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Mission 0.89 - "Prologue to the Battlefield"  

231 members have voted

  1. 1. Rating

    • Positive (5 idols = 5 waifus = 5 times the fun)
      117
    • Neutral
      57
    • Negative (I'm getting too old for this sh*t)
      57


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Guest davidwhangchoi

So I realized just how many Macross female names there are starting with "M"

Minmay

Misa

Mylene

Milia

Mirage

Mikumo

Makina

Myung

I may be missing a few.

i'm really into #5 right now :)

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The threshold of what is considered strange here in Japan is a bit further than what most westerners would consider strange. Delta is far below that threshold.

It just seems a little strange for grown men to like things intended for the exact opposite audience. Is there something wrong with that? Maybe or maybe not but it still is strange.

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My criticism of Delta actually has nothing to do with the specifics of the content (ie how realistic the tech is) or the target audience. What I don't like is the trend in contemporary anime to jump wildly from one mood to another.

A perfect example of this is FMA Brotherhood, where you get characters dealing with extremely deep emotional impact, resurrection of dead loved ones and the consequences of their very mature decisions, and then you spontaneously get scenes where the animation turns into grade-school doodles with tears streaming out across the screen.

The same thing happens constantly in another couple of recent anime I watched, Kekkaishi and Soul Eater. I remember remarking to my wife that I felt like those shows had a bit of ADD going on, because they couldn't maintain a steady trajectory for me as a viewer to stay hooked on.

Conversely, Macross 7 had a completely zany premise (weaponized song energy), but maintained a consistent tone throughout. Even though it was lighthearted, it took you along for the ride and worked the serious moments into the story with good narrative pacing and logical story progression. Probably the most mature moment in the series was Gamlin dealing with Physica's loss, but it had perfect context to accompany it and wasn't interspersed with sight gags.

Macross Frontier had a concert, then a space battle, teen high school drama, space battle, an episode centered around the fight to reclaim Sheryl's underwear, then a guy getting torn in half and a main character graphically sacrificing himself to save his grieving lover before the final couple episodes of space battle. Very back and forth.

Delta is, to me, following the trend of jarring the viewer between wacky over-the-top situations and serious ones, which makes it very hard to stay focused on as a viewer. In this episode we had some well-paced character introduction of Freya and Hayate (light pacing), but then the Var activates and it's the Walkure Super Spies jumping into action with their VF-31 backup dancers to combat it (zany). Spontaneously, the unknown enemy Valkyries show up, destroy some military vessels, and it's back to Macross aerial dogfights (serious).

All of these styles can work effectively, and I've enjoyed shows developed around all of the same elements, but jumping between them makes me feel like I'm changing the channel every few minutes. I hope Delta can rein that in and carry me between the moments of seriousness and levity, rather than yanking me between them like anime post-2005 has seemed to track towards. Knowing the trends (as well as the otaku culture that has more say in what's popular) has me a little worried though.

This isn't anything new to anime at all. Even Gundam 0079 had serious moments with wacky facial expressions inbetween.

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Guest davidwhangchoi

hmmm. i wonder when mirage is gonna jump on the mic. her voice actor did do the closing song for chihayafuru. and other animes.

Mirage is getting better and better

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Hey I've watched and enjoyed programming that was intended more for female audiences. Most of it tried to maintain a balance that all audience could enjoy something. The focus on Delta is just too directed towards girls that like cutesy magical girls. Maybe grown men liking this type of anime is like grown men liking My Little Pony.

I find your lack of faith....disturbing.

post-9325-0-70126900-1451888188_thumb.jpeg

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Ah, that retro goodness...

I wish they'd gotten the credits right, aesthetically. Woulda added a lot to the parody.

But regardless, I lost it at "Robotech theme composed by: The Yune Brothers". Best laugh I've had all year.

And man, that tune takes me back. I still love the "Star Wars Lite" feel of Robotech's music, and the film scroll at the beginning still gets me. EVERY show should begin with a film scroll.

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finally saw it. looks like fun. i'm in!

my pre-2008 self probably wouldn't have thought the same way. at the time, my anime diet was strictly "serious mecha" or "mature" themes like GitS. slim pickings, really.

i recall i initially had trouble with the school setting of Frontier. since then, i have gone on to enjoy other "school" animes and embrace a much wider range of genres.

magical girls? i avoided Sailor Moon like the plague when i was a kid, only to be exposed to maho shojo as an adult via the unexpectedly hilarious and absurdly weird Kore wa Zombie desu ka?

so, other than the hologram dancers in Delta which caught me by surprise, i was already "well-adjusted" to whatever Delta had to offer.

rather than hope (or dread) for what Delta could be, i'll just take it as it comes. i'm keen to be surprised and entertained. or if i find it crap, then i'll call it crap.

magical girls understandably have drawn a lot of the discussion. but what i noted from Delta are:

- it's not in a school setting (although not yet guaranteed)

- outport planet/s

- only Freya and Reina are so far confirmed to be under 18, and the rest of the cast seem to be young adults at the least

- Mikumo of unknown origins

- "civil war" ie. human(oid) vs human(oid) combat rather than vs an outright alien threat

- marriage politics?

make of that what you will. the magical girls may just be a red herring.

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I'm getting more onside with each watching of the 0.89 prologue episode.

I've gone from originally being negative when I listened to the podcast, to neutral when I watched the raw, to cautiously optimistic after watching the subbed version a few times.

As long as the TV series has a lot of dogfights, explains the technology behind Walkure's abilities, doesn't overuse the magical girl transformation or dancing VF-31s scenes too often and they kill off some of the characters, I'm sure it will be fine.

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Do you believe a majority of people posting here dislike Delta?

currently the percentage is 54.55% positive 24.03% negative.

Other online communities I frequent show a mostly positive reaction to Delta. The only haters seem to be the ones going "Idols in MY Macross? NO THANK YOU. MACROSS RUINED FOREVER"

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Yes someone please troll hg on twitter lol.

Anyway, i've watched it about 7 times now and i got nothing to add aside from what's already been said, but since everyone's doing it, gonna add my 2 cents. For me, the good was overwhelmingly good but the bad was overwhelmingly bad, with the end result being mostly negative.

The good

・I thought the animation was fantastic. Some say it's worse than frontier but i don't see it.

・i was absolutely thrilled to hear the return of echoey voices when macronized zentradi speak, old school zentradi ships and updated regults/glaugs.

・valk battles were great. I don't like any of the paint schemes of delta squad's valks but the sv-262s didn't have the gold trim at all, which i see as an improvement.

・as others have said, loved seeing the expansion of the macross world to include freight ships and cargo ports, new settled planets, etc.

The bad

・i really did not like some of the music. I actually liked love halation the war and even the song during the scene where hayate is dancing while loading cargo (which is apparently sung by reina and makina) but i HATED ikenai borderline. I dunno, everyone has different taste, i could attempt to explain what instruments and musical elements makes me hate it so much on an internet forum, but i probably shouldn't try. I think i even prefer basara's music to that crap, and the thought of hearing it episode after episode is really making me cringe. I don't like idol music in general but i never really hated any of ranka or sheryl's songs, but there's no sense in trying to explain personal taste. I dunno, i just hate it. Really missing kanno.

・as someone else mentioned, i also don't like the rapid changes between emotional tones, (going from violence and people dying one moment to an idol concert the next)but with the premise of combining mac 7 and plus, i don't see how they can avoid it. They try to lessen it by showing that the idols take their role of protecting civilians seriously and knowingly put themselves in harms way rather than just singing happy songs, but for me it still doesn't work.

・put me in the camp that cannot dig sailor moon wardrobe transformations and idol sentai. Someone mentioned that sheryl and ranka also do this but it's really not the same, sheryl and ranka's wardrobe changes were never treated like super hero reveals the way that the walkure are. And idols flying around the battlefield, landing on radomes and battroid's shoulders, and charging at q-raus? You can firmly place me in the too old for this crap crowd. I get it, it's a logical progression of macross up until this point. And unlike some people here i'm not gonna say to someone there's something wrong with them if they like it. Taste is subjective and to each his own. But for me, it's really not my thing. I can't get myself to like it, even if i try. I'll still watch the series, heck i got through 49 episodes of macross 7. And i don't think i'll hate it as much as mac ii or zero, the only macross series i refuse to re-watch. but as far as delta, i'll mostly just watch it for the valk battles. I just hope i like most of the songs better than fire bomber's music, but i have no confidence in that at this point.

・i hate frejya. She has the confidence that ranka didn't have which made ranka seem like a loser esp after losing out on the alto sweepstakes, but i still hate frejya a lot more. The strange made up japanese country dialect and nonsensical words she uses just makes her sound like an idiot. Again, this is just imo. Go ahead, call me a hater, it's true lol.

Some random thoughts on where the story is going:

・Huh, so frejya's windmereian. Didn't see that coming. She seems to refer to her "member" as lunlun and when it glows and goes erectile she refers to it as going "pika~" which is japanese onomatopea for something that shines. Gosh i feel like i lost brain cells just typing those damn phrases. I'm just cringing at the thought of all the aerial knights' members going pika~ in the last episode as they all turn good due to the power of song (it won't end that way, will it?).

・for some reason it took me until now to realize that keith's last name is windmere. One of the twins refers to him as (something)~sama, but i can't quite make out what he's saying (is he saying keith-sama?) . Suffix -sama in Japanese is used to refer to someone way above you in rank or class, is keith royalty?

・there were 6 sv-262s but even with the reveal of master helman, that should still leave one pilot unrevealed right? I mean, after all four eyes was still at his command post and not piloting a valk, right? Maybe the 6th pilot is unimportant cannon fodder?

・i like the idea that someone came up with of mikumo dying in battle and frejya facing the overwhelming task of filling her hero's shoes lol. That would be a great opportunity for character development and bring some seriousness to the story inspite of all the idols flying around.

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I think Lady M is actually Dr. Chiba. After his song energy theory was proven and he contributed to saving the universe, his perhaps-excessive fandom fell over the edge into obsessive madness. He now dresses in classic idol costumes and demands everyone call him Minmay. Lady M is a name people use for him in public to avoid any embarrassing explanations, and let Dr. Chiba's legacy live on unstained.

I might be wrong, though.

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I think Lady M is actually Dr. Chiba. After his song energy theory was proven and he contributed to saving the universe, his perhaps-excessive fandom fell over the edge into obsessive madness. He now dresses in classic idol costumes and demands everyone call him Minmay. Lady M is a name people use for him in public to avoid any embarrassing explanations, and let Dr. Chiba's legacy live on unstained.

I might be wrong, though.

If Lady M is truly Dr. Chiba than maybe he has gone too far and the idols have their powers because he infused them with Protodeviln DNA as unborne babies. What a grim and gritty story twist!

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Nothing like a new Macross show to drag me back into this forum.

At first had my doubts about the whole idol focus, but then they brought in the dogfight.

Seems to me that they're trying to catch idol fans with Walkure while still keeping the older fans satisfied with some solid valkyrie action. I wonder if Kawamori is trying to do something like Macross 7 once again, but this time with some more solid dogfighting by giving us our first Macross with focusing on hot valk on valk action since Zero (but sadly, less BOMBER!!!).

P.S. Mirage Falyna Jenius is waifu.

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If Lady M is truly Dr. Chiba than maybe he has gone too far and the idols have their powers because he infused them with Protodeviln DNA as unborne babies. What a grim and gritty story twist!

That would be absurdly amazing. I'm not even joking when I say I want to see that.
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Question, is the Delta platoon's captain named Arad or Arado? The sub I saw had the former, but the latter to me makes more sense as another obscure aeronautical shout out (to the German Arado company, makers of the worlds first jet bomber, the Ar 234).

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Question, is the Delta platoon's captain named Arad or Arado? The sub I saw had the former, but the latter to me makes more sense as another obscure aeronautical shout out (to the German Arado company, makers of the worlds first jet bomber, the Ar 234).

Official romanization is Arad.

post-9325-0-27887300-1451909394_thumb.jpeg

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I think Lady M is actually Dr. Chiba. After his song energy theory was proven and he contributed to saving the universe, his perhaps-excessive fandom fell over the edge into obsessive madness. He now dresses in classic idol costumes and demands everyone call him Minmay. Lady M is a name people use for him in public to avoid any embarrassing explanations, and let Dr. Chiba's legacy live on unstained.

I might be wrong, though.

If Lady M is truly Dr. Chiba than maybe he has gone too far and the idols have their powers because he infused them with Protodeviln DNA as unborne babies. What a grim and gritty story twist!

You bastards are awesome!!! :D :D :D

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P.S. Mirage Falyna Jenius is waifu.

Don't you mean Husbando? She pretty much acts like Gamlin before he learned to loosen up.

On another note someone theorized the development of Multidrones were inspired by Vajra swarm tactics. Particularly protecting Frontier.

If the Var Syndrome is galaxy wide affecting Earth and the Core region as well I can see the Walkure isn't the only Tactical Music Unit.

I can see Basara, Mylene, Sheryl and Ranka doing their part.

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