Seto Kaiba

Ab-so-lutely... Managed to secure two, possibly three copies of the Macross Delta: Passionate Walkure movie pamphlet thanks to some friends... so in a week or so when international express post finally delivers 'em, we can have a good high-res look at the new designs. Gotta love our fellow fans in Japan, so many of them are sensitive to the plight of us western fans.

Both, technically. All three YF-25 Prophecy prototypes were given the same orange, white, and blue paint job by the factory for visibility. The units were individually numbered 001, 002, and 003 for identification purposes, but were otherwise identical. This particular picture is Unit 001, the YF-25 used by Angers 672 for the first test flight over Messiah 025 and later given to SMS's Chelsea Scarlett when her VF-19ACTIVE Nothung was destroyed (by Angers 672) during a FASCES attack. So this IS a standard color scheme, but it's also the colors of the YF-25 used by Chelsea Scarlett and Angers 672, which is arguably a distinction that needs to be made since Reon Sakaki had a YF-25 from Sephira colored seafoam and white. (Unit 002 is not mentioned as having done anything interesting, and Unit 003's sole mention of note is that it was seen onscreen in Macross Frontier: Sayonara no Tsubasa sitting in the SMS Macross Quarter's hangar. All three units appear together in a model kit box art painting by Tenjin Hidetaka that's in his Valkyries: Second Sortie book.)

They're modex numbers. Answering the rest of your question is a bit difficult because no SMS unit has been described at any size larger than a platoon. The standard usage is that the first digit denotes the squadron number within the Carrier Air Wing, and the next two digits refer to an individual aircraft. Usage as changed over time, but the unit numbers were sorted by unit purpose such that 1xx thru 4xx were fighter or strike fighter units, and then you had things like attackers, early warning planes, helicopters, anti-submarine units, etc. occupying the higher numbers. Because SMS doesn't seem to organize its VFs into actual fighter squadrons, it's hard to say where the other numbers are. Presumably they're assigned to other platoons aboard the SMS Macross Quarter. Traditionally x01 is the squadron commander and x02 is the executive officer. This poses a problem, as Michael is 003 and he's Ozma's second in command in the series. (Maybe SMS002 belongs to the ship's deputy commander of the air group or something?) The real fun question is... what does the New UN Spacy do now that they have several dozen supercarriers, each of which can have HUNDREDS of fighters on it. SDF-1 Macross had over 300 VF-1s on it, three or four Carrier Air Wings worth. The post-retrofit version could have over 500... and don't even get me started on the Battle-class's 750. We don't know if they just made the carrier air wings bigger and are using every digit, if each ship has multiple carrier air wings attached to it and thus multiple aircraft designated 101 or 311 or what have you, or if the biggest ships have gone to a four digit modex.

I don't think anybody here would argue that the mecha in Zero aren't cool (and if there are, I'll fight them), but the story's the part that's supposed to draw the audience in. Thing is, the writing in Zero did a very poor job of exploring the whole conflict between the Earth Unification Government and Anti-Unification Alliance... no government is perfect, which kind of left the whole "well the UN Government aren't saints" thing in the kind of territory where it's amazing Shin's answer wasn't to roll his eyes and say "Duh." That isn't helped by the official publications also explaining that several of Nora and D.D. claims about the UN Government's misdeeds are either Obi-Wan style "certain point of view" things or outright false.1 Heh, I'm still hosting and occasionally translating for the Mecha Manual... you don't have to try to convince me that the mecha are awesome. Both Macross Zero and Macross Delta had the same general problem in that their writing was painfully unbalanced. Zero was hyper-focused on one thing at a time, so the end result was that the action and the actual story were almost in two separate rooms communicating by sliding notes under the door. Until the very end, they're almost two totally different shows running side by side and it changed gears with the kind of audible clunk that lets you know your mechanic's about to find his kid's college fund under the hood. Delta's problem was that it was so obsessed with promoting the real world idol group Walkure and the story mechanics that integrated them into the Macross setting that it often forgot that there were other parts of the Macross equation. They put tons of effort into that, and almost nothing into developing the relationships between the characters and/or the antagonist's motivations, and totally ignored most of the action staples of the Macross series. Then, when the time came to actually tell stories that weren't centered entirely around Freyja's career and Walkure singing, they were left rummaging around in their toybox for something to show us and we got stuck with a flashback episodes that made no contextual sense and a lot of tedious exposition that should've been done in the first half. As a result, it finished with a lot of loose ends that were allegedly of vital import (like a discussion of Lady M's identity, Mikumo's origin, etc.) that were just sort of forgotten. Even the huge reveal that Hayate's dad committed the genocide that's got the Windermere natives so mad ends up with little impact because even Hayate's forced out of focus by Freyja and Walkure. 7 was an example of doing the kind of show Delta was trying to be, but doing it right. It was slow-paced in the beginning to allow the show to build up the important action set-pieces slowly while focusing on promoting the band and the interactions of its members, and in so doing allowed it to also give equal time to the mecha and the supporting cast. Frontier really was about the closest we've had to a truly balanced, exceptional Macross series. It was well-paced, there was a great mix of music and mecha without having to have them in the same place (like that great first episode concert sequence), and it gave almost everything equal time so the audience knew what was going on AND had been given enough exposure to the cast to care about the characters. What we need, and what'll satisfy most of the fans who were unhappy with Delta, is that same balance between the love story, the music, and the mecha that we had in Frontier. Shin's just sort of a dead-to-the-world sort of burned out veteran, but the first thing he establishes about himself is that he's in the war for revenge. Near the end, Nora explains she's in the war for the same reason, revenge for some nonspecific trauma that left her with that bigass scar. Shin can let it go because he's discovered how to reconnect with people, so he gets to live. Nora's desire for revenge drives her to be an axe-crazy blood knight and she's so focused on killing UN Forces soldiers that she completely misses the thing that kills her. It's done with Kawamori's trademark complete lack of subtlety, but good luck hacking through the Shin-Sara kudzu plot long enough to notice. 1. Most notably, Nora's assertion that the UN Government stole the technology behind variable fighters from her homeland. The technology was actually freely shared with the other UN Government member nations under the UN Government's technology and research sharing agreements. The put the cherry on her BS sundae, the Sv-51 was developed using research materials that D.D. Ivanov stole from the VF-0 program when he defected.

There are no men who act like women in Delta, you're not presenting a valid criticism... just doing something that looks more and more like politically-motivated trolling. As politics is not a permissible subject on the boards, I would strongly encourage you to find a different way to frame your argument. (Believe me, I can understand and sympathize with your disappointment in the show... but this ain't the way to express it.) But almost nobody here citing Zero's writing as better than Delta's can seem to actually summarize the plot or its significance to the rest of Macross, and most missed the point of the OVA's ending entirely. You can't exactly argue that a story almost nobody understood is well-written. I mean, how many of you out there actually noticed Zero's got basically the same audience rebuke Aesop that came at the end of the Gundam 0080 OVA? Be honest. No, there's a fair amount of evidence they were just copying from Macross Frontier's homework. (Like literally the entire last two episodes.) Y'see, this right here is why people keep reading your argument and thinking this is about YOUR sexuality. You're making it overtly political in reference to AMERICAN politics even though this is a strictly Japanese show, for all intents and purposes they're in two totally different worlds. You keep coming back to how it offends you because it differs from your views of what masculinity ought to be. Now you're trying to tie in specific examples of real-world of gender politics issues that made you uncomfortable. If you're not keen on the character designs that's fine, and nobody gives a flying f*ck what anyone here's views on gender politics are. The way you keep trying to make it political and about your standards for masculinity only diminishes the validity of your opinions of the story and character designs and gives everyone the distinct impression you're projecting your discomfort with the real world onto Delta. ... I don't mean to sound rude, but the stuff about the mecha is almost completely irrelevant to the story. It was so badly written that the story is so totally overwhelmed by the action scenes that almost nobody knows what the story even is! Beautifully choreographed, TERRIBLY written. *sigh* Case in point... Macross Zero was an OVA about the origins of humanity in the Macross universe, the ancient Protoculture's heel realization, how the people are what's really important, "an eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind", and a standard Macross Aesop about the power of love and communication. All that zoom-y woosh crikey VF fun? Almost completely irrelevant to the actual story until the very end. The whole climax and the ending is a Gundam 0080-style audience rebuke about how all that exciting fight choreography doesn't solve a thing, and it's only when people put down the weapons and start talking that things actually happen, that when you put the weapons before the people you just hurt more people, and when you put the people before the weapons you actually start solving something. That's also Shin's whole character arc in a nutshell, the realization that the desire for revenge that drove him to war became utterly unimportant once he started to connect with the people. Nora, his counterpart, puts revenge before being able to connect with other people, and it ultimately kills her. Then again, that's basically true for all of Macross. Per Kawamori, Macross is and always has been a love story first and foremost, and all that crap about space warfare is an expensive and detailed framing device to facilitate it. Didn't see that one, but then, I seldom go on AnimeSuki anymore. To be fair, anyone who's read the Macross Delta: the White Knight of the Black Wing gaiden manga would agree that just what's in that manga is sufficient to make the Aerial Knights one of Macross's MOST sympathetic villains. They're the broken children who grew up after having a front-row seat to a largely unnecessary war over resources launched using high-minded ideals about liberty as a tissue paper thin excuse, who had a front row seat to all the unnecessary and sometimes accidental death and destruction a war like that causes, as well as the (accidentally committed) worst act of genocide in their world's history. But yeah, because it wasn't in the show it doesn't do a lot of good. To those who've read it, it turns the characterization of them and their war on its ear. To those who haven't, the audience has no clue that they're not just making sh*t up when they claim that they'd suffered under a profoundly unequal treaty and been massacred... esp. since for most of the show, we only see the New UN Gov't's side of the argument that contends that Windermere bombed its own people. It was promoted on the official website and, IIRC, in some of the commercial breaks and mid-episode crawls, but that's not enough to reach the whole audience... not by a long shot. It only works if the story is a single, cohesive whole... and since it's not, it doesn't.

You were good up until about halfway thru the first paragraph's second sentence. Your third sentence is stuff that wasn't even conceived yet when the OVA was released. The second sentence in the second paragraph is pretty much right tho. The last paragraph is mostly right, 'cept for that last sentence. (Probably not a coincidence that the bits you were most accurate on were the ones tied to the action sequences, the parts that weren't wrapped up in weird ancient aliens mysticism like a burrito made from Giorgio Tsukalos.) That was the problem with Zero... the writers were so in love with this mysticism and the mytho-historical significance of the ancient Protoculture's interventions on Mayan that they kind of forgot to actually explain anything clearly. Dr. Hasford and Dr. Turner were kind of supposed to be Mr. and Mrs. Exposition, but they didn't do a very good job and Nutuk's a particularly unhelpful narrator too since he views that history through the lens of his culture's religion. It didn't become a slog because it was broken up by those pulse-poundingly fast-paced VF vs. VF action sequences... but after them, it's like "wait, what was this show about again?" Delta's plot is a lot more straightforward, and it flowed really well until the second half... like it's been outlined as a compact, 13 episode series. Then it had something that was an unmistakable ENDING, and forgot to stop. It changed gears with an almost audible clunk and continued a much slower pace and with a lot less plot progress per episode, and with them reusing episode ideas and having whole episode exposition dumps and a totally irrelevant flashback episode just brought it all to a screeching halt while doing nothing to more fully develop the cast or the story. The writing in Delta's first half was a buttery smooth test drive on a private road... the second half had more starts and stops than bumper cars. Quite a lot of its ills are, IMO, that they were so focused on Walkure that they kind of forgot to develop everyone else in a cast that was already unusually big. Until the reveal that the New UN Forces had bombed Carlyle out of this dimension instead of Windermere doing it themselves, there was literally NOTHING to hint at why the Aerial Knights weren't just space racists making sh*t up as an excuse for some empire-building. It wasn't until the White Knight of the Black Wing manga that they actually developed them as characters to a point where it was clear that there were actual REASONS for their fanatical hatred of the New UN Government and they became as sympathetic as the Zentradi or the Protodeviln. If it's down to the supplemental materials to develop characters to the point where the audience can care about them, your show's badly written. If you don't develop your plot-critical characters at all, like how Mikumo was just "the rude purple mystery girl" until like three episodes before the end, then that's indicative of sloppy writing. Same as if a show were nobody can tell what the actual plot is, like Zero. A truly great Macross series has writing that flows naturally, that shows rather than tells, and develops the cast into characters you can actually relate to as people. That's one thing I'd really like to see from the new series. So much is excusable if the characters are likeable and the story flows well. Like what's been said by some of my friends aboard about the movie version of Macross Delta... it flows better, so the other problems are less noticeable. We know they've got no problems doing main characters who are easy to like, Delta had the almost instantly-likeable Hayate Immelmann and Freyja Wion, and the defrosting ice queen Mirage Jenius. They just gotta remember to do the supporting cast and antagonists too!

Well, this promises to be very interesting.

If anything, Macross Zero's writing was substantially worse than Delta's. Whatever its flaws, Delta was a story you could actually follow. Zero's plot was a nonsensical tangle of pseudo-mystical allegory, kooky tribal ancient aliens superstitions, and a quick and dirty macguffin excuse to justify having VFs and things blowing up. The largely plot-irrelevant bits about things blowing up are the only parts anyone remembers. You could ask a room full of die-hard Macross fans to summarize the key points of the story, and I'd be prepared to bet that (without cheating) none of them would produce anything that remotely resembled the official plot summary in Chronicle. This whole "I hate the bishies" thing is gettin' outta hand tho... probably best to let it go. If someone's going pre-judge the show based solely on what kind of group is performing the music, rather than the quality of the music, the writing, design, direction, etc., then they aren't much of a fan are they? At least give the show a chance before proclaiming it to be crap. People pissed and moaned on here and all across the internet about how Walkure in the Macross Delta series looked superficially like something out of Pretty Cure... and then they listened to the music and went "hey this is pretty good". I mean, hell, I didn't care for Basara but that Heart and Soul duet with Emilia? Perfection. We know literally nothing about the new show at present, so we are WAY too early to be making any assessments of its quality or lack thereof.

Par for the course... Macross started to color-coordinate the trim on FAST Packs with the pilot color scheme of the VF way back in DYRL?, when they made the background of the SVF-1 Skulls roundel match the trim color of the character's VF. It's certainly practical for helping tell VFs apart when so much of the airframe is covered by bolt-on hardware. (To their credit, the animators working on Frontier even went to the trouble of recoloring the VF-25 Super Pack trim to khaki for the few seconds it was seen on a VF-25A.)

Ah. That seems like a really awkward place to put a loading door, with such limited clearance... Given that it was a smuggler ship, and would probably either be running Imperial blockades or at least running from heavily armed Imperial warships and their fighter squadrons, the extra armor's pretty sensible. (Or, given that the A New Hope version has a lot of exposed exterior wiring, that may just be the stock model outer hull that Han couldn't be arsed to replace.) The more I see it, the more I like it.

Most of the criticisms of the show voiced on these boards are the kind of thing I was talking about a few posts back... fans who have very specific, well-reasoned arguments for finding portions of Delta unsatisfying. There's very little actual bashing of the show here, it's almost entirely "I wish they'd done this part better". Kudos to Kawamori if he did in fact take the constructive criticism to heart for Passionate Walkure. The more balanced presentation of action and music that fans over in Japan have reported most definitely suggests that the staff were paying attention. (I just wish they put more effort into characterizing the Aerial Knights. The White Knight of the Black Wing did a great job making the young Knights feel like true Macross antagonists... people who aren't bad or evil, but merely doing what they think is right or the best for their people.) The community here is usually pretty good about shutting down the unreasonable criticisms of the series too... like the notorious "they're magical girls" argument that dogged every review thread on the boards for like the first eight episodes. You can't please everyone, but at least you can insist upon reasonable criticism. Let us not forget that this site had a pretty big problem with that kind of behavior in the not-too-distant past. You used to be able to expect a small crowd to descend upon you to tell you what a tosser they thought you were if you said anything remotely negative about Macross 7, or positive about Macross II. That only got cleared up for good when Kawamori himself sank the basis for it when he did a fan Q&A and said II was as valid a Macross series as any other.

Just watched the trailers on the previous page, and as someone who wouldn't self-identify as a Star Wars fan and who has minimal experience with Star Wars works outside of the films, it left me more curious than anything. I'm definitely getting a bad feeling about casting Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo. He does manage to look a bit like a young Harrison Ford, but from the trailer doesn't seem to have a grip on Han's mannerisms. He's more smug than snarky, which I suspect is gonna get old really fast. More a Chris Pratt than a Harrison Ford, attitude-wise. Donald Glover looks like he's going to make a good Lando Calrissian though, he has that self-assured grin that was Lando's thing (when he wasn't shitting bricks in front of Vader) in Empire. No idea who the rest of them are supposed to be, except Chewbacca. I don't know if I'm supposed to know either. That Imperial recruiting officer looks so thoroughly bored-bureaucrat that I almost want to see the movie just to see how Han'll ruin the poor f*cker's life. (I vaguely recall something about Han having been a veteran in the old lore, like he was still wearing his old uniform trousers with the stripe or something?) The visuals are really pretty, but that's kind of par for the course. Seeing the Millennium Falcon looking pristine inside and out is just bizarre. Four Star Wars movies kind of gave me the view that the Millennium Falcon just sort of sprang into existence as a beat up old junker covered stem to stern in grease and grime. I actually kind of like the new design for the ship though. Aerodynamics are meaningless in space, but with the tuning fork prow filled in and with the blue-on-silver paintjob it looks more like something that was designed to go irresponsibly fast. Like a space formula racer or something. I was never super clear on how the Falcon was supposed to be a freighter when it seems to have almost no cargo space.

In all honesty, my attention was so captured by the horrible-ness of the art that I didn't notice that there was a watermark until you pointed it out. They're like magic eye paintings where if you look hard enough you can see the surface of hell.

... no idea where you're getting that, unless you're referring to when I outlined the implications of the way Macross Delta ended for Windermere a few pages back when someone commented about the lack of closure to the conflict? (They're pretty damned awful, but not something that would've fit with the series at all and mercifully went undiscussed in the show.) Grit has never been the Macross way, and I've always rather staunchly maintained that the kind of gritty action-oriented sequel some fans pine for is the last thing the creators should do. Macross's overriding theme has always been about communication, mutual understanding, and love... which doesn't exactly mesh with gritty, no-holds-barred action. Delta, like 7, absolutely gets that, and is taking it to its logical extreme. Mind you, I don't think Delta's ending did as good a job with it as they did in 7, mainly because the Aerial Knights missed out on characterization that'd have made them a more sympathetic foe. You couldn't help but feel a little bad for the Protodeviln after the whole Gigile x Sivil thing and him trying to revive her by singing (badly). The gaiden manga did a lot to help the Aerial Knights in that regard, showing that they're not arbitrarily racist but rather are a broken bunch who lost a lot in the previous war.

Nah, just assumed you genuinely didn't know the things I pointed out. (I'm kind of an "answer guy" on these boards.) You seem to be pretty upset by the series as a whole tho... if you've only watched a few episodes, I hope you didn't go all-in on the limited edition blu-rays. Those are EXPENSIVE. Still, if you're interested in other works with official subs I'd suggest looking for those Macross Frontier combo pack movie editions. Ironically, I'm accused elsewhere of being a grumpy old fart who hates the series because I criticize the show's writing. Considering the show's popularity in Japan, I wouldn't bet on that if I were you. The more popular the show, the more likely future works will reference it. A big part of what's keeping Roy's memory going is references to him in subsequent works, even if he's not actually mentioned by name. I suspect we'll see quite a few references to Delta in future works, just as Delta and its supporting media are peppered with references to Frontier, 7, and VF-X2. (Not counting Berger's historical summary.) The extras on the Blu-rays only further expand on the number of in-jokes, references, and homages to previous Macross shows too. (Sadly, the blu-rays didn't subtitle the extra features.) The idols have obviously dominated the show's fandom because they dominate the show itself, but there's a surprisingly big following for the Aerial Knights of all people. (Possibly helped by a gaiden manga that actually explores their backstories and motivations in some depth and makes the a LOT more sympathetic than the series did, and that they're very popular with the cosplay crowd.) Messer might also fail to fade, considering in Japan he's quite popular due to the Messer x Kaname shippers thanks to his tragic death (though some western fans, myself included, think he's a prick).

His bad traits aren't necessarily things that translate well... quite a bit of his behavior that'd be a bit rude or offensive in Japan gets a pass in the west because we have different social conventions for public decorum. DYRL? played his bad points up a bit, showing his Japanese colleagues finding his advice on their personal lives and his womanizing upsetting, and his drinking and recklessness also causing problems (leading to his death). Honestly, I think a big part of the problem there is not so much the characters themselves as it is the story's overwhelming emphasis on Walkure. The pilots were out-of-focus so much that it was only really Hayate who got to show his determination. Don't forget the albums... Macross has always been a music-driven metaseries.

The ad hominem is cute, but does nothing to support your argument. I'd really love to know how you rate Basara as feminine. The guy who decides to parachute from the top of City-7's sky to a concert for no reason than because he can, who goes charging out into battle without a thought for his own safety, and who basically beats the Protodeviln through the power of hot-blooded rocking out. He runs on hotblooded, manly tropes almost exclusively. He's a guy with long hair, so? He still kicks a tremendous amount of ass throughout the series and two movies, and nearly defeats one of the most capable pilots in Macross while flying a fighter that was a full generation older and had less than half the performance. Didn't you say in the other thread that you'd seen three episodes of it? A bit early to pass such a judgement, isn't it? It's pretty heavily involved in promoting the actual idol group Walkure, yes. Not only did this come off as pretty racist, but as I pointed out earlier your contention that the cast is "under 15" is not remotely factual. Delta's cast are, on average, 2-3 years older than any of their equivalents in the original series.

Didn't Bobby Margot kind of knock that one out of the park though? He's such a buffet of manliness that you'd expect he escaped from Mobile Fighter G Gundam. Χάος (lit. "Chaos", styled Xaos on subs and in official merch) is an interstellar megacorp to which the protagonists all belong. The entertainment division owns/operates Walkure as an idol group, and its PMC division operates in support of the local NUNS and provides Delta Flight to Walkure as an escort detail.

It would've been nice to explore that one more fully, esp. as it would've neatly tied into exploring and explaining who the sodding hell Lady M is. (Of course, as far as I've seen, the show's staff have indicated they never actually decided on an identity for Lady M, so that might've been a bit of a wash.) *yawn* Yeah, they do that sometimes. Really, this is weak tea compared to what it used to be... I miss the days when I was legitimately treated as the boogeyman by fans of that other franchise we don't talk about here. There used to be honest-to-goodness conspiracy theories about me exerting shadowy influence over their creative staffers. Those were always good for a laugh. There is a bit of irony in selecting one of Delta's more vocal defenders here (and one of the board's younger "old" members) as the designated big old meanie picking on the series... EDIT: To add some additional hilarity to it, on the Macross BD thread I've just been accused of being a big Delta fan. Golly, they're sure to escalate to calling me a big meanie in no time! (Also, I'm like 99% sure VF5SS is at least five years older than me... if I'm all-caps OLD, what does that make him? A fossil?) Actually it's a member on here, his twitter name is the same as his forum username. Let's be honest though, Delta having a passionate fandom is not a bad thing and bodes well for the future of the franchise. Objectivity would be nice, but everyone has at least one thing we get a bit irrationally passionate about and there are far worse choices for things to consume your soul than a show about love and peace. Are people actually saying that? (No, really. Are they?) Macross has NEVER been a gritty series, and hopefully never will be. Leave the dark, depressing slogs through war-is-hell angst to Gundam and let's keep Macross all about love, life, and the power of communication. For someone to expect the Delta movie to be gritty... I can't even conceive of it. Delta's such a light, optimistic series that asking for a dark, gritty version of that feels like asking for a dark and gritty episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood.

Ah well, mistakes happen. Techno would definitely have been an odd choice for a Macross series, though didn't Sharon Apple do a fair bit of electronic music? (e.g. Information High) ... lolwut. Cultural context is a mystery to you, yes? Alto Saotome was Macross Frontier's token "but not too foreign" Japanese character, from an old traditionalist Japanese family that runs a kabuki theater. Ever since the Japanese government put into effect a ban on women acting in kabuki in 1629, young men have been playing women's roles for kabuki plays in much the same way that European theater did during the Renaissance and the Greeks did during the heydey of ancient Greece. He's not a crossdresser, he's the successor to a family business (a big social obligation in Japan) and every trained kabuki actor has been expected to be capable of playing female roles for over 430 years by that point. ... did you develop your picture of masculinity from old Marlboro ads? (You do realize, as I noted in that other thread for your benefit, that Roy's drunken, womanizing, reckless behavior is part of him being a walking racist stereotype of Americans and that those are NOT positive traits in Japan?) Would now be an inappropriate time for a chorus of "Dude looks like a lady"?

Looks like someone traced an Attack on Titan manga cover...

That's a bit childish, isn't it? Sure it is. Sez "Macross" right there in the title. This is by no means the farthest out into left field Macross has gone. ... erm, would you be terribly cross with me if I pointed out that: The overwhelming majority of Macross protagonists are in their late teens (16-18). The only exceptions in Macross's animated works are Isamu Dyson (24) and Basara Nekki (21). The cast of Macross Delta is almost universally older than the cast of Super Dimension Fortress Macross was at the start of their respective series. Hayate's 17, Mirage is 18, Freyja's 141, Chuck is 24, Messer's 21, Arad's 33, Kaname's 22, Reina's 15, Makina's 18, Mikumo's age is a spoiler so will go unmentioned. By contrast, at the start of their series Hikaru was 16, Minmay was 15, Misa was 19, Max was 16, Milia was 15, Kakizaki was 17, and Roy was 29. As far as looking like girls... let's be realistic here. Stylistically there's never been a ton of distance between male and female designs in anime except where a character has a bad case of gonk, and handsome young men do tend to attract the female audience. Frontier had a lot of success on the handsome young men front with Alto and Brera, so it's not altogether surprising that Delta moved to expand its foothold on that front with the Aerial Knights. You do realize that Roy was basically a racist stereotype of Americans, right? At least in Roy's case it was done as a sort of affectionate parody of Americans, rather than as the backfiring attempt to make an easy-to-hate character as occurred with Gundam's Sleggar Law. Arad and Chuck are a pretty manly bunch, IMO. More Arad than Chuck, due to the disparity in their screentime, but Chuck's an unapologetic skirt chaser who literally stays with Xaos during wartime as he hasn't got his leg over a human girl yet, and Arad's the designated Big Brother Mentor of the TV series. You've also got Keith, if you're up for a more blood knight revenge-y sort of manliness even if he does look like he was abducted from the set of a L'Oreal commercial. Master Hermann might also qualify, as basically the Roy of the Aerial Knights. Qasim too, once he gets some development in the second half, as a married man fighting for his family. IMO, Hayate takes a level or two in manliness later in the series as his MO changes from "I give zero f*cks" to "I can get into this, and this is serious business". If so, you should probably see a doctor about that. It isn't. There was an edition of the Macross Frontier movies that had official English subs. This is, I guess, the third Macross official release to have English subtitles if you count the movies separately. 1. Freyja is chronologically 14, but as a Windermerean she's got an average life expectancy of 30 so by her species standards (hinted at in the first episode when she talks about the arranged marriage she ran away from) that she's headed into old maid territory as a middle-aged woman. She's a loli and a cougar at the same time, I guess? In human terms it's more like she's in her mid-to-late 20's.

These pages aren't pirated, per se... they're freely available previews of the comic posted online by its publisher, and thus not subject to the rules (written and unwritten) against sharing publications currently in print.

The impression I got from the mirror universe arc was that that's actually the whole point. When TOS first did it, the whole idea of an alternate reality made up of evil twins to the noble and upright crew of the Enterprise was an excuse to really ham it up. Discovery, I think, is using all of the mirror universe's trademark ham and over-the-top darkness to try and make the heroes look a little more heroic. The show's gray and black morality hasn't really left the Discovery's crew in the position of looking heroic... more like antiheroes or maybe "good is not nice". With all the morally dubious or definitely illegal stuff they've done already, the only way to make them look like saints was to put them up against the kind of cackling villainy you'd normally only expect to find in your saturday morning cartoons. In a rare show of self-awareness, Burnham is noticeably uneasy about how well her xenophobia helps her fit in... Based on TNG's "Home Soil" and a few other episodes, the answer is "Yes" with a MASSIVE set of asterisks. (I just watched this episode the other day while I was home sick.) The United Federation of Planets apparently exercises VERY strict controls over the introduction of non-indigenous species to planets. For terraforming purposes, a planet must be certified as being incapable of giving rise to life under natural conditions before any work can be done modifying its surface conditions and transplanting life from other planets. There's a whole bunch of species for which Starfleet prohibits trade in, export/import of, etc. because they're known to be invasive or a health hazard/public nuisance like tribbles, voles, etc. IIRC Dr. Bashir ended up in trouble after he contacted Quark to import some spiders so he could use their venom to help some part of Kira's pregnancy along but didn't get a proper import permit and ended up in a holding cell. From the end of Star Trek: Enterprise (or, at least, "Terra Prime", the last episode with an explicitly given date) to the present day events of "The Vulcan Hello" is 101 years 3 months, 2 weeks, and 5 days. So, Discovery is set a little over a century after the events of Star Trek: Enterprise's fourth and final season, and about nine years before the events of the TOS episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before".

Personally, I get the impression that these artists are drawing a lot of stylistic inspiration from the 90's XTREME comics... y'know, the anatomical dark ages of Rob Liefeld and company. Back then, looking good was a matter of how much random surface detail you put on a character, even if the detail made no sense (like harnesses full of supply pouches in places the character couldn't reach).