Gubaba

You presume correctly.

I'd buy it. Hell, I'd even buy "Richard Bilra Warbles His Favorite Minmay Songs," "Leon Mishima Presents: Music for Swingin' Lovers Assassinatin' Usurpers," or "Ranshe Mei Coughs Vajra Love Songs" if they were produced by Yoko Kanno.

Better him than any of the members of Fire Bomber American... Maybe it's Zomeo...he's from Macross 11, as well...

Awww, man...I wish you hadn't said that. I just got an image of Pin-Point Barrier Condoms stopping an...um..."man-made" Itano Circus...

Predictably, I think that's going too far as well...yes, he loves Ranka. He also loves Sheryl. I just don't think he wants to marry either of them, or even "go steady" with them. At least, not yet.

I'm definitely looking forward to the medley on the next album...and I really hope they milk the Macross F music even more than they milked 7...I'm talkin' O.S.T. 3: Nyan Deka, Electric Nyan!, Acoustic Nyan, Ranka Lee Sings Lynn Minmay, Sheryl Nome Sings Fire Bomber, Luca Angeloni Sings Sharon Apple, Bobby Margot Sings Wendy Ryder...I don't care. BRING ON THE PRODUCT!

That's a fair point. Sheryl is nothing if not intimidating. But you'd think that while she was kissing him, he'd show some kind of pleasure, wouldn't you? Instead, the poor boy just looks like deer in the headlights, even towards the end of the series. Others have answered this one, so I'll just remind everyone. V-Virus. Bodily Fluids. Contagious. Certain death. Unless Alto had a body condom, I doubt it happened. Shucks. Just when there's something that could have happened that would prove your point, it stubbornly refused to happen. Oh well. She does kiss him again in episode 24, though. And he still looks shocked. Not exactly the response Sheryl might want from someone who supposedly slept with her a matter of days before, is it? Others' results may vary. I agree completely. Uh-huh. Did you read where I said that Alto loves and cares for Sheryl deeply? What's he gonna do, say, "I like you a lot but I'm not gonna take your stinkin' earring?" If you give someone you love a precious token, and they accept it, they're saying they want to stay with you forever? If so, I'm going to be stingier with my gifts... Look, I really don't want to argue this anymore. We clearly don't agree here. I think the writers are trying to balance the love triangle; you say they are providing subtle hints that he chose Sheryl. The former makes more sense to me as a narrative strategy; as I said before, it's a classic "Lady or the Tiger" ending, and an unresolved love triangle is something we've seen before in Macross. The latter seems like bad writing; building up the love triangle and providing resolution, but making it so subtle that only people who really REALLY want Sheryl to end up with Alto can see it. Plus, I like Sheryl. I like her a lot. I like her more than I like Ranka. But I keep getting painted as a Ranka shipper by the same two or three people here, and I'm tired of it. But whatever. If the movie is a continuation of the story, and Alto is going out with Sheryl at that point, I'll be proven wrong, for whatever that's worth. You can start a "Gubaba's an Idiot!" thread at that time, if you so desire. But if the triangle is STILL unresolved at that point, then clearly the TV show wasn't the end of it. We'll find out, eventually. Maybe.

My answer was getting WAAAAY too long (and probably dull for anyone who isn't you or me), so I'm keeping this short. If you'd like a fuller answer, PM me. Suffice to say that I never said Alto didn't love Sheryl deeply...he clearly does, it's just that I don't see a whole lot of romantic interest on his part. I don't think he's romantically interested in Ranka, either, so ALL the supposed "hints" fall flat to me. Yes, Sheryl kissed him many times, but as far as I can recall, HE never kissed HER. Yes, they moved in together, because she needed him. The idea that they made love is interesting, but purely speculative. Yes, he took the earring, but so what? He took Michael's sniper rifle, too. And, over and over again, it's Ranka who he has risked life and limb to rescue, it's Ranka who inspired him to fly, it's Ranka who he has given encouragement to. But that doesn't mean he wants to marry her, or even spend a jazzy weekend with her. I stand by my original assertion. He loves both of them, he cares very deeply for both of them. And yes, he feels some attraction for both of them. But he doesn't really want to "be" with either of them. EDIT: And yes, he wore Shery's panties, but only because they were the ones Ai-kun stole. AltoxAi-kun FTW!!!

...which is why all the Sheryl-shippers at Animesuki simply SHOWERED this episode with praise, right? And why absolutely NO ONE shouted "Harem ending!" or got upset over this supoposedly inconclusive ending to the love triangle. For every "Sheryl won" clue you could come up, I'm sure someone could find a "Ranka won" hint. And yeah, I guess I need big neon letters to explain why niggling Sheryl hints are superior to niggling Ranka hints.

I look forward to that day, when the earth will shriek and groan, blood will rain from the sky, and the great all-powerful Saiyan will STILL get his ass handed to him by a little ball of fluff with huge eyes!

I agree with you overall, but I always feel uncomfortable when people say that Macross II was done without the creators' involvement...sure, it was done without Kawamori, but Mikimoto did the character designs, and Tomita (one of the main writers for SDFM, as well as Dynamite 7, Macross Generation, and other Macross projects, including (I believe) the novelization of DYRL) wrote the story. So a couple of original creators were involved, at least as many as worked on Plus.

I wrote a long reply to this...it was a fine and noble thing, full of truth, beauty, symmetry, wit, tenderness, and urbanity. It was heartfelt and touching, and its arguments were rigorously logical and utterly convincing to all. And of course, my computer died before I could finish it. So, here I go again (*deep breath*)... I'm still not convinced. It seems like those pulling for Sheryl have found many hints that Alto picked the Galactic Faerie, while those pulling for Ranka have found an equal number of hints that Alto chose the Little Queen. People find what they expect to find. For me, pulling for neither (although leaning slightly towards Sheryl...she's got more pizazz, and it would leave Ranka free to give MY favorite character the happy ending she so desperately desires ), the love triangle seems well-balanced. Alto has had every chance in the world to choose one girl and tell the other one that he doesn't like her "that" way, but he hasn't. He's been given ample opportunity to show favoritism, and he's resisted every time. He flies to protect Ranka, but he also takes care of Sheryl when she needs him. I think he loves both girls deeply, and would gladly die to save either of them. But while there's something stronger than friendship there, I'm not sure he loves either girl in a romantic or sexual way. (Quick: how would you react if you saw Sheryl's "tuna buns"? Or got to see if Ranka's green hair was really natural? Oh, you'd play it cool, I'm sure...but you'd be thinking about it A LOT afterwards, wouldn't you? Me too. But not Alto.) But getting away from in-universe explanations for a moment, I suspect that the writers deliberately tried to make the love triangle as equal as possible, a real "Lady or the Tiger" ending, and I think they did a good job of it. If someone can say, "Oh, obviously, Alto picked X, and here's why," then to that extent, the writers failed. To say that they are secretly indicating Alto chose one or the other...well, that just doesn't seem to fit with how carefully they made sure that neither girl had the upper hand for long. That's why I don't buy any of these supposed hints, and until someone can give me something more substantial than "Alto was going to tell Sheryl that he loves her," or "Alto was going to tell Sheryl that he loves Ranka," or "Alto only saluted Sheryl," or "After the salute, Alto gave a キラ☆! sign," I'm going to say that the love triangle was left deliberately unresolved.

My favorite early bit remains the short scene from the Broadcast Edition of episode 1 when Sheryl is loudly complaining to Cathy about hiring students to perform at her concert. She concludes with, "Of course, everyone in the audience will be paying attention to ME," and then flounces into her dressing room, leaving Grace to bow apologetically to Cathy. My main thought at that point was how sorry I felt for this rather meek-looking manager, having to deal with such a prima donna. I couldn't have been more wrong, huh?

ARRRGH!

It's more than just implied that Sheryl is Mao's granddaughter...they DO come out and show this, after all:

Not really. It actually comes down to 統合軍 (Tougougun, "Unity Forces") vs. 新統合軍 (Shin-Tougougun, "New Unity Forces"). It's just that in, for example, "Macross: A Future Chronicle," the deep-voiced English-speaking guy says "2010: Creation of new Unity Government." But "new" there is a description, not part of the actual name of the government. I really don't think it's their way of avoiding SDFM...considering that there's a VF-1A on top of the high school, there's the WTF-1, which is a dead ringer for the SDF-1 and is named after the SDF-1's captain...the old U.N. Spacy kite shows up not only on the VF-1A but also all through "Legend of Zero," and we have a picture of Minmay show up. If they were trying to avoid any visual references to the original show, they did a rather poor job of it. Besides, if they wanted to market in in the western world free of all ties to anything Macross, they didn't need to change it to NUNS. If nervous western companies can give Son Goku digital underpants and turn Gundam Seed handguns into laser pistols, they could erase the Macross kite with ease.

I kind of doubt that the A.I. Luca uses is the same as the bio-neural chip kind of A.I. from Plus...In fact, I assumed Luca made the system himself because it has a Biblically-derived name, just like his Ghosts (Simon, John, and Peter, all Apostles (as was Luca [Luke] himself)) and his Ex-Gear (Samson, named for the legendary strongman). Judah could refer to a number of things, but here I believe it was named for the kingdom that split off from Israel and became independent.

Yes, except not a FAST Pack.

Very clever...resolving the love triangle for those smart enough (like Sheryl fans) to get it, but subtle enough so that stupid people (like Ranka fans) will miss it. C'mon, man...it's unresolved. It's meant to be unresolved, and no matter how many little clues you think you find, it will always be unresolved. Until the movie. Maybe.

Good point. It's like people getting annoyed that Mylene didn't make a choice, but c'mon! She was FIFTEEN at the end of the show, and sixteen in D7...most people don't know who they want to spend the rest of their lives with when they're sixteen. Or seventeen (like Sheryl) for that matter. Now if the movie jumps ahead to when Alto, Ranka, and Sheryl are in their mid-twenties, THEN we'll have something...

No, Megaroad-02 IS the SDF-3.

That's because Triez hasn't reviewed it yet. He'll be all like, "predictable predictable not good predictable blah blah blah" an' everybody else'll all be like, "yeah yeah yeah it's so true."

I don't think the Anime SkyScraper ones are fansubs...they just took the ADV versions and slapped their name on it. Real classy, huh?

You may need a continuation, but you might not get it. Just sayin'.

Speaking of eyes...does Nanase still have a right eye or not? Screw the love triangle, I want resolution to THAT mystery!