junior

Bah! Bah, I say! This is Macross Frontier, not Gundam 00!

And the three Quads even have a red one leading them, indicating that it's almost certainly Clan Clan and the Pixie Team. We didn't see or hear from Nene, though, so the fact that we didn't see or hear Ramaria's replacement isn't that surprising. One item that I forgot until just now... Interesting name for Ranka's concert ('Revenge'). You can see it in the corner of one of the large advertisement boards in the background during the scene when she's in the car with Grace and Brera. I'm guessing that she didn't pick that name...

And now Alto's gone and smuggled Sheryl into his bed!!!

I don't think androids would even be legal, would they? They'd be independent AIs like Sharon Apple. Even if Galaxy was working on them, that's not something that you'd want to show off to Frontier when you've got plenty of other pilots to choose from.

Someone earlier was operating off of the assumption that Brera was believed to be an android, and speculating that maybe he was actually a cyborg.

You know, it just occurred to me about next episode...

I don't think that's why Alto's angry with him, though. Brera's always telling Alto to move off. He did the same thing in episode 14 right before he flew into the hole that Alto had created in the Vajra nestship. It seems to be going beyond mere bodyguarding, and more into an "Only I can protect her!" attitude.

Based on...? It seems pretty clear what would have had to happen right after the concert. Ranka's concert finishes. Alto greets Ranka and Michael. Michael explains that he left the fold booster in orbit and Ranka needs to get back to Frontier for her show. Alto, Ranka, and Michael all go up to see Sheryl (at the very least, Alto should let Sheryl know that Michael will be her 'bodyguard' now; and it's been assumed that Sheryl encouraged Alto to take Ranka up in the air for his birthday present). Alto and Ranka leave on their sightseeing flight, and then get knocked down by the 'D-Pulse'. I'm at a loss to think of why anyone would think that Ranka didn't drop in to say hello to Sheryl. Just because they don't spell it out for you doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

Hopefully not. I'll be annoyed if it is.

Poor Elmo. He discovers Ranka and gets her into the bigtime, and then gets shoved aside once Leon and Grace decide to start using her. The ED all but confirmed the idea that Sheryl's going to be an SMS pilot before the end. Some of the artwork clearly showed her in a flight suit and helmet. I can't make much out on the VF-25 that flies into the camera, but there's a colored stripe on each wing that *might* be a shade we haven't seen before (the bright glare makes it hard to be certain what color it is). Alto's upset with Brera. I wonder why... Based on the family pictures that we saw back in episode 13 on the Global, coupled with the fact that he knows Aimo, there's a very good chance that Brera is Ranka's brother (though it's unknown if anyone actually knows this). Assuming that, he's definitely a cyborg. I can't shake the feeling that Brera's shot that hit Alto's wing wasn't exactly unintentional... It's odd that Brera would be so insistant that only HE is allowed to protect Ranka. It was good to see Sheryl "being Sheryl" again, although I'm pretty sure that the fact that she went up to the bridge is going to guarantee that she goes right back to the hospital. And Alto might also get in trouble for sneaking her onboard. And Sheryl now knows that Grace is working with Ranka. That's not going to go over well... Maybe Sheryl will get lucky, and Canarria (sp?) will run a blood test on her that Grace won't know anything about.

There wasn't enough time plot-wise. I think it's safe to assume, though, that the first thing that she did after the concert was go to visit Sheryl. What bugged me was in episode 15 when she acknowledged Alto's completely random paper airplane toss in episode 5, but didn't say one word about all of the encouragement that Sheryl had given her. Though in Ranka's defense, she had an ulterior motive at the time.

I can see some problems with that idea. First is that the data from the camera would be stored on the VF itself. So if the gun camera managed to get an image (say, when Brera stepped out to shoot the gun), then that would mean that shooting the gun to remove the camera would be meaningless. Second is that the gun is attached to a perfectly fine Recon VF, meaning that the VF itself has much better equipment than the simple camera that's apparently attached to the gun. Third is that shooting the gun doesn't seem to stop the recovery of some good quality images of the VF-27 after the gun is shot that Leon then confiscates from the SMS.

Ranka got felt up in the VF-25 cockpit, and held a bit closely on Gallia 4. She's also been carried piggyback, and apparently flashed Alto.

I can't really blame Nanase for being clueless when we have that sterling example of cluelessness known as Hikaru Ichijo! Misa was only letting herself into his home to make the bed and clean the place up, and he STILL didn't completely get it until one of the bridge bunnies flat out told him!

Yeah, it was expected that Alto would take Ranka back to Frontier. One of the first things that Michael mentions when he says that Alto and Ranka have disappeared is that his fold booster is still in orbit (since Alto was supposed to use it to get Ranka back on time). As for the flight, while not shown I'm sure that Sheryl would have pushed Alto to take the flight anyway (either girl would have regardless of who was in which position). Why does Michael seem to be pushing Alto toward Ranka? I don't think he's pushing as hard as Nanase and Luca (though Luca may just be doing so because of Nanase), but he is pushing. My best guess is because he knows Ranka (and has known her since before the start of the series) and doesn't really know Sheryl. Ranka's been his friend for a lot longer than she's known Alto, and he no doubt wants her to be happy. Sheryl's an unknown for him. He hasn't known her personally for very long, and he may not even be certain how serious she is about Alto (best guess on my part is that even she doesn't think she's serious about Alto until episode 11). He may also be yet another person that has had trouble seeing her as a real person. His outlook may have changed after episode 13, however. We'll need to wait and see. And since others are making guesses... My guess at the moment is that Ranka will get her wish to rise to the top as the most famous idol singer. Sheryl will drop down in popularity and may even retire from professional singing (whether forced or voluntary I'm unsure of at the moment). But Sheryl will end up with Alto. Ranka has friends and wants fame. Sheryl has fame and wants a true friend. Both will get their respective wishes.

It's a line that's very easy to miss. I didn't even realize who Grace was talking about the first time I saw the line. Then everything clicked into place and I backed up to doublecheck what she'd just said.

So far the only two that we know of that were completed as battlefortresses were the SDF-1 and the SDF-4.

Uh... Any talk about the Zentraedi commander surviving was merely fan speculation based on the fact that he wasn't shown explicitly dying and a lot of people liked the idea of him surviving. The only "evidence" of him surviving is the fact that it seems as if only half of his ship was at the base in episode 12 (that particular model of command ship has a detachable section), and he wasn't explicitly shown dying. And Temjin didn't fly far enough to have gotten out of the blast radius (which took a quarter of the planet with it).

Harmony Gold already has something that they've named the SDF-4. It's the large battlefortress command vessel that's seen during the final battle in Mospeada (I can't remember what the Japanese originally called it). And it looks nothing like any of the previous SDF vessels. You can probably find some images of it pretty easily if you use Google.

In the Kei sub she doesn't explicitly state this, although it can be inferred that it's the reason that she supplied based on the conversation (she says that Brera was on Gallia 4, iirc). I'm not sure if other fansubs have been more explicit.

Best guess is that the Global is the SDF-4, which was apparently built as a battle fortress (like the original SDF-1) for some unknown reason and attached to the 117th Research Fleet. Why that was done is unknown, since as far as we can tell all of the other SDF-class hulls that were built were completed as colony vessels.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pineapple+salad /innocent whistle

It's just Pineapples! It's not Pineapple Salad she's giving him! Remember, people - Pineapples = Good! Salad = Good! Pinapples + Salad = Bad!

That may have been just a "don't babble in front of your superior" comment. I'm inclined to believe that it's not an accident that Ozma, the guardian of Ranka, is working for Mr. Bilrer. And that would suggest that there's at least some coordination and cooperation between the two of them. But it's all speculation at this point. Hopefully we find out for certain in episode 16.

The point isn't that Sheryl isn't self-centered at times. The point is that Ranka is unable to figure out that people might like different things than she does or be uninterested in what she likes. I like Sheryl, but I'll be the first to admit that she's not perfect.