starla

i'm gonna mourn my favourite cardboard standee, Mirage, & forget that this series ever existed

And my Japanese friends would kill me, but David Lee McInnis (half Korean, half German-Scottish) has got the face angles

HE IS HOT!!!!!!!!!!!! fangirl pick for isamu, for sure

am i a terrible person too for wanting freyja to kick the bucket?

THANK YOUUUU boys (& girls) for watching this so i don't have to

keep the running commentary going... i'll be holding all your hands & handing out imaginary vodka during the finale.

it's a far far better thing that you do than you have ever done... stay strong!!!

Called it...Keith's got a HUGE ol' battle scar...whoa.

hahahahah, soooo sexxxyyyyy

This series will end with him trying to drop a giant chandelier on someone?

the random musical numbers are in place... i say we're almost there!

heheh, can't resist this... to Graham:

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.

I feel sorry for the team working on Keith's manga, which I guess is the only official material out there trying to make the Knights likable at the moment.

hahah, nehhh, no need to feel too sorry for the team... they're getting loads of lovin' from me

my Keith-sama is just misunderstood

totally random, spoiler-free inane comment... after yesterday, Zero-G Love is in loop in my head. HELPPPP!!!

maybe this is a completely wrong reaction to the ep...

Yeah, the Star Wars Holiday Special has a unique place in WTF Christmas tie-in events.

hohohoh, you mean the xmas special that cannot be named!

I bet he..

rescued Chuck's sister

myyyyyy hero <3

Enjoyed the episode well enough. Voted negative. Some thoughts on this and the previous episode, which I binged together just now (skip if you don't want to read tons and tons of criticism):

- Hayate inherits Messer's plane. Fine. It's tired, it's boring, I would have much preferred it going to Mirage or Arad, but fine.

- Mirage again gets punted to the sideline in favor of developing The Shounen. Uggghhhhh. Is there any reason why she can't inherit the "coming of age"/"realizing true potential" story line? She's a frickin' Jenius, for crying out loud, and while it's great that they made it a particular point of conflict for her, come the frakk on. Don't just turn her into The Love Interest. That's so... ugh. Moving on.

- Actually, let's harp on that point a bit more. Aren't any of you bored that it's only ever The Shounen that gets the Dramatic Skill Level Up? Like I love Macross to death but good god was it boring to watch Shin and Alto (and Hikaru and Isamu and Ozma and Roy and even Luca to an extent and oh my god it really is pretty much every single pilot except The Female Ones, huh?) perform reckless feats of wonder while proclaiming hot-blooded declarations of mamoru as The Female(s) stand(s) on the sideline acting as their cheerleaders. It's so, yes I'll say it, sexist. So casually sexist. Why shouldn't Mirage take on Keith? Why shouldn't she, being platoon (acting) leader and protective of her teammates and yearning to get payback for Messer AND A JENIUS, be the one to inherit the Shinigami? She's developing an extreme fondness for Hayate and she's aware of it, and she's at least on friendly terms with Freyja, and why couldn't that make her turn into Shinigami 2.0? Come the frakk on.

- And I mean if "I Will Mamoru My Koibito" MUST be her motivation to get better, so be it, but surely she has other, just as legitimate reasons to do so. I already mentioned her family legacy, her closer ties to Messer and to Delta (and to Walkure, even) and to the entire planet of Ragna... Ugh. And it's not even just because she's a girl and feminism and all that even though yes that's a huge part of it. She's just a better character than Hayate. She would make the story better. But... gah. I've said too much and now I'm just talking in circles.

- I was hoping for Mirage to give Hayate a firm kiss on the forehead after saving him. Not as a romantic gesture, but more as an authoritative mother figure. It really seemed like she was embracing her role as Delta's second-in-command and would be extra protective of them.

- Action was fine. Getting mildly stale. Calling bollocks to whoever tried to justify the fighter-only dogfighting. Isamu and Guld and everybody else regularly went Battroid/Gerwalk in-atmo, and it made the action more creative, more engaging. The fighter-only engagement at the end of Zero was a neat little callback to the first episode of that OAV, but also nodded to the older tech/strategies being used in general, and then the animators/choreographers/directors/what-have-you began switching it up again. Here, with VFs capable of generating more than sufficient thrust in all three modes to keep everything moving fast, there's no reason why they can't more often change modes other than a lack of creativity (and budget, but I don't think that's the case here).

- You know what would have made sense as a fighter-only Macross show? Go back to the original idea of Delta. Competing air show idol groups. They have access only to old-tech traditional fighters, and the VFs slowly encroach on them as a neighboring conflict does. Gundam 0080-like.

- Sad way for The Sister to go, and actually I'm kind of bitter about that, too. I think the biggest question I have is "Why?". Why bother fleshing her out as much as you did (as little as it was) if all you were going to do was unceremoniously off her? It's not like a Game of Thrones or Walking Dead (or the first few episodes of Blue Gender, if you want to bring it back to anime) thing where characters regularly dying punctuates the bleakness of the story being told. They could have had her play a more... not so much "pivotal" as "on-screen" role as the series progressed, but nope, they just blow... her... up? It is a bit (intentionally, I'd imagine) unclear whether she and the kids died, though the general impression I get is that she did indeed die. Maybe they'll bring her back later on, in which case good on them I suppose, but eh. Kind of a waste of potential all around. Kind of like what's-her-face from Frontier, the big-breasted girl with the purple hair, who also could have been something more interesting than what she ultimately became. (On a side note, frakk off Luca, using this unconscious girl as your romantic motivation when all signs point to her not even being interested and literally doesn't know that you're there, way to creep.)

- Macross Elysion being the big damn heroes, though. Can't hate on that. And it gets the episode's money shot, too, bursting out of the water like the big balls of steel badass that it is.

- Can we get back to focusing on the side characters now? More Arad/Kaname, more of the Captain and the King and those conflicts? You know, the actually interesting parts of the show?

From the previous episode:

- I'm disappointed they didn't bring in someone from Alpha/Beta platoons to fill in for Delta. Some of those characters looked interesting. I'm also disappointed

- I'm also disappointed with how they depicted Mirage, unsurprisingly. Again, she's turning into The Love Interest rather than The Second-in-Command With a Chip On Her Shoulder. Not that she can't be both, but Misa Hayase she is not. That she doesn't reveal herself to Hayate/Freyja works for romantic development, but there hasn't been much of a triangle to this point, so it comes off as awkward and out of character, and more importantly it undermines what relationship DOES exist between the three of them.

hohohoh... you wouldn't believe the high hopes i had...

did you guys see Umineko waving goodbye??? nooooo, they didn't take him along??? **sob**

me likey... mech with little cheese but...

awwwww, i think this is all shades of cool

ever thought of getting your daughter into it too? as a fangirl who got into it in the 80s (while still in the single number age demography), my first viewing of SDFM had me really stoked cause the female characters were just awesome. you can do worse with animated role models than Misa, Claudia & Milia. i've never liked Minmay (sorry, bro!) but watching SDFM again years later as an adult, i at least appreciate that her character is driven and focused, & pretty well-written (still don't like her though).

for an anime which was supposedly targeted at mecha head fanboys, it was a positive experience for this mecha head fangirl... and made me a fan for life (regardless how i wish certain character in Delta would just choke on an apple & die, evil laughter)

usagi-man, kawaii! what... we're not eating the actual ScarCat aka Heathcliff? damn, here i am imagining it on a spit & grill

Scarfish will be okay. He is unkillable, the scar is actually from where a luckless harpoonfisher lanced him many years ago.

I'm more worried about his ladycatfish.

maybe the scar's from a jealous ex-ladyfriend? just sayin'...

So much cleavage in Delta.

hahahahah, shocked! you chose this shot & not THE other one?

Did the animation quality go down in this episode? It seemed to be lacking this time.

yes! i thought it was just me. some of the facials look kinda wonky at some parts.

so what would a bird do when it's done flying?

return to the... nest? hahahahahahhahah

it's nice that almost each ep ends with a cliffhanger (oh, it's not sunday yet???)... only wish that the momentum actually carries on on-screen into the following ones.

sighhhhh... & i still don't see plushies of this adorably adorable creature?

i watch wayyyy too much movie for my own good which is why in a den full of vipers, i trust someone like Roid the least. i'm paranoid & am always looking out for the Keyzer Soze.

walked into my local gas station and saw a knock-off zippo with THIS on it as artwork... she's my new favorite lighter!

this is the ultimate zippo of my dreams!

ahhhhh, sooooo much feels for this! <3

There's no easy way to ask this, but is Keith channeling Top Gun sexually?

who doesn't love Iceman??? <3 <3 <3

So, ummmm...

Messer x Focker OTP?

hahahah, actually...