Macross 7

[Roy Focker]

Macross 7 Love or Hate it?

Way too much Macross 7 bashing. This is topic is one that I wanted to start for a while. I want to hear intelligent reasons as to why it is bad or why it's good.

RULES - PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

1. You must give a well thought out reason why. Short answers like because it's got cool Valks, gay, lame, Mylene's hot, sucks or cause Basara is in it doesn't count.

2. Don't agrue over someone else's reason. This for you to post your own rational thoughts.

3. You're allowed one chance to post and that's to say whether you love or hate it and why.

4. Violations of the above can result in a Macross World Free Weekend for the Offender.

[Father Jack]

Ok

Well I Guess I like Macross 7 because of th way Basara never gives up. Even when he's beaten down, and nobody believes in him he keeps going. Despite the fact that some people even think he is crazy he still goes out and tries to get people to listen to his song. Also I think the themes in the show are a natural outgrowth of the original. Yes it is true that in the original Minmay didn't completely convert the zentradi over to peace and love with her song, and the Macross still had to defeat Boldolza with force of arms. However it isn't as if they just built some big gun and blew them all up either. Many of the Zentradi were won over by human culture and some specifically by Minmay's song. So that was culture conquoring all, but Boldolza represented the ultimate evil who would destroy all culture, and so he had to be defeated lest culture die entirely. However many of the zentradi were still won over by culture and embraced it. This to me was one of the points of the orriginal series. The zentradi were basically just big humans so the point the creators were trying to make seemed to be maybe if we just shared culture with each other instead of thinking of eachother as warmongering brutes we would have alot more peace and understanding as human beings. The themes in macross 7 are a natural extention of this. Except in this one the message seems to be that even if your enemy seems radically different and alien to you it might still be best to try some peace and understanding. Try and sing with them rather than blowing them up. Who knows they might sing really well and you might discover that you have more in common than you thought.

Besides anybody who can bring about peace not at the barrel of a gun but rather with the strings of a guitar is way cooler in my book

just my two cents.

[Zentrandude]

I hated that it took too long to set the story in the first dosen or so episodes. It would been more effective in half the time and would be more powerfull.

I like about the characters that they evolved well some of them. like gamlin hated basara then slowly respected his way but kept a bullet with his name on it but it was a double egde sword, mylene was cool in the begining but slowly became a pain in the ass and lost all combat ability in a more improved valks over the vf-1 even it had sound force boobies .

[JELEINEN]

I thought the show had a good plot and some really great character interaction. The show has a fairly large cast, yet the creators managed to establish a dynamic between all the various personalities. This makes for some very excellent later episodes as these various relationships and rivalries begin to mature (my favorite is the interaction between Basara and Gamelin).

I hope I'm not breaking the spirit of the rules by saying that I also agree with what Father Jack just posted concerning Basara. He is easily one of my favorite anime main characters simply because he starts out knowing what he believes in and he's willing to act on it. In many ways he's the exact opposite of your typical anime protagonist, who is unsure of himself and does a lot of waffling when it comes to what they believe. He's also lacks a lot of the typical whiney-ness.

[Radd]

Overall, I really like Macross 7. I'm hesitant to call it my favourite Macross series, yet the truth is I pull it out to watch more often than any other Macross movie, OVA, or series.

The main draw I have to the series is the characters and the character developement. Like others have already pointed out, there's a dynamic between the varied characters, and often they change slowly, over time, in the ways I see in real people. This impresses me to no end, as few shows, anime or otherwise, have been able to accomplish the same thing, and character developement in general is something I look for in my entertainment.

I also like Basara, though he developes very little as a character his ideals and actions really are something to admire. He's an ordinary guy in all respects, except that he refuses to give up and bow down to the ideas of others when he disagrees with them. I think this mirrors our own lives in that there are many things our society takes for granted as right and wrong, true and false, that are either mistaken, or just not that simple. In the way he upholds his ideals, he reminds me a lot of the Leiji Matsumoto character, Captain Herlock.

Mecha like the VF-22, VF-17. the Full Armour VF-11, and if we include Dynamite, the VA-3, the VF-5000, and the VF-19P are all excellent additions to the Macross universe. I also enjoy a lot of the ship designs, such as Battle 7, and many of the fleet's smaller military vessles.

That's not to say I enjoy everything about Macross 7, there are things that bother me about it. Things that could have been done better.

I do not like the Sound Force designs. I understand why there are tricked out glam-rock Valkyries, and why they're actually important to the story, but I think Kawamori could have designed some Valkyrie variants that still maintained the unique look Soundforce needed, while not completely offending the sensibilities of many longtime Macross fans.

I do not like the look of many of the fleet's supporting colony ships such as the Einstein, the agricultural ship, and the vacation ship. I understand that they didn't neccessarily want them to look like military ships, but I think they made them look unneccessarily silly in some cases. Not in all cases, though. I've no problem with the look of the factory ship, or the Macross city ship itself.

I also understand why many Macross fans might not like the idea of a transforming battleship at this point in the story. It is completely unneccessary, and any justification is completely fan conjecture. I let it slide simply because I enjoy the design, and the idea of a transforming battleship, no matter how unneccessary.

I dislike the battle animations. Where as in most shows, it seems like the character animation is usually sacrificed for the battle animation, in Macross 7 the opposite seems to be true. All of the character animation is consistent and of decent, though on the low end. The battles are just wretched. Poorly animated, more recycled animation that was in the original show, and the VF-11s seem utterly useless in every battle. I understand that the VF-11s are supposed to be the cannon fodder of Macross 7, however this role is exaggerated to the point where it seems like command should tell all VF-11 pilots not to engage the enemy if at all possible, and just try to draw them away until the fleet's three useful fighters (six in later episodes) get there.

Even SDF had it's moments where Itano's magic was shown off. Except for fleet of the strongest somen and small parts in Dynamite, we never see any of the missle swarms made famous in the original show.

I am also not a fan of how spiritua is portrayed in Macross 7. It is shown in such a way that it's no wonder many Macross fans confuse it with magical powers, despite that it does not seem that way to me and Macross Zero seems (in my opinion, anyway) to back up my beliefs on the matter. The way I see it, the lights and sounds (other than the music, of course) shown are embellishments, much the same way we hear the engines and weapons of Valkyries, despite the fact that they're battling in the vaccuum of space.

Another thing I dislike is the designs of the Protodevlin. Many have compared them to Sailor Moon monsters, and while Keith has indignantly pointed out this is not true, I still believe there is some truth to the statement, at least so much as in the style the designs seem to spring from. They would not appear out of place in a monster of the week sort of show.

In the end, however, I have to say that to me the good points of the show out weigh the bad. Especially once the overarching story kicks into high gear, I really enjoy it. While I would not at all oppose the idea of a DYRL? style redux of Macross 7, with some improved designs and high end animation, I'm rather happy with what we got. While it does not compare favourably to other Macross shows in some respects, I think it excels in other ways.

[Keith]

I loved the story first & foremost, it's everything I hoped from a Macross sequel & more. Great characters, great mix of comedy & drama, and a unique way to go about everything. 7 succeeded where so many sequels fail, in following what came before, expanding on what came before, and not re-treading on things which did not need retreading. Everything (regardless of whether some liked it or not) was explained in a satisfactory manner.

[Axelay]

The main thing which I like about Macross 7 is that it makes me believe that with the true power, passion, and conviction of emotion, it IS possible to change someone's heart. Basara absolutely would NOT give up under any circumstances, and I want so badly to be able to have that same kind of determination. So many of the characters in Macross 7 put their "heart and soul" into everything they do, and they become bigger than life because of it.

[Raptor]

I like it because it was entertaining.

[connor99]

I haven't seen MACROSS 7 yet, so I can't really say if I love it or hate it .

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

3 main things I liked:

1.They kept true to the civilians being key to the rescue of the human race(again)

Not the typical patriotic soldiers, but characters who are civilians finally giving an answer to the problem of the cycle of destruction. If the central character was the 'typical soldier doing his duty' he/she would not have been helpful in this case because they are merely doing what they are told and thier duty is 'to protect'. (quote from the end of SDF:Macross where Hikaru tells minmay to continue her career because it is so important to people that she not quit it: while his career as a soldier is to protect people important like her for the benefit of all.) But while they are protecting people, what hope would a mere soldier have in trying to end war when there is no culture to protect from the begining?

In the original series it was not clear exactly how spreading the human race (apart from making it harder to make ourselves extinct) to other planets was going to avoid running into the same problems that the PC had:

We develop weapons to fight, but ultimately the more efficient our destruction gets, the more we end up spreading our own path of destruction which leads to death for all living things that we feed upon. Even when sdf1 crash landed on earth, we had humans fighting amoungst themselves over who should possess it's power - so contrary to what the governments like to think, it's not a sign of peace for all that alien technology has brought us together in unity and we no longer need to fight each other. It is just another giant weapon for the military to possess and is not a sign all the problems of the past were miraculously solved.

Enter the protodevlin: living beings with immense destructive power forced to feed upon all living things in order to survive. They may as well be monsters that need sealing up, but what is the solution to helping them stop what they do? Do they deserve a chance to live just as the zentradi did in SWI by us influencing and then changing thier behaviour by introducing our ability to repair, heal and create?

On the one hand you have the military impressed by the destructive power of these beings (almost wanting to make them thier own bioweapons by trying to capture and study them! ) and on the other you have civilians who care not what these things are capable of doing, but wanting to help them solve thier energy problem. Why does the civilian population again prove to be so important to winning the war? Because it is not the human intent to want to destroy other living beings with the false belief that 1 living thing is necessarily more important than another. There is always an alternate, better solution where one does not need to feed on another in order to survive and this is partly the protodevlin's problem: they had no choice because thier bodies; although powerful, were so energy in-efficient like the giants that, it was only a matter of time before they died. (remember how the zentradi reacted after the holocaust? If they didn't work hard to rebuild earth again, they would have starved themselves to death because of a lack of food. You can understnad how food rations were a form of payment for services then. But because they only knew destruction, they were doomed from the beginning, and a danger not just to us, but themselves too. You really learn to pity them.

Death is like a disease that spreads, and only by changing thier ways and offering a solution (through the healing effects music had on the beings) could the mistakes the PC had gone through, been finally corrected. Sealing them was only a temporary measure. An enourmous amount of power needs an enormous unlimited supply of energy to sustain it, which means others have to suffer for that power to exist. (by acting as the cattle) And this is not a solution to thier problem, just another problem for another race to deal with. Unfortunately that race was us.

What the Protodevlin needed was freedom from thier trap, not to be studied and used and controlled in a lab which is what the military wants for themselves for thier own control. The civilians offer them this solution with positive efects that cancel thier negative effects. This energy is pumped into the void to fill it up with energy until the beings were completely whole again - maybe thier soul was brought back and thier bodies no longer hungered for energy off others as they desired to create for themselves?)

2. Characters who are unique

The fact that we don't know much about Basara is a good thing imo. It says to the older, more-demanding fans: pay attention if you want to learn more. At the risk of alienating them they are forced to go on a journey discovering who this guy really is. (through the eyes of the whiny pink haired chic who only wants fame and success and has forgotten - or never understood - the importance of music in helping a race abandon its destructive behaviour) What Basara taught to her was: If singing is just a means to an end, (to fame, fortune, success, good cd sales, better gigs, more love from fans etc) and you could gain that end without song, would you keep singing? Basara is different in that the singing to him was his way of expressing what the heart felt to others and by giving it out through the performance, you can move anything. Filling people with emotion and joy was the true effect of the musics powers and something she had to learn beyond just playing well - you had to be spontaneous too in your expression, giving out the music as you felt it should be recieved, not too structured, rigid and lifeless. Anything way too well rehersed may come off as feeling fake and manufactured.

A good example of this was when Alice (the other singer) originally inspired Mylene to create music for herself, but alice had stopped singing and was too tired of it losing her whole inspiration to keep singing anymore. She lost the magic that originally got her into singing because her heart felt she had enough and she wanted to quit. But when hearing Mylene's own songs this gave her some more inspiration and she got back into it again. The power of the songs themselves may inspire others to at least try to create something for themselves which can only be a good thing. This is essentially like what happens with the Protodevlin who may have found thier own way to create instead of consuming things after having Basaras music shoved down thier throats.

Another thing is that Basara even when aproached by the military to be used a tool to help, refuses. It's not so much that he doesn't want to help but that he is protesting and saying "I will do as I feel". This is important because so much the reason for what he does is not for control of others in an opressive manner or for personal gain, it is him giving a gift he created himself and hopefully having it accepted and apreciated by the enemy not as some thing to be feared like a weapon, but as a true sign of friendship. It is neither "out of weakness", nor "strength" that he sings. He doesn't sing to save his life or as some official tool to protect people but more as a way to bring hope that the enemies change thier attitude and see no reason to fear us or bring fear to others. What's more crazy? Trying to control a beast many times more powerful than yourself by capture or harm? Or taming the beast so that it understands and trusts you?

The characters obviously had some important message to give about thier reasons and viewers are forced to think and observe rather than have all the information in front of them.

3. Backstory is filled in

I loved that we finally get to see Exedol learning something about the past when exploring the ancient ruins. You would think that the old guy would be curious to know something about the PC and thier relation to the zentradi more than what was told to him by others as opposed to what his own independant research revealed to him. When first seeing SDF: macross mention of 'supervision army' conjures up this curiosity in me to want to know who these people were. We hear them but never see them and watching macross 7 helps to bridge the gap a little. If the protodevlin could possess people and capture whole races with thier mind control, using people's bodies as soldiers it brings some understanding that these are not your regular physical threat. It's a spiritual one where the threat spreads like a disease and there is no physical cure to stop it. I can consider these protodevlin as 'the devil'. (and the zentradi were the 'satan's dolls') Every living thing would be consumed and it kind of dwarfs the threat of the zentradi invading earth from the first SDF:Macross series, because these beings would be a universal threat (not just global) if left to do what they wish.

On a macrocosmic level, you could then say that whenever man, zentradi, meltrandi engages in war with his brother/sister he is possessed by the devil and that his willingness to bring death spreads like a disease (because of the mind control the Protodevlin have, and naturally the instinct is to kill others before they kill you) which has a never-ending cycle for which there is no cure. Only working hard to keep creating (culture) can man save himself from extinction. No matter how big and powerful the weapons the military makes and no matter how deluded people belive their 'ultimate defences' are, (macross plus' out of control AI) the threat of mass extinction always looms until people change thier way by finding alternate solutions that give people and thier enemies the ability to create for themselves so there is absolutely nothing to fight over and reason to want to develop such destructive weapons to kill whole populations with the flick of a switch in the first place.

Other things I liked:

Mechs - loved seeing new Valk designs. VF22, VF17, and the VF11. Didn't really care much for the colony ships. Also loved seeing apearances of older designs like the vf1 and all those destroids in the robot show. I think at once point there was a polkadot custom robot.

Mech Battles - the ones that were good I liked. But unlike the first series there was not not much ship to ship fights. The enemy would retreat and fold out of existance.

Gubaba - Obviously the most crucual character in the whole series. I at first kept thinking this guy was put in there just for scenary but you'll note how intelligent gubaba is that his inclusion is as important as the inclusion of r2d2 in star wars. I think that Gubaba might be a newtype! Because he is able to locate people when his fur goes on edge. Maybe they should make a whole series about this furry alien animal and how he rescues his friends captured in a lab.

The bad:

Like others have mentioned I wish the fight scenes weren't so cut and pasted together and recycled. One thing I was hoping for were dogfights and mech battles that lasted long time and had some acrobatic stuff from SDF:Macross going on. You know when Hikaru uses his stunt pilot skills to avoid enemy fire from pods in the first series, or when max is circle strafing and moving around while firing to finish off miriya in the original tv series (the virtual battroid fight)? I think we may be spoilt by scenes from DYRL and macross plus, but I just felt the mech battles overall were not visually exciting.

Part of the reason I love watching anime is to see them doing crazy things they can't do in real life and having that animation express that action in a stylish way that also has a practical reason for having it happen. eg seeing hikaru barrel roll in gerwalk mode to use the legs to create a cushion to push himself away from the walls in dyrl, or having him use the feet as retro boost. You see similar stuff like this in macross zero which puts detail into the fight. And in macross plus you can totally understand why having the feet jump out can be helpful if you need to avoid something in fighter mode or turn in a certain way -ie rolling the fighter towards the direction it wants to turn, then releasing the legs below to push you away from obstacles as a sharp brake-turn. (in space they would just slide around right?)

Macross plus and Zero had lots of this: Isamu dives and floats smoothly in gerwalk at the last second, Guld's expensive plane is rescued from the air thanks to Isamu's use of Gerwalk mode to cushion the descent, Roy uses the hand of his mech to capture the gundpod as it falls to the ground, Shin stomps on a plane with the foot, the Battroid mode is seen being used to take advantage of it's head lasers and gunpod as anti missile defense for close encounters ...etc etc All the little things that macross 7 generalised. You would see a scene of a mech holding a gunpod and firing into the screen, then it would cut to an image of something blowing up. Bo-ring! No drawn out fights until the end when the vf22s are shown kicking ass.

Overall I was happy to see it, but like others I have reservations about the style. I thought in some of the scenes of the old macross, the art just seemed more detailed than in macross 7. The tone of macross 7 is more light and less serious (it's peacetime) and just judging by the way in which they had to have Basara singing every episode this could be a turnoff for those who were drawn initially by the mecha and not music. I think the goal here is that we are meant to love the character enough to keep watching as opposed to loving the mechas, but the repetition and more gentle pace of this series can drag on if you are looking more for drawn out battle scenes where the focus is on what the mecha and pilots are doing to react to situations. There wasn't a single point in the series (well maybe one) where you actually thought one of the characters could die from an enemy attack, (even mylene at 14 was an ace pilot after all) and this lack of danger changed the tone and seriousness of the whole macross franchise imo. Even the episode about Milia's acceptance of death and old age was just one joke episode.

They could have still got thier message across but not used as much repetition and pop music each episode, and instead balanced it to be more like the original. Put in some detail in the mech fights, stretch out the action so it is more relevent and within context with what's happening. Highlight the differences between one mech's abilities to another and visually show that through animations of the pilots using flashy maneuvering etc All the good stuff from dyrl essentially..

Edited January 14, 2005 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Prime]

I didn't like Macross 7 at all.

I guess for me it deviates to much from the setting and style I had come to expect from the series. I had seen the TV series, DYRL, and Plus first. I enjoyed those in part because of their "feasible" technology and military hardware and having many aspects explained with either real physics/scientific ideas or standard sci-fi phenomena (folding, spaceships, aliens, and the like). Those series just seemed more grounded to me, and that helped me get more attached to the characters and care about them. Especially in the case of DYRL and Plus (and eventually Zero) I loved the excellent animation as well.

I guess ultimately Macross 7 just deviated too much from what I enjoyed from the other series. I didn't like the animation at all, even though I understand the reasons for it being of poorer quality. I find the character designs too stylized and cartoony compared to those for the other series. I also didn't like Basara from the beginning and never warmed up to him. I just got so tired of hearing the same "listen to my song" and those J-pop tunes over and over and over and over again. It just got so repetative. It's like knowing in Voltron that at the end of the show the lions are going to join together and use the big sword. You know Basara is going to demand everyone listen's to his song. By the end I just wished someone would finish him off. So there was little hope I would like M7 since I hated the main character.

Like others have said I didn't like most of the Valkyrie designs for the Sound Force, mainly because I liked the straight military style of the Valks from the other series so much. The whole spiritia thing was just a little to magical and "out there" compared to the rest of the series. Perhaps I would have enjoyed M7 more if it wasn't tied to the rest of the Macross universe. Then again, maybe not. Ugly character designs, annoying main character, recycled battle sequences, ackingly bad songs, uber-repetative phrases, and superhero-tights mecha pretty much doomed the series for me.

[Wes]

Liked:

It was new Macross to me. That was the main reason I got thru the whole show. Also the infamous tabloid episode. Also, it gave additional info about the Protoculture, how the "Evil" series was the final nail in its coffin, but how it realized its errors and tried to protect civilized life. Also it had some good humor every now and then. Ray was cool. And I kind of liked "Holy Lonely Night."

Disliked:

The fact that this was supposed to be a Macross series. For one, even though it's not Gundam, a certain level of focus has always been on quality fight scenes. It wasn't supposed to be heavy this time arround, but apparently at 2045 some genuis at UN Spacy came up with this award-winning strategy - 1) Fly to location, 2) Stop and transform to Battroid mode, and 3) Fire - because that's what they did...every...single...battle. It was rediculous. If they weren't going to even try to do good battles, they should have done their best to avoid animating them althogether. Also the Sound Force craft looked too silly, although I think that's the point.

Yeah, the show was too slow. For all that time, they could have formed a strong, concurrent plot like the original that had something special and left the audience begging for more. Instead, a ton of cookie-cutter episodes which ends with Basara's singing replusing the bad guys away. Btw, why is it that there seems to be like only 3 songs in his repertoire for most of the series, only moving up to 5 by the end?!?! For such an awesome signer, he couldn't burn a whole CD with that crap, yet there are several M7 CDs. The ones they played were mostly horrible, except for the above.

And I hated how they handled Spirtua. They turned this mystical force to move one's soul into a quantitative substinance. Macross Zero, although it gets out there, handles it alot better.

The thing I like the most about Macross 7: Trash was it had as little to do with M7 as possible.

[jenius]

I find it difficult to adequately describe how intensely I abhor this branch of the series.

1) The characters (except Gubaba and Sivil). From the generally over-colorful and outlandish pop-style to their mind-numbing reasoning. Then there's the premise; I believe if I tried to get in front of an elite US Special Forces group and a legion of Al Quaeda terrorists already in the midsts of a gun fight with a guitar I would have very little time to strum a guitar. Even if I could, I'm pretty sure the US would have me dragged into a very small prison cell and beaten with a rubber hose until I promised to never interfere with ANYTHING EVER again. Basara doesn't grow. Mylene is a 14 year old sex symbol. Ray seems like he has potential but it never develops. The quiet girl really should have been more of a Silent Bob character and said some pearls of wisdom... instead of just being quiet.

2) The red YF-19's FACE and any other vehicle that had a face that I might not be remembering. What age group are we trying to appeal to here? How much sake did they consume before they decided mechs with faces that were controlled via electric guitar were a good idea?

3) As someone already stated, the designs of the non-warships were just quirky. Again, seems like they were trying to appeal to very little children. The protodevilin fell into this problem too. Just plain strange designs. Battle scenes? I'm pretty sure I got to see the same battle scene about 47 different times. No, Basara's four songs didn't get old. No... not at all. Ooh, i love how they mix it up by having Mylene sing one of Basara's four songs every now and then. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE SHOVE A FRICKING KATANA IN MY G*D*A*N EAR??

4) The never consumated love triangle... wow, that's one way to really peak the stress level. Allude to an odd arranged marriage with a 14 year old and her possible crush on a possibly homosexual and quite certainly insane Basara... right... I really couldn't wait to see who ended up with her. And then, even though I didn't care, no one does??? Yeah, great job.

5) I felt like most of the 500 episodes were cannon-fodder just trying to move the story along and generally failing to do so.

The only redeeming qualities I found to this were cameos. I'm not sure if MacPlus came first but the mech's from that (since that's the order i saw it in), Max, Milia, VF-1, Exe, and anyone else I may have forgotten. There was some potential in the exploration of the protoculture but i ultimately didn't like the path it took. I've never shaken my head so many times while watching an anime. Argh, thank you for letting me vent.

[myk]

I harbor only a slight disliking towards Macross 7, although I feel that way about all of the Macross stories as I don't particularly care for the anti-war/pacifist message that they're always preaching.

War and all that goes with it is generally a good thing...

[Blaine23]

I have to admit I like Macross 7 quite a bit.

Mainly I like the fact that it presented Macross in a very artistic manner. As annoying and uncommunicative as Basara can be, his vision and strength to believe in what he does is inspiring. I like the fact that they did away with the traditional space opera plot in order to try new things. Some of these things worked (theme), some of them didn't (protodevlin character designs) for me.

Like everyone else who watches the first few episodes I was off-balance and getting pretty sick of the repetitive music. As the show progressed I became more connected to the show and found that the music was getting better and more varied as the show progressed. The plotlines became more focused and the characterization grew as a result. I found that instead of hating Sound Force and wishing they showed more traditional military mecha combat, I was instead waiting for Basara to show up.

Ultimately when I think of Macross 7 I think of Basara singing at a mountain and the image makes me smile. In my opinion, it's probably the most powerful artistic theme I've seen in anime. It isn't for everyone, but if you can get past the preconception of what every Macross show should be... then you might find yourself genuinely appreciating the show for what it is.

[Roy Focker]

Thanks to those that were following the rules.

[Final Vegeta]

I like when Basara sings Totsugeki Love Heart. It feels like his mecha is at max power. Signs of power are not necessarily how many mecha you can destroy; FLCL does it best, as signs of power there is the color red, the symbol, the chainring, the guitar. When you see the signs of power chosen by that anime you know a character is powerful. When Popeye ate spinach you know he was become powerful. Popeye episode's storyline is the basics of everything episodic: a crisis followed by a resolution. In Popeye the tide turned when Popeye ate spinach. This is not the only approach, but it may be exalting. In Macross 7 it's funny to see the same thing happening even though there is not a real resolution as we would mean it. Enemies didn't go away because Basara sang, but the sudden change in music influenced the mood. It's weird, but I like it.

I also like the VF-19KAI, not as design (although it's not that bad), but as an "alternative" unit. I'd always liked to make an abstract-like chessboard wargame using Kawamori's mecha anime, and I like that all "units" has kind of different abilities other than attacking.

I find Macross 7 flawed but I liked its originality of this hero who sings. It's over the top, but I find it really funny. I like in the first episodes of Macross 7 how Basara faced different situations and managed to sing every time to solve them. Yet I still think things could be handled better despite this is a long series (and despite it clearly aimed to nod old Super Robot anime), and that's why I think Macross 7 is an original but mediocre series.

"Concentration" would have improved Macross 7. 49 episodes are too much. This is mostly a comedy series which relies on cameos, like Veffidas cameos, flower girl cameos, Michael cameos, tongue-in-cheek jokes like "Karaoke Ninja" and the like. Recursivity is a good trick for a joke, but you must vary minor details everytime, and 40 variants of the same gag are frightening even to be thought.

I too would have liked if there were more and longer "standard" action scenes, and especially if they were Macross usual style of action. In other Macross Valkyries don't take all these missiles without blowing, and this is why I think this is director Amino's work. It's weird how mecha walk this slow in Macross 7 compared to other Macross, but obviously speed of animation depends on budget.

Overall though I liked the story and I really liked the ending, with Basara walking away like nothing really important happened, after all the times he sang to make something happen. I really like his attitude.

The Protodeviln design really sucked. I wish they could be remade DYRL style.

The spiritia is presented with Hollywood-style effects, but India Yoga adepts believe in "Prana", which is a Sanskrit word literally meaning 'life-force' the invisible bio-energy or vital energy that keeps the body alive and maintains a state of good health. Polynesians called it "mana", Chinese called it "Chi" and they use this principle in acupunture; in Japan the energy is called Ki and it from this word that Reiki is named. In Hebrew is "Ruach", in islamic countries "Barraka". Some individual healers have called it Animal Magnetism, Archaeus.

Doctor Reich called it "Orgone", and in the 50ies he and his works were persecuted in the US and he died in jail. Reich said that while there was good orgone (POR) there was also some bad orgone (NOR). He created a device which could provoke rain by sweeping bad orgone out of the sky, and it is said plants started growing immediately after that.

Now, what Reich may have achieved is likely to be simply a myth, but in modern scientific theories unify all atomic interactions as waves (see this for example. There is also an explanation of why black holes can't exist. In fact even Hawking recently saw something was wrong), and this waves are also used by cells to comunicate with each other. The influence of Earth magnetic field in humans may be grossly misunderstood, for istance. You could say that some kind of high frequency waves are the good orgone while some kind of low frequency waves are the bad orgone. It does even make sense.

Consider another famous scientific case, the central dogma of molecular biology which states:

1. The DNA replicates its information in a process that involves many enzymes: replication.

2. The DNA codes for the production of messenger RNA (mRNA) during transcription.

3. In eucaryotic cells, the mRNA is processed (essentially by splicing) and migrates from the nucleus to the cytoplasm.

4. Messenger RNA carries coded information to ribosomes. The ribosomes "read" this information and use it for protein synthesis. This process is called translation.

Proteins do not code for the production of protein, RNA or DNA.

The basic idea was that one gene coded one protein.

Recently, the human genoma project found only 20,000~25,000 genes in human DNA. Scientists expected to find some 100,000 genes, because that was the number of human proteins. So few genes means that human DNA is 99% similar to that of a mouse. The genome of Amoeba dubia, a unicellular creature as simple as yeast, dwarfs the human genome by 200-fold. In fact central dogma is WRONG. Some scientists already discovered it years ago. DNA is just some kind of notepad for the cell; life created DNA and not the opposite. Proteins do help coding for the productions of DNA. With alternative splicing informations are rearranged and from a single gene you can get thousands of proteins.

This is also the reason why GMOs are not safe: you won't ever be able to modify a specific information, alternative splicing will mix informations up. GMOs technology is based on a science which is 40 years old.

But then, you have a lot of patents, and you can't throw them away. In fact, Monsanto does GMO grain so that they can resist herbicide Roundup, which is done by the same Monsanto. Actually, the modified genes can spread to the weed you are fighting so they can resist Roundup too, but that's another problem.

Another sign that central dogma is wrong was the discover of prions (short for proteinaceous infectious particle) which are infectious self-reproducing protein structures lacking nucleic acid. How do they reproduct is still a mistery if you stick with the old theory. Many scientists prefer to do it, or maybe they are not scientists but they are simply paid to look like them. This tendency is going on even in other sectors of science. Try to imagine the full picture.

The pharmaceutical industry turned it into a racket of epic proportions.

The AIDS is the most notorious case. Article:

In South Africa, which with some five million HIV/AIDS infections has the highest AIDS caseload in the world, the disease kills more than 600 people each day, activists say.

Despite the mounting death toll, few public figures in South Africa or other African countries have personally come forward to say that AIDS has affected them or their families.

Deaths from the disease are usually attributed to a "long illness," pneumonia, or other secondary causes.

How silly for these Africans to refuse to officially demonstrate by numbers Africa is the country most plagued by AIDS. But, then, how can you recognize AIDS? What are its symptoms? Wikipedia states that this diseases are commonly associated with AIDS:

*Candidiasis, disseminated or of the oesophagus and/or lungs

*Coccidiodomycosis, disseminated or extrapulmonary

*Cryptococcosis, extrapulmonary

*Cryptosporidiosis, chronic intestinal

*Cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease, disseminated or CMV retinitis

*Herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection, chronic or HSV bronchitis, pneumonitis or esophagitis

*Histoplasmosis, either disseminated or extrapulmonary

*HIV-related dementia or encephalopathy

*Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) and Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus-related diseases including primary effusion and multicentric Castleman's disease

*Chronic intestinal isosporiasis

*AIDS-related lymphoma, Burkitt's or primary lymphoma of the brain

*Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) infection or M. kansasii infection, disseminated or extrapulmonary Mycobacterium tuberculosis, disseminated, any site

*Mycobacterium, other species, disseminated or extrapulmonary

*Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP)

*Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML)

*Recurrent salmonella septicaemia

*Neurological toxoplasmosis.

Plus there are many other symptoms, like diarrhea, loss of body weight, sleeplessness, feeling tired and such.

-or- one can be asymptomatic, meaning that one can be perfectly healthy. How do you recognize how many people in Africa died by AIDS every year? You do a poll, asking to 100 persons how many of them have AIDS? You really test some 25 millions of corpses to find out if they had HIV? Or you simply think that they don't die because of pneumonia, they must have been killed by AIDS. You add all those who have died of some other disease and you get a big number. That should do it for raise funding.

The reality about AIDS is that AZT killed a lot of people, but then, Prozac can urge some people to commit suicide, there were lawsuits about this and Prozac is still sold. You can easily tell who is behind World Health Organization. When questions arises about a medicine, tests have already shown years before that medicine could seriously damage health, and then it was patented.

While HIV is true retrovirus, like many else, there is no such thing as AIDS. People dies for something like tubercolosis or other lethal diseases but it is always called AIDS. Then SARS was invented. On Italian TV a doctor said that the disease spreads only from birds to humans but not from humans to humans; maybe he has still to discover something more. Then it was invented ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), although I don't recall having heard much of it in Italy; the medicine used to counter it however was supposed to be banned in Italy due to collateral effects (among which there was dependance).

This is the real face of privatization. I don't think you would imagine what defense contractors do to raise profit margin. The same kind of things Big Pharma do, but with different names.

This poses also an interesting view on the difference between cultures. Western culture was invented by Catholic Church from something that was not the Bible. The Catholic Church created the Devil and the Hell. The Bible created the myth of Evil as opposed to Good. It turned into a brainwashing experience that really helped wars, but that's another matter. Easterners saw that everything was connected. The Yin and the Yang were the two principles that constitutes everything, but every Yin has a bit of Yang and every Yang has a bit of Yin. Everything has a function for the whole.

Italian doctor Basaglia said that madness is diversity or fearing diversity. Madness is a human condition as much as reason. A society so called civil should accept madness as much as reason, instead it turns madness into a disease to eliminate it.

Once upon a time they said diseases were carried by evil spirits. Then Pasteur came and people started talking about bacteria. Not everything could be blamed on bacteria so people find out even virus. And now there are things even virus can't be blamed of so people discovered smaller evil spirits called prions. Stopping for a second, what was the reason of being for diseases? Why Nature should bother creating them? Why they keep multiplying?

Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer is a German doctor with his own practice in Rome, Italy. His 17-year old son Dirk was shot while on holiday in the Mediterranean. Three months later, Dirk died and shortly after, Dr. Hamer, who had been healthy all his life, but who was utterly devastated by this catastrophe, found he had testicular cancer. Rather suspicious about this coincidence, he set about doing research on the personal histories of cancer patients to see whether they had suffered some shock, distress or trauma before their illness.

For what he discovered now he is in jail in France.

The New Medicine of Hamer

"Through the millennia, humanity has more or less consciously known that all diseases ultimately have a psychic origin and it became a "scientific" asset firmly anchored in the inheritance of universal knowledge; it is only modern medicine that has turned our animated beings into a bag full of chemical formulas."

The disease is a special biological response to an unusual situation, and when the ‘shock’ situation is resolved, the body sets about returning to normality. The greatest example of this is cancer. In Italy scientists talk about "kankropoli", although you won't never heard about it on TV. "Tangentopoli" (city of bribes) was a scandal about Italian political class, Kankropoli is the scandal about medicine for cancer that turned into another racket.

It's funny how we can't heal cancer but so much is known about substances that provoke cancer. An istance of this happened when Italian ex-health minister Veronesi said GMOs could heal diseases and blindness. He said there was an insect which left on grains a mildew which was a powerful carcinogenic (in fact I don't think it is safe to bet GMOs always work against insects, I think this is a disinformation).

Don't get the picture wrong. According to Hamer a disease is a reflection of your psychological state, and can harm you if you don't try to heal it. Also, reparation fase can be sometimes more harmful than the disease. Besides this disease are born also from intoxication of external agents (like pollution or vaccines) or from genetical causes. Western medicine is still useful, it just has to acknowledge that immunitary system is not first weak then strong, immunitary system is what cause microbes to attack human body and then order them to heal it. But then, Western medicine should also acknowledge most of its drugs are potentially harmful. At the end Western medicine heal symptoms, not the disease. It's like the joke about the evidence of malfunction where the evidence is removed.

I don't know if it's true or false, but Hamer's theory explains Nature better. Also Masanobu Fukuoka (who was quoted in Earth Girl Arjuna) did this in agricultural department.

At the end the world as we know it is false and invented. A different version of history is taught in every country (someone wrote a book on history schoolbooks). The official version of everything, even only in the scientific department, often doesn't make sense, and there is a reason for this, there is also a reason for what official version can't find reasons for.

Gandhi said: "To me, Truth is God and there is no way to find Truth except the way of nonviolence". Wars after all are just a lie after another ("A man never lies as much as after a hunt, during a war, and before an election." Otto von Bismarck), and you fight lies with Truth. Gandhi is (conveniently) remembered only for his peace manifestations, yet he even thought of a model of civil society where love and truth works as in private as in public institutions, where there is not such lame excuse as "I am just doing my work". Listening to much to the media and people will side with oppressors against the oppressed, and they will also grow anti-intellectualism to blind themselves so that they won't see the full picture.

I think Gandhi would have liked Basara, although he could have find him noisy.

FV

[Sundown]

This poses also an interesting view on the difference between cultures. Western culture was invented by Catholic Church from something that was not the Bible. The Catholic Church created the Devil and the Hell. The Bible created the myth of Evil as opposed to Good.

I think some clarification is needed on this statement. The Catholic Church did not "create" Satan nor Hell. Both are clearly in the original Scriptures long before the formation of the Catholic Church through Constantine (as Protestants see it... Catholics see their church as going back to Peter).

However, Satan as a characature with horns and pitchfork, and Hell as a place where devils and demons poke forks into sinners is something developed later-- and that doesn't particularly have any scriptural basis. The scripture of the Bible does allude to Satan: as a fallen angel, the Enemy, the serpent, Baal, etc., and the spoilsport figure that is the embodiment of rebellion and pride against God. Hell's also mentioned as a place of torment, with some allusions to fire (possibly figurative). But references to both remain somewhat vague.

The Bible and the Judeo/Christian tradition is probably not the only tradition that includes the idea of Good versus Evil. I believe there are other belief systems that incorporate this spiritual dualism.

There are also many within the Christian faith that do not view Evil as a separate entity or force that exists apart from Good, who's only aim is to battle Good. Evil is merely a corruption of Good and corruption of a previously perfect creation, and not an existant force with power by itself. And scripture points to the root cause of this corruption as pride, self above all.

It's interesting to see that the most evil men capable of the most evil deeds of the greatest scope had some very admirable attributes-- what would actually be considered good as part of God's creation in Judeo/Christian thinking: intelligence, charm, determination, perserverance, leadership. Many also did evil in thinking that they were doing the right and the moral. In a manner, Evil has no power of its own except from the corruption and power of a created good. And the greater that good corrupted, the great the evil that results.

-Al

[Agent ONE]

I HATE Macross7 enough to actually murder someone over it.

My reasons:

1. ENCOURAGING WEAKNESS IN CHILDREN

The trend since we were kids has been one of featuring heroes (if I must call them that) who are just worthless weaklings who promote taking the easy way out… M7 is one of the worst on this issue. Plot-line is unrealistic and peace and dancing while holding hands is ALWAYS the way things end, which is teaching a lesson of fantasy, NOT reality… No one is ever confrontational, there is no real problem solving, and everything is a compromise, as much as we would like to believe that is a real reflection on life, it isn’t… Nothing in life is a compromise; there are those who take, and those who get ripped off, that’s life.

2. TARGETED AT LITTLE KIDS

I have had many arguments with MW members on this point, but it is pretty obvious that M7 wasn’t made for us old Macross fans… In fact quite the opposite, most of the older guys around here are enraged by M7… No, M7 was made for a younger generation, it was made to bring a new Macross fans in, but if it did or not, it managed to make me and others like me embarrassed to be Macross fans.

3. STUPID DESIGNS, MACHINES WITH BOOBS AND FACES

The designs are so retarded I could scream. I mean seriously, the teenage girl gets a pink fighter plane with boobs…Some of the other fighters have actual faces… What the fu(k… If this show were called “Fruits in Space” or something, I guess I could handle this, but its called Macross… A show that gets affiliated with DYRL, and the machines with faces and boobs have no place next to a work of art like DYRL.

4. STUPID DESIGNS, CLOTHING, NAMES, AND COLOR CHOICES

They took the bad ass of bad asses.. Max, and they made him wear a dress. So unbelievably lame. They made the main squadron of the show, whose job was to dance and sing in space in a RAINBOW or colors… They named a squadron “Pink Pecker.” This one makes me want to just rip M7 fan’s teeth out with a rusty pair of pliers. God I swear Kawamori hates old school Macross fans.

5. REDICULOUS ENEMIES

The ‘bad guys’ in this show were just clowns. Totally stupid dialogue, with characters that looked like some kind of cross-dressing costume pride parade winners. I mean there is absolutely nothing to fear about these guys, they are laughable 100% of the time. Combined with their lame appearance and lame dialogue, their mission is to suck song energy from humans… How sinister.

[Mr March]

The question itself implies we are to impart some significant end to the contraversy that has become part of this board. As a member here at MW who typically never engages in the Macross 7 debate, I can offer very little of a definitive conclusion. I can offer an opinion and an intelligent evaluation.

I've seen the first dozen episodes of Macross 7 and all four episodes of Macross 7 Dynamite. Having seen everything else Macross, I invest no effort to watch any more Macross 7 or related spin-offs for various reasons, all of which can be reduced to one word that describes Macross 7 in my eyes; forgettable.

I tend to view art (Macross 7 is art, despite the controversy) in terms of its value in either one of two categories:

Art that entertains relative to the state of the medium

Art that contributes to the expansion and exploration of the medium to which it belongs

Everything I watch can be measured by the success achieved in those two categories. It's a simple system that allows me to enjoy something silly, yet highly entertaining or enjoy other works more provocative and existential.

Macross 7 is a work which offers insignificant value to me relative to the genre, the medium, or other works of entertainment or art. As such, Macross 7 becomes banal and is easily dismissed in favour of much more promising works that are more deserving of time and attention by the critical eye. Examining Macross 7 in great detail may ease the minds of those defending their adoration for the series, but the truth is Macross 7 is undeserving of such scrutiny and the vehemence of fans does little to persuade non-fans of its worth. As a piece of entertainment or art, Macross 7 succeeds only in as much as it can entice and maintain the interest of the viewer. As a viewer, I remain uninspired by Macross 7 and I'm unimpressed by what little it has to offer me or my love for entertainment and art.

Edited January 14, 2005 by Mr March

[Keith]

BOMBA!

[The Nighthawk]

I'll say this, I liked M7 more than I expected to, and probably more than I should have. There are good and bad points...

The Good.

Characterisation is excellent. Basra, while respectable for his determination and talent, is also at times selfish, flighty and annoying as hell. Mylene serves her purpose perfectly as a token "wiggle-chick" with some musical talent and useful skills, and Ray is the confident, always-ready brains of the group. Viffidas is much like Ringo-along for the ride. They're almost exactly like real band members I know. Other characters like Millia and Max are just as I would expect them, all grown up, in charge, and finding their lives lacking in middle age. Gamlin I most easily identify with-the competent guy who knows his job, does what he's told, and gets caught in the middle of all kinds of crap, all while hoping in the end he'll get the girl. The human/Zent characters drive the show well. The Protodeviln, however... Well, see below.

*Some* mecha designs are great. I really love the VF-17, the VF-22 and to a lesser degree the VF-19, and it's nice to see cameos by the older mecha. The military ships are nice and for the most part their designs make sense; they're a fairly natural evolution of the ships we've already seen in the Macross universe. Not too happy about the fate of the VF-11 though, and the Sound Force stuff... Again, see below.

I like the feeling that the colony fleet is more than just a collection of ships. There's a strong sense that this is a real community, with each ship being important to the whole fleet. The Milky Road between different civilian ships and to some degree the more outlandish designs of those ships actually enhance this feeling for me. It looks like a real city moving through space with ships designed to provide comfort to the occupants, allowing them to live and work in a familiar environment. They may look silly and strange to the viewer but imagine being there. How the shell shape of the vacation ship reminds you of the Earth you've left behind; a reminder that you may be a colonist but you're a human colonist. Psychologically this is sound design to promote good mental health among the people of the Fleet, and it's a nice detail that adds to the series.

Links to the past. Love how they find the ruins, the little bits that fill in the history of the Macross universe. That's great and I believe it sets things up for more stories involving the Supervision Army.

The Bad.

OK, Sound Force is just whack. Valks with faces and clownish paint jobs are one thing, and being a Transformers fan I can kinda get around that--but the whole premise of song as a weapon of war and peace is beyond ridiculous. As a psychological weapon as in M2, it makes sense. Combining it with magical Overtech to turn Spiritia/Chi/Ki/Whatever into an effective energy field that breaks the enemy's defenses is Ka Ka. (Ancient Egyptian joke) It reeks of Dragonball Z. They wanted to continue the theme that the exchange of ideas and culture can help to usher in peace between disparate peoples, yadda yadda, I get it. It's a theme carried over from the original Macross and taken way too far by making all conventional weapons next to useless, forcing them to rely on new magical tech and the talent of musicians using very expensive prototype military hardware to change a relentless enemy's heart. Right. Happens all the time. Way too exaggerated, and made worse by the limited number of songs in Basara and Mylene's catalog.

The Protodeviln are, like, the worst villains held over from Thundercats, Silverhawks and Sailor Moon, thrown together in a blender on "frappe" and poured out into dirty glasses. Give them custom mecha and enslaved humans/Zents and it's still not much better. Actually I like the brainwashing idea but the PD themselves were kind of a let-down when I first saw them, and how they act like bad characters from lousy American saturday-morning cartoons. Through them, and what seems to be a departure from standard Macross story-telling, much of the series devolves into typical "baddie-of-the-week" type stuff. Macross can be so much better.

Mecha battles were atrocious. I saw this before I saw DYRL, and found myself asking, "what happened?" VF-11's, among my favorite mecha ever, just blindly flying along getting blown up just like CF's in the more poorly-animated eps of the original Macross? Lousy. Re-hashed footage? Too lazy to even change the background to reflect a different environment? Terrible. Only main characters got any decent fighting scenes and even Gamlin made that same sniper-shot-through-the-cockpit at least a half dozen times. To the same enemy mecha. Crap. The best VF-11 fight scenes are, and may always be, the opening minutes of M+.

My Final Opinion:

Overall it's an entertaining series. Drags on a little, yes, and as I said above, suffers from "baddie-of-the-week" syndrome. The plot is preposterous and childish but as simple-minded fun it's good enough. I certainly don't hate it, or feel cheated that I spent money on it. It's Macross but it's not. Take it for what it is, remember its target audience and it's more enjoyable. I'll certainly take it over the alternative (which is nothing).

[Final Vegeta]

I am kinda broking the rule of not replying, but I think the idea was a flame over Macross 7, and this is not.

The scripture of the Bible does allude to Satan: as a fallen angel, the Enemy, the serpent, Baal, etc., and the spoilsport figure that is the embodiment of rebellion and pride against God.

The aspect of Satan as we know it was taken from Greek Pan, the god of Nature. Baal was the god of sun of another religion who was turned into a demon by Jews. Also Tiamat was a mother goddess, a positive diety, who was turned into another demon. It was a common practice at the time, I suppose.

The serpent was actually the most canniest beast, but it was not evil in the sense we mean it. Satan was one of the "sons of men" who tested the love -err, what is Giobbe's name in English- had for God.

Christianism fashioned itself with many flavours to lure peoples. In the beginning was the Word because the Word is the Greek "logos". The idea of resurrection also met resistance with Greeks because they find unrational that one should resurrect with an aged body.

Take Christmas. It was chosen 25 December as its date because that was the feast of Mithra. At the end Christianism's victory over Mithra cult was simply political though (if you don't live in Italy maybe you can't understand it. Italy is the country of political bribes, although a lot of people are tired of this. We've had 56 governments in 50 years, no leader has yet exhausted his mandate by law terms).

While English countries had Halloween, Christianism replaced it with the day of mourn for our dead. Now Halloween is replacing this festivity again, after all it was the original one.

At one times Popes even sold indulgences to "atone" sins. Since Hell was too cruel they invented even the Purgatory. It seems one Pope had interests in the market of fish so he invented a long period where nobody was allowed to eat meat, except those who bought permission from the Church.

When Rockefellers bought Britannica these kind of details disappeared from it, who knows why. There was even the legend of a woman Pope (the rule didn't allow for this) who was discovered because she bore a child. This kind of satire has always plenty of reasons behind it.

At the end Popes' best weapon was that they prevented people from reading Bible, which was also written in Latin. When press was invented and people started reading the Bible in their language Protestantism was born. Obviously Popes persecuted it as they persecuted Valdeses, Donatists and other "alternative" Christians. The same happens in Arab countries, I've heard; one of the things they censore from internet asides from porn are religious discussions, history teaches that there may be scisms.

In Italy the news they found Jesus' brother James' ossary in 2002 is not yet arrived. Officially there were different Mary in the gospels, each one with his children. Unofficially it was the same Mary who had at least 7 children. The movie "The Snatch" also speaks of a mistranslation of "young woman" into "virgin". Now in Germany they don't speak of Catholicism anymore, just Christianism. In Italy the Pope is still ruling firmly though.

The Bible and the Judeo/Christian tradition is probably not the only tradition that includes the idea of Good versus Evil.  I believe there are other belief systems that incorporate this spiritual dualism.

Well, yes, Zoroastrism. Now that I think better of it, maybe Christianism cannibalized it.

There are also many within the Christian faith that do not view Evil as a separate entity or force that exists apart from Good, who's only aim is to battle Good.  Evil is merely a corruption of Good and corruption of a previously perfect creation, and not an existant force with power by itself.

Philip Dick wrote that according to Judaism Good and Evil are just two players of a game. The Good purifies the Evil and the Evil purifies the Good. Theorically there should be even a purpose in this game. If this is Judaism view on it, it looks kinda like a Taoism. After all ancient cultures have a common Indoeuropean origin. I came to think they knew the world better than modern Westerners; if Kawamori believes it then it's good enough for me.

It's interesting to see that the most evil men capable of the most evil deeds of the greatest scope had some very admirable attributes

Hitler? He evaded taxes. Besides this he was just a puppet claimed to be an economic genius when in fact money came from abroad. By the way, have teachers taught you in your school that his body was never found despite everyone says he commited suicide?

One day I have to explain you what really happened in those 2000+ years of war and lies.

what would actually be considered good as part of God's creation in Judeo/Christian thinking: intelligence, charm, determination, perserverance, leadership.

Can you tell me one thing? Is it true that for protestants success and money are considered signs of the love of God? This seems to be called Calvinism.

In the Simpsons there was a joke about San Francesco being the most over-rated saint. The saint who gave all his wealth to poors. I took that like Murdoch's propaganda, like the anti-French statements.

Many also did evil in thinking that they were doing the right and the moral. In a manner, Evil has no power of its own except from the corruption and power of a created good.  And the greater that good corrupted, the great the evil that results.

Evil has the power of looking and speaking like Good to fools (and it would still talk of peace and liberty), and more importantly to lure people who follows it into thinking they are Good too. Fatima legend says that the next Pope will be the Anti-Christ. Not someone dressed like Marilyn Manson.

FV

[Roy Focker]

I'm a bit at a lost of how things got off track or why people seem to just barely follow the rules. I'd start kicking ass but I have a cold.

Today is the last day to get your rational opinion "on Macross 7" in.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

Baal was the god of sun of another religion who was turned into a demon by Jews.

from wikipedia:

There is no single Semitic sun-god named Ba‘al

The hypothesis that there was a common Semitic sun-god named Ba‘al fell from favor in the 19th century as new archaelogical evidence indicated multiple gods bearing the title Ba‘al and little about them that connected them to the sun. A certain exasperation on that matter appears even in 1899 in the Encyclopædia Biblica article Baal by W. Robertson Smith and George F. Moore:

That Baal was primarily a sun-god was for a long time almost a dogma among scholars and is still often repeated.  This doctrine is connected with theories of the origin of religion which are now almost universally abandoned. The worship of the heavenly bodies is not the beginning of religion.  Moreover, there was not, as this theory assumes, one god Baal, worshipped under different forms and names by the Semitic peoples, but a multitude of local Baals, each the inhabitant of his own place, the protector and benefactor of those who worshipped him there.  Even in the astro-theology of the Babylonians the star of Bēl was not the sun : it was the planet Jupiter. There is no intimation in the OT that any of the Canaanite Baals were sun-gods, or that the worship of the sun (Shemesh), of which we have ample evidence, both early and late, was connected with that of the Baals ; in 2 K. 235 cp 11 the cults are treated as distinct.

New findings and further scholarship in the following century have further confirmed these statements but the old meta-myth of the single Semitic sun-god Ba‘al lingers.

[Sundown]

My reply to ya in PM, Final Vegeta. Sorry folks for being off topic-- slipped my mind that this was the one-post-per-user Mac 7 thread.

[Roy Focker]

Summary:

Note this summary of opinions is not accurate and all that stuff.

Basara

Love him or hate him. There seems to be more reasons to hate him. A big one is that he's annoying and in your face. Yet his attitude of not giving up stuck a cord (excuse the pun) in many of his fans. In a way the viewer and Gamlin are the same person. Gamlin's first impressions of Basara are not good. The same can be said for the viewers. I believe making Basara not likable at first was done on purpose with the intent that his strengths in his beliefs would grow on the viewer as it does with Gamlin and the rest of city 7. This happens for some viewers but for others it doesn't. Prehaps they did too good of a job making first impresssion a bad one that it too hard to repair the damage afterwards.

It deviates too far from Expections

One's preconceived expections can effect one's opinion concerning Macross 7.

Look at the mecha. The Valkyries used by the U.N.SPACY in Macross 7 bare a close enough resemblance to earlier designs that they are generally accepted. On the other hand the Sound Force's Valkyries are too far off earlier designs that even those who show signs of liking Macross 7 have problems accepting them.

Look at the enemy. The Zentradi are giants. The Protodevlin are monsters. Even though you can consider a giant a monster the Zentradi are still more human/alien than monsters. The appearance of the Protodevlin clearly resembles monsters (+ fairies and elfs). Once again enemies are too far off from earlier ones to be accepted.

Look at Singing and Spirita which bares a resembalance to magic. Whether ones hates singing in the series or not that should not be an issue. Singing has always been a part of Macross. The heroes and villians using "Magic"-like powers has not.

Whether one had little to none or lot experience with Macross before viewing Macross 7 preconceived expections were already in placed. If you saw culture, love, the human spirit and civilians bringing about peace instead of military might as important theme in other Macross media than you have may see the same theme in Macross 7. It meet expectations yet there are a lot of things such those discussed above that violates expectations.

Side Notes:

Some other common things people didn't like include:

Recycled animation used in battles, cookie cutter episodes that did not add much to the story, characters of sound force.

Some other common things that people did like includes:

Evolution of themes from Macross, character developement.

Special Side Note:

Posters were asked to post their reasons for loving or hating it in a rational manner. Some of those expressed a clear dislike (but not all) had problems of being strictly rational. They did express their reasons for not like it but they couldn't resist adding in the irrational comments as well. I stated that violations of rules could result in a Macross World Free Weekend for the Offender. Yet people couldn't resist. Does this mean those who express a clear dislike are in general not rational?

[Roy Focker]

Back by popular demand.

Please make you all follow the rules this time.

Macross 7 Love or Hate it?

Way too much Macross 7 bashing. This is topic is one that I wanted to start for a while. I want to hear intelligent reasons as to why it is bad or why it's good.

RULES - PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

1. You must give a well thought out reason why. Short answers like because it's got cool Valks, gay, lame, Mylene's hot, sucks or cause Basara is in it doesn't count.

2. Don't agrue over someone else's reason. This for you to post your own rational thoughts.

3. You're allowed one chance to post and that's to say whether you love or hate it and why.

4. Violations of the above can result in a Macross World Free Weekend for the Offender.

[Keith]

Hmm, one chance more than the last chance to post, or does that one chance that we posted before count as the one.....whatever.

The part I loved most about 7 was the part most seem to have trouble with, Basara. What many misconstrue as arrogence, is merely one man fullfilling his lifetime dream of moving mountains with his music. He's focused, he's direct, he doesn't B.S., and he doesn't let anyone stand in his way of reaching his goal.

[nathan]

Macross 7 was ok I liked parts of it and hated others. They story started off a little slow but they worst part was Basara. Besides the fact he has a customized version of the UN's latest VF for his very own before the fleet does with no explaination, it's his whole attitude. He acts like we should listen to him just becuase it's him. Like he's god's gift to the universe and when people don't listen to him he throws a tantrum. For the most part he's a very self centered jerk and doesnt care about anything but what he wants. What's worse is the attitude of the military towards him. He's allowed to go out and disrupt thier defense and get who knows how many soldiers and civilians killed or drained with no repocusions at all. It's not until after he's working with the military that a few officers try and crack down on him. That's what really bugs me about M7. If they'd handed the begining diferently then it would have been much better.

What I liked about M7 was how everyone pulled together at the end. Just watching the last few episodes M7 is great. The other episodes where Basara isn't the main character or is on the nice side are pretty good but over all it's Basara's attitude drag the whole series down.

Besides the end I liked the new mecha, especially the destroids and police mecha. I'd love to see more of them.