So, my copy of the second Macross Frontier movie and my PS3 iM@S2 box turned up today. I was actually kind of surprised that I only ordered the regular edition of Macross Frontier rather than the LE, but given that I rarely do anything with those extras, I guess it was just a fleeting moment of lucidity on my part that’ll soon pass.

Anyway, the first pressing with both of these releases is a clip of film from both works. For iM@S, it’s a clipping from the first episode of the anime. For Macross Frontier, well… it’s supposedly from the movie, but given people have been reporting getting clippings from such exotic content as the anti-piracy advert that played before hand, I suppose all bets are off.

Not that the iM@S clippings are necessarily better, being that there’s always the risk of getting one of the scant few frames containing Producer-san (I’ve seen those on Japanese blogs as well) or worse. And given my previously reported luck on such random matters, I’m largely expecting worse. Much worse. And I say “expecting” as I’m writing this preamble without having opened them up.

Which does mean that, should they fail to be either particularly terrible or amazing, it’ll be something of a disappointment of a post. But, hey, let’s open them up…
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Well, that’s another weekend of heavy-duty cartoon watching done with, and while I’m, at time of writing, enduring a 4-5 hour train ride into London to see Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below (which I keep wanting to type as Children Who Chase Deep Voices from Lost Below, which makes marginally less sense), I’m not all that inclined to give you the tl;dr version of events even if it would be a handy time-killer. So, I’m going to mostly be bullet-pointing this, because bullet points are the best kinds of points.
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…Because the Escaflowne movie is so boring that it’ll knock you out cold, amiright?

Actually, that’s being a bit unfair. Having eight years of distance from my last rewatch of the TV show, as opposed to eight minutes like the last time I watched the movie, rather did wonders for my appreciation. After the TV show, where most episodes end on some kind of cliffhanger or high-point, the movie is simply uneventful. Taken on it’s own, it still has it’s share of issues with pacing and underdeveloped character arcs, but it’s still a very pretty looking movie with some really neat action sequences.
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It’s that time of year again… is what I’d be saying if this was more than just the second occasion the event has been held, or if I’d actually been to the Glasgow weekend last year. Instead, hey, it’s the second year of Scotland Loves Anime, the event in which two cinemas in Scotland show anime movies all weekend.

Not that, on paper, this years line-up looked as good as last years. This isn’t the fault of the organisers, though – The advantage of doing one of these for the first time last year is that they could get away with pulling content from the previous couple of years, whereas they didn’t really have that luxury when following things up just a year later. Add to that the fact that last year was really an abnormally good year for anime movies coming out of Japan, with things like Redline finally hitting after years in production.

I’m not saying that this years line-up is bad (particularly given I’ve not yet seen A Letter to Momo, or next weeks enigmatic “MYSTERY FILM”), but at first glance, not quite so spectacular.
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Gosh darn it, it would appear that I’ve spent a little too much time in Beta, and now all my years of hard work formulating what I believed to be a revolutionary product has been rendered for naught! Indeed, I think I might need to take another week off to get over this shock and adequately concoct a suitable action plan in response to this development.

Or I might just want to spend some time watching some cartoons.