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♫Kyun, kyun, kyun, kyun, Falselogic wa pairotto!♫ LTTP Super Dimensional Fortress Macross

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
Season 1 Episode 10 - Blind Game

Wow, the aliens thinking women in bathing suits is a new kind of weapon is something else, huh? As if any advanced society wouldnt think to weaponize sexuality?!

Why was the raw video sent out to everyone in the first place? These aliens seem to have issues with contain and control?!

Poor Hikaru stood by by the now very popular Minmay...

I'm uncertain what the rogue alien commander hopes to obtain by disobeying orders... His actions certainly did wreck things on the Macross though!

The Zentradi can withstand the vacuum of space?! Why do you need to use your lasers to cur through when you already opened the area to space?! Just fly out the hole you threw the Zentradi commander through!
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
Hopefully some of those answers will come next episode since they've all been captured! Flying out of a giant hole in the spaceship seemed too much for them to do!
 

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
Season 1 Episode 10 - Blind Game

The Zentradi can withstand the vacuum of space?! Why do you need to use your lasers to cur through when you already opened the area to space?! Just fly out the hole you threw the Zentradi commander through!

Same reason Breetai couldn't get back in - the hull sealed itself. It's a blink and you'll miss it moment.
 

Yimothy

Red Plane
(he/him)
I guess I missed this thread on the old forum, but I’ve been watching this for the first time too. I’m up to episode seventeen, the second recap episode so far and the better of the two but still not great.

I saw some Robotech as a kid but it was always like ten minute segments between when I was ready for school and when my parents were ready to leave so it never made any sense. Otherwise I’m a big fan of Flight of the Veritech Fighters by the 32-Bit Handhelds and I’ve found the Minmay doll in La-Mulana, so my Macross knowledge is limited. I’d be interested to see how they adapted some of this stuff for Robotech, but probably not enough to watch that series as well.
 
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I guess I missed this thread on the old forum, but I’ve been watching this for the first time too. I’m up to episode seventeen, the second recap episode so far and the better of the two but still not great.
Spoilers! Yes, Macross has not one, but like, two and a half recap episodes. They're actually pretty good for recap episodes, but they are still recaps nonetheless.
 

Yimothy

Red Plane
(he/him)
I’ve amended it, but I’d argue knowing to skip Global Report at least is the opposite of a spoiler because it makes the series better.

The song I linked to, now that has some spoilers.
 
I was mostly just erring on the side of caution, my bad. Some people consider any amount of knowing what's to come spoilers, and you seemed to be enjoying your mostly blind watching. Yeah, there are basically two and a half recap episodes. Definitely skip-worthy upon rewatching, but on a first time watch I'm not convinced they're completely useless? The first recap episode, Global Report is a general recap of the events told from the perspective of Captain Global writing a debriefing report to his superiors. It offers nothing new, but might give first watchers insights into things they didn't fully comprehend the first time around by having Captain Global spell it out directly. The second recap episode is pretty interesting to me, because it takes the form of a fever dream by Hikaru, where footage is reused and events retold, but mixed up with new dialog over top. Again, nothing new is really shown here, but it's a decent study into Hikaru's psyche and his insecurities. Plus it has some hilarious/iconic imagery and gags. Plus, a lot of the fun of watching Macross to me, is just seeing how the sausage is made and looking at it as an oddity from a historical perspective. Watching old shows is so much more engaging to me from that perspective, but that's just me as a history buff.
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
They must be fairly close to each other. I'm on episode 11 and there hasn't been one yet. So in the next six episodes there are two!
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
Season 1, Episode 11 - First Contact

Why are there random spikes in the Zentradi spaceship? Just in case they need to impale invaders? So it must mean something that unlike the rest of the aliens Breetai is a different color and why he can withstand the vacuum of space and a Valkyrie exploding right in front of him!

Oh, and I did notice the emergency bubble falling over the hole this time, Egarwaen.

So, the Zentradi know about humans, or miclones, they've hinted at it in past episodes. I'm hoping in this episode I learn something about them. Okay, they have their own tiny humans that are basically the same as humans...

Oh, hey gross sexism from a 19 year old who thinks he knows everything! Just like in the real world. She should have beat Hikaru down right there. And then slapped him w/ a courtmartial whenever they get back to the Macross. Oh, and the Zentradi dont have women? At least that is what the tiny one is implying with his comment about wherever Men and Women are together there is disaster.

Thank the Goddess Max got away and seems competent! Why isn't he leading this squad?

Guy breaking the news of Hikaru's MIA to Minmay. She's handling it about as I'd expect.

Ha! Max just casually walking around the enemy ship and no one seems to be noticing. Nope, someone noticed.

Is this going to be a weird sex thing with the aliens? Like, they've never seen women and they're all clones or something? Protoculture. Oh, is this a ancient aliens in reverse kind of thing? Where humans or miclones seeded the universe with life and then forgot about it?

Oh space Spartans that what we have here, huh? Only war? How 40k of you!

Yes, Max has no put the alien's clothes on his Valkyrie. I love it!

Did the Zentradi just destroy a planet to make a point to three captives? Seems excessive. Also, at least Misa has a brain on her head. Why haven't they just destroyed Earth and the Macross yet?

It is going to be a weird sex thing! 'Show me this kissing!' Oh the panting noises accompanying the kiss are just great... Protoculture appears to be something bad. Oh, maybe its their word for 'savage?' Zentradi are beyond such primitive things as kissing and sexual intercourse. Interferes with all the war they do?

Ah, if the Zentradi get the feels they can't fight! That's why they need to avoid protocultures.
 

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
They must be fairly close to each other. I'm on episode 11 and there hasn't been one yet. So in the next six episodes there are two!

They are very close to each other; the series proved more popular than expected, so it’s runtime was expanded while it was airing. The two clip shows were inserted to buy time to adjust the plan and production schedule.

I’ll try to post pictures of the AnimEigo DVD inserts; they’re full of fun factoids!
 
Oh, hey gross sexism from a 19 year old who thinks he knows everything!
Yep! It's not great! I tend to give Macross a pass on this for most of it, because usually when a character like Hikaru does regressive sexist shit, it's repudiated and he ends up looking like an ass, and he eventually changes his tone. It's kind of wild. It's a common fan theory that every entry to the Macross franchise is an in-universe production, and we never actually get to see the actual events, just recreations filtered by media and biases. And that just never rang true with me. And a big reason for that is because if it were true, then the original Macross show is one giant character assassination of historical figures that would be legendary in this universe. Like Founding Fathers legendary. And it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Oh, also Hikaru's age is closer to being 17. That's the other thing. He's just a dumb ass teenager.

Thank the Goddess Max got away and seems competent! Why isn't he leading this squad?
TBH, because he hasn't had the amount of time to fail upward the same way Hikaru has.

Yes, Max has no put the alien's clothes on his Valkyrie. I love it!
👏👏👏👏👏

Did the Zentradi just destroy a planet to make a point to three captives? Seems excessive.
It's been a hot minute, but IIRC they just show them a recording of them destroying planets?

Ah, if the Zentradi get the feels they can't fight! That's why they need to avoid protocultures.
Yak Deculture!
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
It's a common fan theory that every entry to the Macross franchise is an in-universe production, and we never actually get to see the actual events, just recreations filtered by media and biases. And that just never rang true with me. And a big reason for that is because if it were true, then the original Macross show is one giant character assassination of historical figures that would be legendary in this universe. Like Founding Fathers legendary. And it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I thought this theory applied only to DYRL, while everything else was the actual events?
 

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
I thought this theory applied only to DYRL, while everything else was the actual events?
Its explicitly true for DYRL. But Kawamori's said in interviews that he thinks of himself as telling stories about a future that hasn't happened yet. And there's a lot that's difficult to reconcile between various Macross series if you try to take them all as literally and directly canonical, and that's before we even get to Kawamori's habit of producing myriad versions of the same story. Or that we see fictional works being produced during other shows - DYRL or something like it is produced during Macross 7, and Macross Zero or something like it is produced during Frontier.

(http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/topic/30317-kawamori-interview-1998/#comment-760766 translating http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~pn7m-szk/macross/kikaku/3000hit.HTM though I've run into other translations of this interview that take a similar tack.

Next, Id like to ask about DYRL The design for Exedore is green all throughout the rest of the Macross shows. How is this explained in terms of the timeline?

You know This is something I have trouble getting people to understand in magazine interviews. For example, youve got World War II, and then you have lots of movies based on that event, right? They are all fictional. Theyre all based on a war that actually took place, but they are all different. For example, in period dramas you have Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu, but there are so many Oda Nobunagas and Tokugawa Ieyasus. The producers look at the real event and adapt the character according to their wishes. The actors and lines also change, so the character changes. Its that kind of feeling. OK, so in the timeline you have a movie called DYRL that was released, does that mean that the TV series is the true story? Well, you have the SDF-1 that supposedly fell from the sky, and then a story was made about the subsequent history and was televised. Then that became a movie. Then later, there was a Macross 7 incident, and a TV series was made about that. Thats basically how I see it.

So Macross 7 is also a TV series broadcast within the Macross timeline?

Thats right, thats the interpretation. Its not just the movie, they are ALL works of fiction.

None of them are real?

None of them are real.

In the teaser for DYRL, there is a line that goes, I am Lynn Minmay, I will be playing the lead in this movie. It does make you feel that there was a TV show which then became a movie.

Exactly. Thats what I have trouble getting people to understand. The real truth is somewhere else. They studied the history and made the fiction after the fact. While reasoning the facts, they have to make many compromises, like the limitations of a TV format, like the fact they have to sell toys, and so they have to adapt the story that way. So, in that respect, it doesnt matter if all the productions differ.

The same goes for Macross Plus, too?

Yeah, that too. You have a similar incident that occurred. There may have been some virtual reality character like Sharon. Like, she probably did exist.

pretty unambiguous but I'm also trusting the translation here, though this is also an old interview. It's entirely possible he's changed his mind in the intervening twenty years!)
 
Yep that's the general gist of it. If I wanted to editorialize though, that's just the director saying stuff post-production. And there's a reason why "Death of the Author" is a thing. I don't nearly have the appropriate sample size, or academic rigor applied to my personal theories, but to me it just seems like Japanese media and the culture that births/consumes it is just on average a lot less obsessed with the idea of rigid "canon" versus Western audiences. And I don't take that to mean anything special. I certainly believe that Kawamori said those ideas in earnest, but whether it's as a guiding philosophy he's serious considered before penning the extended franchise, or whether it's something he thought would sound cool that he thought up on the spot is anyone's guess.
 

Yimothy

Red Plane
(he/him)
I just watched ep 20, I’ll use spoilers since I’m ahead of false. I’ve been enjoying the 3 spies subplot (I liked the bit where the woman caught them trying to eat the demo food and took them in for a meal), so it’s a pity to see them go back to their own ship. Apparently they had some kind of ongoing thing with the bridge crew?

Strange that Britai’s bridge is still all smashed up from when Max flew through it. Someone mentioned in an earlier episode that the ship looked like it wasn’t well maintained, maybe it’s some kind of plot point? The show does a decent job maintaining the mystery about what exactly the deal is with the aliens. I wonder if it’ll pay off.
 
Strange that Britai’s bridge is still all smashed up from when Max flew through it. Someone mentioned in an earlier episode that the ship looked like it wasn’t well maintained, maybe it’s some kind of plot point?[/ispoiler]
I know you're just thinking out loud, but to answer this question (which is semi-spoilers because the show does answer it): It is indeed a plot point that the Zentradi don't know how to repair their own ships. They're just supposed to be mindless warriors who focus on warrioring and don't know anything about how to be self-sustaining. Their ships are designed to be super durable and can last for thousands of years without maintenance. But yeah, they're so ignorant of anything but how to kill stuff, that they can't get in and repair their own stuff. It takes working together with the crew of the Macross/rest of humanity for them to begin learning how to repair their own stuff. Which turns out to be a double edged sword. This is actually one of the many myriad of reasons why I prefer the TV show to the movie adaptation. Because In the movie, Zentradi technology is depicted as being much more techno-organic, to the point where I seriously question this could still be a legitimate plot point. The humans are like, "hey, repairing shit is easy, just reconnect those things, replace these valves, voila!" in the TV show, but in the movie, the techno-organic space ships ought to be able to repair themselves and there's little chance the humans of the show could meaningfully show Zentradi how to repair and replace that stuff.
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
Season 1, Episode 12 - Big Escape

So you see here's my escape plan - We need to make out a lot more Misa! At least she isn't buying it.

Three horny Zentradi soldiers volunteering as fast as they can to spy on the protoculture. They're going to stand out just a little...

No Misa! Hold Strong. Max in for the save! Apparently there is no delicate electronics inside the Zentradi ships. Seeing as their soldiers are shooting up the place trying to hit Max.

Doesn't the thing have a nuclear reactor on it? That could probably do something... How do they plan on escaping w/o a ship? I mean even if they did they'd be stuck Goddess knows where in Zentradi space.

Ha! They did blow up the Valkyrie! Are the cloning them or shrinking them? If shrinking how are they existing as both large and small?

Wait, how is this Britai's fault? The leader is the one that called them in. Then insisted they bring them onto his ship. Then put them under guard on his ship, under his watch? How is this Britai's fault?!

Misa spinning yarns about how the Zentradi were humans but then made themselves bigger to fight the 'Supervision Army.' If this proves to be correct, Imma just going to stop looking forward to things. Do we every see the Supervisors? What isn't the Macross part of the 'Supervision' army isn't that why the Zentradi were tracking it? Hikaru saying its impossible when he has seen the reverse with his own eyes is rich.

No way this could happen naturally says someone with a sample size of one when it comes to planetary evolutionary trends. Also, using the one alien who looks nothing like the rest as the example...

And of course she broke her camera. Damn, Hikaru! That is an incredibly good shot with a giant gun.

The word you were looking for was "fellow soldier" Hikaru not "girl."

Wait, why are they shooting at them now? Their orders are to capture them. You can't capture a human sized bug splat. Thank goodness they all appear to be terrible shots.

See Hikaru? Misa gets it.

Yes, being very big means you are dumb and there are no women. Or civilians.

There's going to be a love triangle, isn't there? Oh, and there's the regressive sexual politics again. OMG! OMG! Everyone kept calling her an old maid, and Misa just referred to herself as an 'elder' so I was thinking she was late 20s or early thirties. She's 19. 19?!

I am very curious how they plan on infiltrating the Macross.

They were shocked about women. But, here they are Zentradi women! One's even a commander!

And she flies something that's not a Battlepod but some sort of humanoid mech?

Yup, I was right the three 'spies' are just horn dogs.

If the Defense Forces troops are this much better than Britai's forces. Or if Zentradi women are this better fighters. Then I'd agree with Misa that getting large made them all incredibly stupid. Milia is definitely better than every other Zentradi fighter I've seen so far.

Hikaru goes running to Minmay. I'm guessing he's going to be upset about something. Probably her success.

We'll find out next Macross Time! (also don't Misa and Hikaru know what the spies look like?
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Milia is, in fact, pretty much better than almost everyone. (Because she's a woman, her arc is by turns awesome and extremely problematic. But I'll shut up 'til you get there.)

The Zentradi were shocked about seeing both genders *in the same place*. According to their edicts, it's mixing the two that leads to disaster. The Zentradi women are just a completely separate force. And yeah, they have much cooler battle suits (the Queadluun-Rau, which scored in the Mecha list top 50, and is pretty much the only Zentradi thing that's as good at dogfighting as a Valkyrie).
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
Three horny Zentradi soldiers volunteering as fast as they can to spy on the protoculture. They're going to stand out just a little...

Yup, I was right the three 'spies' are just horn dogs.

Their names are Warera. Rori. And Conda.

Wareraroriconda.

我らロリコンだ。

"We are lolicon."

Anime!
emot-grin.gif


The Zentradi were shocked about seeing both genders *in the same place*. According to their edicts, it's mixing the two that leads to disaster. The Zentradi women are just a completely separate force.

*nodnod* It's like seeing the Marines fight alongside the Air Force. Shocking.


And yeah, they have much cooler battle suits (the Queadluun-Rau, which scored in the Mecha list top 50, and is pretty much the only Zentradi thing that's as good at dogfighting as a Valkyrie).

It's so good, IIRC, that it doesn't even see any upgrades until several decades later, by the time of Macross Frontier, by which time there had been 25 different Valkyries!
 
Wait, how is this Britai's fault? The leader is the one that called them in. Then insisted they bring them onto his ship. Then put them under guard on his ship, under his watch? How is this Britai's fault?!
Even in a 500,000+ year old civilization, bureaucracies demand the little guys fall on their swords and be thrown under the bus.

Misa spinning yarns about how the Zentradi were humans but then made themselves bigger to fight the 'Supervision Army.' If this proves to be correct, Imma just going to stop looking forward to things.
83n6i3xx16s11.jpg

Bad news, Falselogic!

Do we (ever) see the Supervisors?
Long answer: it's complicated. Short answer: not in this show.
The Supervision Army never shows up in SDF:M. In the movie adaptation, the Macross isn't a relic of the Supervision Army, but instead of the female Zentradi - that movie divides the men and women Zentradi into two warring factions, instead of the original TV show's segregated squads that are still on the same side. This is apocryphal because it doesn't really jive with any of the rest of the franchise, and barely makes sense in the movie itself. In Macross 7, it's highly implied that the Supervision Army is in fact, an army of enslaved Zentradi, mind controlled by the extradimensional "Protodevilin" - who are kinda like giant Deus weapons powered by Wave Spirits from another dimension. The Protodevilin are sentient war machines made by the Protoculture and ultimately what laid waste to that galactic civilization as their own creation proved too dangerous and erratic to control and turned on their master in their insatiable lust for "spiritia" - sucking the life force from everything in the universe. The Protoculture got wiped out in the fight to seal away the Protodevilin, but the armies of the Protoculture and the Protodevilin remain and continue to fight for 500,000 years because that's all they know.

That's pretty gross.
Yep. There's all kinds of gross, nasty easter eggs like that in anime from that era. Like Erupī Puru that you might be more familiar with if you know your Gundams. It's like when bored Disney animators would draw dicks and stuff in the backgrounds of movies, but somehow even more groady.
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
Season 1, Episode 13 - Blue Wind

Haha! Those wacky aliens don't know how clothes, or personal property work! I'm sure no one will notice an absolutely trashed locker room...

Debrief time! I'm guessing no one believes their wild tale! Despite them knowing they were abducted and them returning on an enemy ship.

Called it!

You know you could do both Captain. Send the coded message and try to break through. That way if one fails maybe the other will succeed... Just saying. I see failing upwards is also a thing in the Macross universe. Misa did make captain though.

(How many cross dressing jokes am I going to have to endure?) Oh, a lot.

Minmay kissed some boys?! Don't know if the crowd will stand for that... There's going to be another song, isn't there? yup. How many times am I going to hear 'My Boyfriend is a Pilot'?

The whole audience seems a little culty when it comes to Minmay, huh?

Misa is such an old maid that on her special leave she went back to work because that's where she feels most comfortable?

Oh, the Zentradi aren't monolithic. The males want to attack.

Okay, fighters scrambled, Macross transforming! We going to get some action!

Except the art they keep showing is all over the place. It's transformed but its not when it is firing its main weapon. Nor is it transformed when it is taking hits from the enemy fleet. Seems like some real lazy animating going on here.

You could fire more than once Global...

Men are green and Women are purple. (I just noticed the Zentradi ship colors)

And the Macross made it back to Earth!

What a fun show. A little anticlimactic, really but still fun. Why are there 23 more episodes?
 
Checks out.
Niiiice.

Really though, it actually doesn't check out over the long run. Zentradi get shown having several different skin colors, ranging from green and purples, to greys and more neutral flesh tones. There's really no real rhyme or reason beyond it looking cool, and even certain unique, named characters can have their skin colors change between shows even! There is pretty much no universal indicator of if a Zentradi is a Zentradi besides: 1) if they're labeled as such, and 2) impossible hair colors.
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
I was actually referencing the color of their ships. The female controlled fleet has purple ships. All the other ones we've seen (controlled by males) have been green.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
I think the ship color thing is actually pretty consistent - even in the movie where their alignment is different the Meltrandi ships are purple to the male Zentradi's green.

There is pretty much no universal indicator of if a Zentradi is a Zentradi besides: 1) if they're labeled as such, and 2) impossible hair colors.

Don't pretty much all Zentradi and half-Zentradi get the pointy ears too? Though to different degrees, and I think it got more consistent *after* the original series. Yeah, looking at some shots - it's hard to say if they're even doing it in a lot of SDFM, but later stuff has it, even of the same characters.
 
I think the ship color thing is actually pretty consistent - even in the movie where their alignment is different the Meltrandi ships are purple to the male Zentradi's green.
It's definitely more consistent. But there are plenty of occasions where the Meltrandi ships are shown with a more neutral, grey-metal finish like in Macross 7.

Don't pretty much all Zentradi and half-Zentradi get the pointy ears too?
Nope! It's completely all over the place. To the degree that there is basically no rhyme or reason. Consider the following part-Zentradi:
The Genus family:
latest

All of the Genus daughters are shown pretty consistently with normal, human ears, as is their mother... except for when they aren't...!

Like, here's more photos of Emilia:
latest

No pointy ears!

But wait... in the same episode:
hqdefault.jpg

🤔

Then there's Ranka Lee:
340

Who is always has human ears. But she did gain prehensile Zentradi hair, which I guess is a thing. But she is also only a quarter-Zentradi to be fair.

...But so is Mirage Genus:
latest

And she goes right past Vulcan to High Elf territory.

Then there's Michael, who you might expect has some Zentradi ancestry, but... is it ever actually said in Frontier what his ethnic background is? Because the guy *also* has completely normal hair which pretty definitively makes him not-Zentradi too, IMO.

old-friends-michael-blanc-macross-frontier-9gws.jpg


And this is before you get to Mylene, who is just all over the place. Most of the time, her hair covers the tops of her ears, so you can't really say either way:
maxresdefault.jpg


...until you can:
hqdefault.jpg
macross-7-118.jpg


Ok, so no elf-ears like the rest of her family, right? Wellll, about that...
RnLGPb0Zcblc86xUz4VrSYiN0Ge7NVQr1DL356vLB39xmaUBWPhnskkyz-m6-Zl7vH0rR9ugUOjP6dgC4pZaGR-kKdsJtSBhEL7L2oQGeZUvgPWKUNsG7RB3r2KZpHYoxD3EClGr88z-960s6w

😂
So yeah, just completely all over the place, just like the rest of the nebulous features of what makes up the Zentradi. And that's just all the biracial ones. Then there's cases like Exedol from the video above, where he's in his BEEG, galaxy-brain, DYRL mode, but he's clearly got normal ears still. Sometimes I like to imagine how much (more) rage Star Trek fans would have if Shoji Kawamori was in charge of that franchise. 😂 😂 😂
 
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