Saruta

That would have been ep 17 with the Makina fan service. Unless we are thinking of the Jenius butt shot (but tastefully clothes)

The Makina fan service actually does not take up much screen time but makes a lot of sense in context. Though it does make Delta somewhat less child-safe.

The panties ep took huge screentime, did not make much sense, and made the series TOTALLY not child-safe.

Why would you want to reference Carl Macek?

I wanted to have a controversial character (he is among other things arguably to blame for the Ontario fail) and also he writes an inworld account with the Robotech names (and it hopefully makes sense in context).

I am still hoping to do an expanded version of my Russian-language epic novelette in English, after Delta finishes and I can integrate the lore (only the lore - the action itself ends in 2059 or 2060). But I realized I might have a slight Delta problem.

The hero's name is Kenneth Macer. This is a reference to Karl Macek. The hero is not a pilot; if anything he is more like MII's protagonist, a journalist (but unlike Hibiki, Kenneth Macer never learns to pilot manned mecha; he does ride a motorcycle).

Might there be questions about "Macer" being too close to "Messer"? Or are the names separate enough, given that my character is not a pilot?

That's right, the proper song of the wind is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bigswc0BMvk

Can't. unhear. this is Heinz' voice instead of violin

IMO, it's pretty clear Xaos (official subs spelling) was an unholy mess even with Messer and Mikumo at the top of their game... they're not a super-elite unit, they're the Wal-Mart of mercenaries.

Name-dropping Messer will always fall flat. Kaname may care about him, but it's almost impossible for the audience to because his one character trait is that the stick up his ass had a stick up its ass.

I did not mean *that* sort of effect about Messer.

The context was, as far as I can remember: Arad says it's hard to handle pilots. Kaname says "Messer". I read it as "Messer actually knew how to handle pilots, now hes not here and Arad and Johnson have made a mess out of it".

Positive. Watched after subs came out and it was, in my opinion, better than the spoilers here made it out to be.

It is pretty clear that Chaos is falling apart at the seams without Messer and Mikumo. I wrote about it here before watching (suibs were not out). But what I saw now is that it is being played very deliberately, with Kaname name-dropping Messer at just the right time.

It's high time Macross did such very imperfect protagonists!

The "Philosopher's Stone" refers to super-high purity, extremely large (~1000ct) cuts of fold quartz that can only be obtained from the bodies of certain types of Vajra. Later productions added the caveat that suitably large and pure pieces of fold quartz can sometimes be found in Protoculture ruins. Apparently building a fold wave system requires multiple fold quartz gems at Philosopher's Stone levels of size and purity to work, seemingly one for crystal for each engine. (The YF-29 has four.)

But the Vajra have folded out to another dimension. Dos this mean the amount of high quality fold quartz available to humans is now limited to what they already have, and any new VFs with fold boosters can only be built from recycled olf VFs with fold boosters?

Chaos as a PMC is a poorly run entity where members have little sense of work ethics and professionalism. IE. they do things when they feel like it and have basically little discipline when it comes to their emotions.

Which might be one of the best parts of the story.

Post Frontier note: PMC OPed, nerf. Delta: PMC nerfed.

It's a backwater PMC, run around *singers*. And this sort of character is what singers can be notorious for. Yeah, not Mikumo, because she is whatever she is. But Mikumo and Messer were the people trying to beat some form of order into Chaos. Now Messer is dead and Mikumo, even when not unconscious, seems to be going through an identity crisis. So it's a bunch of lads and a bunch of singers. And that's all there is to it, apparently.

Isamu would love this org. He'd fly the way he wants to (while teaching rookies in a very confusing way) and strike it up with more than one Walkure member - perhaps he'd aim for Makina AND Reina? Oh, also he'd kick Keith out of the sky just for the sheer fun. Whether he saves him then depends on Isamu's mood at the moment (assuredly not on politics). But in general this org seems like it's run on Isamu's principles. After this, I do wonder how Isamu fit into the stricter SMS.

Oh and on that topic, it would really be great if Lady M was Myung. Because I'd totally love seeing her KICK ASS for once. She has the brains and she has the guts. She can do much more than just save one loose cannon pilot from her own Vocaloid. (As an aside I still think Sharon was more misguided and confused than malicious).

No it was just very environmental: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle... which made it possible to turn a 25 episode series into 49 episodes.

Yup. I'd love to have the 25 episode version of M7. Ideally with new music (not "new new" of course, but "new to the series, from the Fire Bomber albums") generously sprinkled in.

They seem to be fixing these particular issues in Delta. Unfortunately, even though JUNNA is totally awesome (and double so if you remember she's 15), she is not Fukuyama. And the writing...

I haven't watched this episode yet. As of this post only 28 members have voted and the majority 39% have a negative opinion of this episode. Usually most of the early voting is positive. After viewing the pilot episode I thought the biggest problem would be super-powered singing idols. Instead the series greatest weakness are a lack of mecha action, inability to juggle multiple characters and multiple story lines. I doubt Delta will become a critical success. Could become a commercial success if it helps to drive doll and music sales.

I suspect they trolled us with superpowered idols, generated the early flames, then intentionally nerfed them all, except Mikumo.

I mean, MakiMaki and ReiRei make up for it with sheer yuri (they make up for everything, including very Hollywood-y hacking, with sheer yuri anyway). And Freyja and Kaname have their power moments when they feel for a person, though Freyja is not exactly sure what she is doing. Still, there are no "sailor-type" idols, this problem turned out to be not very real. (They do have plot armour in the form of Bogue taking way too much time to aim and trying to hit from way too close range, but what do you expect).

Mikumo was not nerfed but she appears to be becoming a walking, singing plot device. (Macguffin, in TV Tropes parlance).

I do agree that the writers are not great at juggling story lines and routinely fail to flesh out characters. Hayate and Freyja got more or less proper character development, for the rest is seems to be going in an awkward, piecemeal fashion.

The amount of hidden and semi-hidden references to previous Macross media was heartening. (Like that moment when Hayate taking after his father was discussed, and there was Mirage looking uncomfortable - specially for the Macross fan to catch the "she is a Jenius and she is thinking how she failed to take after her grandparents properly"). But they had to go and add the super-mini-spoiler. Undoubtedly not the FULL spoiler - it does not give the actual M7 resolution and the Frontier resolution is very minimally discussed - but a spoiler nevertheless, perhaps most painfully for M+ where the hypno is supposed to be happening suddenly.

They're not even capitalizing on the fact that they can TRANSFORM. Might as well just have F-22's flying around...

I was actually thinking of a WW2 rewrite fanfic. (Ragna=France or a region therein). Exactly because pilots will still be pilots, You have to think something up about the power of music and what th replace the Var with, but the rest can slot in and one does not even have to change Freyja Wion's name. Pilots will be pilots and the variable mecha stuff, the super size Zentradi stuff - all of that is just not there.

Of course this will have to wait for the end of the series to evaluate plausibility.

Removing the spoiler tag as this is really, it seems to me, about ep19 reveal, as I understood it without even watching ep20:

- I still hate that this franchise tries to "study" music, or rather, that it tries to treat music as an essential property or law or element of the universe. Given what we know of the variety of music among even just ourselves, it's hard to accept that the Vajra, Protoculture, and fold bacteria all (independently or otherwise) developed musically such that their biggest hits sound coincidentally like J-pop. When music was just a metaphor for cultural exchange in SDFM (and to a lesser extent in DYRL, though that's certainly when the bullshit started), or when it was used to more believable effect as psychological warfare/manipulation in M2 and M+, it wasn't nearly as rife with inconsistencies and self-contradictions. Vajra, Protoculture, and fold bacteria musics just all happen to conform to the conventions of J-pop? Come on.

But as far as I could understand, we have only one non-human song that sounds like J-Pop. Ai Oboeteimasuka. Possibly also Aimo, but I think that the only Varja part there is the refrain "Aimo" to "Fotomi", the rest is human framing; and the refrain is really very generic, not J-Pop specific.

What the space whales sang was, as far as I can remember, not J-Pop. What Heinz sings is not J-Pop.

And fold bacteria did not develop any music themselves, They react to music. Whether it's J-Pop (Walkure) or classical-style vocalization (Heinz) does not seem to matter.

It would be nice to see an exploration of other music styles in the Macross universe, but I suspect M+ was as far as things would ever go, if we don't count one-off appearances like Heinz' song.

In typical Macross protagonist fashion, Hayate is too oblivious to notice his single-minded obsession with Freyja is hurting the better girl... Mirage.

Are we seriously hearing shots of a shipping war all over again?

(The bad part is that, unlike Frontier, a yuri resolution does not look realistic. There is some teasing on Mikumo/Freyja but not a single hint of Mirage/Freyja... and Mikumo ships Freyja with Hayate, if only because this makes Freyja sing better).

In general: I had a few very busy weeks and then marathoned the few episodes I missed, ending with this one. They are doing a few things very right:

- Introducing a huge number of Walkure songs in the anime. Not in supplementary material as happened with Fire Bomber. Most episodes now seem to have a unique ending song, or something?

- Showing the singing of Walkure improve gradually. Especially Freyja (which is an outright plot point) but also they seem to become more "in sync" with each other?

The triangle/ship war thing seems a bit forced. It's like they are only doing it because it's Macross and they have to. But at least they are self-conscious about it and play it as a joke too, at least by other characters watching the interaction and supporting one ship or the other.

I think there are still death flags over Mikumo but we need to find out who she is, nah - SHE needs to find out who she is. I have a feeling that after she finds out who she is, she might prefer to "go out with a bang" and win the war by sacrificing herself.

Also, IO do wonder what the exclamation about something horrible and Gramia close to the end is. Did Gramia arise as a zombie?

One thing that I thought was a little disturbing about Berger's fold microbe folding into people's gut theory... sounds like miracle space germs that enables a certain connection between people. Sound familiar????

Looking at you... midichlorain. a magical organism that connects us all.

So what's new? Macross is chock full of Western popular sci fi references ever since SDFM, where Star Trek quotes abound. Now they quoted Star Wars too.

I've been thinking about Mirage and Mikumo lately, and how Mirage doesn't really know her famous family and Mikumo doesn't have any close relations with anyone. What it Mirage is like a physical avatar for Mikumo for her to try to interact with society normally?

No, because Mikumo ships Freyja/Hayate (pretty much in that order), while Mirage is anxious about the ship.

Note that other Walkure members ship Hayate/Mirage. Kawamori, ever the troll, preempted the shipping wars by showing them on screen.

I don't think Gramia dropped the bomb. It seemed to me that his desire for revenge was sincere. Whoever actually dropped the bomb, apparently Gramia believed it was the NUNS.

I don't like the animation in the opening and ending. But I cast a positive vote because I really liked the references to modern international politics (media lies and all). Also white smoke - we have a villain!

Gramia was not entirely villainous, nor was Keith, certainly not Heinz. Now we get Roid, who seems to be double-crossing Windermere, too.

I mean, Windermere was in a position to consolidate its hold on the cluster. With cards played right they would not even have to rely on mind control except as a threat, occasionally executed.

But a battle against all of the galaxy - and with NUNS having the fold jammers?

They defeated one NUNS fleet. The fleet was likely sent to battle-test the jammers. The absence of Macross-class ships seems perfectly logical to me - if the jammers were fail, NUNS command expected Windermere to take the fleet over. and did not want Windermere to get a Macross-class in the deal.

The defeat was attributable to one pilot powered-up by fold-syncing with Heinz. (Just like Hayate syncs with Freyja, Keith syncs with Heinz, and perhaps as we speak, a cute fujoshi in some hidden corner of Japan is watching the episode and having nosebleeds).

Roid did not take the fleet over, destroying it instead. Might be a waste (possibly even intentional waste) or perhaps he thought the ships in it were nothing interesting, what with Brisingr sector NUNS hardware already at his disposal.

Also, Roid displayed the Wind Singer to all of the galaxy. Before this TV transmission, the only glimpse of Heinz the other side got was through Freyja and Mikumo's visions, and possibly Freyja's personal experience (if she saw the prince while on Windermere; theoretically other Windermere defectors can exist). They would have to rely on police techniques to create a picture of him, and they did not know for sure he was the source of the waves. Thanks to Roid's boast, they know.

An obvious counter for NUNS exists. Send in many fleets, with fold jammers in each, and dimension weapons. Order them to destroy Windermere in a planet kill, or failing that, destroy Heinz. If all fleets attack at once, Keith will not have the time to take out all fold jammers in all fleets. Only one has to succeed. Total losses would be huge but this is a galaxy-wide threat, and if you man the fleets with Zentradi (the cultured-but-still-militarized kind seen in episode 1) you can get away with the public reaction more easily, as they don't leave as many grieving relatives behind.

That, or push Freyja and Mikumo into fold-duels with Heinz until Heinz hits the bucket. And without Heinz, Windermere is a sitting duck, Sigur Valens and all.

I don't think Roid was foolish enough to ignore the fact that he was throeing away a cluster win to get a new war with minuscule chances. So I think he has a hidden agenda and is not really working for Windermere; he has likely falsified Gramia's last will, too.

SMS did not even exist during M+, though it did hire Isamu later apparently. And I don't see why SMS would need to attack the Earth in Frontier times. The Earth becomes a part of the story only when the controlled Vajra appear over it in the series, but there is no battle.

Yup, mixed up Mirage's mother, but she still has her mother's last name

It would be a nice twist to the triangle if Hayate and Mirage actually have the same father, making them half-siblings. Unlikely but theoretically possible. (And this would be a literally classical resolution to a triangle, a similar point is used in "The Marriage of Figaro" - where one of the women turns out to be the protagonist's

).

if we're entertaining the theory that Hayate's daddy is Isamu, there're perfectly legit reasons why he's an Immelman & not a Dyson.

a - maybe his parents were never married & he grew up in a single-parent household with his mom, thus having the mom's family name; at the same time, dad's obviously absent but kept in touch from time to time. Isamu being the playa, this isn't an unthinkable possibility... sowing wild oats & all

b - maybe his parents divorced & his mom remarried & Hayate adopted his stepdad's family name

i've a feeling this mystery, like Lady M's identity, is gonna crush under the weight of my unreasonable expectation.

c - taking the mother's last name may have become common practice. Note Sheryl Nome, who has the same last name as her grandmother Dr. Mao Nome. And also, in this very same series, Mirage Jenius, who is the daughter of (as I understood) Miaramia Jenius.

In fact the only paternal last names I can think off are unconfirmed. (Elmo Kridanik from Britai Kridanik and Makina Nakajima from Raizou Nakajima).

New episode with much umineko, yay!

This got a positive vote from me, especially for the fact that, likely, I will not have the same problem as I had with Frontier showing this to kids.

There was a pretty good SDFM English dub, featuring Mari IIjima as Minmay. I gooogled a stream pretty easily a couple of years ago when I showed it to the children. Just make sure it's not Robotech, In fact a google for "super dimension fortress macross english dub" seems to yield ep1 of the right dub streamable right now.

Yeah, I think the rule should be spoiler tags until 24 hours after the subs are out.

Agreed.

Waiting for subs. Just watched the new opening. Did not like it.

Thanks a lot!

Yes, an MMDish feel seems there (and I checked and MMD existed). But in the Macross context, and also with all those glowsticks, I immediately thought of the Vocaloid holographic concerts. Those concerts, and the Vocaloid subculture in general, appear to draw on Macross Plus.

(I'd really love to know if Saki Fujita, the voice of Miku, watched Macross Plus and what she thought of it. I can't help drawing a parallel between her and Myung as "the real person who was behind the much more popular virtual idol").