Their last streaming distribution deal must have ended, and a new one hasn't happened yet. I was hoping for most of the shows to be out on streaming by now, but Big West is slow walking it. And the ghost of Harmony Gold USA - being the parasytes they are - are probably waiting to see what happens with the rest of Macross to reactionarily ride the coat tails. And it isn't until they make a move until you can legally stream Macross again.
I'm hopeful movement will happen sooner, rather than later. The Macross franchise works on a fairly cyclical basis. New show comes out, then a sequel/recap movie, then it lays fallow for like 5 years until the next revival happens. A new show was supposed to happen in 2018, but then was completely AWOL until it was announced in June this year that new work had begun, and that production had shifted from Studio Satelite (which has handled animation duties since Macross Zero - e.g. for over 20 years) over to Sunrise (the production house/chain of studios that is best known for Gundam). Bandai has been putting out model kits of prominent hero mechs for about half a year now, and has several on the horizon - which is usually how Bandai primes its audience/customers to get hype for something not too far off on the horizon.
It's been 5 years since the last new Macross thing. I'm hoping we get news and maybe even a release next year. But I'm not holding my breath. Production pipelines for anime shows are actually pretty long. And with a mecha show with a bunch of models and kits, the prep time is going to be even longer as they have to iron out the logistics of all of that as well.
All of that to say, if you want to continue watching Macross, you'll probably have to find an illicit way of watching it. Because it might take a hot minute for it to come back. Which honestly, you'd be righteously justified in doing so because fuck Harmony Gold, never let them taste a single red cent of your money.
I'm hopeful movement will happen sooner, rather than later. The Macross franchise works on a fairly cyclical basis. New show comes out, then a sequel/recap movie, then it lays fallow for like 5 years until the next revival happens. A new show was supposed to happen in 2018, but then was completely AWOL until it was announced in June this year that new work had begun, and that production had shifted from Studio Satelite (which has handled animation duties since Macross Zero - e.g. for over 20 years) over to Sunrise (the production house/chain of studios that is best known for Gundam). Bandai has been putting out model kits of prominent hero mechs for about half a year now, and has several on the horizon - which is usually how Bandai primes its audience/customers to get hype for something not too far off on the horizon.
It's been 5 years since the last new Macross thing. I'm hoping we get news and maybe even a release next year. But I'm not holding my breath. Production pipelines for anime shows are actually pretty long. And with a mecha show with a bunch of models and kits, the prep time is going to be even longer as they have to iron out the logistics of all of that as well.
All of that to say, if you want to continue watching Macross, you'll probably have to find an illicit way of watching it. Because it might take a hot minute for it to come back. Which honestly, you'd be righteously justified in doing so because fuck Harmony Gold, never let them taste a single red cent of your money.
