Rabid Southern Cross Fan wrote:Zor Disciple wrote:Is someone actually arguing that unless something is stated out by the official license holder that it doesn't exist?
Yes.
Actually, no...
the simple fact that's being stated is that
fanon isn't canon, no matter how badly you might want it to be. There's no shortage of inconsistencies to be had in the
Robotech TV series, and twenty-plus years of stagnation has left many fans with nothing else to do but concoct increasingly convoluted theories to make every inconsistency out to be a significant and intentional product of
Robotech's production process rather than just an artifact of a rushed production schedule and lack of time to proofread properly.
On a few occasions, the "
Robotech team" at Harmony Gold has waded into the mire of fanon to retroactively make a particular goof part of the canon. Still, that's a rare move for them to make. It's only been done once in recent memory, with
Robotech's version of the "Macross Saga's VF-1R" (the actual VF-1R in
Macross being something completely different).
Rabid's pet theory here already has three strikes against it from the very beginning... they weren't included in the production materials by the animators of
Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, they were deliberately omitted from Robotech.com's Infopedia and other canon
Robotech sources, and there are certainly plenty of people who would label the ships in questions variants of the
Tristar-class instead of being a trio of other classes in their own right.
There's the abridged version of what's being said.
Colonel Wolfe wrote:I think thats how it works in Japaneses Anime... most of the Real info about a series is based on Manga and non-animated sources...
No... that's actually kind of a distorted oversimplification of how it works in real anime. The practice has been imitated by
Robotech as well, just on a much smaller scale thanks to its unique production problems over the last 25+ years.
Generally speaking, it's a fairly common practice for studios to produce animated adaptations of popular manga titles. In cases where the show is derived from a manga series, the manga is considered to be the "real" or "correct" version of the story, since ratings often require the producers to take liberties with the original story. Even then, there'll be more information on the characters and certain aspects of the story being printed in magazines and the creator's art books and whatnot. Adapting serialized novels into animation is also occasionally done, with the same general principles. Occasionally, the changes have nothing to do the show's story, and are just to excise a particular in-joke or reference on the part of the mangaka that might otherwise cause problems (like not showing the cargo hold of Sasami's ship in
Tenchi Muyo!, since the comical clutter in there had a few things that obviously didn't belong to the setting... like a VF-1S Valkyrie from
Macross and the GR1 from
Giant Robo).
Mind you, there are also plenty of shows which started out being developed as anime and spun off manga titles and novelizations and whatnot. Both
Gundam and
Macross were originally developed as anime, and their great success allowed them to spin off manga and novels and games and whatnot. Typically, the first information fans will see about the series will appear as "teaser" articles in magazines before the show comes out, wherein the show's creative staff will talk a little about the setting and story, and maybe even show off some art of the characters or mecha. Then, of course, the show continues to get covered during its run, with magazine articles and other publications containing stuff like character bios, stats for the mecha, and more creator interviews that can give information about the setting and other parts of the show's "universe". Then, of course, later on you see the big art books like the
This is Animation and
Entertainment Bible series, which give lots of detail about the show's setting and characters and mecha and whatnot, and maybe bigger publications like a serialized official encyclopedia (like the "Chronicle" series) or some tech manuals (like the "Master File" and "Master Archive" series).
Being that these printed materials come directly from the show's creators and contain info pertaining to the series itself and its broader setting, they're treated as canon.
Really, the overwhelming majority of the information about
Robotech's cast, ships, and mecha comes from these printed materials from the original Japanese shows.
Robotech has even imitated this practice to a certain extent with
Robotech Art 1 and the RTSC art book.
jaymz wrote:Either way Anything on the varying planets would be stuff pulled out of their collective a$$e$ anyway.
Exactly, the lack of information would mean that the writers would be making 99% of it up as they went.