VFTF1

What episode are we talking about? Sighs III? That's the last "new" episode I saw - but maybe something else came out? If so - what? - I must have it Pete

Yeah, but the key here is not whether or not Basara was right, but whether or not him being right for 49 episodes is interesting or not. I think it is interesting; and it's interesting to watch the universe "catch up" to him. But if someone flat out thinks Basaa is "wrong" then I can see how that would make Macross 7 a hard experience... Also - the universe catching up to Basara...well... again - this is something that could have been done better. See, all I remember are good moments, but it took a while for those to manifest themselves. UN Spacey commanders being angry at Basara for not being willing to take orders is a good example, or Basara's insistence on helping free Sivil.. even leading Gamlin to punch that officer... Macross 7 had a lot of good ideas and good moments. It's just it was kind of clunky in terms of bringing everything together into a coherent whole. This is forgivable if you love music and can rock to each episode. But if you don't...I can see how people would have trouble with it. These troubles dissapeared with Frontier, which did a much better job, plot wise, and made for an all around better story. Pete

Yeah - that's true. But I have always considered my Boyfriend is a Pilot to be somewhat based off of her relationship to Hikaru... UNLESS that is, the producers came up with the great marketing idea that on a star ship full of Valkyries and Valkyrie pilots responsible for protecting everyone, it would be best for a cute young girl to sing a song called "my boyfriend is a pilot" ... hmmm... Pete

I ...never quite... thought of it like that. Hm. I guess you're right. On another note regarding this "problem" of Basara not developing as a character... see - I agree with this as a matter of literary fact. The problem is, I LIKE Basara as a character enough that I actually enjoy watching him do his thing throughout the series. I don't ever really feel the desire to see the character change drastically. The only "change" I expect from Basara is that he comes up with new music from time to time instead of singing Planet Dance over and over and over. That was, in fact, the only thing I really found annoying... Speaking of which - here's something that definitely could have improved the story line in Macross 7: Dwelling more in detail on Basara's musical inspiration... We saw on a couple of occasions how he'd sit around trying to come up with new songs. At one point, he even quite the band and left Macross 7 to go on a soul searching artistic journey. But other than actually SEEING him strumming his guitar and going "hmm...?" or seeing him walking around on other planets... we don't really see his thinking or artistic creative process in action. It's just "hmm" and then whamo - a new Yoshiki Fukayama song. Now, granted, in Macross Dynamite, we get to see a bit more of Basara just going crazy with his guitar, looking for "that right tune" and the female lead (forgot her name) says at one point "so this is what artists are like." But I still never really got a sense of where Basara's direction is coming from... and also...I didn't get the sense that there is any creativity going on. See, with Minmey, her hit song "My Boyfriend is Pilot" was clearly based on her budding relationship/friendship with Hikaru and her somewhat tease-like nature. Later, it was plausible that her producers were writing songs for her as they got a bit more pop like. And we also saw in her beginnings how she'd been practicing singing and taking part in contests and so forth and so on... we saw an artistic process there... In Frontier, the tension between professionalism and straight-from-the-heart inspiration was very well pronounced both in the struggle between Sheryl and Ranka, and also in the personal struggles of Sheryl and of Ranka. But in Macross 7, Basara really is just this little kid who decided to move a mountain and the songs just "came" to him... I guess that's plausible - but I will agree that it's not as fun to watch. Characters like Sheryl were pretty 'non-dynamic' insofar as Sheryl played out her character archetype to the T without really "changing" wildly in the course of the series. But it was more interesting to watch than Basara because Sheryl has a fine ass and great body to go through a number of challenges both on a personal level and on a professional level, and there are enough twists and turns in the plot line to make it really interesting to watch...not to mention there's more humor and levity allowed in than there was with the uber-serious Basara. Again, this is no way diminishes for me the pleasure of Macross 7, and I STILL think that the problem with most people - and reason why I disagree with Macross 7 detractors - is not that I find the series flawless while they think it sucks. The problem really comes down to Basara. I can agree with critics and detractors about a host of issues, but in the end - the make-or-break of Macross 7 is simple: do you like Basara and his music? If you do (like me), then all the other faults are interesting topics of conversation and legit critiques - but they won't change my core view that Macross 7 is a cool series. If you don't like Basara - then nothing will ever convince you to like Macross 7, since his character is just so over-bearing in the series. Pete

Well, it certainly is interesting to discover people's reasons for their buying preferences With me - I once agreed with your line of thinking in terms of poseability. I thought - heck - these G1 toys can't pose at all. It seemed that good Transformers really started with BW (or the taile end of G1 when they were poseable)... And I avidly collected each and every consecutive line from BW through RID and then Armada, Energon, Cybertron...you name it... But then a couple of things happened: 1) I just couldn't get into the Unicron Trilogy cartoons. The stories were so ridiculously uninteresting to me. The Dreamwave comics were boring, except for Simon Furman's Warwithin run. I found myself constantly missing the original Transformers mythos, going back to the Titan paperbacks, the UK TF stuff in particular, Bob Budiansky's Marvel run. Those stories - for me - defined Transformers, and with each new series, particularly with post-Beast Machines severing all ties to previous continuity - I just felt bummed out. When it turned out that re-boots were going to be constant...it was tragic. Transformers stopped being a decades sweeping epic and became an annual reboot...yuk. 2) My introduction to Macross goods produced by Yamato, and then to Gundams and other fine quality Japanese mecha and figures. These taught me that Transformers were truly inferior toys in every imaginable way possible. No Transformer could rival the higher quality stuff being produced for other anime. In a way, this was understandable, since Transformers were meant to be cheap, widely accessable to a broad market. Therefore, naturally one ought not expect them to be exquisitly detailed. Indeed, making an entire annual line of exquisitley detailed, anime accurate Transformers would cost way too much because there were just too many characters to account for. Still, the point was - I realized that Transformers were actually low-end toys and there was so much other cool stuff out there that it became necessary to economize, to ask myself - do I really want hundreds of Transformers from all the different series in my house?... Or maybe I would like hudreds of figures, models and toys from assorted anime alongside them? 3) Memories from childhood started to haunt me. See, despite the low poseability of the G1 toys, I fondly remembered just how many joyous adventures I filmed with those toys. When I was 13, I got a video-camera after begging for it. I then proceeded to draw and paint backgrounds and pen episodes of Transformers and did the voice overs and filmed episodes. Yeah, the G1 toys were "unposeable," but my movies were just so awesome! To this day I love reading over the stories because there is so much childhood joy and imagination and fantasy in them. I never experienced anything similar with more modern incarnations of Transformers. Why? Because I had no inspiration. My G1 movies and stories were inspired by the Marvel comics and the cartoon which actually had an amazing story to tell with great characters. I couldn't really find that in Armada or any of the Unicron trilogy. Animated...Animated I "liked" - but the ONLY reason I liked it was because of all the homages to G1. It's kind of like the feeling you get when you meet a woman who SORT OF reminds you of the girl you really love. Yeah, she's great...but she's only great because she reminds you of something TRULY great... So... to make a long story short, when I noticed that more and more reissues were coming out, and that every time I got one I was just so utterly joyful... it dawned on me that the G1 stuff was what I really wanted. In fact - regarding this question of the toys not looking like the animation models... call me crazy - but to me - they do. To me, G1 Optimus Prime looks closer to the animation model then Henkei Prime. G1 Megatron actually looks closer to the animation model than Henkei Megatron. Lots of the Henkei/Classic designs are actually not very faithful to the animation models and take extreme liberties. And even those that don't...they still...well... they just lack something. It's hard to put into words... With the Encore line going strong in terms of giving us some really fantastic releases, there just came a point where I looked at my TF shelf, full of great G1 toys and thought - this is what I really want. That was the beginning of the end for all the other stuff. Even Masterpiece went bye bye. Pete

Well, I know it's different, because the pressure under water is different from the void of outspace, and also the deeper into water you go, the more the pressure changes. I just presume the VF-0 is equiped to alter cabin pressure/environment to suit whatever you are dealing with outside. I guess you'd run into somewhat of a problem with the material that the thing would have to be built out of to sustain itself in such different environments...but... well... Don't we have anybody on the boards who actually knows something about science and can STILL give a long-shot justification for this phenomena? Pete

Hm. Good thing they canned the idea then. SDF-1 MacBeth just doesn't sound right at all. And beyond the aforementioned royal bloodbath at the end and a very vague connection insofar as humans strive for greater power... there is little connection. Besides, the Macross itself as an inanimate object really shouldn't be named Macbeth because...well... it's not like the Macross itself is roiling from psychological problems. And also...none of the main characters are in the least Shakespearian. They're not psychopathic. Hikaru is a normal kid who doesn't like war and finds himself mixed up in one. Roy is an ace jockey pilot.. Global is a mature wise captain... I dunno...I could go on and on. I don't mean to put down Shakespeare, but Macross is way better than his plays and there's really no connection in my mind between them. Yeah, superficial stuff like death, romance and tragedy exist in both - but they way they are conveyed, not to mention the fact that Macross treats of a problem Shakespeare couldn't really fathom (science vs. nature) just...well... it would have been bad if the ship was called Macbeth. And it would have been corny too. I don't really like it when a show uses important sounding names to make up for its' lack of substance. Neon Genesis Evangelion was an exception to the rule, because even though the creators supposedly said they just used the name because it sounded important, there actually was a relevance to the name of the series in terms of how it treated the themes of God, Man and the Universe... Pete

Ho ho ho I will admit that Mylene does appear to grow as a charater... although to this day I can't say I find her very attractive...but then again - I'm wierd like that. I absolutely can't stand most 90s fashion...clothes...hair... it's not "bad" - it's just...I dunno...I felt very alone in the 90s...Like...where did the 80s go? Then they slowly but surely started making a come-back... Pete

Well, I will admit that after Armada, Energon DID get me excited because we started getting all of those homages. Shockblast was the most obvious, as well as Megazarak who was JUST AWESOME...and I remember really loving that figure. Ravage, heck even Megatron with his Galvatron homage. The Autobots had fewer such homages, at least initially... And in those days, which was pre-Henkei/Classics, I guess that was something to get excited about. The thing is, I have found myself being burned out on multiple lines. There's just too many TFs to keep up with. Collecting each and every single line is....something I just can't do any more. And if you're not willing to collect everything, then you start facing these horrible dilemas like "which version of this character should I get?" ...and you always have these holes in your collection. So I guess that's a big reason why I just decided - screw it - I'm going to settle for G1. Pete

I was always wanting to ask .... WHY did some body want to call it the Macbeth? Was the ship initially meant to house people lusting for power and doing terrible things to eachother towards that end, only to end up in a psychotic bloodbath?... hm...ok...maybe I answered my own question... As for the VF-0 going under water in Macross Zero and how it's possible that the jet is still able to power itself... Doesn't seem far-fetched to me. Shin says it can achieve space flight for onl X minutes - and then he basically likens underwater conditions to space flight (in both cases you need to close the vents and make the craft air tight and activate the proper pressure/oxygen systems etc). Now - since it can only maintain itself in such an environment fo X minutes (I forgot the exact time Shin gave), then clearly the power system is not "infinite" (which makes sense, since as they say in Macross Zero, the nuclear engines hadn't been installed in these yet). So they still have to refeul and stuff in a conventional manner. But it is possible that there is some super engine in there that runs on feul and charges batteries which in turn power the craft in an environment where fuel couldn't power the engine. Hybrid cars do it, so why can't a super advanced transforming fighter jet do it? Pete

Oh. I didn't even know that I was complaining about the mini version But I guess I don't like Microman either, so Assemble borgs, mini or regular size, just don't inspire much awe in me... Pete

I think it was these Energon Combiners that were the first proverbial thumbtack in the coffin (or however the saying goes) in terms of me and modern Transformers. Armada really really soured me. That was the first time I was like "huh? why? what is this?" with a Transformer. Beast Wars at least was a novel idea and the animal sculpts/moulds were ok as were the robot forms. And the poseability. But Armada took such a step back on all fronts - unrealistic, lanky vehicle modes, no poseability, flat uninteresting characters...er... anyways.. then Energon rolled around...and these Combiners, with the twin limbs...the lack of hands... just..terrible... Maybe one day I might get back into Beast Wars, but that's pretty much it for me... I am surprised the Energon Combiners are getting repaints. I was bowled over by the statement at one of the botcons that it's hard for them to make combiners. Could'a fooled me. Predaking, Menasor, Devastator, Bruticus, Abominus, Defensor, Superion, Computron, Dinoking...the list is quite long...and those awesome Micromaster combiners too... Looked like a pretty good track record. Heck, even Tripredicus and Magnaboss were quite good. So...why the sudden fall in standards? Pete

Yeah...but those other characters don't get much character development either. I will agree, looking back, that Macross 7 is more about the back-and-forth, rather than about character arcs that move forward. It's closer to your cliche cartoon like Transformers, where Starscream is the guy who will always try to betray Megatron and fail, Prime is the noble guy, Megatron always has some crazy scheme and it always fails, the Dinobots are always mad and sound like cavemen...etc etc without fail in and out. Episode after episode. It's a kind of static theatre, if you will, where we're supposed to marvel at the character arcetypes rather than following a story that finds the character changing. Macross 7 relies heavily on Gamlin ALWAYS berating Bassara for getting in the way, on Mylene always being mad at Bassara for being late, on Max always arguing with Milia, on Gigil always going nutts over Sivil. Yes, there are slight variations - most notably Gamlin learning to admire Basara - but other than this (and the obvious one of the Protodevilin discovering their spiritia producing powers at the end)...does it get any more complex than that? No. And you'd think that in a world where the "founding" was Lyn Minmey, music would be more respected than it is in Macross 7... But see... these aren't so much devastating criticisms of the show as they are simply samples of what was not quite right with it. Macross Frontier, and before that Macross: Zero, managed to get it right. Macross Plus seemed so scare of following in the footsteps of the core, radical themes of Macross that it focused very very heavily on pilots, piloting, and mecha. And while the idea of music as a corupting force, and the technology vs. nature themes are there, are relevent, and are well done - there is a reason why it was an OVA and not a 20 odd episode series... All of this just goes to show that it's actually quite difficult to do a good Macross show because the components are so far out, as are the themes, that one really has to have everything lock stock and barrel well thought out. Pete

So Tatsunko just licenses the Mospedea franchise? Ergo - if I bought the license to Mospedea and made a show with Alpha and Beta fighters and Cyclones and called it Robowarriors, then it could legally run alongside Shadow Chronicles? Or is it an exclusive license to HG? Pete

I dunno. Hardo to gauge what sells well and what doesn't when the economy is so crap. Generally nothing sells "well" these days IMO :-) As for the human-revoltechs being "hideous"... well... I dunno. I mean - true, if I compare Kaiyodo asses to VFM Yamato asses - hideous. But Yamato is 3 times more expensive, so it's like complaining that a cheap hooker looks like a cheap hooker rather than like a more expensive hooker. On the whole, I think Kaiyodo's fraulein is great. The Evangelion girls turned out well for the most part, Yoko is fab. The SOS Brigade girls are nice too. Figmas also look good and certainly are competitive with what Kaiyodo offers. I think they HAVE been buying licenses left and right. The problem is - and this is just my personal opinion - that they have a bit of the same problem as Yamato in terms of high production costs and a lower quantity produced than say, Bandai does of its' stuff. The market's been saturated for a while, and I'm not surprised Kaiyodo took a bit of a break and might be being more selective in terms of what they do right now. But eventually they WILL probably do EVERYTHING and in multiple versions. The concept is a winner - semi-affordable action figure with extremely good poseability, lots of accessories and an anime-accurate, dynamic sculpt. But even winning concepts run into trouble in an economic depression, and this creates problems. Pete

They would never do it, because if they did, it would turn out that half the employees at Harmony Gold are members of Macross world and the company would self-implode. As to this:http://kotaku.com/5352295/mechwarrior-5-runs-into-legal-trouble You know what's REALLY funny in that web-article? The fact that they ILLUSTRATE the Tomahawk using...Yamato's version 2.0 1/60. Yeah - why? Because HG DOESN'T EVER PRODUCE ANYTHING! All they do is litigate, litigate an litigate. When was the last time you saw Harmony Gold actually produce a Tomahawk figure? So - to even ILLUSTRATE the freaking Tomahawk - the site needs to "break the law" by "advertising" "illegal" Yamato Macross products. HA HA. And of course, it's really rich to read that Mechawarrior the game "STOLE" the general design of the Tomahawk... when it could be argued that Harmony Gold stole the whole stupid anime in the first place. I mean - imagine if Big West sued HG over "Rick Hunter" in Shadow Chronicles by arguing that he looks "a little bit like" Hikaru Ichijo from DYRL? These guys are a complete joke. I mean - at least other companies who aggresively defend their trademarks, like Disney for instance, actually also PRODUCE THINGS like movies, dolls, merchandise... These guys haven't made anything or done anything with their "trade mark" at all for years - beyond crappy Toynami moulds which were badly outdated when they came out and are all the more so now. Not to mention Shadow Chronicles which - arguably - is one major RIP OFF of...MOSPEDEA. See - nobody talksabout this but... by what right can HG continue using Mospedea designs? I think it's by the right of "default." Mospedea is not as popular, there's nothing equivalent to Macross: Frontier happening on Mospedea front - so HG is "safe" in continuing to use those. If Mospedea were as big as Macross these days, you can be sure fans would be digging into the legaleese of the matter and it would suddenly turn out that HG doesn't really have full rights to that show either. Pete

Hm - ok - I can see the character development critique insofar as you're right - Basara is pretty much the SAME for all 49 episodes. I guess he has the same "flaw" as some people accuse on Ayn Ran's character - just cardboard cutouts; archetypes that feel like they need to conform to a rigid preconcieved notion rather than dynamic, fluid and therefore surprising characters... But then again - why can't some people BE that way? I mean - what exactly did Basara have as a character that needed developing? There was a huge war on the horizon, he wanted to stop it, and he was passionate about his music. Yes, this is a little two dimmensional insofar as character development goes... but on the other hand...can we not have a character like this? Do all characters really need to "develop" ? As for other characters on the Fleet side... well... I dunno... I mean... Mylene goes through phases trying to understand Basara and figure out a way to approach him. Max and Millia seem to have this ongoing tiff... I think part of the problem is that the changes are half-hearted, and the development is too. There's too much "things go back to the way they were" with each new episode. Plus - the Protodevilin seem completely incapable of adapting to Basra's Minmey tactic. I mean - Kamjin, having lived on Earth amongst humans for a year, managed to become cynical about culture to the point that he laughed off a singing Minmei. Yet the Protodevilin just keep getting defeated by Basara's songs... And then for no explicable reason except the fact that it's episode 48 and the song hasn't been played yet... Basara suddenly awakens he spiritia in the Protodevilin...hmm...convenient... But still a good show Pete

Well, sort of I guess. I just still to this day cannot really fathom how this particular way of behaving on their part is supposed to benefit them. Case in point: look at this Anime and Sci-Fi thread on Macross world. We discuss EVERYTHING here. And no matter what topic thread you enter, you will find people, even fans of something, from time to time having a go at criticizing. Heck, I'm a big fan of Haruhi Suzumiya but even I recently wrote a long post recently complaining about an episode (not endless eight)...granted, Kieth managed to torpedo my arguments with one sentence... but the point is that people here complain and moan and critique everything. Yet complaining, moaning and critiqueing are actually a form of loving something from a fan's point of view. Look at all the "yamato is dumb" themed threads we have and all the legions of people who get sore at Yamato. Look at how much Macross 7 gets bashed on. Check out the Transformers thread - notice how there are mixed opinions about the movie, how there are G1 purists in there (ok, just me and Prometheus but...)... Point? Point is I don't see moderators at Macrossworld flying off the handle when people criticize Yamato or Macross. I don't see fans of assorted anime going ape-sh!te when someone goes into a thread topic and says negative things about an anime. One of the things that any anime company/producer wants are people who feel passionately about the anime. Same with toy and model makers. People who are passionate and critique and demand better execution are being helpful because they help work towards a better final product. So - it's in the interest of every company to have a vibrant fan base with plenty of room for criticism. Why HG doesn't operate like this is a mystery to me. I mean - do they have such seriously high profits from their asinine defense of their copyright that they prefer to focus all their efforts on legal battles rather than making better products? I dunno... It just boggles the mind. Pete

Ok - see... the problem with Shadow Chronicles, like so much else in Robotech, actually has nothing to do with Robotech and everything to do with Harmony Gold. See - stepping back for a second, I think we can all calmly admit that Shadow Chronicles has some merits as a movie. We sit around ripping on Macross 7 or complaining about minor things in Macross media - and yes, I personally think Macross is better than Shadow Chroncles - BUT... that's not the point. There's tons of great, average, mediocre, piss poor shows out there - and even the piss poor ones are sometimg worth a watch to get some jollies. What prevents me from getting my jollies with Robotech is the way Harmony Gold behaived towards retailers selling Yamato back in the day and recently with BBTS (which thankfully seems to have come to nothing, since BBTS still sells Yamato). I just don't like it when a company tries to use force to compel people not to buy somebody else's products. Legal issues aside - I don't even want to debate whether they were legally right or wrong - it was a horrible way to proceed. As I've said a million times over: the best way to compete is by producing a superior product. These guys have instead focused on producing superior pay for their lawyers and supreme headaches for people who just want to enjoy Macross instead of Robotech. This is what makes enjoying Robotech impossible for me. Had none of this ever happened, I would probably be a believer in Co-Habitation. I would enjoy Robotech and Macross. I would acknowledge the origins and the history and go with the flow on both. As it stands, I have nothing but contempt for Robotech because it has become a venture that is characterized by a company that insists on using the law to bully people. Pete

And minus the maniacal love of flying, or rather Basara replaces the stubborn love of wild flying with a stubborn love of singing in combat... I guess you do have a point... I also agree - Macross 7 isn't shallow. There are parts of it that are kind of gratting - but the effort is not shallow. What is shallow in Macross 7 ? Pete

Random Observation: Every time I log into MW and the title of this thread flashes before my eyes, I am attracted to it because I think it's going to be about HighGrade Gundams... you know..HG... Why this happens - I don't know. I know HG and Robotech means Harmoney Gold and Robotech.. but still I always imagine I will open this thread and find loads of commentary about Highgrade Gundams... Pete

This is a job for Mr. March. I personally only remember Reactive Armor from Macross... but Reflex weaponry? Don't remember them using that term in Macross... then again I don't pay much attention. I just look at the pretty girls and clap my hands to the music... Pete

I don't know about you guys, but personally I think the Wilhelm scream is nothing compared to the Mikuru-Asahina scream from Sighs of Haruhi Suzumiya part 3... "Now scream and fall to the ground!" "Ehh...eeeeehhh!....ooo...nn...mmmmm...ehh..." :-) THAT scream should be in EVERY movie. Pete

Yeah, you're in the minority :-) Although, then again - in all fairness - I have to get around to actually watching Patlabor. I think the problem is that the Revoltech Patlabor's fell victim to being some of the "first" Revoltechs. I dunno about anybody else, but I have the feeling that Kaiyodo has been getting better and better at doing these figures - to the point where the first batch of Revoltechs truly PALES in comparisson to newer ones. They'd effectively need to redesign most of their patlabor line, I think. Also, Patlabor is hard to do as a Revoltech due to those...er...baggy..elements?...dunno how you call them...that cover the joints on the mecha... Heck, even taking something like Revoltech Rei Ayanami and comparing it to Revoltech Yoko shows how far they've advanced... Pete

These are some really good points, ff95gj. It's hard not to agree with you. But then again, I didn't mean to imply that the two series are so directly paralell. The reasons you give below are basically why Gurren Lagann is the better series. You're right that it does get a tad absurd in Macross 7 that they try to make a science of art. It's one thing to understand the sociological phenomena of Minmey re-awakening the culture that dwells within the Zendradi by nature, and was supressed by their warlike conventions. But it's a whole different ballpark when we try to quantify music via "Chiba Units," and make music something that you "zap" at your enemies. This scientific approach to music actually only works in Macross Frontier, not Macross 7. That is to say, it works when the enemy are not sentient individuals who are similar to humans, but insect like swarms like the Vajra who do not so much "sing" as they emit sounds that convey what humans would call the emotion of the urge for love (mating calls). Ranka's songs are "mating calls" to the Vajra's "ears" and in this sense, they serve not so much to awaken the Vajra to culture, but are just a means of communications between two extremely different species. The big plot hole in Macross 7 is that the Protodevilin are actually more like than unlike the humans, except that they just have crazy bio-engineered super powers going way beyond Zendradi resistance to out space and other harsh environments. This is why Basara's songs get through to them - the Protodevilin learn that they too are capable of producing culture (spiritia). But I agree - why was it necessary to try to scientifically categorize these phenomena? Why "chiba units" and "spiritia" rather than just "passionate songs" and "culture" ? Macross 7 is closer to SDFM TV insofar as the core of its' story is about sociology and culture, but the language and concepts it operates with are pseudo-scientific rather than simply relying on the unscientific domain of culture. And I agree - this really hurts the story, because to me - it's not Basara's "chiba units" that are the key - it's his singing and his spiritedness. Macross 7 is a good idea with lots of problems in terms of execution; whether in animation, plot or other aspects. But it's still a great ride. Unless you don't like the music. Then it's painful