ROBOTECH is like the plastic pull-ups you get to wear before you're ready for tighty-whities. That should go on the DVD case. :)

I saw the most recent King Kong in the theaters. I don't know why I didn't think of it as a monster movie. Of the big-budget 'giant' movies that have worked recently (Transformers 2007, King Kong, Cloverfield), they have gone out of their way to have very compelling human characters, and sometimes humanized the giant (especially in Transformers 2007 and King Kong). It's as if they're acknowledging the emotional gap the audience normally feels with the giant and they're trying to close that gap. Especially with the facial features.

I guess Japanese audiences can emotionally connect with the giants without them being humanized. They have different tastes than we do.

That's really beside the fact,because I like Macross,and I also like Destroy all Monsters. I just fail to see how a cartoon about transformable robots and an idol singer who defeats war through the power of Jpop is an alltime classic thought provoking adult drama,but a dinosaur fighting aliens should be ridiculed.

Again,I like Macross,but an objective observer would be just as likely to say it's stupid.

As far as that hypothesis about Americans not liking "giant" monsters,(what about King Kong and Cloverfield?) I'd have to say it may have some truth,but I think it's mostly due to the stupid kneejerk "LOL RUBBAR SUTE" reaction.

It is possible that monster movies can also be quality films. However, my exposure to monster movies has always been the really bad 1960s/1970s movies with campy plots and even campier special effects, the ones you see as a local UHF station Saturday afternoon movie. I am not currently aware of any quality monster movies. If I saw one, I'd probably change my mind about short dancing men in rubber suits.

Did you pick up the Appleseed Ex Machina movie? In one of the special feature clips, a producer talks about how Japanese giant robot and giant monster movies don't usually do as well in America. This producer makes the hypothesis that the American audience usually feels emotionally disconnected from things that are much larger than human size. The Alien, the Predator, and the Terminator are all human-size or at most 2 or 3 times human size. Appleseed supposedly works in the US because the cyborgs and the Landmates are about human size.

I think there is some truth to this hypothesis, but I'm pretty sure some people here will disagree.

Sorry if I'm being a little overdramatic,but even though I'm totally used to people bashing pre-CGI movies,I never thought I'd see that kind of comment on a website about Mazinger Z action figures.

Even when they're really informative and entertaining (like the Fist of the North Star TV one was), I find that really long podcasts are hard to listen to. I think that about an hour is a good upper-limit for a podcast.

And even though giant monster movies can be fun to watch sometimes, you know it's just grown men in rubber suits dancing on a cheap model set in-front of a camera. There really isn't much denying that.

Long podcasts are always good, when you have the time, that is.

And yes, Side B is next week's show. It was just wayyyy too long for one podcast. Next week!

-Jeremy