guyxxed

Hey, great to see you guys back!  Thank you, as always, for putting these together.  The podcast is really my primary way of experiencing Macross, as there aren't many other options here in the US.  Really appreciate all the time and effort you guys put in to keep us in the loop.

On ‎5‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 11:27 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

What I meant is I wasn't (until your most recent post) sure what precisely you were looking for... if you were just looking for confirmation of some story point or bit of technical trivia, or if you were looking for a full translation of the books.

 

Yeah, unfortunately for Macross the Ride the few translators working the seemingly unending stream of Macross publications (myself included) focused almost entirely on the mecha since the story was serialized in Dengeki Hobby and accompanied by all those custom model kits representing the mecha of the story.  The details of the story itself kinda got lost because there's only one or two who focus on translating actual stories, and they mostly go for the really old out-of-print stuff.

Like most side stories, Macross the Ride's plot has very little in the way of impact on the story of the main (Macross Frontier) series.  It's got some tenuous connections to the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series, some fairly strong connections to Macross 7 and Macross VF-X2, and a lone connection to the novelization of Macross Δ, but it doesn't really have a very noticeable impact on anything that came after (chronologically).  Many of the Macross Frontier cast are present, but aren't really involved in the story.  SMS's Skull Platoon (w/ Ozma, Michel, and Luca) is present, Alto puts in a brief appearance as a fresh transfer to from entertainment to pilot training at Mihoshi, Ranka's an unremarkable junior high student, Sheryl's mentioned every now and then as the #1 idol in the galaxy, Brera has a bit part as the test pilot of the YF-27-3 Shahar ♂, etc.  The only one who's arguably involved in the goings-on of the plot is Col. Grace Godunowa (alias Grace O'Connor) of the Macross Galaxy Corporate Army intelligence service (because isn't she always?).

I'll work up a detailed plot summary and PM it to you, but the short version is that the two volumes are almost two separate story arcs.  The first six chapters concern themselves with the protagonist (Chelsea Scarlett) transitioning from a retiring idol singer to SMS pilot, and SMS pilot to air racer before taking on kind of a "enemy racer of the week" format where the story's only conflict is between elite air racers competing for a spot in the League's most elite race... the Seiten Cup.  The second volume concerns itself with the Seiten Cup itself and the venue being attacked by the remnants of Latence, the Earth-supremacist organization who staged the coup attempt in 2051 in Macross VF-X2.  

Connections-wise, the strongest ones are to Macross 7.  Both Chelsea and the main villain Naresuan used to live in the Varauta system, and were involved in the Protodeviln conflict.  The Latence splinter group Naresuan leads even uses old and upgraded Varauta mecha, and the venue for the entire second half is a ship design introduced in Macross 7.  One of the minor characters new to the story is a Zolan doctor.  Naresuan himself sports some ties to SDF Macross, being one of Vrlitwhai's subordinate commanders during the First Space War, though what he pilots in the end is a nod to the Macross Plus video game (a manned version of the Neo Glaug drone, the Ghost X-9's rival program).  His organization, FASCES, is a surviving splinter faction of Latence, the villains from Macross VF-X2.  The only real ties that go FORWARD in the continuity are that Chelsea and her mentor Angers 672 made some substantial contributions to the completion of the YF-25 prototype that became the VF-25 used in Macross Frontier, and that Chelsea herself apparently went into government after she retired as a Vanquish League racer.  The novelization of Macross Δ indicates she's a representative in the New UN Government parliament in 2067.

Thank you for this overview.  I would be very interested to see the plot summary as well, if it isn't too much trouble.  This story interests me because it appears to be a nice divergence from the space war story formula and also because it appears to have a lot of strong female characters in prominent roles.  The mecha is pretty cool looking, too.  ;-)

 

Thanks, Seto, that's very helpful, and does sound like a fun story. The characters are intriguing and I like the racer VF designs, I wouldn't mind at all seeing this in animated or manga form. In a perfect world...

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it.

Guess I should have asked this back when more people were still here. Ah, well...

My apologies for resurrecting this thread, but I was wondering if anyone has ever come across a plot summary of Macross the Ride?

I've read Sketchley's translations and seen the magazine pages, but have not been able to come up with any kind of description of what actually happens in the story. I'm not looking for a translation or a detailed retelling, I'm just curious about the main story beats and how the characters did or didn't relate to the Frontier storyline.

If anyone has a link or information, I would very much appreciate it.

Thanks.

I think you guys nailed it, I won't rehash my own comments because I think you covered the points very well in the podcast. Delta was certainly not a bad show, but it was definitely one of many, many missed opportunities and poorly executed beats.

Mostly, I just wanted to say thank you to the podcast crew. I really appreciate the time and effort that you all put into making these shows and being part of the Delta experience. It's been a lot of fun listening to your reactions and commentary, and I think I looked forward to the Gertalk almost as much as I did the actual episodes each week. Thank you, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you all have to talk about next!

I have to say, that's one thing that's always disappointed me about Frontier: the lack of support material for the world. SDFM and DYRL both had extensive concept art published for pretty much every aspect of the productions (I grinned like a fool when I came across the sketches of the UN Spacy coffee mugs in Macross: Perfect Memory). I've seen some artwork for the environmental designs in Frontier, but mostly as tiny little border images in publications that focused mainly on character designs. I get it, that's what's popular from Frontier, but as a concept art fanboy, it's always been disappointing to me. I've seen more setting art for Delta than I have from Frontier, and Frontier's got some really cool stuff in it with some obviously extensive thought put into it that I'd love to explore more deeply. The whole design of Island 1 is fascinating to me. I'd love to have a Perfect Memory style book for Frontier, or something like the Earth and Garmillas books from Yamato 2199.

...and as long as I'm wishing, I'd like a pony, too.

Megaroad-01 should stay among the unexplained. Like JasonC, I'm fine with the name drop and giving hope that they're not all dead, but a new series or movie with centered on them drags the franchise backwards. Delta may not have gone the way I'd have liked, but it expanded the universe, gave us cool new stuff, and opened the doors on new possibilities. That's where Macross needs to go. It just...needs to do it better than Delta did.

In terms of the series, this was a decent ending. It didn't fix the mess of the last ten episodes, but it brought resolution to the main points of the plot.

Hayate and Frejya make sense and them together is an earned conclusion that I'm happy with. I'm really disappointed that Mirage got sidelined as much as she did through the series, but I'm also pretty happy with her seeing Hayate as more of a brother/friend/partner than a lover.

Delta took the Lost approach on its main mysteries, and that's frustrating, but I'm very relieved that we didn't have a last minute Lady M ass-pull cameo. At this point in the series, that would've been a much bigger disappointment than leaving it unresolved.

The action was fairly low key, but I actually don't mind that. A big fleet battle with wall to wall dogfights would've felt like too much of a retread of Frontier. Since they took the hive mind aspect already, I'm glad they kept the focus on the character growth for what won the day. The Elysion looked good doing its thing and the action that we got was fun.

Bogue being pissed off that he had to help Walkure was funny and fit nicely. It actually made me respect him a bit more (not a lot, but some) that he followed orders despite his personal feelings. I would have liked to get a Hermann/Mirage interaction to complete that circle (which started all the way back in the asteroid battle of episode 6), but you can't have everything.

Does Delta go down as a success? Debatable. The missed opportunities in the story are pretty glaring and frustrating. That said, there were an awful lot of things it did really well (at least, most of the time). Frontier was a better story, but Delta has better characters and is an interesting departure from the Macross formula. Maybe too much of a departure, but I won't fault it for trying. A DYRL style retelling that trims out the exposition and brings Mirage out of the shadows would make this a damn good tale.

I typically wait for subs and will for the final episode as well. For most of Delta's run, I've read the spoilers while waiting mostly because it helps with my understanding of the episode (splitting my attention between reading subs and trying to watch what's going on means that I inevitably miss stuff).

For the final episode, I'll be avoiding everything until I've seen the episode for myself. Delta hasn't quite earned it, but I'll give it every chance to impress me before I let everyone else's opinions in.

You are like a dog with a tennis ball about the movie. We have not seen any evidence yet that a movie is being planned. The second cour was supposed to be a movie, but was converted.

:-)
Just to be clear, I'm only talking about a movie in the hypothetical sense. I'm not counting on it or even really expecting it (although, Macross does have something of a track record here). Just fun stuff to speculate on. I'll stop now, though, until an announcement is made.

At this point, I would prefer the dangling ending, because it would at least show that they recognize the task ahead and have been stringing things along on purpose to set up the movie conclusion. A bad purpose, maybe, but not an unintended one.

If, on the other hand, next episode is intended as a wrap, then I'm afraid it doesn't matter if there's a movie or not because the series can only be a disappointment and it will prove that the staff either had no idea how to go about making the show or, worse, didn't care.

Then again, surprises happen. I highly doubt it will in this case, but I'll be watching on Sunday and won't write it off until Delta does it for itself.

Agreed, regardless of whether Delta is wrapped up well or not, I would much prefer to leave Megaroad-01 as the mystery it is. To throw any of that in now will just be a cheap cameo at best and character/plot/setting assassination at worst.

Hayate and Keith crash into each other while attempting to scissor, meanwhile Mirage finally unclenches her anus and she and Chuck become back to back badasses that trash the rest of the knights while Arad chokes on a jellyfish and dies.

Johnson is fired and becomes a lounge singer with the stage name of Ernie Green

The mercats kick everyone off of Ragna and finally reclaim their native world from all these Protoculture-made squatters that have been messing up the place for the last few dozen centuries.

Finally, Kaname punches Lady M in the mouth for being a manipulative jerk this whole time, then quits and starts her own series called "Macross: Divide" where she leads a kickass squad of commandos (with air support led by the green haired pilot) that comes back and cleans up the mess everyone created in Delta. Valkyries fighting in battroid mode are freakin' everywhere.

So...

what was the thing that appeared after Mikumo sang, and where did it appear? At first, I thought it was on top of the Sigur Valens, but then the very next shot showed the SV looking the same as always. Ancient Evil Engine of Destruction seems a good guess for what it is, but nobody else seemed to notice it at all.

I think that it is just the consequence of Recycled Footage Syndrome.

To take it at face value, though, and play with in-universe speculation, I think that it's meant to be metaphorical, just like the 'naked in the sky' moments that everyone keeps having. There aren't actually any glowy light effects following people around, but they feel it and others have ways of perceiving it (through their runes or pendants or 'love's true knowing' or whatever), and so it gets represented onscreen as a viewer notification. In the case of the footage review, everyone present was aware of what had happened at the time through one means or another, and so 'saw' it even though there wasn't actually anything 'really' on their screen either.

Enjoyable as always, you guys always do a great job. Also congratulations and thanks for your involvement in the subtitles, nice work. It also speaks well of the Macross franchise that they would look for and accept input from fans in putting the product together (I understand that you are all involved in the industry to differing degrees, and so are not exactly outsiders to the process, but still...)

I will say that I was a bit disappointed that the discussion about the production change (13 episodes and a movie to 26 episodes) was cut short, I would have liked to hear more thoughts on that, especially why Adrian was so adamant that it was not to fault for the change in pacing and coherency that we've been seeing in the later episodes. The change is becoming quite a focus in most of the discussions I've seen and your insights, as insiders of a kind, would be helpful.

Thanks again!

Brera's poorly animated fight with the Hydra was actually in episode 10, during the shooting of the Birdman movie.

Yes, I know. The point was that Frontier did dumb things, too, and that some of them were easily on the same level of dumb as what Delta has done. Delta's first half was arguably stronger than Frontier's, and while it's second half is winding rapidly toward disappointment, that shouldn't negate the things it got right.

Last hours predictions. Episode #21 better, same or worst than episode #20?

I vote same. There will be singing. Runes will be stimulated. Hayate will stand near a VF but will never climb in.

I'll vote better, but only because I'm an incurable optimist. ;-)

The worst episode of Frontier is still better than most episodes of Delta.

I'm definitely feeling the frustration with how Delta has gone off track, but I can't agree with this. The first half of Delta had some very strong episodes and did a very good job of setting up great character dynamics. The fact that it is failing to develop or pay off those setups now doesn't negate what it did right before.

Don't get me wrong, overall Frontier was a better package and I think that regardless of how it wraps up, Delta will ultimately go down as a missed opportunity, but the high school high jinks and Brera wrestling the purple winged lion were pretty freaking stupid. Delta hasn't given us what it should have, but it's been good at staying above that level of juvenile crap for the most part.

In my opinion, anyway. ;-)

Agreed. Frontier was a much more balanced package than Delta has so far been. It's ironic, since Delta has (imho) a much better constructed premise and cast so characters than Frontier did. Too bad they've failed to do much with them so far.

That was awesome. It seems like the worse Delta gets, the more entertaining the podcast becomes. ;-)

Also, did anyone notice that the medic/servant/whatever in episode 19 (the one that tried to talk to Keith, but then chickened out) had truncated or stunted runes? Or maybe excised? Is this a Windermerian eunuch?

I want to see literally ANYONE other than Hayate or Keith kicking ass. I'm really tired of every fight focusing only on those two. That's really my big complaint against Delta. They've got a great team, and absolutely no teamwork. Frontier did a great job at showing combined arms fighting and everyone having a role to play. Delta mostly shows one on one duels while everyone else circles in the background (both the fighters and the singers). That's annoying.

I think Hermann cares, but is too entrenched in being a Knight. Cassim is still young enough (and has enough to lose) that he's wondering if it's worth it.

Also, it looks like we might be heading toward Hayate and Freyja's connection starting to be a bad thing. The way he's been affected the past two episodes by her singing and then the craziness of this episode, I wonder if their synchronization might actually turn out to be a danger and an ultimate negative (at least until the inevitable conclusion when they learn to bulldoze through it with the power of love, etc, etc, blah, blah...). Would be an interesting angle that would give Mirage an opening.

I'm starting to think that the only part of a Draken that can be damaged is the accessories. Other than the drones and gun pods, I don't think our heroes have manage to hurt one (Drakens piloted by red shirts don't count, they're probably pre-damaged and primed to explode before take off).

I find the character moments more fun and interesting that the actual war story in Delta. When I watch Delta, were are many moments that makes me think of what Shoji said in one of his interview of how he originally intended to revolve the story and characters around the idea of aerial competitions. Uncertain Cosmic Movement scene from episode 4 and concert sequences from the latest episode really makes think how much more fitting those songs and atmosphere would be if he went in that direction. He's work on cyber formula (a race car show) before and I can easily see how all the Delta characters could've gone in that route without the need to stick them into the backdrop of a war.

Agreed. His statement (in the Forbes interview, I think) that he wanted to do away with the love triangle aspect altogether also helps explain (or, at least give context to) how casually it's been handled up intil this point. Which, actually, I like. The slow pace gave the early character episodes a more natural, comfortable feel that I really enjoyed. I've got nothing against a good romance (I am a Macross fan, afterall), but it was refreshing to have people being friends and comrades first.

I don't know if I would want to do away with war entirely (the military always has the best toys), but would absolutely welcome more variations to the formula.

Every episode of Delta has had good stuff in it, and there's still plenty to like in it. I think the negative feelings (or, at least, my own) are coming from the fact that it could easily be much better than it is, not that it's actually bad or anything.

For the amount of time we've spent with the bad guys, we really still don't have a clear idea of their motives or goals, and have very little details on their background to allow us to sympathize with them. At the same time, we've been given a well balanced group of good guys with interesting backgrounds, but then spent most of the time shoving them to the side and making this the Hayate & Freyja show. Mirage, at the very least, desperately needs more moments to shine. She's a great character, but for an experienced combat pilot, she's somehow become almost a sidekick to amateur Hayate.

I like the fact that there is supplemental material to expand and flesh out the Delta world, but Ghostbear is correct, the existence of that should never take place of development within the show itself.