Mailbag 2: The Problem with Tomino Faeries

Posted February 25, 2005

Last week's first installment of the Mailbag featured some good questions, and this week's entry features questions on a wide range of topics.

James MacDonald asks:
Hey, This is something that's driving me crazy. What is the relation between Cham (of Dunbine) and Lilith (of L.Gaim)? They both share the same voice actor, same last name, and, well, they're pretty much identical. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's Tomino's way of saying, "Ha-ha, look at what I can do," but if you could clarify this for me, I would be grateful.
Chris responds:
Although I have watched all of Dunbine, I've only seen the first episode of L.Gaim, so I'm not sure how much help I can be on this. If anything, I think Tomino just has a penchant for having a cute mascot/sidekick character. There really is no need to have a Haro in every UC Gundam series, but every Tomino project has them with the sole exception of Gundam F91. Maybe he liked Cham's voice actress and wanted to give her another role. It may be one of those great unexplained mysteries of the universe.

Will asks:
I got an interesting question about Victory Gundam. I've noticed a noticeable difference between CCA/F-91 and Victory Gundam is the absence of a combat bridge on the battleships. This appears to affect both the Zanscare and Federation forces. Is there any reasons for the absence of a combat bridge on battleships by the time Victory Gundam comes around?
Chris responds:
A lot of things that are presented in UC Gundam never quite catch on. Transformable mobile suits are all the rage in Zeta Gundam and Gundam ZZ, but as soon as even Char's Counterattack they're out of fashion. Also, the Earth Federation Forces are extremely slow to adopt new technologies. Look how long it takes them to get with the times and finally miniaturize their mobile suit designs. They also continue to use outdated ship designs like the Salamis as late as UC 0153. At this point the design of the Ra Cailum class is already 60 years old and never managed to catch on into mass production to replace the whole fleet and likely never will. As for the Zanscare, perhaps it was out of tradition, but when you've got motorcycle maniacs like Duker Iq designing ships, who knows? It's kind of like the placement of the bridge in all the Star Trek series. Why is the most important part of the ship the most vulnerable and exposed? Although the combat bridge isn't going anywhere in UC, the concept is back now in SEED DESTINY with the Minerva.

Sean Stone asks:
Hi, first off great mecha site, none other more organized and clearly presented. Shame about the annoying ads that appear in the forum!:)

1. What is the reason for the new reviews as they don't seem to be much different than the old ones, no bits seemed to be missed out? Plus wouldn't it be better if someone else did "new" reviews to give difference of opinion?

2. Could you tell me which mecha sections are pretty much dead?

Chris responds:
Thank you. As for the Forum, unfortunately there's nothing I can do about that because we are hosted on ezboard. That will change eventually. Now, to your questions.

1. If you think the new reviews (in this case, Macross II) aren't any different, you really need to read them again. The new reviews are far more descriptive and detailed. Whereas before I might have mentioned 'some guy' or 'the mecha attacks' you will now find specific names. Also, those reviews were written nearly five years ago and do not reflect my current writing standard. I'd like to think that my writing has improved in the last five years, and the whole point of doing re-reviews is so that all the reviews on the site have a uniform writing style. In the context of posting reviews, I'm not interested in other people's opinions. That's what the Forum, the IRC channel and e-mail are for. Besides, if you see my ratings for Macross II now, you'll see that my opinion of the series has changed.

2. I hate to say that any mecha sections are dead, but there are many that will probably never be updated. When I took over The Mecha Domain from Burke Rukes, that included many sections that even he didn't update much like Dougram, Dragonar, SPT Layzner, etc. While I would like to update everything, many of these shows are not available in English. I also don't have the time or money to invest in Japanese resource books to find more information for these sections. For the moment though, it looks like the only active mecha sections will be Gundam and Macross.

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