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🎵Try again! Try again! Yet another Macross thread.🎵

Let's talk about solving all our problems with music, understanding, and a light peppering of giant transforming robots and terrifying super weapons. I'll go first!

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There was an update a month or so ago on the 2nd Macross Delta film. The title "Absolute Live!!!!!!" is still tentative I believe, but it's noteworthy that there's six exclamation marks despite there being five members of Walkure. Kawamori said this is because there will be a new member added to the group, but it's hard to say if that's a joke or not. The film is supposed be a direct sequel and begin with a Walkure concert on Windermere after the signing of an armistice. There's even a trailer!


The 2nd Delta movie is also going to air along a companion short film (think Macross 7: The Movie airing with the theatrical cut of Macross Plus) from Macross Frontier titled "Labyrinth of Time":

0206_mainvisual02.png


It's notable that both characters, especially Ranka, look demonstrably older so I'm very interested in seeing what's going on with this one.

Both films are slated for a nebulous 2021 launch in Japanese theaters. So we'll be lucky to eventually get a hold of these sometime in 2022.

Macross Delta was 6 years ago, I'm itching really hard for new Macross.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Oh dang, I'm pretty hype for both Frontier and Delta coda times. Intrigued by that ranka art. If I were still running my old tumblr I would be so all over this news.

But I am so far out of following the post-apocalyptic dregs of the fansub scene that, Wist, I'll be relying on you to tell me when some watchable subbed form of any of this is actually acquirable. ;)
(And whether methods from a couple years ago still work, I haven't checked on nyaa in ages.)
 

conchobhar

What's Shenmue?
You might remember I was a bit down on Delta, and I haven't seen the first film yet (was waiting to watch them together), but I'm intrigued by Absolute Live!!!!!!. Talk of the film being "completely new" has me hopeful that it'll be a sort of second pass at the story, taking the opportunity to bulk up the key themes and characters— honing in on and polishing the core of it. Basically like the Frontier duology before it.

The Frontier short seems interesting too. Assuming they are older, it would be neat to see not only what they've been up to but the entire fleet. Especially if it's set after the movies and not the TV series, since that one ends on a much less hopeful note.
 
I had a good time with the Delta TV show, even if it was the weakest entry to the franchise since the original show IMO, and couldn't stick the landing. I thought the interesting new things it was doing with regards to expanding the lore and setting of the franchise was all great. And the characters were very likable as well. I just didn't really enjoy the plot being a very straight forward pastiche of old Macross shows rather than a meaningful attempt at trying new things, and its cast was spread a little thin so that we didn't get to hang out with certain characters enough. I'm very interested in seeing where a direct sequel leads though. Delta as a show seemed like it ended at turning point in the story where it was setting up a bunch of plot threads to be followed up on in a direct sequel that never came. So to get a real sequel here is something to look forward to.

If you're waiting on a new movie in order to watch the first one though Conch, I would just go ahead and watch the movie. Or just skip watching it too. It is a very straight forward adaptation of the TV show with very little meaningful or interesting changes. All the stuff with the Middle Eastern weapons broker and his shadowy organization that's subverting the NUN, Lady M and Megaroad-01 are cut from the plot entirely. The NUN is made into even more of a transparent baddie when the scene where Walkure are captured by Windermere is replaced with them being captured by the NUNS. That's kinda it. Every character and every event is basically the same with the same outcomes. It's not original or interesting enough to be a companion piece like Frontier's films were, it's just a summary in film form with some new Walkure songs. And thus it's probably the weakest film in the franchise, F7B excluded.

And yes, a leap forward to see what the Frontier kids are up to would be delightful. I've got a lot of dumb theories and guesses. (Please subscribe to my livejournal) The Frontier films end on a different tone than the TV show's whimsy and triumph, but after reading some of y'alls opinions and analysis, and rewatching it recently myself, the ending isn't *that* incompatible with the TV show. The biggest meaningful difference is Michael is no longer dead, and Battle Frontier is AWOL, both of which can be handwaved pretty easily.
 

conchobhar

What's Shenmue?
I had a good time with the Delta TV show, even if it was the weakest entry to the franchise since the original show IMO
Surprised to hear you say that about SDF; it's probably my favourite entry in the franchise (depending on how I feel about 7 that day).

The biggest meaningful difference is Michael is no longer dead, and Battle Frontier is AWOL, both of which can be handwaved pretty easily.
Surely the biggest difference is Alto up and disappearing with the Vajra Queen to places unknown.
 
Surprised to hear you say that about SDF; it's probably my favourite entry in the franchise (depending on how I feel about 7 that day).
I still love the original to bits, I just don't love it like that, you know? I was too young in the 80s and was never exposed to the original show in any form (Robotech or otherwise) until I was an adult, so I don't have the same blinding nostalgia for it like I do for other parts of the franchise like Plus (which was my first Macross). Divorced from nostalgia, its warts have become harder and harder to overlook over time. It's very much a product of its era, which gets harder and harder to recommend to people in earnest as time goes along. Peklo in the anime thread had a bunch of stinging condemnations of Plus, and while I can compartmentalize and make excuses for the things Plus does, it's basically impossible to do with the original SDF:M beyond going, "*shrug* 80s Japan sure was a place in time." I think it still works as a grand space opera, and it's a fascinating look into the anime industry of the time, and it serves as the foundations for a franchise I love above almost every other. But it's just got so many warts that it's hard to love it unconditionally. Plus it has the worst songs in the franchise (sound track is great, iconic even, but the vocals are mostly whatever) so it just doesn't click on the same level that say, Plus, or 7, or Frontier, or even DYRL do with me.

Also, to be fair to the original show, I'd forgotten about FB7, haha.

Surely the biggest difference is Alto up and disappearing with the Vajra Queen to places unknown.
Yes and no! It's complicated, but hear me out.

Macross Frontier, both the TV show and the films, rely on a lot of reading between the lines and implication to tell its themes and story. And the film edit is a bit more direct and on-the-nose about telling the same story and themes in general. For example, in the TV show, Alto never explicitly chooses between the two heroines to close off the love triangle the way he does in the film. There's some ambiguity left for the viewers to make up their own mind, or to imply the triangle and love rivalry could continue. But that's not really the intent of the TV show when you do a formal analysis and also listen to the writers themselves. In the TV show, Alto connects with Sheryl in a fundamental way that he never does with Ranka. They also sleep with each other. When Ranka and the Macross Quarter depart the Frontier fleet, he stays behind with Sheryl. And the clincher (if you believe the writers): during the final battle after Alto saves Ranka and delivers her back to the Macross Quarter, he then flies over to where Sheryl is on Battle Frontier, and salutes her directly in person before taking off to the final battle - in a very intentional callback to Hikaru Ichijo's iconic saluting of Misa in the final battle of DYRL.

So back to Sayonara no Tsubasa - the ending changes things by very explicitly having Alto turn down Ranka and tell Sheryl he loves her. But it does so during an homage to Macross Zero that seems tragic, until you really think about it for a while. Alto flies away with the Vajra right before all the dimensional canon blasts hit. Sheryl falls into a coma because Ranka doesn't magically move the Vajra infection from her brain down to her gut where it belongs during the final battle. But what does happen is a more vague, semi-open to interpretation coda. Ranka gives a monologue over a series of scenes a month after the final battle. Ranka gives Sheryl a blood transfusion, sings a song in front of Alto's downed YF-29, cut to credits. That's the end, right?

Well, I contend no. To better understand the ending to the Frontier films, recall the themes of the original show and how it ended. The TV show's narrative spends a lot of energy discussing how Alto feels trapped on the Frontier fleet. He longs to fly in open skies not held back by an artificial dome. It's several metaphors layered on top for how his life is going. At first he thinks he's found his freedom to fly by joining the SMS and being able to fly in a proper jet out in space, but the themes of the narrative imply that it isn't quite what he's looking for. He gives up a lot of personal freedom to join SMS, and he becomes bound by duty to do all kinds of things that goes against his nature like fighting and killing. It isn't until the very end of the show, when they've achieved peace and the Frontier fleet inherits the Vajra homeworld that he finally finds a real sky to fly in. In a very loaded scene where he jetisons his broken VF-25 and flies unimpeded, Sheryl and Ranka look on as he flies up and away. A scene very reminiscent to the ending of the Macross Plus OVAs*. But instead of the exact same ending where Isamu flying up and out of sight while Myung looks on, post-credits Alto flies back towards the heroines who are standing in verdant fields with his arms open for an embrace. Just like Isamu learns in Plus, freedom and flying are given context and meaning by having people and places to return to, and you can't just fly alone forever and be happy. (Missing in the film version, is the related epiphany that Alto has while fighting the Galaxy Cabal that loneliness is the context in which love springs.) This sky isn't the first natural sky he's flown in, but it's the first one that feels like home and fulfills the desires he's held all his life because it's the place that Sheryl and Ranka led him to.

So knowing that context, let's cut back to how the film ends again. Ranka's monologue happens in the same verdant fields, surrounded by the supporting cast. She places a paper plane, the kind Alto taught her how to make, on the wreckage. And says to herself she believes Sheryl will wake up and that Alto will return. The phrasing here loses some meaning in translation, but she speaks with pretty clear certainty and uses a phrase that's overwhelmingly used to describe not just a return, but a return home. She then begins singing a song in prayer that's vaguely (always open to interpretation, obv) about how Alto has helped her grow and feel and love and how if she sings he'll hear her out in the endless cosmos. It's subtle, but once she starts singing, she begins to glow in green the way she always did when doing her magic fold-singing that would attract and communicate with the Vajra. During her song, there's a credit sequence montage of the events of the two films. The song and montage ends with images of Sheryl in a wedding dress, Alto as he says "I love you" to Sheryl, and then it cuts back to Sheryl in a coma, as she lips the final verse of the song implying she's waking up. And as she mouths that she can see the stars sparkle, her fold quartz earring begins to shine. The screen fades and the second half of the credits begins. A crowd chanting for Sheryl comes into audio-focus and Sheryl greets the crowd. And Sheryl responds to the chorus of fans, "Hi! Sorry to keep you waiting! If everyone calls out to me, miracles can always happen!" And then Sheryl and Ranka begin signing dShootin' Starb.

If you take all of this formal and textual events in hand with the consistent themes between the TV show, the films, and the franchise as a whole, that 2nd credits song is Sheryl and Ranka singing a concert together after she's woken back up and recovered. And the implications of all this, is that Ranka and Sheryl called out to Alto & the Vajra, and they brought him home after he got to fly around the universe for a month or so. Because as much as specific events are changed in any Macross film from their original versions, the core themes and overall outcomes are always maintained. And there's zero reason to believe this is any different, especially when all the evidence lines up with that being the case. You just have to do a bit of reading between the lines. Even if you don't think that the film is explicitly trying to say this stuff, it's very purposefully laying the bread crumbs so that people who want to believe this is the case, can do so. And thus, you still end up with fundamentally the same ending. Everyone's alive and home and happy on the Vajra homeworld. The movie just added a few extra steps to spice things up.

And then there's this video, the veracity of which I can't confirm with my own research so it's not a part of my actual argument, but it's interesting nonetheless:
Supposedly, this is an alternate credits sequence to the film, that was included with FB7. A claim I can't verify. But I want to believe it, lol. For all I know though, it's a fan edit. Still check it:


So that takes the concert section of the credits and much more directly spells out what's going on. It's a post-film concert, the heroines are both ok, and Alto comes home like a shooting star.

*I always liked the ambiguity of the OVA ending to Plus because I read between the lines and didn't need to see the Film version where it spells out exactly what its characters think and how they end up with each other.

If you want to know how all of this ties into my Grand Macross Unification Theory, please subscribe to my livejournal
 
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Macross II is not an alternate universe, it's an in-universe production made in the aftermath of Space War I. It's NUN propaganda designed as an argument to convince the general population to embrace the colonization initiative, especially after setbacks like the SDF-2 went missing in deep space. It portrays a natural outcome of what would happen if Earth decided to turtle in the Sol System and not go out and explore and colonize. Better to face the horrors of deep space out there proactively than waiting like sitting ducks on Earth just to get annihilated again. That also explains why there are M2 references peppered through later in the franchise as well like M7's Jamming Birds - because it was a popular mini-series among those boomers, the way Fire Bomber is popular with the boomers in Frontier like Ozma.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Yeah, that tracks - with basically everything we see being in-universe productions anyway, it's plausible enough to slot in Mac2 as a show that just wasn't mostly based on actual events like the other famous ones.

Anyway, I generally agree with your Frontier readings (even though my heart wants the OT3, but what you've laid out makes the most sense for what-passes-for-canon in Macross). So it'll definitely be interesting to see what they lay down in the upcoming short.
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
I'm just amused that Kawamori got over his reluctance to feature previous leads in subsequent works.
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
In reference to the upcoming Delta movie, yeah. He's fine with secondary characters showing up (see, Max or Miria) but he's notably been pretty against bringing back past protagonists in Macross stuff since the start.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
... or did he? Given they took the Lady M stuff out of the first Delta movie, it seems like it remains to be seen whether they really go there. At this point it's still ambiguous enough that you could explain it away in a number of ways. I wonder if it was still a matter of internal debate even as they were heavily hinting it in the TV plot.
 
It's worth noting that the Frontier stuff is going to be its own short film, screened along side the feature length Delta movie. Think Disney/Pixar shorts that run alongside their feature films, or more specifically the short film "Macross 7 the Movie: The Galaxy Is Calling Me" and how that ran along side the film version of Macross Plus. Sheryl and Ranka will be in their own thing. I'd love for them to show up in Delta too, but I'm not anticipating that or holding my breath for it.*

There is precedent for Kawamori revisiting closed chapters and characters to Macross in similar ways. Flashback 2012 and FB7 are comparable data points. It is odd though to ostensibly make a sequel, even if it's a short film, this far out from the original stuff. But it makes perfect sense from a cynical marketing perspective, which I assume was the main motivation for greenlighting Labyrinth of Time.

Ironically, I was just reading an interview of Kawamori's that he gave around the time of the Macross Plus film came out in theaters. And part of the interview, he talked indirectly about his the no-reoccurrence thing. The guy generally feels a compulsion to constantly be creative and to try new things, to the degree that he dismisses entire mediums of artistic expression because they've been around so long that there's nothing truly new and novel left to do with them anymore. The entire point of coming back to do Plus and 7 was to make things that were radically different from each other and the Macross stuff that came before, and I imagine reusing characters and stories is a part of that mindset.

That said, I also imagine that this compulsion of his is something that he's continually compromising, and doing so with increasing regularity as he gets older. It's old news that one of the primary motivators for him coming back to Macross in the 90s was in reaction to Macross II. But one thing he talks about in that interview though, was the fact that in the intervening years, he was actively looking to create projects that weren't mecha-oriented, and that he submitted dozens upon dozens of projects that were either all turned down or nowhere near as successful as Macross. But added that his bosses always said he had an open invite to return to Macross at any time and do whatever he wanted to there. It must suck to be like Kawamori or Tomino and have your ambitions undercut by your successes early in life. At some point, you've probably gotta go back to the old well just to pay your bills/pay for your passion projects.

The Macross franchise, through most of its glory days, was defined by radical reinvention and continual shifts in tone and setting and music. Something I'm sure was done to protect himself from himself so he could go to sleep at night. But one thing I constantly hear from creative types is that once a person gets deep into middle age, their creative juices begin drying up. Frontier, to me, was already a big compromise with regards to Kawamori's originality decree. So much of that show and film series relies on straight up pastiche that it's almost suffocating at times. But at least it was like a DJ Remix rather than just a xerox copy. Delta however took things even further, and was basically just a Macross: Greatest Hits! Kawamori is already older than Hayao Miyazaki was when he made Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, which was when he was first talking about how he was getting too old for this shit and looking to retire. So doing something easy and going back to the Frontier-well (which was probably the most profitable the franchise ever was) makes sense and fits the ongoing trends.

*I'd love for a big ensemble Macross 30 style event where they can tie 7, Frontier, and Delta together with the original SDF. All the pieces are already in place for them to do so, and honestly feels intentionally set up for it. (My Grand Unification Theory largely relies on these already established foundations.) It just depends now if Kawamori is ever ready to pull the trigger or not. Probably not with either of these films, but maybe with the TV show that was originally planned to go in production after the film? The 40th Anniversary is next year after all...
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
It also occurs to me, re the time skip for Labyrinth of Time, that a significantly aged-up Ranka is probably a better fit for Megumi Nakajima, who's now 31 (and was 19 when cast for the TV series).
 

conchobhar

What's Shenmue?
Frontier, to me, was already a big compromise with regards to Kawamori's originality decree. So much of that show and film series relies on straight up pastiche that it's almost suffocating at times. But at least it was like a DJ Remix rather than just a xerox copy. Delta however took things even further, and was basically just a Macross: Greatest Hits!
That sounds backwards to me. Frontier is very much the "greatest hits" show, what with borrowing characters, plotlines and imagery wholesale from SDF, 7 and Zero— I can almost excuse it because it's a fun watch, but it offers very little of its own ideas (at least in the TV series). Delta isn't anywhere near that level; sure, it borrows some elements from Frontier, but only from Frontier, and they're mussed with to a much greater degree than any of Frontier's own lifts. But more importantly, Delta brings several new things to the table— taking place in a settled solar system instead of a colony ship, or having antagonists who are introduced with clear grievances and motivations, or the weaponization of music (OK, this might be lifted from II)— that clearly establish it as its own thing with its own personality. It's a messy show, and I don't think it comes together in an entirely satisfying way, but Delta felt to me like there was still life in the franchise yet.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
I have never seen a Macros show, and there seems to be none on Netflix either. I always read the title of the thread, and have no idea what it is about.

Is it like Gundam? Vaguely? That's where my mind goes, when I read Macros. Which isn't probably worth anything, considering that I have only seen Gundam Wing (which, as I understand, is really bad?).

Can someone give me a short introduction? Or long, if anyone feels like it, but just having a general idea, plus a show where I could start, would be pretty cool.
 
Delta brings several new things to the table
I really struggle to think of things Delta did that was actually completely, 100%, an original idea that wasn't something another entry to the franchise did before. I could nitpick the show apart to pieces (and have done so in the past) but I don't want to hate on the show too much.

  • taking place in a settled solar system instead of a colony ship - Plus and Dynamite 7 both did it first.
  • having antagonists who are introduced with clear grievances and motivations - this feels pretty vague to me. But for my money, the motivations of most of the antagonists in every Macross show is pretty clear. And as for clear grievances, Dynamite 7 and Kamujin from the original show post Earth getting obliterated feel like they have pretty clear grievances to me, as does Gamlin when he operates as an antagonist for half of M7.
  • weaponization of music - As you said, there's M2, but there's also M7 as well, lest we forget Basara shooting music-lasers out of his mouth at Protodevilin.

Other things that Delta cribbed:
  • Planets full of non-human protoculture descendants - D7
  • Private para-military organizations - F
  • Secret capitalist cabals pulling the strings behind the scenes - F
  • Villains who want to unify and control humanity by creating a telepathic fold network - F
  • Unearthing dangerous protoculture weapons - Zero
  • Another Genius offspring burdened by the family legacy - 7
  • My love interest is from the baddies! - II
  • Valkyries vs Valkyries - Plus

I'm fine with some of the retreads here, because you can always explore the same thing from a different angle and find originality and be interesting that way. But Delta never quite spent enough time doing the things I thought was interesting, and instead preferred to focus on things that weren't. Especially when its cast was so big, and it didn't spend nearly enough time fleshing them all out and exploring them all. Delta should have been at least 3 cours, if not 4.

One thing I really liked in Delta was the subversion of a colony finding a home, where the City Ship on Ragna had to pick up and flee. There should have been like a full cour dedicated to being on the run in an old busted City Ship like that, but after a single episode of fixing the place up, the show moved on at breakneck speeds and never looked back.

And the one thing I think was the most unforgivable was the music. Every entry to the franchise had a distinctly different style of music. The original was 80s J-pop. Plus had like, intense Yoko Kanno, brainwashing, Eurosynth music. 7 had Japanese glam metal. Zero had tribal and classical music. Frontier had modern J-pop. And Delta had... more modern J-pop? Just quantity instead of quality. Very disappointing.
 
I have never seen a Macros show, and there seems to be none on Netflix either. I always read the title of the thread, and have no idea what it is about.

Is it like Gundam? Vaguely? That's where my mind goes, when I read Macros. Which isn't probably worth anything, considering that I have only seen Gundam Wing (which, as I understand, is really bad?).

Can someone give me a short introduction? Or long, if anyone feels like it, but just having a general idea, plus a show where I could start, would be pretty cool.
If you've ever seen StarBlazers/Space Battleship Yamato, it's more like that than Gundam. Well, it's kinda like both. But not Wing. Wing is a weird beast that's very much unlike other Gundams. It's really not got a lot to do with Gundam beyond sharing vague similarities with regards to people fighting in somewhat realistic giant robots, and war being a bad thing. Anyways, a short, spoiler free synopsis:

The original Macross takes place in the distant future of 2009. In the year 1999, an alien space ship crash landed on Earth. The epiphany that humanity wasn't alone in the cosmos lead to a World War that saw the Earth unite under the UN banner so that if aliens ever came knocking later, they'd be more ready. Earth studied the alien ship and fast forwarded through the tech tree by hundreds of years in under a decade. 10 years after the ship crashed, the UN repaired and repurposed that ship to become mankind's first interstellar space craft, dubbed the "Macross". And when they turn it on, it attracts nearby aliens to see what's up and a grand space opera ensues.

Macross's narrative themes focus on cool transforming robot-jets, melodramatic love triangles, and ending conflicts/creating understanding through the power of music. If that sounds like a winning formula, cool! If not, good luck.

Start with the original show if you can stomach early 80s animation, and early 80s Japanese sensibilities with regards to gender roles and stuff. Mostly just because it's the easiest entry to get a hold of without resorting to piracy. The original show "Super Dimensional Fortress Macross" should be free on Amazon Prime. The next entry to the franchise, "Macross Plus" you can watch on Prime if you rent it. That show takes place 30 years after the original as humanity sets out to explore and colonize the stars.

I thought we agreed not to say anything that would turn us into dust.
We're closer IRL to the events of Macross Plus, than we are to the Macross originally crash landing on Earth. We're also about equidistant from the events of Macross Frontier, as we are from when the original TV show was being made.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
ending conflicts/creating understanding through the power of music.
I'm in.
Start with the original show if you can stomach early 80s animation
I'm in even more. I love old Anime.
early 80s Japanese sensibilities with regards to gender roles and stuff
And now I'm sad.

But seriously, that sounds really, really cool, and I will definitely check it out, whenever I get the chance. Doesn't look like there is anything on Prime either (I guess it's as lacking as Netflix, here in Austria), but I don't have Prime at the moment, so it doesn't really matter. But it's on the radar. Thanks for the summary.

Edit: Just found a DVD set for SDF Macross for € 599,99. Uh, yeah, I think not. And I took a look at amazon.com (instead of amazon.at, which seems to be totally different things, despite looking completely similar? You need a second acount for the other one, I think? God, that stuff is so dumb and weird). While amazon.de only has the DVD set (lol), amazon.com does have SDF Macross, but not for my country, because it's very important not to show a >30 year old show in a country, where it never existed in and that gives you no sensible options for getting to see it

Uh, sorry, this became a rant. It's just frustrating, how property is behind country barriers, sometimes, is all. Please continue on loving this franchise now, I'll join you if I ever get a chance to watch any of it.
 
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Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
And now I'm sad.
Macross has a complicated relationship with gender roles that we've debated at length on the thread in the old forum. In short, there's a ton of awesome capable female characters in positions of responsibility throughout every entry in the series, which is great. But the original show from the 80s also has plenty of then-typical ideas about relationships and a woman needing a man to be happy and occasionally has some particularly gross dialog along those lines from characters who are otherwise cool people. (Then there's Plus, where a sexual assault is a major plot point - it's taken seriously but YMMV wildly on how problematic you find the way it's handled and the outcome. And 7, being a 90s TV show with a bit more comedy leaning than the other entries, has occasional bits where harassment/assault are treated jokingly, though probably less than the average comedy of that era.)
 
It's just frustrating, how property is behind country barriers, sometimes, is all.
Yep. Hopefully this all gets ironed out sooner rather than later, now that the legal shit is out of the way. Also alternatively, there's uh...


I can't imagine this channel staying up for very much longer, especially now that the international rights to Macross has been ironed out. But it's got most of the franchise on it.

Another big selling point to Macross is that it's always been one of the more premier outlets for gorgeous animation and ground breaking choreography. The film adaptation of the original show is up there with classics like Akira and Ghost in the Shell with how its regarded in that department. Scenes like this get posted around here a lot because of how iconic they are:


And then there's nothing quite like watching a giant fighting robot the size of the Enterprise reentry-surf on space wreckage through the atmosphere:


There's very few things that pull of epic the way Macross does.

And now I'm sad.
Yep. Kirin got the basics of it. Some people can compartmentalize it, others can't and it's up to you where you decide on that. But it's just kinda in general part of the faustian bargain we make when watching anime, especially a lot of the older stuff. Macross is actually pretty decent in this regard compared to a lot of its contemporaries, but that's honestly not saying a lot.
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
If you have a VPN, you can pick a node in the US and it'll let you use US-geolocked content on Amazon Prime/Netflix/etc.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
If you have a VPN, you can pick a node in the US and it'll let you use US-geolocked content on Amazon Prime/Netflix/etc.
I'll remember this for later, thanks.

Thanks for the link, Wisteria, I have watched the first two episodes. It's fun, but might be a bit too action-heavy for my tastes, but we'll see. I love the look and the sound of the show, it feels so much like an 80s / early 90s show, it's really a bit of a nostalgia trip for general stuff like this. I would have been obsessed with this show, had I got a chance to watch it as a kid. Thanks!

Also, thanks for the additional info about the way the show treats women. I was mainly joking, with a show of it's time, I expect that it has some issues with this stuff. But the first impression was fine, I thought.

I'll report back later on, when I have seen more of the show.
 

★“The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Flash Back 2012” Streaming for Limited Time★​



The new distribution deal at work. 😤 This is the worst OVA in the franchise, btw. Mostly b/c it's just a clipshow. But there's original animation starting at 23:22 of this video, and it's worth watching because it's a coda to the TV show/DYRL and a wonderful way to conclude that saga. Pls watch if you're a Macross fan and somehow never seen this.
 
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Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
The first two minutes are also new!

And I had to play it immediately because man, what a nostalgia bomb. I had that two minutes as a postage-stamp-sized 64-color-dithered 12-fps "video" clip downloaded from a gopher archive in like 1995.

But yeah the middle 20 minutes is just a sequence of AMVs set to Minmay songs. Though I was just flipping through and I'd forgotten that one of them had actual historical war footage overlayed which is quite a choice.

The new stuff also briefly features the only on-screen appearance of the very cool VF-4 Lightning III Valkyrie, as well as of course the Megaroad-01, the first long-range colony ship, which sets the stage for the entire rest of the franchise.
 
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The first two minutes are also new!
I'd never noticed, but upon closer inspection yeah. Sort of. It's mostly just the same scenes from the credits of DYRL just cut differently with a small number of new frames added in for the sake of continuity.

VF-4s made it into some of the late 90s/early00s games I thought. But that's not quite the same. The Megaroad-01 however was briefly featured during Frontier's first episode info dump tho.

Cs7FKdFUIAAtWSJ.jpg


Though to be fair it's never explicitly identified as such and could be another separate Megaroad-Class ship. But I highly doubt that's the case considering the coding of the scene. Like being shown during the section of the monologue explaining the necessity of humanity's colonization effort, and the ship taking off directly from Macross City and not from say orbit like we see all the other expeditions that directly evokes the imagery of Flashback 2012.

Edit: I'd forgot and it's also shown briefly in the info dump to the first episode of Macross 7 as well and explicitly stated as being the SDF-2.

TfADo11.jpg


Relatedly, Big West announced its intentions to globally distribute all parts of the Macross franchise made from 1987 and onward. So from Flashback 2012 and onward. So no DYRL or the original series, which I assume Harmony Gold will still handle the distribution of. That explains why the banner image of the new international twitter account for the franchise has logos for all the various parts of the franchise (even II!) except DYRL and the original.

Their intent is to distribute not just the animated titles, but games, merch, and live performances as well. And seems like they'll try to get the new Delta movie in theaters as well. What a time to be alive when we might get to see a Macross film in theaters, and/or go to a live concert for some of the singers.
 
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Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Wow, that's some pretty good news!

And yeah, pretty much every Valkyrie shows up in some game or other, I meant on-screen animated for the VF-4. (Granted for newer stuff the difference has become more academic since most of the Valks are CG, but still.)


Edit: Now I'm wondering, since I don't know how Big West is inclined to operate, what stuff might show up on US streaming services, and where... I assume it'd be a while, since they'd be working out new deals from scratch and can't have started that process until after the license issue was cleared. I'm in for fancy physical boxes and all, but presumably they'll want something for more casual fans as well.
 
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And then there's this video, the veracity of which I can't confirm with my own research so it's not a part of my actual argument, but it's interesting nonetheless:
Supposedly, this is an alternate credits sequence to the film, that was included with FB7. A claim I can't verify. But I want to believe it, lol. For all I know though, it's a fan edit. Still check it:


So that takes the concert section of the credits and much more directly spells out what's going on. It's a post-film concert, the heroines are both ok, and Alto comes home like a shooting star.
This was something that has gnawed at the back of my mind on and off posting about it, and I finally tracked this down and solved it. The changed ED is part of a special boxset in Japan that included both Frontier films, and was advertised and sold on the aspect that it had this changed ED. So it's official and canon.


So as far as I'm concerned the book's closed on that one. Alto got to come home.

Edit: Just as an aside, I really like this first song in the front-half of the credits to Wings of Goodbye, on multiple levels. It's just a good song to begin with. But it's such a great song to have at that point in the film as well. It fits the mood perfectly after the ending of the story, both in the style of the song, the motions it evokes, and what the lyrics have to say about Ranka and her emotions and feelings at that time. But! It's also just a really good showcase for Megumi Nakajima as a singer, and has her doing a soulful song the kind that she just wasn't a good enough singer when Macross Frontier began to be able to pull off. BUT!!! To loop that idea back into the character Ranka, that Nakajima has grown as a singer enough to pull this song off, mirrors Ranka's growth as a character and her own singing abilities through the course of the story. It's so gooood!
 
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