DJ_Convoy

The ending was... all right, I suppose. Certainly no better than that. I was struck with the many similarities in the final battle to that of Frontier (which, of course, borrowed heavily from the final battles in Macross and / or DYRL)... but I was also struck by how, despite the similarities, Delta never made me care like Frontier did. I love that last episode of Frontier. Despite the flaws of the series, the last episode legit gave me goosebumps and made me care about the outcome. I even loved the resolution to the triangle- no resolution! I thought it fit Alto well, not to make a "choice" at the end; he chose the sky Sheryl and Ranka opened for him. Here, Hayate suddenly realizes he loves Freya, after all. That's nice, I guess. I didn't feel particularly invested in their rather one sided relationship, and just ended up feeling bad for Mirage. Frankly, the only time I felt much of anything in the last episode was seeing the brief glimpse of Jenius Air. Anyway, the parallels between the final episode of Frontier and Delta: Roid's plan (or, at least, his goal) is almost precisely identical to Grace's. Surprisingly so A songstress, and to an extent, DYRL are corrupted A medley helps save the day antagonist face turn (the White Knight and Brera Stern almost literally say the same things) helps turn the tide Macross attack of sorts The good guys stand on their "new" land, a job well done and yet, nothing had the power Frontier did. The feeling when Klan gave Alto Michel's rifle. When Canaria shoots the Galaxy in the "face." When SMS shows up... hell, when Bobby pilots the Macross Quarter like a Valkyrie and takes out Galaxy's Macross cannon. When Leon's ambitions are smashed. When Sheryl and Ranka unite to sing and protect the man they love. These things had emotion, had resonance. Delta, too often, just felt like it was checking things off on a big Macross list. Valkyries? Check. Music and songstresses? Check. Tenuous connections to past series? Check. Big threat only the power of love and song can solve? Check. Windemere could have been a very interesting antagonist for NUNS... instead, they blew their wad, so to speak. Here are these people with their own Valkyries and ace pilots, a race that seems to have a legitimate claim to being the true children of the protoculture... and what did they accomplish? We couldn't really feel for them as villains, or as characters, as often their goals seemed too silly or too pointless. Brain wash, ???, profit. You could say the same for the good guys... we had too many characters to worry about, and none of them got the screen time to become interesting. Probably the only semi-fleshed out or interesting character in Walkyre was Kaname... but they never did anything with her. Freya was just so impossibly high spirited that it was almost impossible to sympathize or even like her character. Mirage could have been interesting, but largely was there just to be the girl who came in second place. Hayate could have been interesting, but we never saw much of his character beyond "I love to fly." Hell, we didn't even get an Immelman dance in the end! Mikumo was such a cipher... I don't really know why we were meant to feel for her or her plight. Humanoid music machine sings for her friends. Humanoid music machine sings for her enemies. Yes, and? The music for the show, sadly, wasn't that great for the most part. I realize we've been really spoiled with excellent music thruout Macross' three decades, but I got into very little of the music this time around. The character designs were very busy, and often distracting. I don't know if there's a lof of fault I can lace there; that seems to be a trend in anime and pop culture in general, and I'm cranky and old. The mecha this time around seemed decent enough... we just never got to spend a lot of time with any of them. One plus I'll give Delta is some of the world building going on. I did find some of the new races and locales interesting. This has been, for me, easily the most disappointing Macross to date. I wasn't a big fan of 7, either... but I feel like there were a lot of external pressures/faults on that show... and I can kind of overlook my problems, to know that, somewhere within that huge mess, there was a pretty good 20-something episode series dying to get out. Maybe I'll look back at Delta someday and think the same... but it just felt like a way to cash in on idols and idol based anime. I truly don't think anyone would give this show a second look if it weren't branded with Macross.

Was with you, there until the end with Bogue becoming king of Windermere.

Well, a particular song was playing in the background as they combed thru them...

Well, this episode had a helluva ending, if nothing else.

Basically came just to say this. Very convenient that they kept his dad's Valk in good shape. Y'know, the stuff like "Mikumo has never had a normal meal before" would be a lot more touching/interesting if we has learned it like maybe 10 or 15 episodes ago. I'm pretty much ready for this show to be done with.

So, if they had just yelled at Messer and mebbe hugged him thru his Valk (!), he would have been fine? Huh.

Harsh! But... probably fair.

After 20 weeks... I still don't know what to make of the show. I despised the first episode. Just loathed it. The subsequent episodes with the additions of Ragna, Chaos and the Elysion made me think "okay, this is getting more Macross-like," even if I still had misgivings. The love triangle was very obvious... but was SO slow to develop. It's almost like they forgot they had to have one, and have shoehorned it in the last five or six episodes. "Oh, yeah... two of these kids have to get together!" A love triangle where two parts of it slowly realized it was becoming a love triangle and the third part was completely oblivious to it. The character designs are off putting (to me, anyway)... not just for Walkure, but for pretty much everybody. The Windemeran Knights are sort of interesting as antagonists... but I can't stand their getups and they are mostly bland from a character standpoint. It is interesting that they use song against the heroes... but nothing else about them is particularly exciting save maybe their connection to the Protoculture. Maybe a bit of the palace intrigue. I find it difficult to believe that their air force could help take over a huge chunk of the galaxy. It is kinda cool that the bad guys are good pilots with Valks for a change. The idea of someone in the Macross universe militarizing or weaponzing music makes sense (they did it in 7, after all)... but Walkure just isn't especially interesting. I'm not particularly invested in them or Mikumo's mystery. I can barely name all of the Walkure characters... they are mostly ciphers. You've got the two in a relationship (one's a sullen hacker... and I don't remember what the zoftig one does for Chaos... oh, is she the mechanic?), the one that used to lead the band (an interesting idea, but it's not been touched on since it was introduced), Mikomo, who's good at everything but mysterious, and Freyja. Freyja is not a horrible character, but I don't really feel like I need to root for her. Mirage is fairly bland, but, again, not a horrible character. I don't feel like I need to root for her. Hayate is fine, I suppose. I do like the revelation about his father (with presumably more to come)... but other than that he's generic Macross "I must fly" man. The mecha action is... all right, I suppose. Coming off of Frontier which often had good to excellent battles, it's not really that great in comparison. The music is nowhere near as good in Frontier. Full stop. I have enjoyed a couple of songs, but that's about it. The show is poorly paced. I don't think many would disagree with that. When we do get character driven stories, they often seem forced. While I liked Hayate giving Freyja snow for her birthday, for instance, it just felt so forced. "They've been friends for awhile, but we have to make a reason for Freyja to really love him." When it's good, it's good... but the show is often just treading water and not really advancing. We have a number of mysteries on our hands... and it's not like I really have a burning desire to see them resolved. I certainly don't hate the show, but I wish that the pacing and plotting issues could have been resolved*. They've a lot to cram into the last few episodes. *Frontier had wonky pacing sometimes, as well, but when it ramped up for the end, it really ramped up

Angels Paint for me, hands down.

I can barely even explain how excited I was when I saw the Aphex logo the second or third time I watched Plus...!

Hate to say it, but as far as diversity and range goes- Bebop blows Plus away. And Plus is one of my most favorite things ever. Electrix makes a good point, tho'- there's a lot more music for Bebop- a project completely different in scale and scope.

Loved Mac Plus. Loved it. But I never liked Myung. Go fig. On the male side, I thought about picking Shin, but, really, Hibiki is fairly worthless.

I honestly think my biggest problem with the series is the Protodevlin. I can't stand them. Also, if I liked Fire Bomber's music a little better, I think I'd dig the series a little more. I like some of their stuff, but not much of it. That being said, the best way to deal with M7 is just to take it for what it is. The show is ambitious in some ways and not especially ambitious in others. Whether it succeeds in these ambitions is up to the viewer.

Watched everything by now... but hadn't seen all of M7 'til recently.

I'd rather see Misa at drunken kareoke night...! I'd go to a Sheryl concert... or a Sharon Apple concert if there was some kind of "no brainwash" guarantee.

TV, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed DYRL when I rewatched it recently.

Didn't really care for M7 overall, but I did actually enjoy Dynamite quite a bit. It has a different vibe than M7 proper. Maybe I just can't stand the Protodevlin...

My only real gripe with the show was the pacing. Okay, and maybe the whole school thing seemed out of place and was conveniently forgotten about when the series got more serious. Not a big deal- especially compared to the pacing of certain other Macross shows. I don't think it was too big of an issue... it didn't effect my enjoyment of the show.

Okay, I liked ep 43 and 44 a lot. First time I've been actually really into the show.

Almost exactly like Roy's story above- Grew up loving Robotech (particularly the novels, strangely)... my first hint of "Macross" was getting a copy of Clash of the Bionoids from my local library... learned about Macross II from the RPG books (oy)- watched Macross II saying "uh, how does this tie into Robotech?" and eventually got somewhat smartened up by going to a video store in our local Chinatown that rented anime. Rented Macross Plus there (watched the first ep in Japanese)... bought it as soon as I could. I also remember going on to a Robotech/Macross message board back in the mid 90's and being horrified by the rudeness (you were an idiot if you liked Robotech- people arguing excuriating minutae about how one timeline was more correct than another- how far we've come! )... but I did learn some stuff. I didn't really have true internet access until the late 90's and I was blown away by all of the Macross junk I learned.

No real insight here- but I have to say that Frontier has dethroned Plus as my favorite Macross thing ever... which surprises me, as I didn't think I was going to like Frontier after I watched the Deculture edition. It seemed ... I dunno... really generic to me... but after maybe episode 3 or 4 it became the highlight of my week to watch. I can't wait to watch it all again after I work my way thru finishing Macross 7. Certainly the best anime I've seen in a long time.

Gotta be Hikaru. Who'd turn down lunch (and, uh, a relationship) with Misa to be with Minmay?

Hard to pick just one... I've really enjoyed the music thus far (except for Triangular... I don't dislike it or anything, but I think it's kind of weak, in comparison to Diamond Cravasse or Aimo or etc.). I might give the nod to Northern Cross. But I really like Seikan Hikou and Ranka's version of Ai Oboete Imasu Ka. I dunno.

Have to admit that I've had a really hard time getting into Macross 7... but I'm starting to, if not getting totally into it, at least thinking it's okay. I'm on episode 25 or 26 and it's finally starting to get decent. I'd read that a lot, actually- hang on until episode 20-something and it gets good. I hope it keeps getting better- I want to like the show, I really do.