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Buried Treasure - Megazone 23 Trilogy

Part 1 was infamously reworked (barely) into the unwatchable and incoherent Robotech: The Untold Story, the famously never-released Robotech movie. (Grainy 16mm footage from Mospeda was added in at distributor Carolco's request, as they complained there were too many girls and not enough mecha.

There are no less than three dubs of Megazone Part 1, and two of Part 2.

Japanese producer Idol Co., Ltd. asked Harmony Gold to make an English version of Part 2 (which they subtitled back into Japanese for laserdisc release as "The International Version").

I love both the first and second OVAs, although I'm more of a part one guy. I should probably set aside the time to go more in-depth about it at some point, but for now, I would encourage everyone reading this who hasn't seen the Megazone 23 OVAs to just go out and get it. It's so easy and cheap to get these days that if it even mildly sounds of interest, you should go for it.

Anime World Order wrote:

Did that PS3 game for Megazone 23 come out after all?

It did, it's just that nobody really talks about it. The last I remember hearing of it was a Famitsu (or some such magazine) review where it's apparently said that the story is interesting, but the gameplay isn't, and eyebrows are raised over why the game is on the PS3 in the first place (if you ever see screenshots of this, you'll see why - it's not the kind of game that needed so much horsepower).

As I recall, the plot was basically a continuation from Part 1 that ignores Part 2 and takes place in "2004" (or sometime around then), the Megazone having gone on for years with business as usual. Shogo never resurfaced. The player takes the role of the son of Yui and Shogo, apparently conceived during Part 1's delightful little sex scene, and pilots a Garland that looks just like the original, but is painted blue. Thus the title, Megazone 23: Blue Garland.

I don't know if anyone else tried to go more in-depth since then, I kind of forgot about the thing.

I've just done a quick check, and it appears the UK VHS release only received a 12 rating from the BBFC. I was lead to believe it was slightly more violent than that.

The UK release actually Part 3, not Part 1. Bizarrely it also contains a 10 minute prologue created by Manga Video using footage from Part 3 which contains the back story of Megazone 23, some of it seemingly straight out of the mind of the dub script writer.

is there anywhere online one can view the ADV-produced trailers for Megazone 23? Word has it that they did them in this intentionally kitschy 80s style, but none of my ADV discs seem to include those.

If one looks deeply enough one will find the todays economic disaster is the direct child consumated by the "greed is good" mantra of the 80s and the "Okay that didn't work, but lets try this instead, because we love gambling with other peoples money, and nobody cares as long as we keep winning." of the 90s.