Killer Robot

There's a distinction between best loved and least hated. Gamlin is just generally inoffensive yet unexceptional, even though he has more character growth than most in the series, and even though he has hair like Dracula and a wardrobe like Mr. Rogers(who said that first?). I came to like him through the series, but I'd expect him to score low on either a favorite poll or a least favorite poll. As for Mylene, she seems to be in the middle of the pack for females, or near enough that it's no big distance either way. I figure she scores on a mix of personal tastes and of people who hate Macross 7 enough to hate everything from it.

Frontier is weird in general that way, though. The three in Pixie squadron have large Zolan-like ears, and every other Zentradi in the series, as well as Michael, have the small points like Zentradi from Plus and 7.

While I'm totally with Kronnang Dunn as for the rest of the post, I can agree on this part. A look into Zentradi culture as it's developed since they were integrated into human society would be cool. Frontier gave a few hints: Klan being from a family proud of its continued military service as well as of its loyalty to human ideals. Frontier's Zentradi population, choosing to live in human fashion, but in their own "natural" size. And of course Elmo's excited obsession with culture and the magic it represents. Further, the still-continued split between those Zentradi who have assimilated into human culture readily, and those who still chafe at it. While we had half-Zentradi protagonists in Guld and Mylene, his heritage only came up in a sloppy and never-again-revisited excuse for making him genetically angry, and hers only came up in a door keyed to only be opened by half-Zentradi. Alternatively, a Zentradi newly adjusting to human culture could be fun as a protagonist. Whether something set just after SW1 or something with Zentradi later given culture. We saw some of that in SDFM's supporting cast, of course, but I'm sure there are more things in that area to explore.

On the first point, not true. The troops decided to mutiny on lots of broadcasts and words from the returning spies. Unthinkable customs, strange devices, men and women living together, and above all this incomprehensible concept of "civilian" life outside of warfare and military duties. Minmay and music were a part too, but those served more as a symbol those yearning for the idea of culture to point at in shorthand. Not unlike "guitar-controlled Valkyries" is usually shorthand for a whole lot of different things about Macross 7 rather than the whole of the show. Or how many times in history a symbol has been chosen which represents broader concepts yet comes to be held as central in itself. On the second point, it's strange, but remember that it was in essence a particular communications jam that was known to be distracting in the short term to the enemy, and wasn't being done to convert them but to throw them in disarray long enough to nuke their flagships. Look at some of what real militaries have looked into as ways to distract and/or demoralize enemies and it's less bizarre than many. Also, "that never happened in history" isn't a very good qualifier for what counts as hard sci-fi. It's a genre about what could happen, not about what already has. Seriously though, I agree Macross isn't hard sci-fi. It isn't because it has ten meter humanoids capable of shrinking down and breeding with humans, transforming jets, psychic vampires, space bugs that "evolve" immunity to antimatter explosions, and people whose singing can fight giant extradimensional beings. The ability of cultural conflict and influence to swiftly shape the outcome of a war is way, way down the list of what makes it implausible.

I think here you're confusing bravery with acting on unique knowledge. The crew of the Macross Quarter not being duped by Leon was not because they were braver than others, but because they had learned of Leon's betrayal, for example through discovering President Glass' assassination. Certainly they were brave enough in their execution of many things, but can you expect others to have acted on that knowledge others did not have? Similarly, Ranka uniquely had seen that there might be more to the Vajra than mindless bugs, and she alone was the one who felt literal pain when they were destroyed. Of course she was the one to question if the war could be ended by more than one side's annihilation. And it was certainly brave of her to strike out for the Vajra homeworld, not least because it was a rejection of just doing what she was told to do. Brave and foolish, since she was being duped herself: it was an act that would have sealed the fate of Frontier, the Vajra, and likely the galaxy itself had she not been rescued again by Alto and Sheryl. In any case, someone who lacked her unique knowledge can't be blamed for not acting upon it. Everyone, villains aside, was doing the best they could to help, but based on what they knew. The people who weren't tricked were the ones who had found the right clues, not those simply of greater moral fiber. As for what Sheryl did, it's not like she stood by either. She didn't throw everything away, no - she had it taken from her forcibly, but then got up and decided to use what she had to help how she could. Singing in the shelter or at charity performances after just to keep spirits up, then accepting the chance to take Ranka's place as a defense against the Vajra, devoting what remained of her life to helping her newly adopted home and to winning a war that she personally had no known chance of surviving. Even if the war itself was an act of secret manipulation, I can't say there wasn't bravery, strength, and devotion in her actions. And yes, she did speak out against killing Ranka. When Alto came to her before the battle to say that whatever happened he would be back to her side, Sheryl's answer was that she would speak more with him after he brought Ranka home safe. She had every reason to think Ranka was a traitor, and to fear that Alto still loved Ranka more than her, but she still had faith in her friend, and she didn't want to leave Alto alone. In any case, I think both characters were admirable enough. They did foolish or childish things, when they didn't know better especially, but they did some really brave and devoted ones too. The key in it all is that no one in the setting is independent, no one can make it alone, but just the same people can be strong. Ranka had friends: she had to learn to assert herself and be strong. Alto had friends: he just had to learn to open up and let them complete him. Sheryl was alone: she had to learn that she wasn't an island that didn't need anyone else. They all had a lot of growing to do, but in the end achieved it.

I don't hate Ranka myself, and she's not my vote. She had a lot of generic moe features especially early on, but I suppose that's the era it's made in; she was really pushed as the special magic girl that everyone loved as soon as they met her and that had special powers, and was just tied to a destiny of stardom that no force could contain for a while. Granted, these things backed off after a while into something more sensible and better explained, and she grew on me as they did. Still, like some people can't shake the impression of Sheryl the first few episodes gave them, others can't shake the impression of Ranka the first half gave them. Even if I like her all right, I felt the show was expecting me to love her, in a way that I wasn't expected to love earlier Macross protagonists, and in a way that her actual character didn't deliver. That's the sort of thing to inspire some backlash. Similarly, on the old Basara issue, many might like him better if he wasn't "pushed" so hard by being put in a world where things seem to fall just where they'll prove him awesome. Relatedly I suspect, though I don't know who it was, that whoever voted for Misa in this really just didn't think she was great and just gets tired seeing other fans hold her up as the perfect heroine to judge others by. A lot of people are ornery that way, when they felt they're being told how they should feel about a character. So I think the high votes for Ranka are partly what's been said about reaction to the stylistic choices of Frontier in general that she gets blamed for, and partly for reaction to feeling she was expected to be the most-beloved. A third factor is that by and large most Macross heroines, even where they're a bit bland or inconstantly handled, aren't that broadly unlikable, so the votes have to go somewhere. So she's less hated than she is one of the weaker links. This I think is really unfair. From the threads I've read, while there are a number of people who think for some reason Macross should always be some gritty war story, they're a minority. And even a lot of people who can't stand Macross 7 point out that they loved the music. Similarly, while they may protest guitar-controlled Valykries with guns that shoot speakers, that's not the same as protesting the main characters being rock stars and also pilots - it's protesting the particular way the two were combined. It's fairer to say that Macross 7 would be enjoyed by many of its detractors if the super robot aspect was less over the top, if Basara was either less over the top or at least sometimes had to self-examine and grow rather than just statically wait for the plot to prove him right, and if about ten episodes of stock footage battles and little plot development were chopped off the front of it. Which wouldn't even really cut the music since the same three songs got played as often as the same three VF-11s got blown up in that part of the show. In short, even a lot of people who love Macross for more than being a war story still have made arguments for why it's got some deep flaws that would have been easy to avoid without breaking the character of the show.

I have to mention that Macross 7 came out a year before Evangelion, so I don't think the market was unprepared to enjoy a dark mecha series. Fairer to say that it was not something that would have been expected to do well, and that Macross 7 played to the known audience: playing to the kids, playing formula, playing lots of music, and not trying to change the world's view of the genre. I agree that it could have been more adventurous a series in many ways, but some of those ways might have made it worse and/or less successful. As for watching it today and imagining the kind of series it could have been rather than the kind of series it was, I'm not sure that makes me feel so much better most ways.

Figures, I leave town for a couple days and this thread appears and fills up pretty rapidly. Just as well, I'm not totally sure. Basara's the only Macross protagonist I disliked enough to interfere with my interest in the series, but at least he was distinct so I'm not sure if that's actually worse than the really forgettable ones(Hibiki who? Shin wha?). Alto wasn't the strongest character and his flaws push a lot of fans' buttons, so I can't fault him getting some votes here. On the other hand, a couple of points there are unfair. It was amply enough explained why the girls went for him (Sheryl: first guy who treated her as a person rather than a star, Ranka: the pretty boy that saved her life), but more importantly, why does it matter why he's so fascinated with flying? Other Macross protagonists don't need a reason to want to be pilots. A reason to fight, sure enough, but a reason to fly? In Macross anything, a love of flight is as natural as a love of breathing, so asking the question of Alto in particular seems out of place.

She's cute and competent, I'll give you that, but I'd be worried about her mother seeing us together and trying to make wedding arrangements.

I can't think of any long series I was a big fan of where the hero was always right, never had to change his strategy or examine his thinking, and overcame every challenge by convincing the other side he'd been right all along. But that aside, I'm frustrated by the fact that I've seen a likable Basara. The first Macross 7 I saw was The Galaxy is Calling Me. It had Basara as this enthusiastic dreamer. Engaged, outgoing, interacting with rather than forcing himself on the world around. He was still that free spirit and some people didn't appreciate it or go for that newfangled music of his, but he felt like the kind of person who could win people over, even just in that 35 minute span. Then I saw the TV show and he felt so much more disengaged beginning to end that it was hard to believe it the same guy. Fans? If he feels like it today. Others passionate about music? *yawn* Chasing his dreams? Maybe sort of, but in repetitive fashion such that he doesn't catch them so much as the plot sweeping them eventually into his arms. So I can agree there's an interesting character idea there, and even that it had moments. Just the rest of the time it failed somewhere between the concept stage and the final script and I'm less adept than some at mentally glossing over the gaps.

That's just it too. I liked Mylene quite a bit just because she had more depth than most of the cast, but even she seemed to change less than any of the three focal characters in either SDFM or MacF, even Alto who definitely could have used more development. Sitcom-like, there seemed to be a lot of "Mylene learns a valuable lesson" episodes, but the feeling that she had really been changed over the course of the series still felt fairly limited. She isn't as totally static as Basara, but for the most dynamic protagonist of the longest Macross series I think we could have gotten more than that.

I can't call the whole series shallow, but it's about zero for character development on the fleet's side, unless you count "(person) goes from disliking Basara to respecting him." It's not crippling when you consider how much the show is played as a sitcom, but the only non-Protodeviln character that feels like they've significantly changed from episode 1 to episode 49 is Gamlin and that's just since he's the most extreme case of being won over by Basara.

It's not just a silly scream, it's a particular silly scream that was recorded in the 1950s and used in a couple of movies then, then later on was discovered by the sound director from Star Wars and used in a lot of his works: from there it became a big theatrical in-joke that gets used in lots of movies, TV shows, etc. Over 140 last I checked. According to this page it's in the episode "Blind Game" of the ADV dub of SDFM. I haven't verified it myself, though.

I agree as well. I'm not a teenager any more and I definitely have different tastes than when I was, but I still don't need a series to be about all gritty grown-ups doing gritty-grown up things all the time to get into it. In the case of Macross Frontier, it was in part because they weren't just high school kids, but people mostly living as young adults with careers and facing life and death issues. I can also see a series with one episode of silly high school antics without categorizing the whole series as nothing more. I mean, what otherwise, call SDFM "that trippy show with the magic bicycle?" Macross isn't a franchise about war stories so much as it is about people in a war story, suffering at times but pulling through and finding something past the fighting. That means grim times, that means light moments, and that means lots of space between. And before you ask, that means there will be singing. None of these are incompatible with a story adults can enjoy.

I got started on Macross with Plus and don't mind the idea of some shorter and more personal stories like it, but only if there's another TV series in the works within a couple years after. If I'm going to have to wait another five years before and after the next Macross series I still want something bigger and meatier. Even Frontier was a few episodes shorter than it should have been, I think, and despite having some comic relief and fanservice I got as much seriousness and mecha action as I really could have expected from it, and a whole lot more sense of setting and scope than something like Plus could really deliver. It got grim enough at points that being much more so would be less Macross and more BSG with Valkyries...not to say that BSG with Valkyries would be all bad, but still. Frontier wasn't perfect(story pacing issues come to mind), but it hit enough range of what I want as a Macross fan that I can't really say a mood I want that would be far from it. On the other hand, if it's too much like Frontier it could get the series stuck in a rut too. I'll just have to hope Kawamori comes up with something good. As for what RDClip said, it would be nice to see a human female fighter pilot the next time around. Even if she's not the main character, a woman getting in a fighter cockpit without it being explained by her Zentradi heritage seems rarer than a VF-11 squadron coming home intact.

Also recently gotten from the usual sites. I find this one an interesting art style: As for this one, I just think the crazy look is hilarious:

There seem to be some odd trends out there in the fanart. I guess the crossdressing is to be expected: But the one that's caught me more off guard is going a step past just choosing a happy couple and going into showing their future family life: I grant, I've only noticed that last one with Sheryl, though I imagine it's just since Ranka's hard to imagine as a mother anyway.

I have to go with the review on this one, having seen DYRL before the TV series myself. It's a very pretty movie (and in 1995 or so looked even fresher than it does now), but that's about all it's got going for it. Some cool scenes strung together by a barely coherent plot, and characters that really don't have that much meat of their own. When you know the series it all snaps together wonderfully, but it's just not a movie that stands very well on its own feet. Which isn't really an indictment - it was made for fans of the show and is great for its chosen audience. It's just not something to come in to cold, any more than you should start watching SDFM at episode 28 even if it is starting a new story arc and giving some flashbacks.

I'd call dark and gritty the literary equivalent of alcoholic beverages. Not for being intoxicating, but because while they're something ostensibly for adults and that many adults enjoy, they're not all adults consume and the people most excited by them tend to be adolescents and young adults who are half in it for a "grown up" thrill from the cheapest and strongest stuff at hand. That said, serious Macross takes are welcome in my book, but I agree totally with the last point that you're still going to need music, romance, and enemies that aren't entirely unreasonable monsters - the central themes of Macross stories always come down to the idea that war may be in the nature of humanity but communication, love, and culture allow us to aspire to more than a grim battle for survival. For that matter, I can't be the only person who found the second half of Frontier pretty grim. While I've certainly seen worse, and while the first half of the show had plenty of light-hearted antics, there was hardly a moment between episode 15 and the final scene that wasn't a constant stream of people in physical and emotional torment.

I'll go a step further and say that if it ever did happen, the eagerly awaiting fans would find it didn't match their expectations anyway. I'll call the absence a good thing on that count.

The OP and the first ED, but that's all that's got the karaoke hardsubs from what I can tell. There are lyrics for other music, but they're all softsubbed. Agreed there. While it's not as dramatic as I've seen with some past series(such as moving from old TV/VHS to DVD), it's still quite a nice step up, and file size isn't a significant worry to me right now. 600MB for one of these vs. 400MB for the TV rips I had is bigger, but I can live.

Now there I totally agree. Sheryl cared for Galaxy as her home, but it didn't really mean anything to her beyond that. No family, no friends, and the only person that had been a constant in her life turned out to be a lie. Like Basara she came from pretty much nowhere, but she found a far less supportive figure in her youth. Finding friends were the big changes for her. Alto for the taste of romance she had dreamed of but never had, Ranka for a little sister figure and eventually as a peer, and the other four as well in their own ways. Having those, and learning to accept and rely upon them, she found the part that she'd been missing, and became a stronger person for it. She was a strong person even from the start, but she learned that no one is strong enough to stand entirely alone, and embracing that is what saved her.

See, that's where I have to disagree. Sheryl was taken by some, both viewers of the early episodes and characters within the series, as a corrupt and empty shell of media-created stardom, but the exploration of her character in the first half of the series was all about how that wasn't true. Her coldness toward the aerobatics team wasn't her being a spoiled diva but her worries that some unproven high school kids inserted into her show might ruin things (Note: she was right, saved only by some quick thinking on her part). Her singing wasn't a means to fame and fortune, but something that, in her own words, she couldn't not do. When Ranka made an impression on her, she gave encouragement and inspiration. When Alto treated her as a person rather than as a star, she was totally taken by it, not rejecting of him. When her homeland was attacked and possibly destroyed and Frontier went to war, she did her best to help in the ways she could: going on with her concert to keep spirits up, and pushing that documentary to raise awareness of the danger. Her claims of effort and devotion being more important than talent or luck were earnest: she was mistaken, unaware of just who had given her some pushes along, but she was never lying on the point. Not to say she was a perfect person, or that she wasn't image-conscious and media-savvy, but she wasn't a fake in it for the fame and praise themselves by any means. Sheryl was aware of the power and importance of music, communication, and force of will perhaps more than anyone. If anything, that knowledge was the seed of her doubt and fall nearly as much as her illness itself or Grace's manipulations. When music was showing to be the thing that might save the day she was helpless, seeing Ranka as the hope of Frontier while she was ill and forgotten, able to do nothing. Note also that this was not due to Ranka's greater purity of spirit, but due to her being a Little Queen able to reach the Vajra with no assistance, and Sheryl not. Sheryl's fall into self-doubt wasn't in realizing that she'd been fake all along, but in being told that she was fake all along: Grace's final betrayal of her was not without truth in that her career had been sponsored for an unethical purpose, but it still was in itself an attack, characterizing Sheryl as being nothing but artifice and helpless on her own, so as to get her out of the way without having to actively arrange her death. Likewise her recovery, beginning with the scene where she sings in the shelter, was not her becoming something she wasn't before, but rather her getting past that lie to realize that she was real, she was inspiring, and her ability to reach people and thrill audiences was her skill and not just clever marketing. Even if she got her career started by Grace and the conspiracy, it couldn't change that she was a natural performer and inspiration that belonged on the stage and driving her friends onward. Her friends being another point: the big thing that changed for Sheryl over the course of the series wasn't how real her fame or music was, but whether she had anyone close to her. Not only those for her to influence, but those for her to lean on as well. Such as Alto and Ranka pushing her own words back at her, about how she just can't not sing, that it's who she was. To sum up, Sheryl became more confident and genuine as the result of her fall and recovery, but as a performer she didn't become something she really wasn't before. More, she realized that she was not and couldn't be a success on her own, owing nothing to anyone - instead she learned personal relationships are a two-way street and she has to rely on her friends as well as inspiring them. Oddly, Basara seems to push the opposite viewpoint: for him, things seem to work out when those around fall in step with him, and so seldom a bend the other way, much less him acknowledging it.

I never got the impression that Basara was ever pushed as the best musician that ever was: the effectiveness of his music was never about quality, skill, or so on but rather about the spirit behind his music being strong and pure. This is pretty uniform across Macross series too: it's about moving people, not artistic skill or technical brilliance. Usually in fact it's the point that it is music that matters above all: the Zentradi being moved by music itself and Minmay just being their first exposure, Sound Energy not being produced by musical skill but by someone of proper spiritual ability performing, Sheryl and Ranka's ability to reach the Vajra not being because they were totally awesome singers but because they were the only human singers the Vajra could understand, etc. It's never really about the music in Macross, it's about music's ability to build bridges of communication where just talking things out isn't done or isn't possible. That said, Minmay's music was beloved by the people of the Macross: the Zentradi only ever heard it since it was so popular that she was on all the humans' TV and radio broadcasts. Sheryl and Ranka were popular and not just because of a blind publicity machine: they just weren't successful in the real war for the same reason they were successful on the pop charts. Even Fire Bomber started off with a reasonably enthused crowd and soon moved to greater stardom through the Galaxy, once they managed to get an album and some radio playtime so people actually heard them. Macross 7 did to some things about the commercialization of culture and the struggle of being a talented unknown in a media-driven society, especially in the early series filler, but it didn't end up being a prime push except where it coincided with showing how much Basara doesn't want to have to promote his music among all the thousands of others in the galaxy who wanted -their- songs to be listened to. Sure, Gamlin didn't like him but he wasn't a fan of rock. Ditto most others who weren't fans after they heard the stuff. Anyway, my meandering point here is that I didn't get any impression that Basara's status as "world's greatest musician" was important. If anything, it was a "world's purest spirit" thing. Which is important, since the Protodeviln weren't being repelled by music, but by spiritual power itself. His ability to communicate and reach them with the -music- part was much slower and more personal, and there happened exactly the same with the Protodeviln as it did with the humans around them. The Protodeviln acted differently than humans to his Spiritia, but not so much to his song and his message.

I wish I could really believe that, but he seemed to hit a year or two before deconstructionist mecha series became popular, and Macross 7 is so much a fit within its era otherwise. But it's an interesting thought.