The Latest Ambiguous Revival
Jul. 28th, 2017 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerNot quite two years ago, I watched a "poetic reconstruction" of the scattered episodes of Robotech I'd managed to see "the first time around" three decades before to start me off down a path both long and perhaps a little strange. As I finished that project by at last getting through a parody-sequel video I'd long heard amusing rumours of and had available to watch for a while, though, I did wonder a bit if it might, to stretch the metaphor, either let or just make me step off a path now trailing off into lonely weeds.
After just a little while, though, it didn't seem to matter too much that the remnant of discussions "inside" seemed bitter in a "terrible food, and such small portions" way and the references from just "outside" go through a filter of fixed hostility, because there had been a time when my interest in Robotech had seemed to make me "a fandom of one." Some people can regale younger generations with tales of the days when "fandom" was carried out through the postal service, but even if I'd managed to hear about that before everything turned electronic I hadn't got to the point of trying it myself. After all those days with just one episode on tape, the novelizations, and the drawings in the first volume of the role-playing game, I did find myself still spending some idle moments contemplating the thoughts I'd had back then, and sometimes the reasons why I'd had them, back before everything had got a lot more complicated.
Then, I did happen to notice news Robotech comic books would be restarting once more. I hadn't been interested in the sole product of the previous attempt at that, a crossover with Voltron, but hearing about a first-principles "retelling of the original story" did raise a little bit of interest for all that the preview art had me thinking of occasional hints that Battletech might been created by and sold to people who thought "giant piloted robots would be very compelling if not for all that 'anime' mixed in." At the same time, taking a chance on the first issue as opposed to waiting for a collection (and there haven't been any trade paperback collections of Robotech comics for quite a while) does seem to depend on just which of the numerous variant covers I might see at a local store.
Well before that as yet unarrived point, though, I'd looked in a store just a bit further away that doesn't seem to have any new comics among its clutter of old toys, but which does have bins of old comics for uninflated prices, and finished buying up the original adaptation of "The Macross Saga." I'd seemed to have become aware of it many issues too late to feel as if it was worth starting in the middle on my small allowance that first time around. Now, it had much less to do with the art, which in this manga-saturated time now looks to range from "sort of off-kilter" to "definitely wrong," than with the letter pages. I was curious as to how well they would have pointed to the original anime; some pages of notes at the back of the role-playing game had pretty much been my first exposure to just where the animation had come from, but as with the rest of the game itself they'd had an odd "you ought to know about this already" feeling to them.
Before I'd got to the point of untaping all of the bags, though, I'd also managed to notice the "official Robotech site" had restarted its discussion forum, and in such a way as to retrieve all the posts from their old forum. It did add to a sense of a slight gathering of momentum; unfortunately, the very same day I also happened to hear about a new lawsuit about the tangle of licenses that had once left me wondering "did Battletech rip off Robotech, or was it the other way around?" before learning things were more complicated than either possibility. That familiar filter of hostility can make just continuing to contemplate what I'd once thought and why a bit more appealing.
After just a little while, though, it didn't seem to matter too much that the remnant of discussions "inside" seemed bitter in a "terrible food, and such small portions" way and the references from just "outside" go through a filter of fixed hostility, because there had been a time when my interest in Robotech had seemed to make me "a fandom of one." Some people can regale younger generations with tales of the days when "fandom" was carried out through the postal service, but even if I'd managed to hear about that before everything turned electronic I hadn't got to the point of trying it myself. After all those days with just one episode on tape, the novelizations, and the drawings in the first volume of the role-playing game, I did find myself still spending some idle moments contemplating the thoughts I'd had back then, and sometimes the reasons why I'd had them, back before everything had got a lot more complicated.
Then, I did happen to notice news Robotech comic books would be restarting once more. I hadn't been interested in the sole product of the previous attempt at that, a crossover with Voltron, but hearing about a first-principles "retelling of the original story" did raise a little bit of interest for all that the preview art had me thinking of occasional hints that Battletech might been created by and sold to people who thought "giant piloted robots would be very compelling if not for all that 'anime' mixed in." At the same time, taking a chance on the first issue as opposed to waiting for a collection (and there haven't been any trade paperback collections of Robotech comics for quite a while) does seem to depend on just which of the numerous variant covers I might see at a local store.
Well before that as yet unarrived point, though, I'd looked in a store just a bit further away that doesn't seem to have any new comics among its clutter of old toys, but which does have bins of old comics for uninflated prices, and finished buying up the original adaptation of "The Macross Saga." I'd seemed to have become aware of it many issues too late to feel as if it was worth starting in the middle on my small allowance that first time around. Now, it had much less to do with the art, which in this manga-saturated time now looks to range from "sort of off-kilter" to "definitely wrong," than with the letter pages. I was curious as to how well they would have pointed to the original anime; some pages of notes at the back of the role-playing game had pretty much been my first exposure to just where the animation had come from, but as with the rest of the game itself they'd had an odd "you ought to know about this already" feeling to them.
Before I'd got to the point of untaping all of the bags, though, I'd also managed to notice the "official Robotech site" had restarted its discussion forum, and in such a way as to retrieve all the posts from their old forum. It did add to a sense of a slight gathering of momentum; unfortunately, the very same day I also happened to hear about a new lawsuit about the tangle of licenses that had once left me wondering "did Battletech rip off Robotech, or was it the other way around?" before learning things were more complicated than either possibility. That familiar filter of hostility can make just continuing to contemplate what I'd once thought and why a bit more appealing.