magnuskn

Alto is difficult to read a lot of times. I think my interpretation is right, but what can I say? People are fallible, maybe I´ll get rolled by Kawamori in the movie. But, yeah, let´s end it here. Eyepatch Nanase would be hot, IMO. Excuse me, but, huh? She did say ( Quoting the fansub ) "Don´t go. Stay by my side forever". Okay, that is open to your interpretation of it, but I read it in a way that she simply wanted him to stay with her, forever.

I´d like to think that they will continue to live together, yeah. And I also think that Sheryl will try to "release" Alto from his promise, now that she is cured, but by my line of thinking, he will use that occasion to confess ( would be awkward to do it in front of Ranka. ). I don´t know why Frontier would want to go off into space again. They have to co-exist with the Vajra ( unless those really went away to mate for 10.000 years ), but that should be do-able. Also, a lot of islands were lost, so they don´t have too much choice, as they need them all for their ecosystem to function properly. The thing he feels for Ranka is... hazy. I can´t call it love in the romantic sense, because he doesn´t seem to be sexually attracted to her. It seemed to go into that direction in eps 12 - 15 ( 16 has him treating her like a child again, hell 15 has that already. ), but after those it cooled down, completely. Meaning that for the next 6 episodes, until Ranka ditched Frontier, he went back to treating her as the little sister he had to get out of trouble. Even now, with the last episode, he never showed any sign of being physically attracted to her. I can only infer that he *does* love her, but in a platonic, brotherly way. Because Kawamori is a frelling troll. And it sells more to leave the shippers on edge, when the movie comes out. Best explanation I got, besides "SK believes in polygamy". I just don´t see Alto ending up with Ranka.

Well, he isn´t on a level with Max or Miria ( but then, who is? ), but I´d definitely rank him with Hikaru.

Since Sheryl is living with Alto, I wish Ranka good luck in trying to steal Sheryls boyfriend. She´s going to need it. BTW, would anybody who thinks the triangle has been reset state how *exactly* that reset happened? As far as I know, all the things between Sheryl and Alto didn´t magically un-happen. And Alto has not stated any renewed romantic interest in Ranka. "You both are my wings" means, AFAIAC, that Ranka is important to him, as a friend, IMO. On to the important part of the post. I´ll put my final review into bullet points, like Whispo did at the very beginning of the thread. Animation: 9 The series had outstanding animation a good lot of the time, with clearly recognizable character designs, gorgeous backgrounds, outstanding technical designs ( I especially loved the pop-up holographics for the VF-25s and the holographic display of the cellphones ), beautifully done clothing and, with Sheryl, one of the most best character designs I have ever seen. Why does it only get a 9? Because of episode 8 and some other episodes, where apparently the budget was too tight for the "good" animation. But, boy, did the episode 8 animation ever suck. I´m still hoping that they´ll re-do it for the blue-ray, although I am not holding my breath. What stood especially out was how organically the technology was integrated into the characters lifes. None of it was too outrageous ( besides the instantly transforming mecha, IMO... how exactly does that work from a point of friction and material stress? ), and yet it gave the appearance of an advance in technology which will probably take us decades to get to. Sign me up for those cellphones, anyway. ^^ Voice acting: 10 About everyone was point-on perfect. I can´t remember not one character who was done badly. None sounded too over-the-top or like he was just reading his lines. They sounded like real people, which doesn´t always happen. Editing: 9 Most of the times excellent, but there were here-and-there some rather "Hmmm" moments. Nothing too mayor or which I can put in coherent words, but some scenes could have flown a little bit better. Overall still outstanding, though. Story: 8 The series did develop in rather unexpected ways a lot of time. We were trolled several times during it by Kawamori, and not only by letting Ozma live. There were some genuine surprises along the way ( the WTF-1, anybody? ), and he managed to mislead us several times into alleys of thinking, which rather turned out to be totally other things. Also, the enemy this time was not to be another race which humanity could interact with easily. Rather than that, we got an insectoid enemy, who until the very last episode displayed almost zero development. They were very much just depicted as an unstoppable force, which meant that we had more time to devote to other parts of the story. In this case it was the love triangle, which was front and center for most of the series. It made the Vajra into a less than inspiring OPFOR, though. They definitely hold no candle to the Zentraedi. OTOH, it is better to have no personality, than to have sucky personalities, like the Protodevlin. The story had some minor plot-holes, most of which are easily handwaved, though. More troubling is the fact that a lot of plot elements were included, but never fully explained, like Sheryl being Maos granddaughter. Without giving it more depth than a throwaway scene, it seemed to be more gratuituous than anything else. Some more exposition on this and on other little things could have greatly benefited the plot and the characters. As said already, the focus on the love triangle was very noticeable in Macross Frontier. That makes the non-definite resolution that much sadder, because it seems to leave the story unfinished. We could of course look forward to future movies and OVAs, but as the ending for a television series, it did not work completely. I think Frontier would have benefitted greatly from an extension, like the original SDFM or a second season, giving Kawamori time to show how the characters deal with their new world, expanding again a bit the Macross universe with some interaction with NUNS. And of course resolving the romance in a definite manner. Of course, if one looks at the romance logically, one can see that Alto will probably stay with Sheryl, because they live together, are attracted to each other and already shared lots of time together, while Ranka has just returned to start at the beginning line again. And what will she do, actively try to wreck Sheryl and Altos relationship? It would have been just nice to cap the series with a real confession by Alto to Sheryl. It would have fitted the epic build-up in episodes 22-24, but, alas, we are left to make sense of it on our own. Characters: 10 I can´t say that I loved every single character. Nanase, Luca, Brera and Leon all suffered from under-development ( especially Nanase ). Ranka... well, more on her later. But as for the rest? Yay, they were all superb! The minor characters all had their moments were they got to shine, displayed their individual personalities very well and were just *fun* to watch. They made me smile and nod my head appreciatively a lot. Alto got a lot of flak for being difficult to read and being non-decisive. But those same people mostly ignored his caring side and that he is a man of his word. I will admit, though, that his character development was very subtle and difficult to see during a lot of the series. His doubts for his own masculinity, not helped by being called "princess" by everybody, were not handled in the usual way, that he tried to be hyper-masculine. Instead, he was shown to depend on saving Ranka to prove his own worth. Later on, he seemed to recognize that he could let Brera do the protecting of Ranka and he just... mellowed out a lot. His hyper-defensiveness about his manlyness was shown much less, and he seemed to let himself be more relaxed around his friends. Ranka. Well. She started out as someone who was working hard to realize her dream. A bit shy and naive girl, but adorably cute and friendly. But over the whole series, she never progressed beyond that. Her "love" for Alto always seemed to be nothing more than an idealized crush, and she always depended on others to get herself out of trouble. Of the three main characters, she was the least developed, because she never went anywhere in her development. At the end of the series, she still is mostly the same. Less shy and naive, perhaps, but while the other two mains had to confront their own short-comings, and came out better persons by that confrontation, Ranka never seemed to have those moments of self-introspection. Rather than that, she, again, had to be saved by Alto in the end. Her only redemption is that she saved Sheryl-samas life by means of Magic Hax. As a reward she she gets to watch while Alto and Sheryl go off to live a happy domestic life and will hopefully finally move the f*** on. This partisan message was brought to you by... And, finally, Sheryl. Quite frankly, the best character I have ever seen in an anime. Easily on par with great fictional characters from other sources, like Anakin Solo, Spike, Willow, Tyrion Lannister, Kai-Allard Liao, Cassie Suthorn, Phelan Kell, Londo Mollari and G'Kar. Her personality combined a can-do indefeatable ego, humor, arrogance, humbleness, seductiveness, selflessness, vulnerability, indepence, helpfulness, compassion and much more into one awesome package. While her awesome self-confidence was a mayor selling point, her later humbleness and willingness to sacrifice herself elevated her even more. Seeing that she had a real shitty life during her childhood ( opposed to Ranka, who, y'know, had amnesia and couldn´t remember her former traumas ) made her rise to stardom even more impressive. Even if a lot of it was manipulated by Grace, the hard work and dedication to her craft came from Sheryl. And after all of that, her innermost dream wasn´t to be the most famous songstress of the known universe, but to have someone to share her life with. I obviously believe that she did get that in the end, but it would have been nice from SK to show us that she did get her guy, instead of leaving it to us to logically deduce it. Mumblegrumblerassumfrassum.... Well, in any case, one awesome character, that Sheryl. I hope we get to see more of her in future OVAs. It would be a shame to have her fade away into our collective memories so soon. Final Score: 9 Macross Frontier is definitely the best anime I have seen in many a year. Looking back at other animes, a very few had as lasting an impact as this one will have on me, and none ever made me get that obsessed with a pairing or a character. It had some flaws which prevented it from being rated a perfect 10 ( most obviously, the botched resolution to the romance ), but all other aspects did deliver. I think it would be a great set-up for more Macross series, which could explore the universe beyond following the colonization fleets. The characters could stand more exposition and don´t seem played out yet at all. Sadly, Japanese series don´t deal in second seasons or follow-up series all that much, mostly because they don´t have to make sure their actors remain under contract continually. Seiyuus voices don´t change that much if you just wait two or more years to do another installment, so I expect this will have been the last Macross series for some time. Of course I believe in quality over quantity, but some more quantity would *really* be nice here, as long as the quality keeps up. I think this is a series which can be used very well to introduce someone to the Macross universe. Of course the original series would in some regards be better, but the outdated visuals of SDFM could be a problem. Macross Frontier is so good that it should motivate new viewers to backtrack into the older series. To finish: SHERYL GANBATTE! BOMBAAAAAA!

Well, if you take the blog posts I´ve seen at face value, a *lot* of people believed it. Which was quite shocking to me, because it was so obvious that they wouldn´t kill him.

My hypothesis is, that Sheryls family was living on Galaxy, and after the 117th went down, Grace went after them, killing Sheryls parents ( damn you Grace! Sheryls mom was HOT! ), letting Sheryl live on the street for a while ( while making sure nothing too untowards happened to her ). Then, when Sheryl was at her lowest, she came in, setting herself up as Sheryls saviour. She probably infected Sheryl with the V-Type disease during that stay in the hospital, too, because where else would Sheryl have gotten it before that?

Argh, I want to at least respond to this, before stopping. ^^ Sadly Crusader didn´t include the most obvious screenshot, but here is the next best comparison. edit <facepalm> Somehow the important first pic doesn´t show. Oh, man... Let´s just ignore this topic from now on.

Gah! I post some last screenshots and want to bow out of the discussion, after basically conceding that it may be just what it appears to be, then get three challenges to post some evidence. I´ll leave it alone, as I said.

Well, it probably is just that, they farmed out the last three minutes to another studio. But it *still* seems strange. Maybe it is my jaded comic-reader self which smells a last-minute editorial interference, but what do I know, in the end. But just to give a last comparison we got this in ep 25: vs. this in ep 24: I think the difference should be obvious.

Yeah, but why the last three minutes? Wouldn´t you want to end your show on a high note in every regard? Why not farm out, say, three minutes in episode 24? Your´re just trying to mess with me at this point, man. Knock it off.

And why can´t I get a straight answer out of anybody? It´s not as if I am advocating some wild conspiracy theory. I am asking a legitimate question in the appropiate thread. The animation quality in the last three to four minutes is noticeably poorer than the rest. That´s not even an opinion, but just a fact. My question to this is, does anybody else think it likely, that this could be because of a last minute editorial mandate, so that the triangle could be prolonged until the movie? What is so bad about that question? Geeze.

Um. Yes. There is. How about you watch the last three minutes. The faces of Shery, Alto and Ranka look quite blocky. Compare with the conversation between Alto and Sheryl in ep 24, then come back and say again what you just said with a straight face.

They are not "horrible" per se, but the animation is of inferior quality than comparable character animation in the whole of episode 24. It doesn´t make much sense ( at least to me, apparently I am the only one ^^ ), that for the very last minutes the animation should dip so considerably. As I already said two times, why go out on a low note, animation-wise? Would someone *please* address the actual issue I am raising, instead of making spurious remarks about "paranoia" and such? It seems a bit unlikely that their budget just ran out for the last three minutes.

Eh, you again. How about answering my question: Why do exactly the last three minutes use worse animation than the rest of the episode ( or the whole of the episode before that )? One would think that the show would like to go out looking the best it can.

First off, they didn´t "ask", but told me in quite unkind terms to get lost. And it is not as if I began spouting swear words before that happened, I was asking them to provide, y'know, evidence of their viewpoint ( in that case, Wolf-X ). But let it not be said that I cannot react to kind words, because those are the ones usually successful in most discussions. I´ll keep my peace, I hope they keep theirs.

Nanase will have woken up with Graces personality installed. You heard it here first. ^^

I could see that. Well, since that would only mean that Luca is just as far with her as he always was, it just makes it easier for him, as she then would have forgotten about her Ranka obsession. ^^

You don´t get to give me orders, neither, dude. Go and play with your dolls.

Oh, please. I am not forcing my view on anybody, I am asking for concrete examples which prove it is wrong. I´d like some evidence that Ranka won, and as far as I can see, there was none. The scene on the rooftop pretty much said just the other thing.... Frontier won over Ranka. Frontier may have even won over Sheryl for Alto, but as Sheryl wasn´t threatening Frontier with being annihilated, that option never came up. As far as Sheryl misunderstanding the rooftop scene... she came in during the latter half of the conversation, and she obviously already had concluded beforehand that Alto was staying with her out of pity. Therefore it is easy to see how she came to the wrong conclusion, based on her own bias and missing the first half of what Alto said.

Well, I´ll say it bluntly, then, too. You are not the boss of me, so don´t try to give me arrogant orders. I´ll keep the colorful language I´d *like* to add out of it, because I don´t want to get banned. There are still obvious Ranka shippers who try to state without equivocation that Ranka won. Sergorn seems to such a one.

Eh, discussing it here is painful, because all the arguments made on Suki ( and there was lots of discussion about the nuances of the episodes ) weren´t made here, because Macrossworld seems to be more preoccupied with the mecha aspect of the series. And, honestly, I have better things to do than drag all the little stuff out of posts made weeks ago. So let´s call it quits for now, the movie will clear it up anyway. As for the V-Type disease... it´s you guys who immediately went V-Type = AIDS!, although it was never explicitly stated that way. Yeah, there are correlations, but no direct link. And there is a cure for early stages, as said by Luca in the series. Well, enough good arguments were presented by the Sheryl side. I really mind having to repeat them, if you just have to check back a few pages to get to them. I´ve yet to see *anything* by the Ranka shippers, besides "ZOMG, Alto didn´t explicitly say that he loves Sheryl, so it means he loves Ranka!"

I went to sleep yesterday before seeing your response, and Junior did a better response than I probably would have. If by this point you can´t be convinced, then it is because internally you already have decided that you don´t want to be convinced. And I am a bit tired to engage in fruitless internet discussion, because nothing ever, *ever* comes of it but more going around in circles. And to the people who deny that Sheryl and Alto slept together, a.) V-Type disease isn´t AIDS, so it could as well be that you need more than sexual contact to transmit it... Sheryl would know, as she saw detailed medical reports on it from Lucas hands; and b.) There is a serum against it, if it is in the early stages. I also believe that Sheryl and Alto slept together, partly because I want it to have happened, but mostly because the hints were there. But, again with the "Some people need big flashy neon lights". Subtletly is a lost art, it seems.

Why shouldn't we? It is obvious for anybody who cares to check for facts.

Yeah, okay, he could of course have let his friend Ranka get killed. Ahem. Not to mention that she was kinda important to pacify the Vajra.

Really? Then, come on... show me those "Ranka won" hints. "Alto screams RANKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" doesn´t count, he´s done that way before and still nothing happened between the two of them in 25 episodes, besides a staged kiss in ep 10. Besides, while some of us Sheryl shippers were very disappointed ( Justin, for example ), others were fine and saw the clues ( Tak, to take another example ). And, let´s see, just off the top of my hat, Alto moved in together with Sheryl ( prove to me the contrary ^^ ) , shared multiple kisses, probably made love to her, came back to her before the battle, promised to come back to her after the battle, gave *her* a salute before going into battle, wore her earring. And her panties. Okay, I made that last one up. But besides the actual declaration of love, everything is there. What has he done together with Ranka since, um, episode 15? Visited her for a pep talk, which was so asexual that I think everybody noticed it. Had a talk with her on the steps of that monument, where she ditched him for her onii-chan and Ai-kun. Not exactly a track record of romantic involvement, isn´t it? Therefore I find it *ridiculous* that people now want to renege on the quite obvious, only because some dick executive probably decided that the movie would sell more if people would fret about the resolution until its release. The Alto X Ranka romance has been dead in the water since episode 16, and that´s a fact. Sheryl X Alto was happening before out eyes, it was just delayed to about 5 hours after the episode finished ( in-universe, of course ).