The Art of Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles

A companion book to the 2007-released DVD animated movie, this book gives incredible insight to the Robotech universe and its characters and is definitely a must-have for all Robotech fans. Written by Shadow Chronicles director Tommy Yune, ART OF THE SHADOW CHRONICLES gives detailed information about the production of the movie and features early character designs as well as technical profiles about the characters, mechas, and vehicles featured in the movie. Old school Robotech fans who purchased any of the three long out-of-print Robotech Art books of the '80s, might consider ART OF THE SHADOW CHRONICLES to be the fourth book in the series. Highly recommended.

This is an excellent book. It covers the movie perfectly. It's small compared to Art 1, but then again it's only covering a movie and not an entire series. I now realize the value of the art books, and when the next movie "Shadow Rising" comes out I'll gladly by the art book for it as well.

Totally worth it. Full color, very heavy glossy paper throughout. It has a history of Robotech, both story-internal that covers the major events in all the previous series (or failed series, counting the Sentinels) and real-world that covers all of the original series, failed starts like the Sentinels (which would have been cool) and Robotech 3000 (thank heavens it tanked), and the origin and development of the new movie. All of this is fully illustrated; there are some great screen captures from the original series and the parts of the Sentinels that were produced. All that's nice, but it's not the main course. The main course is what you've come to expect from Robotech Art books: cool pictures of the characters, mecha, and ships. The book soars in this regard. For new ships and characters there are sketches showing how the design evolved, one or more final "key art" images, and a screencap or two. For stuff carried over from the original series, there is also some original concept art and images of the stuff as is appeared on screen back when, so you can see if and how things were updated (not much, fortunately) for the new movie. To sum up, this is a sumptuously illustrated and produced volume in its own right, and second only to Robotech Art 1 as both an art book and a sourcebook for the history, characters, and vehicles of Robotech.

This book about the Shadow Chronicles, the latest Robotech Saga, has a lot more than just pretty pictures. The book is divided in to 6 major sections and one minor section. Section I summarizes the Robotech story and timeline. It starts in 1999 when the SDF-1 crashes on Earth, to the battle between the Robotech Expeditionary Force (REF) and the Invid at Reflex Point in 2044. It also mentions the ill-fated Robotech 3000 series. (If you never saw Robotech 3000, don't waste your time.) Section II talks about the world in 2044. It focuses on Earth, the Invid, and the REF. It includes descriptions and drawings of major installations such as the Invid hive complex at Reflex Point, Space Station Liberty, and Moon Base ALUCE. Section III has drawings, biographical information, and motivations of all of the characters mentioned in the Shadow Chronicles. This list includes Scott Bernard, Marcus Rush, Marlene Rush, Ariel, The Regess, Maia Sterling, Vince Grant, Jean Grant, Max Romero, Doug Taylor, Gunther Reinhardt, Rick Hunter, Lisa Hunter, Louis Nichols, Janice M2, Sparks, the Haydonites, and "generic" REF shipboard personnel. Section IV presents drawings and descriptions of all the mecha from the series, and a few that were not shown in the movie. These mecha include REF veritechs, cyclones, and body armor, and Invid and Haydonite mecha. Some of the mecha have been seen in print before, but some have not. It is not surprising that after the mecha, Section V shows drawings and descriptions of the ships. This was my favorite section. There are excellent color and black and white drawings of the SDF-3, SDF-4 and all of the REF capital ships including the Ikazuchi, Shimakaze, Horizon, Tokugawa, and Ark Angel classes. This section also has the Invid and Haydonite capital ships. Some of the more familiar REF ships such as the Garfish, Ikazuchi, and Horizon have been nicely redraw with better explanations of their roles and capabilities. Section VI focuses on the production aspects of the movie. It tells the who, what, and how the Shadow chronicles came to be. The last, small section (VII), has 3 pages of reference material. Page 1 is a mecha data page. It has the vital statistics of the various mecha and ships. This information can easily be adapted to roleplaying stats. Page 2 has a glossary of terms that are bounced around the Robotech universe. It quickly defines terms such as veritech, flower of life, etc. The last page is an index. I am a huge Robotech fan that has all of the episodes and movies and play the roleplaying game. This book has a wealth of information and a little bit for everyone - nice pictures, nice descriptions, good background info, and production information. If you like Robotech, I think that you'll like this book.