Macross Delta

Two and a half years ago, I watched a bunch of Macross shows (Plus, Seven, Zero, Frontier). Macross Delta came out shortly thereafter, which was the whole reason I'd watched the earlier ones, but I didn't have any way to (legally) see it and eventually I kind of forgot about it. Well, a friend finally got the series recently and I was able to watch it.

The first thing you noticed in Macross Delta is the two significant differences from other Macross series. Number one: Someone writing this series really likes the magical girl genre. There's a group of young women named Walküre that performs songs to combat enemies (this is standard Macross), who change outfits during songs and dance around the battlefield with some kind of rocket-dresses (this is definitely new). Think of the "magic" part as being singing and combat dancing, and this is pure magical girl style anime. Number two: The enemy sings too, and uses it as a mind control device. In prior series, the "magic" singing has always been the province of the good guys, using it to disrupt the enemy. Occasionally an enemy might convert a singer to their side (as in Frontier) but mostly it belongs firmly on the side of the hero(ine)s. This time, the enemies are on the offensive with their songs and our heroines are largely on the defensive.

The major differences end there, and the similarities to other Macross series are legion. Young "play by my own rules" pilot gets co-opted into military organization, check. Pair of ace pilots on each side meeting in battle after battle, check. Love triangle with singer girl and military girl after hotshot pilot, check. Giant transforming battleship with aircraft carrier arms, check. Three female bridge crew and a gruff old captain, check. Refugees in space fleeing from enemy assault, check. And so on and so forth.

I enjoyed the development of the enemies from Windermere, which are revealed very early on after just a few episodes. It seemed to me that the writers put quite a bit more effort into humanizing this enemy than in most of the earlier series. We see the events that shaped the Windermere leadership's aggression as the series progresses, and time is spent to develop characters for several of the Windermere fighters. It reminded me a lot of the way that the original SDF Macross series handled the Zentradi.

Other character development was all right, but nothing special. I'd have liked to see more interaction between Windermere fighters and the Delta squad, which didn't really happen until very late in the series. Mikumo's fate was telegraphed so much that it seemed anticlimactic at the end. And the reveal of the identity of "Lady M" was wasted, in my opinion, coming as it did as an offhand comment in one of the final episodes. Surely they could have milked that for a scene or two!

I kept watching Macross Delta in the hope that there would be some kind of interesting twist that set it apart from what one would expect in a Macross series. But that never really materialized. Those two major differences that I pointed out at the beginning are great, but they're also just about the end of the deviations from standard Macross. By the time the final episode rolls around, it's not hard to predict how true love will save the day from some terrible fate. Which is fine and all, but so predictable that it feels a bit disappointing.

Macross Frontier: Movies

After watching the Macross Frontier series, I decided to also give the movies a try. There are two, The False Songstress and The Wings of Goodbye. They might as well have just gone ahead and called them part 1 and part 2, as they're really two parts of the same story. The movies are an alternate version of the Macross Frontier story-line, not a continuation.

The movies share a great many things with the series: solid production values, plenty of references to the earlier series in the franchise, just about every character, and most of the plot devices (i.e. fold crystals, V infections). The False Songstress re-uses a good number of visuals from the series, and I didn't notice any new songs. There's a lot more new art in The Wings of Goodbye, as well as some additional songs.

The obvious difference with the movies is a significant reduction in time: 4 hours of movies vs 25 half-hour episodes in the series. That requires some changes in plot - more on that later - and also dropped lots of side stories. No Miss Macross competition, for instance, or trip to a Zentradi outpost planet. This eliminates a lot of the slow start that the series suffers from, but also means very few of the supporting characters have any depth. It also means that there are minor references which may not make sense to a non-series watcher - for instance, the byplay between Michael and Klan.

There are significant plot changes in the movies. I found it pretty difficult to follow the high-level story in The False Songstress, to be honest. On the personal level it made sense, but it was difficult to understand what the Macross Galaxy people were trying to accomplish, much less the alien Vajra. Having watched the series might have actually hurt me here, as it was easy to assume things about the characters' motivations from what I'd seen in the series. But I think the main culprit was that the writers were trying to keep from revealing too much about The Wings of Goodbye, because the story got a whole lot easier to follow in the second installment.

I won't go into spoiler-level details about the changes, but I will say that I thought the series did a better job with the big-picture plot. To some extent, this flows from the difference in length - it's a lot easier to convey a complex plot involving many different actors when you have more time. However, I think the movies did a much better job resolving the personal relationship between Alto-Ranka-Sheryl. The series ending felt unfinished (perhaps intentionally, to leave room for sequels), while the movie ending is much more concrete.

I have to mention two things added in the movies that stuck out, both from The Wings of Goodbye. First, there's a concert given by Ranka in a prison (weird, I know...it makes sense at the time) which has a ton of references to Fire Bomber and Macross 7. I may not have liked the series much, but that scene was pretty cool, from the "Lovely Bomber" stage heading to Klan wearing Mylene's on-stage getup. Second, the Macross Quarter manages to survive entry into a planet's atmosphere by landing on a big hunk of rock and using it like a surfboard, complete with Captain Wilder making surfing-related comments. Now, I'm an old-school Transformers fan, so I'm used to giant robotic shenanigans of all kinds, but that one was just so totally out of place that it floored me. I'm pretty sure the writers meant that to get a laugh and then just kinda fade into the chaos of battle, but I had a hard time getting back into the "gigantic climactic battle" feeling after seeing that.

On the whole, I think I prefer the Macross Frontier series, but it's close. The movies are well done, and it's worth watching them if you don't have time for the whole series, or if you're curious about the differences.

Macross Frontier

Macross Frontier is the last on my list of Macross franchise series to watch before Macross Delta comes out. I've already refreshed my memory on the original series, and then went through Macross Plus, Macross 7, and Macross Zero.

Frontier is the series that Macross 7 wanted to be, in my humble opinion. It's got a lot of the same elements recycled from the original series: spaceships hosting civilian populations, mysterious alien attacks, various fighter pilots and singers in love, etc. But instead of creating thoroughly annoying characters and focusing everything through them as Macross 7 did, Frontier leads with only moderately annoying characters and improves them as the story progresses.

I know that "only moderately annoying" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, but it's all I can muster when the three lead characters are anime-stereotype teenage prodigies involved in an anime-stereotype love triangle. Through approximately the first third of the series, the character development feels like it was pulled out of the "how to make generic anime" handbook. The low point comes when all three end up attending the same school. A futuristic series filled with glamorous singing stars and high-tech aerial acrobatics couldn't come up with anything better than that...really?

OK, that was the bad stuff. In just about every other aspect, Frontier makes excellent space opera. Each of the main characters has enough depth to their backstory (such as Alto's conflicts with his father, or Ranka's relationship with her adoptive older brother Ozma) that they eventually moved beyond the stereotypes. There's an extensive cast of secondary characters as well, and the writers do a good job of developing them through minor sidelines in the story.

The alien Vajra make an excellent threat, both creepy and dangerous. They show up immediately and cause serious chaos. As you go through the series, the external threat is complemented by intrigue from within, adding depth beyond a faceless alien threat. Around the halfway point of the series, all kinds of complications arise, raising questions about the nature of the Vajra and where the real threat lies. By the time you get to the end, all the major aspects of the story are explained, at least within the limits of the space opera archetype (by which I mean logic is optional if it looks cool and/or expresses some character's emotion). It's all well executed and stayed interesting throughout.

Frontier's production values are great, too. The artwork is beautiful throughout, and the action scenes are very well executed. The music is well done, too, though I did get a little tired of hearing Aimo over and over. In part all of this is simply because it's fairly recent, released in 2008, but I've seen some shows from that time period that were pretty poorly done. This one had people at the helm that knew their work.

References to the rest of the Macross franchise are absolutely everywhere in Frontier. Some are meant to be obvious, like calling Ranka the "modern Lynn Minmay," or making a movie based on the events of Macross Zero. Others are more subtle, such as having Fire Bomber (the band from Macross 7) music playing in a few scenes. The dangers of AI/cyborg technology from Macross Plus have a pretty major impact on the big-picture story. And some bits are just there to mislead you, such as when Ozma is injured on a mission and passes out next to the love of his life...just like Roy Focker did in the original series, clearly meant to get fans thinking Ozma was about to die as well. (He doesn't...only a minor spoiler since they reveal that almost immediately afterward.) Frontier is watchable without any knowledge of the franchise...it explains things well enough...but a franchise newbie will miss a whole lot of subtleties and would likely be confused at times.

It starts off a bit slowly, but once you get about a third of the way through, Macross Frontier is a fast-moving and entertaining series. If you liked the original series at all, or space opera anime in general, then I highly recommend it.

Macross Zero

I'm working my way through the various Macross anime series, as I've mentioned previously. I enjoyed the original series and Macross Plus, then was decidedly underwhelmed by Macross 7. Next I queued up Macross Zero.

Macross Zero is another short series, consisting of five half-hour episodes - basically the length of a movie. The setting is the South Pacific in 2008, which puts it a year prior to the main events of the original series. The entire series takes place on Earth, and there are no aliens outside of some ancient artifacts, both aspects which make this series unique within the franchise. It was released in the early 2000s, which means the production values are quite a bit higher than the other series that I've watched thus far. That showed in the art style, which I thought was very well done.

I went into this series expecting it to be mostly references to the original Macross series, and not a whole lot else. The references are there: Focker's presence, the transforming fighter planes, the battles between UN and separatist forces, artifacts from the alien protoculture, etc. It certainly helps to be familiar with the original series' story-line; if you haven't seen it, you should at least read a summary first. But Macross Zero is more than just a prequel to the original series.

The story primarily follows a UN pilot named Shin, who is learning to fly the brand-new transforming fighters under the command of Captain Roy Focker (the same guy who plays a large role in the original series). Shin is part of a larger battle between UN and separatist forces over control of an ancient alien artifact. The battle engulfs the native island population, whose legends about the artifact warn of great danger if it is awakened. Shin and Sara, a native priestess, fall in love and eventually are central to the effort to prevent the awakened artifact from causing mass devastation.

Macross Zero explores the tension between the native islander population's ancient culture and the invasion of the modern world. Sara in particular is very resistant to change, both for personal reasons and as the representative of her island's ancient beliefs. As events play out, there are points where it seems that she is right, and other points where her refusal to change appears to make things worse. The writers did a good job of exploring the theme without allowing the "primitive natives vs superior technologists" to become a cliche.

There's a good amount of focus on the mecha in this series, as one would expect from the first use of transforming fighters in the franchise. The separatist forces use their version first, shooting Shin down in the early going, and then the UN version evens up the playing field with Focker and those under his command. I liked how Shin's struggles to adapt to this new kind of aircraft were presented. It's nice to see a central character who isn't instantly a virtuoso at whatever sort of combat he tries.

It wouldn't be Macross without an alien presence, but the use of an ancient artifact rather than living aliens is a nice change of pace. Rather than the unavoidable overwhelming alien threat used in both the original series and Macross 7, in Macross Zero the alien presence is benign until humanity's curiosity (and power lust) disturbs it. What is eventually revealed of the artifact's origin and reason for being on Earth fits nicely into the history that was established in the original series.

I enjoyed Macross Zero, and can recommend it to anyone who likes aerial fighter-plane battling, ancient beliefs-vs-modern progress tension, and unraveling of ancient artifact mysteries.

Macross 7

I'm working my way through the various Macross anime series, as I've mentioned previously. Between the original series and Macross Plus, I'd been enjoying myself thus far. Then I started on Macross 7.

You know the old saying, "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"? Following that sentiment, all I'd be able to say about Macross 7 is "some of the songs weren't too bad." This is the Internet, though, where saying things that aren't nice is practically a requirement, so here goes.

The general idea behind Macross 7 sounds promising. About 40 years after the events of the original series, a colonization fleet sets out from Earth on its way to the galactic core. This is the 7th of the Macross-class colonization ships (thus the series name), a huge ship capable of carrying a million colonists. That leaves plenty of opportunity for both military and civilian story-lines, and lots of options for both internal and external conflict. An opportunity that unfortunately is missed.

It seems the writers took a look at the original Macross series, saw "alien threat that the military can't handle being neutralized by a civilian singer", and decided to hit the viewer over the head with that premise. As far as I'm concerned, that was a minor plot device in the original Macross series. The real appeal of that original series lay in humanity dealing with alien contact (at the macro level) and the "dream girl vs the girl right in front of you" relationship struggles of Hikaru (at the personal level). Macross 7 takes the "singing vs aliens" part and elevates it from a minor component to the entire premise for the series.

To make things worse, the central characters that the show's writers chose to build the story around are just awful. One: Basara, a socially isolated musician, who just happens to also be an amazing hoverbike rider/street fighter/fighter pilot, who constantly interferes in military matters and runs out on his friends. Two: Mylene, the spoiled teenage daughter of the military and civilian leaders of the fleet, constantly complaining about her protective bodyguards, being shopped around to older men by her mother for an arranged marriage.

The way this series theme is executed is awful as well. From the very first episode, Basara jumps into an unauthorized Valkyrie fighter (controlled by a guitar, for some reason) and flies out into the middle of battle, and proceeds to sing at the enemy. This appears to upset everyone on his side, from his band-mates to the military, though it causes only mild confusion to the enemy. And he does it repeatedly, episode after episode, for no obvious reason except possibly that he's an idiot.

The one moderately decent aspect of Macross 7 is that some of the music is fairly decent, as far as synth-pop-rock goes. But like almost all music used in television shows, the same songs are re-used so often that you'll be heartily sick of hearing them. Even watching only the first few episodes, I went from "hey, that Planet Dance tune is decent" to "oh, please, not Planet Dance again." Repetition takes the music from "moderately decent" to "painful to hear."

Any of this by itself would be annoying, but not enough to kill a series for me. I've watched a lot of bad characters in order to enjoy a well-built world or interesting premise, and suffered through plenty of cheesy worlds because the characters were great. But I suffer through the bad parts in order to enjoy the good, so when all the parts are bad...well, that's not worth the time. I only made it through 9 episodes (of 49, plus various follow-ups) before I gave up and went to read the series synopsis instead of suffering through watching the actual show. Apparently they do eventually work in some reasoning behind the singing-in-battle, and marry it up to the military side of things. I'm pretty glad I didn't get that far, because the "Sound Force" brigade that both Basara and Mylene join sounds fairly awful.

The fact that Macross 7 generated several years worth of an anime series, films, and OVAs means that someone must have liked it. I can't say I understand why.

Macross Plus

With rumors of Macross Delta floating around the anime world, I decided it might be time to actually watch some of the Macross series. It's always been on my list of "things to get around to watching someday," and this seemed like a good excuse to do something about that.

I already knew most of the original series story from when I read the Robotech novels way back in the day. I poked around the Internet a bit so I'd know what was different, and asked around about what else made sense to watch. I certainly wasn't going to watch all 100+ episodes of the various series/movies/OVAs! The first thing on the list of recommendations was Macross Plus.

I was a bit surprised to find that it's not very easy to watch any of the Macross videos legally in the US. Macross Plus is available on Hulu, but according to wheretowatch.com, there's nothing for Macross 7, Macross Zero, and Macross Frontier. Hunting down DVDs is possible, but likely expensive. Fortunately, I know some anime fans with extensive libraries and was able to borrow the shows from them.

Macross Plus is fairly short, around 2.5 hours divided into 4 episodes. (At least, that describes the subtitled Japanese version I had. There's other versions.) Considering that it was created in the early 1990s, the animation quality and production values are very good. The character art is a little angular for my taste - does every side-profile nose need to look like Pinocchio? - but that's a pretty minor complaint.

The first three episodes accomplished the rare feat of causing me to actively dislike all three of the major characters. Usually it's pretty easy to pick at least one character that you actually like and want to see succeed (though often they don't). But these three are all jerks. The totally irresponsible thrill-seeker who should be dead a dozen times over just from what we see him do on-screen, much less everything else he's supposedly done previously. The uptight by-the-book soldier who seems to have no scruples about cheating his way to victory, and is prone to bursts of uncontrollable rage. And the girl from their past who has apparently sold out her dreams for career success, and can't make up her mind which guy she wants.

On the story front, the first three episodes felt slow, which isn't a great shock for a four-episode series. There's a big project going on to decide which new fighter mech will win the military's seal of approval, with our two male jerks as the pilots. Our third jerk is working with a team bringing an artificial-intelligence singer to life, which is mildly interesting but doesn't seem to be a big deal in the grand scheme of things. It all feels like setup, which in fact it is, though not necessarily the setup I was expecting.

In that fourth and final episode, everything is turned on its head. All three characters have reasons for how they've been acting; perhaps not such jerks after all. The AI singer isn't so harmless. It turns out that it doesn't matter who wins the military contract. And of course, the world (or galaxy) has to be saved via sacrifice and heroism.

For a short series (basically movie-length), Macross Plus crams in a good amount of character development. While I wouldn't exactly call the events in that last episode an unforeseen twist, it's not the most obvious ending, either. Well worth the few hours to watch.