magnuskn

If Frontier doesn´t get a second season, I think the next series should focus a good bit more on the galactic scale, with different factions emerging. We already know that at least the cyborgs of Galaxy have a grudge against normal humans, so it wouldn´t be difficult to infer that this attitude could be more widespread. Then we have other non-human factions, like the Supervision Army... who says that there aren´t some more genuine alien races are out there? In any case, following a colonization fleet has now been done two times in a row. Time to do something bigger.

Yeah, but it kinda seems that the plot is developing very... predictably. And we can infer from the episode to episode summaries that it is moving a bit more sedately than I would have expected. Oh, well... we´ll see soon enough. And, man, I want to see a happy Sheryl in the Basara outfit. <sniff>

I am getting a bit of a "WTF?" with those spoilers, because there doesn´t seem to be happening enough to bring all the plot threads to a conclusion.

For Sheryl, of course. Is there any other real choice in a single-vote poll?

Well, shouldn´t the characters be judged on how they *are*, instead of how the *could be*?

I feel that the argument that Ranka is either an innocent teenager or an evil war criminal, with no middle ground, is just putting up a straw man argument, because of course most people will shy away from labeling her the latter. It´s just as saying "Are you a patriotic citizen, or a dirty commie traitor?", to cite a known parallel "argument", which has about as much value of discussion as "Did you beat your wife today?". And, as always with such arguments, it´s very efficient at channeling discussion towards people going totally in the Ranka camp, as to be not associated with treating her like a "evil war criminal". I haven´t seen much argumentation by Ranka detractors that she should be treated as a criminal, although some over the top comments do certainly exist. But I think it can be easily put forward that she is a less than ideal main protagonist, because there are certain not very admirable character traits in her which should by now be difficult to deny. She has a very myopic view of things and persons, mostly in how they relate to her. She is not very intellectually curious as to what makes her friends tick. She manages to always present herself as the victim, even when she led a pretty pampered life, doted on by Ozma. Yes, she had a big trauma in her childhood, but she doesn´t even remember it. Her running off with Brera and Ai-kun has been counted as a good thing numerous times now, with the motives being ascribed to her as trying to find a solution and saving Frontier. Yet it is pretty easy to poke holes into these assertions... Ranka never voiced such a sentiment, her motivation, as said by her herself, is to bring back Ai-kun to his race, because he hasn´t done anything bad. She can´t be sure if her song will be enough to pacify the Vajra from attacking them and she cannot know that a Vajra attack won´t destroy Frontier in the meanwhile. Not to forget that she took one of the pilots who is most capable with her and wanted to take another one of the most qualified. Her "plan", if it can be called so, is very haphazard and almost suicidal. As of another motivation why a lot of Sheryl fans dislike Ranka: Sheryl had it much worse in comparison, and as of what we know now, she does remember how she had to go dumpster diving in her late childhood. Yet she manages to not be as egotistical as Ranka in her worldview and has shown selfless kindness numerous times. I think it is little wonder that Sheryl fans are apopletic at the thought that she could lose to Ranka, seeing the difference in portrayal of the two characters. I´m really wondering if Kawamori & Co. let Rankas characterization get away from them, or if all this was planned by them.

I think it depends largely on how much "personality" you assign Ai-kun. If he can be counted as an individual, then Ranka had the right to tell Alto that Ai-kun hadn´t done anything. If he wouldn´t be counted as such, because he´s a brainless bug who is only guided by the feelings and wishes of his queen, then Alto can´t be faulted as such. After all, Ai-kuns final form would be a red lobster, and his current form is pretty deadly already ( it can shoot explody energy beams and has other more melee-like attacks ). At this point Ai-kun seems to be pretty intelligent from what we´ve seen otherwise from the Vajra. Maybe he is super-intelligent because he got Ranka-love, or maybe Ranka is simply subconciously guiding his actions. ^^

And he multi-quoted several posts, referring to the Minmay argument several times. So it seemed to be a more general comparison. Ah, who cares, it´s pretty OT to the topic anyway...

Which of course assumes that anyone would declare Minmay a saint. Which I wouldn´t.

They changed the pictures for others.

Yeah, it was. ^^ How so? It was still Rankas idea to go and bring Ai-kun back.

So, wow, your argument is: Minmay was a horrible person, so who cares if Ranka is also one?

I felt it sounded like a general "You are all trolls!" to everybody who has problems with Rankas behaviour. Well, I call shenanigans on the Sheryl shippers going all caps and refusing to talk about evidence. I feel that we have the better and more detailed analysts on our side, and the people with poor grammatics seem to be located a bit more on the Ranka side. That´s Suki, however, in other places there are Ranka shippers who know their English and their arguments better. That all has no bearing on the topic of this thread, however. ^^

You see a fighter being in the target lock in a space battle from the targeting display of another Valkyrie.

First off, if you read the thread, there is at least one "Don´t feed the trolls" in here, so, yeah, we have been called trolls, kthnx. Now, mike, you have been on the Suki forums for a long time, so you should know that we discuss the pros of Sheryl a lot there, too. A lot of the early talk about Ranka there was in the context of the triangle, and I don´t remember her being disliked so much over there. It was just a lot of certainity that Sheryl would win Alto in the end. That Ranka is pretty self-centered can quite easily be discerned by the midst of the series. The whole "I hate Ranka!" trend has started with the last three episodes, where a lot of people began to see her actions to be actively harmful to her friends and the populace of Frontier. It remains to be seen if her last action turns out to be good for Frontier ( most likely ), but if you look at it logically, it seems to be a longshot to expect a.) to take Ai-kun to the Vajra and expect to leave again unharmed ( which, according to *her* is what the journey is all about ) and b.) that Frontier won´t get destroyed during her absence by constant Vajra attacks.

The only thing I see here at the moment is a lot of "People who dislike Ranka are trolls" "Yes, they are!" "Oh, yes, yes, they are!". A thread hating on Ranka haters seems a bit... hyocrytical. *edit* Hrmpf, sentence building difficult while at work. Durrrr... And it has been only for the last two or three episodes that my feelings went from "I like her, but I´d wish she´d let Sheryl and Alto do their thing" to "God, can she think about anything but her own perspective for a fricking minute?".

In tha case, the reversal of fortunes for the Galaxy faction hasn´t happened yet. Grace still is letting Leon dance to her tune, and we don´t know if Breras going away with Ranka was in her plans or not. If it turns out that she hadn´t planned on Ranka and Brera leaving, it well may turn out your way, though.

Yet it seems from the spoilers Ah, we´ll see what happens, we are talking in circles anyway. If that were the whole plot, Galaxy should not have been introduced as the power behind the scenes. Uh, I totally disagree that we´d get a series of disjointed clips. Like, absolutely. The episodes have a clear beginning and end, it´s not so very different at all from a series of comics which are telling a storyline. I really don´t know how I can discuss with you about this rationally if you are apparently viewing the series from another universe altogether. Yeah, inferior crap uses that sort of storytelling. Frontier hasn´t been inferior crap, it has been a very good story so far. It just seems on the way to conclude much too hastily to make use of all the elements it has introduced. Hence my thinking that we´ll get a second season.

When I look at mine, all 10 are plot-driven, so my taste obviously differs. Looking at Macross Frontier, I have seen extremely well-done plotting, but at the moment I am simply stumped how all plot threads could be sewn up by the last four episodes. The next episode doesn´t look to change the pacing too much, so in my opinion it is not all too difficult to see a second season in the making. While the plot seems to me to be open ended enough for a second season, the character arcs do seem to be almost finished. Then again, American TV shows very often have 5+ seasons, and the writers always find something to be done with the characters. I just wouldn´t want to see Sheryl and Alto end up together to be separated again in the next season. A focus on another relationship triangle would be much better. As for a possible second season, it would really be nice to see the Macross universe fleshed out a bit, with a more detailed look at other colonization fleets and where they are, how they are composed, maybe bring back some older characters... there are tons of things which could be done. Certainly it would be better than another 10 year time-jump for the next series.

Most probably. I still say she comes back as Sarah Kerrigan. Hopefully with a better disposition, though...

Devoting half an episode to a bunch of new characters, which sets them up as the "real game" seems to be a very strong reason. BTW, typing things in upper case doesn´t make them true. So far I have been advocating a plot which makes internal sense, while your response seems to be "Who needs plot to make sense?!?". So, what, your argument again is "We need no steenkeng plot!"? The show dedicated more than half an episode to them, which would indicate to me that they are supposed to be important characters, not just background noise. Mr. Bilrer has even seen much less screentime, but still figures prominently as being someone who works in opposition to their goals. If they are really nothing more than what you say, that half episode was wasted. If they are supposed to be more, then that half episode was a good set-up for a second season. And so far the singers have a strong reason to be there. Ranka is able to defeat the Vajra, Sheryl is essential for the love triangle and there is more to her ( or her earrings ) than what meets the eye. I actually thought about leaving that part of Mr. Weinbergs article out, because I thought it might serve as a counter-argument to my point. I let it stay in to not falsify the article. Yet, what you point out as dissimilarities are actually things that are quite similar between the two mediums. A normal comic is also supposed to be self-contained yet involve parts of a greater plot, because that is something which keeps readers interested in getting the next comic. About 99% of comics end with a cliff-hanger of some sort, because of the same principle, bring back the reader for the next issue. And, yes, comics go on and on. Yet even so, 25 comics would constitute 2 years of publishing. In that time frame, a change of writer is almost guaranteed nowadays. That normally means that the outgoing writer will finish his story-arcs as good as he can, tying up loose ends and leaving a blank slate for the next writer. Animes have it even easier, seeing how the creative team stays constant, so planning for a second season would be easy for them. I would need an explication on what exactly you mean with "reduce writing" to give a good answer. I am not a writer, Mr. Weinberg is. I am just a fan of his work, Macross and a good number of other franchises. I dare to think that the amount of material I have read and seen allows me some insight into writing techniques, although I´d surely be terrible in describing them. Yet, "foreshadowing" is one such technique which I have seen many times, and it is being applied liberally in Macross Frontier. If there is no pay-off to all of it, then I´d have to cry foul. And as to "jumping the shark" ( or "nuking the fridge", if that has catched on ), I then have to ask: Do you then consider Macross Plus to have been the point where the Macross franchise jumped the shark? The franchise itself would be, IMO, get too repetitive if we get as the next opponent yet another race which just happens to have a music vulnerability. I am not saying that music should be excluded from the next Macross series ( or the next season of Frontier ). I am not crazy. But its use should be put less in the realm of songs magically affecting the opponent to lose control over themselves ( SDFM, Macross 7, Macross Frontier ). I´d rather see them having music being used as a means of communicating that both sides have similarities and can work together, despite their differences. As you can see, I am no writer. My idea is pretty weak-sauce, but then again its Kawamori who surely could come up with something better.

Oh, I loudly proclaimed my dislike of Ranka a lot of times, and before episodes 20 and 21 a good lot of it was because of what you said. But in the last two episodes Ranka has demonstrated an unprecedented selfishness, to the point where she leaves the whole of Frontier to die via Vajra ( seeing as to the best of her information, Frontiers weapons are mostly useless against them ). One can only make excuses for Ranka so many times before certain character traits become crystal clear. For Ranka, everything is only judged in relation to her. Her love for Alto, her joy of singing, her pain because of Altos rejection. The feelings of others seem to not make a very big impact on her perceptions of the world.

Take a look at the AnimeSuki poll... normally an episode rates about 70+% nines and tens... this time the poll was all over the place. A lot of people really didn´t like it.