guyxxed

Fair enough. I can sympathize, as to this day I still can't make it through a full episode of 7. It just doesn't have that "real robot" feel that SDF/Plus/Zero all had.

That said, Frontier had to grow on me for a bit before I accepted it. I felt a lot of "been there, done that" and didn't much care for the designs or music when I watched the first few episodes. It wasn't until episodes 6 and 7 that I found an emotional connection to the story, and it's since gone on to become my favorite of the series.

Delta has been a very mixed bag so far. On the one hand, I like the new settings (the planets all have really unique and interesting styles to them) and the creators have done a good job of putting together an ensemble of characters that have a lot of (potentially) interesting interaction vectors. On the other, we have magical girls and a rookie pilot that goes from not being able to fly to participating in precision aerobatics in the space of a single episode. I'm really hoping that this means that they don't want to follow the same Hikaru/Alto/Shin arc of "pilot/idol starts out, fumbles, then finds their way" and instead are getting the tropes out of the way as quickly as possible in order to get to a different sort of plot, but only time will tell. None of the music has really grabbed me so far, but I'm willing to give it a pass as the music in Frontier didn't do anything for me until I'd bought into the plot and characters, thereby giving me emotional beats to associate with the different songs.

Again, your call and I see plenty of justification for it, but as a fellow skeptic (now reformed), I'm taking a wait and see approach and finding plenty that gives me hope despite the things that don't particularly appeal to me.

Agreed. Also, in that video of the transformation, it looks like the nozzle/feet have a slight opening or gap at their forward end in plane mode, so may allow cooling air to pass through along with the thrust. Rule of Cool is still the overriding factor, but there are some reasonably plausible ways to justify the arrangement as well, which is good enough for me.

That image sends shudders down my spine.

If he's not singing "It's the End of the World As We Know it", then he should be.

On a separate note, we've now seen four planets in Delta (albeit one only briefly), the talk of declaring war and the Alliance makes me wonder how close in proximity these worlds are. With fold technology, there's no reason they need to be close together, but it feels like we're looking at local politics played out in an isolated cluster of colonies. If so, that's a pretty cool setup. I'd love to see a map of where these worlds are in relation to one another, and how many other settled worlds are in the area.

I hear what you're saying, but I do think it's something that comes with time. I listen to the Frontier soundtrack end to end, but it wasn't until my first rewatch that most of the songs really started clicking with me. It took me forming a bond with the characters and knowing what their arcs were before the music started to have meaning, and now I love it. No guarantee of that here (Seven's music still leaves me cold), but I can see some of these growing on me as the characters seat themselves.

ETA: sorry, this is in reply to azrael's statement about the music. Apparently I didn't hit the quote button correctly.

It's a little hard to do a direct comparison, because I think the creators have purposely shuffled things in order to not be seen as repeating themselves. That said, it seems clear that there has been a conscious effort to find the things from Frontier that worked so well and generated such a huge new audience while trying to fix some things that didn't work so well.

From that standpoint, while I don't think any of the characters map one to one, I do see:

Hayate = Alto, but less mopey (I see more Hikaru here than Shin, though, as he doesn't seem angry at all, unlike Shin or even Alto for that matter)

Freyja = Ranka, but with more agency and self motivation, cute but no longer moe

Mirage = Sheryl, but with less ego and more self doubt, almost Sheryl + Alto in a way - strong, self determined, but with something to prove

For the rest, it's a bit early to say because we haven't had deep exposure to too many yet, but clearly having a strong ensemble was one of Frontier's selling points and they're trying to bring that about in Delta as well. I expect each of the characters to be given a chance to shine as we go forward and add dimension to themselves. Like Messer enjoying the kids in the OP and the Captain being clearly depicted despite having had almost no lines so far.

I can get behind that lineup, makes sense to me based on what we've seen so far.

Not to derail the discussion, but I haven't seen this mentioned so far on the boards (my apologies if I missed it). About 2/3 of the way through the OP, there is a shot of what appears to be Mikumo curled in the fetal position and submerged in water or some other liquid. This certainly plays into the popular theories that she's artificial/augmented/special. I'm wondering if this image ties into anything we've seen before, though. I can recall anything specific that this might be a call back to, but it's been awhile since I've seen some of the series. Any thoughts?

Makina and Mirage are definitely paired (assuming that there is a stable pairing and not just a 'whoever's closest' arrangement). When Makina called for the drones to be recharged, it was Mirage that responded.