HG leadership had a colossal responsibility and golden opportunity to do right and they chose to not only burn everything to ground but to drag fans down with and ruin the lives of many hard working people in other smaller studios. The lie that really angered everyone was their false claim to all future US distribution releases and sales thereof. They started taking other studios to court under the guise of licensing violations for which they had zero power to initiate and in all honesty were driven by greed and power. The greed would later make sense when they’re parent company and leadership were later found rot have been engaging in real-estate schemes. HG has been the reason why we rarely got any new Macross releases here in the US during the 90’s, 00’s, and mid 2000’s. They should have left everyone alone. No fan was ever going mix up Battletech, Macross, Defenders, or Jetfire with Robotech but again the individuals who were involved in the lawsuits, crime, and unethical power grabs did not care about any of us fans and those that did, they ran out of the studio. The mecha designs, world building, and story arcs between Battletech, Defenders, Transformers, and Robotech were all very distinct and absolutely unique from one another. I love Macross and Robotech. Though let’s be honest 2nd Gen Southern across was not well executed and is the weakest of the three but in fairness it’s a teen overdrama. Robotech has a lot of potential but they need good leadership that is willing to leave everyone alone and focus they energies on building a great universe and repairing the damage they did to fandom and fellow studios who were also Macross fans. Here’s to hoping.

[@eldritchmorgasm4018]

What about the REAL "Macross" stuff, isn't this supposed to be released now on DVD/BR as well? I think it's been a year or so, where they came to an agreement, somehow without nuking themself with lawsuits from hell. Not much happened, except "Robotech" being on BR now...

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Oh yeah, I didn't realize you couldn't buy Macross on Amazon as a DVD, very odd

[@eldritchmorgasm4018]

@@brutallyhonestreviews4530 Except "Macross: Do you remember Love?, Macross 2 & Macross Plus", which was in the 90s, before shit went out of control

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

@@eldritchmorgasm4018 Yeah man I need to get into the Macross side of things as I have only watched Robotech

[@eldritchmorgasm4018]

@@brutallyhonestreviews4530 Please do 👍🏻

[@Dlatest]

Animeigo did a DVD set in the 90s, think was the 90s anyway, with subtitles of the Japanese Macross. No idea how hard it would be to find now. I have it tho.

[@SSmith-fm9kg]

Was addicted to this everyday after work in the mid-80s. It was new and fun to watch, but eventually I lost interest. The series seemed to become diluted.

[@nybethobdilord6912]

To me Robotech shouldnt even exist. Them rebranding the series ss their own did more harm than good. It allowed Harmony Gold to benefit more from the creators product than the creators themselves and were primarily creditded for it. All in all it was essentially legalized plagiarism with the illusion that they were helping with distribution. The series should have had a different Macross title instead of Robotech so the Macross series would then be better received overseas.

[@dwainsimmons3447]

Harmony god was to the fans of the 80s as to 4kids was to the fans of the 2000s.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

haha, as a 4kids kid, that's spot on!

[@mikereese529able]

Lol, Anime?you mean Japanimation.

[@Gittykitty]

Look I know HG is a jerk company, but I love Robotech Macross saga and Mospada saga. They may be considered butchard, but they aren't as bad as 4Kids Censorship. HG at least kept the deep plot and cut the fan service. I hate fan service and I own the cut dvds wich I'm happy about.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

I agree, even if the company has done some bad stuff, I love Robotech!

[@jwouter]

So how does battletech fit in 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

This is the second comment I have had about battletech lol, this must mean another video on the way, spill the beans 😂

[@misterlau5246]

So people didn't enjoy Robotech? I was a kid and I don't care about the dubious business practices of theirs.

[@worldtraveler930]

And here I was thinking it was a Really Piss Poor excuse for writing that they were beating past death like a Dead Horse?! Now I know!!! 🤠👍

[@CD-Gaming]

I sat down and watched Robotech a few years back and I HATED it! The dub was dubious, the opening and ending was bland, boring and generic and I struggled to get on with the characters! The third part was the worst, James Flinders (Liquid Snake!!) was in it and I couldn't help but think "come on, you're better than this"! But then I remembered Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes existed... And there was this lass in it who I jus found incredibly annoying! They parted ways with her before the final battle and I found myself thinking "wait, you can't leave her behind, you run the risk of her surviving"! The final ending also did not fit the that annoying and boring theme they made, either! Pretty much the only reason why I still say Pokémon has a worse English dub with DuArt at present, is cuz at least Harmony Gold had some talent, while DuArt's actors cannot act to save their lives (and you know who I'm talking about, don't pretend like you don't)!

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

I had no idea Liquid Snake's voice actor was in Robotech lol need to make an MGS video at some point

[@CD-Gaming]

@@brutallyhonestreviews4530 Yeah, he's that crossdressing bloke who was posing as a woman when they first met, a singer, if memory serves!

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

@@CD-Gaming Of course it would be that character lol

[@CD-Gaming]

@@brutallyhonestreviews4530 Yeah, I recognised him instantly, taking the credits to make sure I wasn't going crazy!

[@Tuxumino]

Captain HARLOCK

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

I think I have heard of Captain Harlock before, would you recommend?

[@Tuxumino]

yes Cpt Harlock is a must watch@@brutallyhonestreviews4530

[@deltatea3192]

Wow. That is one messed up history. That being said, having watched Robotech through to the end of the Cross arc, and Macross, Southern Cross and parts of Mospeda, honestly the three as stand alone were better shows as opposed merged. Although Robotech's main theme song is a great tune. Addendum: Given how the Ghost in the Shell live action and Dragon Ball worked out, I hope we don't get an American live action version.

[@fakkumedia]

there are still big chunks of it missing. revell was only the model kits rights which.........guess who was making that product for them? also toy line was totally another mess you did not touch on also the whole battletech and mechwarrior sh....t storm.. Playmate .....and all the other BIG japanese toy companies. BTW they still make the toys today...the real toys. i was alive on both side of the ocean when it aired. Mercury Falcon did a multi part of all of it. Also as a matter of fact it was not mass on air like GI joe or Transformers only a few states and counties had it on air. mainly west coast where i grew up watching it when it first aired states side...like we seen this before lol.

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Yeah man, there is still so much to this story to understand

[@fakkumedia]

@@brutallyhonestreviews4530 go check out mecury falcon he laid everything out and also some robotech toy review. The toys and miniature board game products shows how really f…. Up the industry was. The whole transformer star fire thing….and the full action figure size vf1s . Greedy large American toy companies fighting it out and the Japanese toy company making it for everybody …lol.

[@fawziekefli2273]

Margaret Fatcher. 😁

[@brutallyhonestreviews4530]

Yeah the closest thing to Darth Vader we have had in a while lol

[@JanitorIsBack]

this video wasn't worth finishing

[@easyalpha1]

Robotech Macross is a long time coming, but woke Hollywood won’t be able to do this franchise justice.

[@kahnadah]

How to tell me you're an incel without telling me you're an incel.

[@easyalpha1]

@@kahnadah lol Zentradi are incels…..come to think of it….but since you brought it up, you can keep that title to your special self….😁

[@coryloveless7801]

No you are wrong. The people who own macross wont let anyone outside of them use the macross characters that real reason Robotech is death