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Back in my day, one OP was all an anime ever needed!

But Macross was always meant to be a small personal love story with a war/conflict as a background (as stated by the creators themselves). Even Zero, when you peel away all the layers is the story of how Shin ultimately comes to understand Sara. The scene with Shin dropping the all of his weapons is more than just him tricking the AFOS, it represents a further growth in their relationship. Shin is finally able to let go of his "Kadun" which in this case is his inability to trust in anyone else but himself, and give himself to Sara, trusting that she wont shoot him down. This is arguably the most pivotal point of the series as it's here where the earth either survives, or is destroyed by the Bird person. As for the power of song, Zero actually reiterates a concept introduced in Plus. That song has the power to be both negative and positive. In Plus, we have the opposition of Sharon's songs, which hypnotized people and Myung's "Voices" which in the end, penetrated Sharon's songs and reached Isamu. In Zero, we see that same dichotomy brought out again, this time between "Arkan" and the song of destruction. Litarally singing one can cause the destruction of the earth. We see this again in Frontier, this time with "Aimo" seemingly acting as possibly both good and bad songs (it seems to be a way to communicate with the Vajra and yet can also cause their destruction as seen in episode 16). As for a new series, what would it be without the romance? A long mecha series about a war between two races - that would simply be Gundam set in the Macross universe. The wars in Macross were always meant to be the background for the story of a group of people who simply happened to be involved in the war. Meanwhile, for a continuation, the only thing I see that they can do to keep it from a rather boring series of "Hikaru flies out to kill some aliens every week" kinda thing would be to make it a background for Hikaru and Misa's faliling marriage with Minmei somehow getting involved while hurting Miku in the process which, frankly wold be simply dragging the character through the mud.

Klan used her arms guns against Alto at around 15:51.

Macross 7 is a good show held back by having to cater to a longer run and a seemingly younger target audience making them put too much focus on the music and weird mecha and not enough on the drama and romance. Of course, you could say that those bits were taken care of by Macross Plus, so it kinda balances out in a way.

The question now is how, I mean her chest is pretty much bulletproof.

Well we do see Alto lock on before firing his gun in episode 4. Perhaps the VF-25s fire control and fly-by-wire systems can work in sync to "lock" the gunpod onto the target. And speaking of mixed ammunition types, I'm wondering if not only do they carry a different types of rounds but they also might be able to switch ammo types on the fly - we've already seen Klan do it in episode 4 where she switches from paint rounds to regular rounds when the Vajra comes in, it's possible "modern" (as of 2059) valk gunpods can do this as well.

Sadly, it seems lost on this crew.

Heck, you can see that Basara's singing in his valk! BOOMBAAAAAAA!!!

IMO, when describing the essence of Macross, it was Misa who put it succinctly in the end of DYRL, after answering Claudia's question about the song she translated for Minmei to sing, she quietly adds "off course, it was a love song."

In other words, you want Gundam with variable fighters.

Agreed, possibly a VF-1D or VT-1C (that seems to be a 2-seat cockpit) modified for construction work.

But the versatility of rounds come from more than just increased firepower. Depending on the round, different effects can be accomplished, especially when you factor in explosives technology. Again, if we go back to my earlier example of a delayed detonation round, while a laser will simply punch through, with a round like what I described, you can punch through armor then do more damage by detonating inside. It's similar to the HEDP warhead for the SMAW rocket that can punch through the wall of, say a bunker, detonating inside and causing enough pressure to tear down all of the bunkers walls - what we get is a small, effective, localized explosion taking out only that which you wanted to take out. Another possibility is a round that will detonate near a target (air burst round with programmable radar proximity fuse) sending metal balls to take out a target behind a wall. It's not about the sheer destructive force, but controlling that force so that it's used in the most efficient way to cause the most damage with minimal or no collateral damage. Also, regarding power consumption, routing all power to the PPBs could mean that the lasers can't be used fully (anyone ever play X-Wing?) If a valk is ever damaged enough that its power output is compromised, then it may not have enough juice to use both PPB to protect itself and lasers to fire back. But the gunpods however, are generally independent of your reactors.

But what would Macross be without the love triangle. Just another mecha show? *ugh* Macross was always meant to be a light hearted romance that just happened to have mecha in it with the conflict from the love triangle just as central as the conflict with whatever enemy they're facing at the moment.

It's probably that the fact that Galaxy was different was meant to be a slow reveal with little bits pointing to it being different until we saw it. They probably then didn't want to clue us in to that when they showed the paths of all the ships.

And exactly what kind of "eating" are we talking about here?

Leon's hairstylist.

Now back to the laser, it's "what you point at is what you hit" nature may also explain why head lasers are used the way the way they are. The head lasers seem to be primarily defensive weapons, used to take out bogies on your six (in a turning dogfight, the chasing plane is mot liekly to be in area covered by the laser) or taking out missiles (as Roy did in Zero - their position on a small turret turret with a generally large field of vision makes them well suited for this). The use of lasers means that the pilot (or the planes computer) doesn't need to do much to take out incoming threats, it's literally just point and shoot.

Sadly, it seems almost no action whatseover is given to the browns and the greens.

Whenever I see the Shadow Chronicles on STAR Movies, I keep wondering why the mecha seems to move as if they had sticks up their @$$es.

Well, there's a chance their using gunpods simply because bullets are more versatile than simple beams of light. I mean, real world military and police forces today already deploy more advanced rounds than just simple pieces of hot metal (programmable 20mm grenades, non-lethal Taser shotgun rounds, 57mm radar tipped programmable rounds that lock onto a trget and detonate even if it doesn't hit, 50 cal armor piercing incendiary rounds, etc.). Now this of course is only fan-theorizing but just based on this and other bullet technologies we have now, we can see a possible reason why bullets are still in favour. While a laser does good damage and is easier to aim, a round can be designed so that it does more damage per energy used than a laser or accomplish other missions, all from the same gun. For example, a high explosive round that detonates after it pierces the armor doing more damage than simply punching through, or radar tipped rounds that detonate even if they just barely miss the target sending out shrapnel, rounds with speakers so you can use culture shock against an opponent, the possibilities are endless.

Macross 7 exists to remind us that no matter what we want to believe, Macross for the most part isn't a serious mecha show.

Nice catch! Next thing you know, they find out that the Vajra are actually being controlled by a race of humans dedicated to living the values taught to us by by the original SDFM (meaning their men always go after two women at a time but are unable to choose until the very end).

It could simply be the lighting, if you notice, the colout of her legs doesnt match that of her hands, which could mean she was wearing stockings.

Let me add absolutely nothing useful to the conversation by mentioning that the VF-17 also has two medium bore laser beam guns mounted dorsally on its "elbows," something that the VF-171 seems to not have.

So she's a Nome clone/Protodevlin? Will wonders never cease, it seems most of the women in this show are more than they seem (what with Ranka being a FAST pack/Vajra hybrid and Grace being the final cylon/part of the Patriots).