Super Dimension Fortress MACROSS II – Lovers Again – takes place within the solar system during 2090 A.D. Eighty years have passed since the events of Space War I, and U.N. Spacy has encountered little in the way of further interstellar threats to humanity’s homeworld. This long peace is suddenly shattered when a previously-unknown, highly aggressive humanoid alien race, the Marduk, launches a surprise attack.
During the first wave of assaults, it quickly becomes clear that not only does this new adversary appear to be immune to U.N. Spacy’s musical Minmay Attack, but the Marduk can inspire their soldiers using their own songstresses, the Emulators. During a front-line reporting assignment, Tabloid TV reporter Hibiki Kanzaki locates and rescues an Emulator in distress, Ishtar.
With the Minmay Attack no longer effective, U.N. Spacy is forced to deploy its entire arsenal in a desperate attempt to protect the Earth from utter devastation. Meanwhile, Hibiki, Ishtar, and U.N. Spacy ace pilot Silvie Genarace against time to discover the secrets hidden aboard the SDF-1 Macrossfortress, hoping that they will provide the key to ending the conflict between humanity and the mysterious Marduk.
The TLDR
We’ll be doing things in much the same way as our previous Anime Kickstarters, so everything should be familiar to you because you backed all of them, didn’t you? As usual, the goal is to do a definitive reference edition of the title, packed with everything Macross II-related we can dig up. We’ll be doing one of our embroidered patches, and may do extra goodies if there is enough interest. As with our previous releases, this will be a limited edition, one pressing, and once it’s gone, it’s gone.
Confirmed Contents (Basic Blu-ray)
The Basic Blu-ray will contain the following:
- All 6 episodes of Macross II in HD with Japanese audio on a BD-50 disc, encoded at a bitrate just below the point at which your Blu-ray player will catch fire.
- Three types of English subtitles; our regular colored subtitles, colored SDH subtitles, and SDH captions.
- Two Japanese commentaries featuring production staff: Tomita Sukehiro (Story Editor/Screenwriter), Mikimoto Haruhiko (Character Design) & Sasaki Shiro (Music Producer) and voice actors: Takayama Tsutomu (voice of Hibiki Kanzaki), Kasahara Hiroko (voice and singing voice of Ishtar) & Toma Yumi (voice of Silvie Gena).
- Clean opening and ending credits sequences.
- List of all Kickstarter backers on the disc.
- Liner Notes booklet containing interviews with Takanashi Minoru, Tomita Sukehiro, Mikimoto Haruhiko, Yatagai Ken’ichi, Honda Yasunori and Sasaki Shiro.
- Folded printed insert containing a poster on one side and a list of backers on the other.
- Reversible cover slip; can be configured between traditional and graphics-heavy presentation.
- As with all our Blu-rays, the disc will not be region-locked.
Additional Features Being Developed
We can’t 100% confirm these contents, but they will be added if rights clearances can be obtained.
- English-language dub – we are almost certain we will be able to include this, but we can’t absolutely guarantee it at this point.
Reward Tiers
Basic – $40 + shipping
The basic set, a region-free BD-50 Blu-ray + inserts.
Basic + Artbook – $70 + shipping
The basic set, a region-free BD-50 Blu-ray + inserts, plus a large 8.5×11″ artbook. There’s just too much good art that deserves a full-sized presentation, so we’re not doing our usual small artbook this time. We expect the artbook to be at least 150 pages but it’s very likely to get even larger.
Additionally, if the print run for the artbook exceeds 1500 copies, we will have sufficient economies of scale to automatically upgrade from a softcover to a hardcover artbook!
Premium – $75 + shipping
The Premium set contains everything in the Basic + Artbook tier, plus (by popular demand and/or threats) a chipboard case to hold your precious Amaray and keep it safe!
Patron – $150 + shipping – Limited Reward: 80 Available
Includes everything in Premium, plus you will be listed as a Patron when the disc loads in addition to your listing in the regular disc feature.
Prominent Patron – $250 + shipping – Limited Reward: 20 Available
Includes everything in Patron, plus you will be listed on the first page of the list of Patrons in a larger font.
Quantity Limits: There is a limit of 5 blu-rays per pledge, and each artbook must be accompanied by a blu-ray (so no art book add-ons are permitted). You will be able to upgrade your pledge post-campaign.
Add-ons
These are the currently planned add-ons; we will add more based on feedback from backers (and based on what stretch goals are achieved). Add-ons are only available to those who have backed the Kickstarter (or joined up post-campaign), and will be available on our website post-campaign.
- A fancy embroidered patch (4″ diameter) that celebrates the release of the set.
- Mikimoto Shikishi – As with some of our previous campaigns, Mr. Mikimoto has agreed to create unique, personally-inscribed Macross II Shikishi based on your design suggestions. Here’s an example of what to expect:
- Limited-Edition Mikimoto Shikishi – Mr. Mikimoto is considering doing a limited-edition shikishi. These will all feature a new original line-art illustration printed on full-sized shikishi boards, and will be personally inscribed and signed. Mr. Mikimoto will also hand-color a subset of the edition. If this idea interests you, please let us know in the comments.
In the past we’ve done some really fun stuff based on your suggestions, including garage kits, huge posters, and inkjet-printed canvas paintings. We look forward to your help in figuring out something really unique to do this time.
Stretch Goals
Here are the currently planned stretch goals; more may be added during/after the campaign based on your feedback.
- $100,000 : New art by Mikimoto Haruhiko! We will commission him to produce a brand new Macross II painting that will be used in the chipboard case, printed insert poster, and artbooks, and almost certainly in some new Add-ons as well! We’ll also collect your suggestions for content, and pass on the best ones to Mr. Mikimoto (ranked by your fellow backers, of course). He may do one of them, use an idea or two, or go off in a completely different direction — that’s up to him!
We are working out the details of additional bonus features, but this is more complicated than expected. We hope to announce additional stretch goals in the near future, but you should expect an extra bonus feature on the disc for every $25-$50k raised above $100k.
UHD 4K Blu-Ray?
Many of you have asked us to release Macross II in 4K. This will require a new transfer, additional authoring, and of course we will have to press some more disks.
In small quantities, this is prohibitively expensive, but if enough people sign up for a 4K Blu-ray, we can do it. However, offering a reward tier and then removing it during a campaign if it doesn’t get enough signups isn’t currently possible on Kickstarter.
Therefore, we are strongly considering running a second Kickstarter campaign shortly after this one that will offer a 4K Blu-ray upgrade option to backers of this campaign. If the minimum goal of that is reached, then we’ll be able to fund the 4K transfer, and backers of the upgrade campaign will get an Amaray with two discs, the original Blu-ray + the new UHD 4K blu-ray.
Note: you do not need to back this campaign to back the upgrade campaign; there will be tiers in the upgrade campaign for new backers in addition to “upgrade” tiers for backers of this campaign.
We expect the additional cost of a 4K blu-ray to be $30, and the campaign goal to be $30,000 (1000 signups).
If you are interested in the prospect of a 4K release, please let us know by completing this Google Form Poll and letting us know in the campaign comments.
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