Robotech - Protoculture Collection

So, I'm not going to rehash what other people have said. If you're here, it's because you're a robotech fan, or know someone who raved about it. The reason this is art worth collecting in a decent edition is that the robotech story that was created to bridge these cartoons was actually greater than the sum of it's parts. I've watched mospeada, macross, etc by themselves, and although they are amazing works of art in their own right, it was the story that Carl Macek and co came up with that is the reason I have such great nostalgic feelings towards this old school anime. The books by Jack McKinney helped to really nail it home.Now, there are some problems with revisiting Robotech. 25 years hasn't been kind to this series. Some really great advances in anime in the intervening time make watching this for new people, and even for those of us that it was our gateway to anime for, somewhat hard to watch. I suggest the time honored method of having a few drinks prior to watching this, and ignoring those first feelings about quality of production, etc, so you can suspend your disbelief and get into this amazing tale. The 2 best parts are macross and mospeda (1st and 3rd robotech wars in the Robotech parlance) in my opinion, although the 2nd part has its moments, but is quite different in style than the other two.I've tried to watch Robotech in the past on horribly transferred VHS, less than great DVD transfers and "missing bits" streaming via netflix. You know how it is, netflix and other streams are convienient, but even at the highest settings it's not the whole picture, that's why Blu Ray isn't dead. This is by far the best version you can currently get, although it isn't perfect. There are some aliasing artifacts present which are disturbing, probably from the filters they used to clean up the image. I must say tho, this is the best version I've seen on modern equipment. The detail is better, it's formatted for 16x9 which is huge compared to the streaming version, and I actually think the 5.1 mix with the "new audio effects" is an improvement on the original. Sure you can kind of tell the sounds are "new" and "wrong" but they did a really good job, and it helped with me getting into the story and forget about nit-picking the 1983 animation.So, why is it so great ? The characters. They had feelings, they were real, they made mistakes, they reacted like real people, and had the flaws and attributes of real people. That is why this series is still so beloved. Although I have mixed feelings about the people currently curating Robotech (Tommy Yune and Harmony Gold) at least you can say they helped this release get made, They have good intentions and are running a business. What robotech REALLY needs, is a modern reboot, with the US storyline, and redraw the whole thing with some improvements and twists in 2012 era animation. NOT in 3D, which usually sucks and/or is jarring. (see Shadow Chronicles for why.) Of course, for legal and financial reasons, that is unlikely ever to happen in our lifetime.Anyway, This is the edition you should pick up if you want to own it but don't have it. It's better than any other version when upscaled by a progressive scan blu ray player.

Well, I just received my copy of "Protoculture Collection". I was a bit skeptical, as I read the older reviews and the instances where there were complaints of how the surround sound overrode the vocals supposedly. The only thing I can think of is that they have their surround systems are set incorrectly. Yes, there is surround sound and it works exceedingly well(at least on my system). It's not a Star Wars, but, honestly, I am hearing things all over the place! It's fantastic what they have done with the original footage, especially considering the number of dics that are in the set. I am not sure where to quite begin because there is soo much to say, so I will just briefly summarize.Visuals: Stunning! Definately dvd quality along with the sound to boot. I have discs 2-5 of the original Macross series(which is what prompted me to begin looking for 1 and 6 that I thought I had previously purchased) and a few of the Next Generation discs, and the difference is night and day. Much crisper graphics and fuller color. There is also an extreme amount of less visual noise in the scenes that "actually do" show noise, which are very few so far(to give a contrast, it looks for the most part as good as DBZ). They did a great job to say the least.The new commercial cutaways are cool also; so far I have noticed one old and two new. With the newer cutaways, they are a bit more graphic in nature(if you really wish to consider a battleoid shooting a gun graphic), but very cool. There are some scenes where there is brief nudity as others have stated, but all that I have witnessed was on the dvd menu there was I believe Myria taking a shower. Probably not something you would want a small child to see, but then again, there is actual killing and death in this series, so would I recommend it to a parent with a small child? Not even without the small amount of nudity. But then again, most anime(such as Robotech) has a storyline that a kid probably isn't going to understand anyhow(just one adults opinion), but that does not at all detract from the series, as, like most anime's I have watched has some form of insignificant nudity or conflict/animated fighting.It will take a while to get through the complete series and then I will go to the extras discs. However, the series is very much worth the money. I never purchased one of the previous "complete" series, but I am more than satisfied and thrilled with this purchase. This was one of my favorites as a child and it has taken me over two decades to obtain the complete series, but there is a reason for everything and this makes it that much sweeter!P.S. This collection from what I have looked at in my set(as long as purchased new), does include 85 episodes broken into the three collections(fourteen discs). Then, there is the extras package that contains seven discs. And from what I have observed in the disc I am watching, the storyline is following true.The price is right, it looks and sounds great and I couldn't find it anywhere else at this price.