Shouta

One thing that I want to add about animation for Macross 7 is that the daily animation for the show is actually really good but it's really hard to tell unless you have the good quality video, i.e. the Mac7 LDs or the remastered DVDs that came out recently. While the reused animation is pretty amusing, the day-to-day animation is superb IMO.

For me, I'd go Mac7, SDFM, and MacF in that order for TV series while MacF would get knocked lower compared to the TV and OVA series. MacF doesn't excel in the day-to-day life (Mac7) or space war story (SDFM). In fact, it even comes short of average for those series. MacF does have fantastic CG for the action sequences but pretty terrible animation for the day-to-day stuff, the exact opposite of Mac7. As compared to other anime series, eh, not close to the best I've seen.

On the other hand, one could interpret Alto's emotions to be one of a friend unwilling to let another friend be put through that kind of pain and anguish. Personally, I see Alto's actions leading him to pick Sheryl. As much as Alto is spineless wombat at times, his actions are much more indicative of stronger romantic feelings for Sheryl whereas his attitude towards Ranka is often more of a friend and comrade than anything else. His resolution to kill Ranka could be seen as a friend doing it for a friend and him willing to overlook the fact that she betrayed him. Of course, there's the Ozma comment but one could argue that for either girl. However, there really is no way that you could construe Alto's actions with Sheryl to be just friends. That's the feeling I got whenever I saw Alto and Ranka together (aside from wanting to punch Ranka in the face). As I see it, Ranka and Alto are comrades in wanting to achieve their dreams, Alto and Sheryl share the same feelings and experiences together and most of the scenes involving the pairs looked like that from the very beginning to me. Of course, it's a bit up to interpretation but eh, this argument will be an endless circle like the one about whether Mylene would choose Basara or Gamlin.

I was right when I said I'd hate Ranka!

I'm I-Z. I was the translator for our version of the project. I'm sure I saw you on the forums when I was still subbing it and actively posting on here weekly. Anyway, I meant that they had the script to translate while they watched the show, I assume anyway. It would've made it easier for me to fiddle with the correct wording and tone if I hadn't been using my energy to hear what they said when I was working on it.

I should point out that I was as accurate as I could hear it and had to cross-reference a lot of Macross details. I still made mistakes in the eps I translated before I stopped. Unlike everyone else, I was translating by ear up until I stopped where as all the other groups were using the closed captions to translate the show. Based purely on scenes, it'd be Sheryl over Ranka. Based on Alto's attitude, it can be a toss up. I said earlier that you could make a case for Ranka but that's purely based on Alto's attitude. Being willing to kill Ranka can be a sign of how much he cares for her. Looking at all the scenes though it's Sheryl that comes out on top, pun intended. More scenes with Alto and he made two promises to her, to be by her side until the end and that he'll come back from battle alive. We could parse Alto's character and analyze his actions but that'd probably be a big loop (although I came to a conclusion on my own). So really it comes down to what you perceive as the stronger emotion of the two and that'd affect who you think he'd pick. Really though, it's an unknown because they didn't give a concrete answer as to who he picked.

I gave the show a 6/10. - CG in the show is fantastic, probably the best I've seen in an anime thus far. The regular animation is wildly inconsistent and outright terrible at times. It looks a little better watching it directly form the feed on an HDTV but it's still all over the place. - To me, the vocal music was incredibly underwhelming save for a few songs. To be fair though, it's hard to follow up Macross 7 in that regard. - Directing was good for scenes sprinkled throughout the show. Action was choreographed well to be frenetic but easy to follow. On the other hand quite a few of the "day to day" scenes are fairly dreadful at times. - Overall plotting was really weak. Too much time spent doing things that didn't really advance the story or characters in meaningful ways. The mystery plays out too quickly and a number of things occur just to fill in the void. The premise and actual story aren't too bad but it's not handled very well. The character conflict was really awful. I mean, I can take bad plots, I love Macross 7 and that had a ridiculously awful plot but it was backed by awesome day to day activities in the lives of the characters. Frontier doesn't even have that. - The cast and the development they had was really weak sans Sheryl, Michel, and Ozma (although Ozma had like no development). The basic cast layout is good but so little is done with them. Alto has a good start but his internal conflict and resolution was weak. They had some scenes that could've proved to have been really good conflicts/relationships in the show if they had spent the time to build them, Ozma and Alto come to mind for me. - This goes with the characters but god, Ranka. A character that starts off slightly irritating but cute turns into a show-breaking tyrant. Whining, crying, and sulking her entire way through the show making almost every scene she's in painful to watch. Her attitudes and actions just... argh. I know she's meant to be the opposite of Sheryl (who's a bit aggressive, strong-willed etc) but what they chose wasn't exactlly a good idea. I guess it runs in the family as well because Brera was just awful. Sure, he didn't have any development but did they really have to include him as the rival and pseudo-bad guy? He just adds nothing to the show at all. I think the thing that frustrated me the most about the show was that it had so much potential but it failed to coalesce. All the elements are there but a bunch of wrong turns just lead it to the wrong place. At least they got the mecha pr0n down perfectly.

Finished watching the ep. The episode reaffirmed what I had said in a thread earlier. This show does the moment to moment scenes really well and in the case of this episode, insanely well, but the overall planning is still pretty bleh. As someone pointed out, too much vital information and such was compacted into the last few episodes so it really felt rushed. Then there's the cast problem too, at least IMO. They nailed the action though, lots of Macross references and kick ass moments like the Quarter and Frontier bashing the crap out of the Galaxy. So my final opinion on MacF is Awesome mecha porn, really good scenes in the episodes here and there, but crikey, did they even think of planning the story and characters better? As for the whole love triangle spiel, it can be resolved depending on your point of view and how you interpret the clues. It'll likely never get a concrete answer but you can guess. Personally, I'd say that Sheryl is the final choice but you can make the case for Ranka, but of course I won't because I hate her >=P

It's a typo. It's been fixed on the Playstation site.

Slow start, ramps up as the show goes. It's by far my favorite series ever but it's definitely not for everyone. One thing to understand is that Macross 7 focuses on the daily lives of the characters more than it does the overall story so you'll be hit with repetitive flying and singing sequences from episode to episode. Watch the show for the interactions between the cast and their wacky adventures during the first half of each episode. The second half is mostly there to fill out the rest of the show.

So, after much work dealing with my move to Japan, I've played catch-up and I'm up to the current episode. About the episodes up to this in general: I'm disappointed overall. I can't really pinpoint one aspect because it's a big mix of things. It feels like the show was moving in place far too long and its affected the overall pacing. While I'm disappointed with it overall, I do love a lot of the individual scenes and elements from episode to episode. The end sequence from ep 20 was great for example and Ozma's "I'm the king of bad motherf...shut your mouth!" moment in episode 17. As for this episode, the first half was pretty good. The second half just killed me. It was like a culmination of everything I dislike about Ranka. While she, Sheryl, and Alto share the exact same character problems, the way the writers bring her across just throws me into disgusted, infuriated killing rampages. Why must you include spineless, blubbering crybabies as one of your lead characters. Then her resolution in this ep, that comes after a billion misunderstandings and inabilities to talk about anything and ask for help, just peaks the rage-o-meter. Her situation and problems are great but the way the writers wrote her reactions just kill me. I just hope they can make me not want to choke Ranka by the end of the show. =/

Mmmm, Brief-25. Gotta love that. I wish I had access to the closed caption streams for this show when I was working on it. It would've made my job ridiculously easy and I could've spent more time hammering out the dialogue the right way. Oh well. I'm just happy I got it as accurate as I did considering how much of the dialogue is obscured by blaring music or really quick and slightly sloppy VAing. Thank god Birdy the Mighty is kind of easy so far and I can hear almost everything clearly! Anyway, I actually may do the DVDs for this show if I'm not busy with upcoming stuff (current anime and future series as well as manga), but eh, I'll have to catch up to the show before then. I haven't watched the show since Ep 10 because I've been too busy with preparations for my move to Japan (happens next week, rawr!) The break also killed a bit of momentum for me. Aha.

Technically, I'm moving to Japan for several years. I got a job there and I'll be there for at least a year if not a few. I can probably continue my subbing when I get over there, it's just that MacF falls into a bad time with AiA's lead guy on vacation right now and then going to Europe himself in Sept for vacation. I could probably complete scripts still but it'd be useless effort if we're still playing catch-up and he goes on vacation again. Dunno what AiA is going to do, I haven't talked to him about it since we stopped. My next sub project (Birdy the Mighty) is still going to go as planned because I'm doing it alone/duo with someone else and that's a lot more flexible.

Well, Bomb and AiA might be continuing it but it'll be released under just their name. I don't know what's going on with it now so it's up to him. In the mean time, I'll work on my own stuff, Birdy up next week and the current manga projects I have.

Interesting. Some of it is pretty spot on for the stuff I missed (missing the aneki yuzuri for the sniping part) while some of it is odd (with as opposed to alongside? that's a style choice unless it was meant to be antagonistic but I don't recall it.) Not too shabby, if I say so myself, considering I do these episodes by ear. Would be nice if I had CC scripts for shows that I do but heh, never quite that lucky.

You guys make it sound like I'm dying. I'm just moving to Japan for work!

Actually, it's not too hard for you to reencode for your PS3, if the file is hardsubbed. With a little investigation, you could probably take another group's work and make it compatible for your PS3. I can give you tips and etc for it as well.

Just letting you guys know I'm dropping the show. Got a couple of things going on soon (Encoder/typesetter going on Vacation and I'll be moving to Japan for work in a month or so) that sticks in the way of providing the show on a timely manner and would probably back us up for a good while. So best to nip it in the bud now considering the show was on a two week break. There's viable alternatives and it seems most folks prefer them anyway so no big deal.

Pretty interesting episode and definitely Alto focused.

I didn't know that image was floating around. Back to Brera it is then. But lordy, if it turns out to be Brela later, I'm gonna rampage over to Japan and punch Kawamori in the face and steal his stuff. It's a bit similar to the Alto situation. I hadn't seen any images in the show indicating the proper spelling of his name so I went with a spelling that I thought was correct. With the way JPs tend to romanize names or what they intend to be the actual name, it could be anything until official images pop up. For example, I recall folks were saying Lanka Lee early on but it went with Ranka, the name I thought it'd turn out to be. Foreign names in Japanese are so interesting because of how imprecise the language can be. It could be so many things unless it's a really straightforward conversion.

Hrm, I swore it was スターン。 I must be reading too fast. I'll just poke the editor to change it to Stone when she edits tomorrow. Edit: No, I was right. It IS Sterne.

Sheryl and clothes? Hmm, I'd swear she wears barely any! I like it that way though junior: Bobby work as Ranka's make-up artist, that's probably why he went. This ep was a lot more straightforward to me than the others (not as easy as ep 9 though) with the exception of the advice Alto says to Ranka early on. I hate evil lines like that >=O Oh, and I'm going with Brela Sterne in my translation. It's way easier to say and read than Brera and it's likely that one of those Rs is an L. Oh and Aimo lyrics, finally! Well, "lyrics."

Is it me or Nanase only wears her school outfit to everything? She's at movie premiere but still in it!

Yeah,

Aha, the dialogue at the start of the episode is exactly the same as the Macross Zero scene, word for word.