Hiroshi Ohnogi and Macross Frontier

[Gubaba]

I am sorry, as MisaForever made me notice a lot of logical connections remained inside my head. Let's just try to reason it out though. I will try just one example.

Ranka was the Little Queen, being able to communicate with the Vajra thanks to her intestinal bacterium. Also she was the daughter of Ranshe Mei, who worked with Grace.

With Ohnogi, in the last part of the anime, Sheryl suddenly became able to communicate with the Vajra thanks to Vajra's bacterium. To top that, she was also revealed as the granddaughter of Mao Nome, who worked with Grace.

Sheryl's connections to the plot became an almost verbatim copy of those of Ranka. Do you agree? Fact is, were those as deep as Ranka's? Ranka had a past tied to the Vajra. When Vajra are killed she feels pain; does Sheryl relate to the Vajra in any meaningful way, or experience pain when they are killed? We knew what Ranshe Mei thought of Grace, but what did Mao think of her? Didn't this all feel like it was tacked on at the last minute? Isn't Sheryl stealing what should be the job of Ranka? (this last thing is a trait of Mary Sue)

Now, I think you can at least agree that even if Sheryl was gone the plot would have advanced without swaying an inch, and it was not like the authors had no idea where the anime was going.

It's not like I didn't like what Ohnogi did with Ranka. I dislike what he did with Alto, with Brera, with Ranka, with Sheryl, with the love triangle ("I am ill, I win"), with Michael's last words, with the plot, with the tight writing and even with the VF-25 VS VF-27's rivalry. And that was personal, look at my avatar.

Again, I think a lot of the logic connections are rooted in assumptions. An example: when the show started, the Vajra were portrayed as the villains. After Ohnogi took over, the Vajra were revealed as not hostile, but rather manipulated by Galaxy. Is that Ohnogi's doing as well?

I'm sure some twists were planned from the beginning, and didn't change. Others were surely altered, perhaps by Ohnogi, perhaps by someone else on the staff. Television is never a one-man show, no matter how often a single person takes the credit (or the blame).

Personally, when I watch an anime, usually I don't have a favorite character. You know, you can't have the same character in all the scenes, so it's best to find satisfaction from everything. That's why I want all characters made of win, and that's why I am insulting Ohnogi, absurdly hoping the fellows who translate the favorite character poll bring my words to Kawamori, together with my advice for him to trust himself more.

Well, Kawamori wanted to do a great series. Ohnogi blasted in, took the role of the main writer, asked for free hand on the love triangle, and then he even admitted he didn't know what to do with Ranka, which is the character more important to the plot, and also important to the love triangle. Artistically this is a betrayal. It's like in Kissdum where the director told everyone he knew what he was doing and then flee after the first episodes. It's not like Ohnogi was there to improve the series, he was there to ship his favorite character. But he didn't tell Kawamori that, he boastfully told him he was gonna make improvements. And I can't stand people who say something and then do the opposite.

Again, that's based on your interpretation of both the conversation and what Ohnogi did with (or, perhaps closer to your point, to) the series. He didn't blast in; he was invited by Kawamori. They've been good friends since college, have worked together often, and most likely will continue to work together. You may believe Kawamori was betrayed, but there's no indication that anyone involved in the show's production feels that way. And we'll never know what the show would've been like without Ohnogi. We can guess, but to say that everything you thought didn't fit is all Ohnogi's doing seems, as I said, a little unfair.

If you look at the episodes of SDFM that Ohnogi wrote, it's a good list (for the record: "Kung-Fu Dandy," "Micro Cosmos," "Drop Out," "Viva Maria," "Broken Heart," and "Private Time"); some of the most affecting charcter-driven episodes in the whole series. He's a good writer (I even liked the character interactions in Zero, although I seem to be in the minority there). The father-daughter dinner that opens "Misa Hayase: White Reminiscnces" is a deft, clever scene that really shows the coldness and awkwardness of the relationship between Misa and her father.

What you call "shipping his favorite character," I call, "taking the character with the greatest potential and making her live up to it." Honest difference of opinion, I suppose...

And, as Azrael hinted at, I'm happier with the harem ending than with Sheryl scooping up Alto, leaving Ranka and the dust, and causing all the most obnoxious of the Sheryl fans to crow and cheer and rub everyone's noses in how right they were.

[Westlo]

I think Ohnogi said months ago he took over the writing of Macross Frontier under the full supervision of Kawamori and as the last episode showed Kawamori could've changed things any time he wanted since he was still in charge period. So if you're looking for blame wouldn't the person who lost control of his show, the person who invited the "destroyer" of the show, the person who supervised and okay'd what he did... be of equal blame? And Ohnogi's clearly a better writer than Kawamori, Birdy Season 2 has been excellent and I have high hopes for Shangri-La and FMA 2 (will be curious to see how he he does the start since the old version covered a lot of that too). Kawamori's a visionary.... not a writer.

And you're clearly reaching like Dhalsim with trying to smear Ohnogi with Gundam SEED Destiny's taint, everyone knew who was to blame for that and that was Chiaki Morosawa, wife of director Mitsuo Fukuda. Do people wonder why Destiny had so many recap episodes? A certain someone was late in handing in scripts... and no FV sadly for you it's not Ohnogi... I mean you know it's bad when the Animation director apoligies on his blog and says he will redeem himself with his next work.

Also FV I highly doubt that Sheryl was meant to leave after Episode 5 until fan reaction changed that as you seem to think? Why? The Macross Frontier manga.. which had Galaxy under attack before Star Date aired. And you seem to think Sheryl was meant to be killed early.. maybe the original Sheryl from pre planning stages who was meant to be Ranka's older sister figure because to paraphrase Kawamori "It would've been awesome if Minmay had an older sister figure!". I really doubt Yoshino (script writer for Froniter... I geuss until Ohnogi took charge) the guy who elevated Sheryl from minor character to love triangle participant would kill off "his" character so early but think what you want to think. If there's one thing that's been clearly obvious from the last 15 months of fanwanking since Deculture aired is that arguing on internet forums changes no one's mind.

Again, that's based on your interpretation of both the conversation and what Ohnogi did with (or, perhaps closer to your point, to) the series. He didn't blast in; he was invited by Kawamori. They've been good friends since college, have worked together often, and most likely will continue to work together. You may believe Kawamori was betrayed, but there's no indication that anyone involved in the show's production feels that way.

Most of the staff come off as Sheryl fans though so why would they complain

Edited March 7, 2009 by Westlo

[shan]

And, as Azrael hinted at, I'm happier with the harem ending than with Sheryl scooping up Alto, leaving Ranka and the dust, and causing all the most obnoxious of the Sheryl fans to crow and cheer and rub everyone's noses in how right they were.

That's scary. I'd rather have them do the harem ending than decide the winner based on a character's popularity, both Ranka and Sheryl, unless of course Kawamori finally decided it on his own. Off topic: Is Kawamori going to take charge in the movie? Or will it be Ohnogi?

[Westlo]

Off topic: Is Kawamori going to take charge in the movie? Or will it be Ohnogi?

Kawamori is always in charge, Ohnogi and Yoshino before him wrote under his supervision, it's not like they changed Sheryl behind his back and giggled together as it aired going "Oh boy boss is going to be pissed when he sees Alto kiss Sheryl in 22 hehehe". They talked to and convinced him to change his mind on issues.. it's like when Miami Heat staff convinced Pat Riley to draft D Wade instead of Chris Kaman with the #5 pick in the famous 2003 NBA Draft... and in both cases here doing so payed off... Kawamori got his series to become extremely popular and Sheryl was a big part of that (#1 female on Newtype and placed first in Anican 2008 Reader’s Poll, both genders for that poll) while the Miami Heat won a championship in 06 and have one of the top 3 players at the moment. It shows Kawamori is flexible and open to doing something that is better than what he thought of instead of being stubborn and going it's MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY.

As for the movie it seems Kawamori was going to be director but is now executive director or some crap and someone else will be directing, no idea about Ohnogi but he's got his hands full this spring season doing series composition of the redone manga based version of Full Metal Alchemist as well as Gonzo's Shangri-la, which hopefully is their next Last Exile...

If you're asking if Kawamori is going to write, no of course not.. that would be a disaster His main talents are clearly designing mecha and thinking of scenarios as opposed to pure writing.

Edited March 7, 2009 by Westlo

[sketchley]

my 2 cents:

the writers were most likely reacting to the whims, wishes and demands of the fans.

By this, I don't mean any communication other than what episodes had the highest ratings, what episodes had the lowest ratings. If memory serves, the mecha porn episodes (it may have just been eps. 07) had the lowest ratings. Changes probably happened after that (or not, given the amount of recycled animation, especially in combat sequences) to both maintain or gain viewers, as well as keep things within budget and delivered on time.

So yeah, the series changed from its original vision, not necessarily because a new writer was brought on to collaborate with. Let's move on.

[magnuskn]

Thanks for your appreciation, Renato. I suggest you read things written here (don't diffuse it too much) (yeah, I know, Shaloom Shaloom Shaloom ). The url was posted in the news thread times ago (by the way Magnuskn, are there updates?).

Not yet, the last liner notes are for episode 22, which I already translated and posted on AnimeSuki. Their affiliated fansub group already has released episode 23, so I think Shaloom will surely bring out the corresponding liner notes soon. I am checking in daily to look for them.

[Westlo]

my 2 cents:

the writers were most likely reacting to the whims, wishes and demands of the fans.

By this, I don't mean any communication other than what episodes had the highest ratings, what episodes had the lowest ratings. If memory serves, the mecha porn episodes (it may have just been eps. 07) had the lowest ratings. Changes probably happened after that (or not, given the amount of recycled animation, especially in combat sequences) to both maintain or gain viewers, as well as keep things within budget and delivered on time.

So yeah, the series changed from its original vision, not necessarily because a new writer was brought on to collaborate with. Let's move on.

IIRC Episode 5 went through several rewrites and was the most edited script in the entire show... after episode 5 aired they realized they had hit the ball out the park with Sheryl in securing a massive reaction from the fanbse and reacted accordingly. The reaction Sheryl got in 5 Ranka didn't really get until episode 12... (kira craze/meme) and Ranka's rise in 12 was undermined by Sheryl's downfall so to say, for example the official Macross BBS went from omg ranka was awesome quickly to poor Sheryl

I think episode 9 (michael x klan) had the lowest rating of the first half of the season, I didn't really take much notice of the second half but I've heard claims ratings went up after Ohnogi took over.. might actually check that out to see if it has any truth.. wouldn't take me long thanks to the anime ratings thread on AS.

[Gubaba]

If you're asking if Kawamori is going to write, no of course not.. that would be a disaster His main talents are clearly designing mecha and thinking of scenarios as opposed to pure writing.

God yes, a total disaster! Just like the final episode of SDFM (which Kawamori wrote). What a lame, sucky, icky, no-good, poo-poo writer he is!

[shan]

It looks like Sheryl's popularity is not enough to get Kawamori to let her win the triangle. Seeing as his original heroine Ranka also has a strong fanbase, he can only do a harem ending.

Gubaba. I liked SDFM's ending!

[Killer Robot]

By this, I don't mean any communication other than what episodes had the highest ratings, what episodes had the lowest ratings. If memory serves, the mecha porn episodes (it may have just been eps. 07) had the lowest ratings. Changes probably happened after that (or not, given the amount of recycled animation, especially in combat sequences) to both maintain or gain viewers, as well as keep things within budget and delivered on time.

I recall seeing a lot of this in the episode discussion threads, and as some people pointed out then, there's a lag to think of: the week after a really flashy episode, or the week after a cheaply animated or slow-paced one, seemed to be where the swings occured. My guess is that 8 got such high episodes because people saw rebroadcasts/torrents/etc of 7, or else just heard buzz from friends or online, and made sure to watch the rest. Vice-versa, after a slow episode people would be less likely to watch next week. Ratings swing a bit differently now than in the old days, so while I can't totally rule out the high-rated panty chase episode being more popular in Japan than the lower-rated flashy space battle+concert episode before it, I don't think that's actually the case.

[Gubaba]

Gubaba. I liked SDFM's ending!

If my saying the words "icky" and "poo poo" doesn't telegraph that I'm being sarcastic, I don't know what will.

[Westlo]

Killer Robot there's just so much information out these days it's really hard to not know what the next episode is all about so I really can't see too many people being blindsided by 8 like "wtf I came for mecha not panty crap". And if you stay up to 2-3am watching anime odds are you're in some way hardcore and would know what an episode is about.. it's not like casual watchers viewing Conan or One Piece or something.

Also I wouldn't really place too much stock in tv ratings for late night anime, especially the ones we got figures for since that region aired Frontier the day after the other one which we got raws off. Said raws which would've been all over Japanese p2p, torrent and niconico. To Love Ru got just as good ratings as Frontier yet when you look at dvd/blueray sales Frontier absolutely crushed it (and well every other tv show not called geass... which it still outsold anyway...)

God yes, a total disaster! Just like the final episode of SDFM (which Kawamori wrote). What a lame, sucky, icky, no-good, poo-poo writer he is!

Connect the dots is hard! Way more harder than writing an entire movie script. Also I wonder if Kawamori's writing credit is the same as a Britney "I really wrote this song and had no one help me" Spears type writing credit

[Gubaba]

Connect the dots is hard! Way more harder than writing an entire movie script. Also I wonder if Kawamori's writing credit is the same as a Britney "I really wrote this song and had no one help me" Spears type writing credit

If endings are so incredibly simple to write, why do most anime endings suck?

[Killer Robot]

If endings are so incredibly simple to write, why do most anime endings suck?

You know, some have an excuse. There seem to be a lot based on ongoing manga who have to fake it for some sense of resolution.

On the other hand, something that starts as anime has no excuse.

[taksraven]

The real question is: who's to blame for Brera's "casual" suit?

[sketchley]

Killer Robot there's just so much information out these days it's really hard to not know what the next episode is all about so I really can't see too many people being blindsided by 8 like "wtf I came for mecha not panty crap". And if you stay up to 2-3am watching anime odds are you're in some way hardcore and would know what an episode is about.. it's not like casual watchers viewing Conan or One Piece or something.

Also I wouldn't really place too much stock in tv ratings for late night anime, especially the ones we got figures for since that region aired Frontier the day after the other one which we got raws off. Said raws which would've been all over Japanese p2p, torrent and niconico. To Love Ru got just as good ratings as Frontier yet when you look at dvd/blueray sales Frontier absolutely crushed it (and well every other tv show not called geass... which it still outsold anyway...)

Yes. Newtype has (or had) a brief episode synopsis up to a month before the episode aired. I'm sure other guides on TV had larger synopsis. It's only the people who can't read Japanese that were blindsided.

Re: ratings: looks like we'll have to include ratings for the Kansai region in addition to the Kanto region. Nevertheless, I think most fans with a HiViz TV would want to record the show on BD, if not watch it live in it's HiViz glory. I don't think any of the raws every got close to the broadcast level of detail.

Nevertheless, this is all tangental - as my point was the writers/creators/producers/directors of the show listened to the audience, and changed the show to maintain and gain audience. Ratings are just one barometer of many to check.

Edited March 8, 2009 by sketchley

[noble_roar]

At least you disclaimered your sub-heading.

Now, Sheryl was Ohnogi's favourite character; he denies being her fan only not to admit to being biased toward her. You know, his wife was interested in him and approached him. Ohnogi reacted and married her; maybe he would have died virgin if a girl didn't approach him first and he didn't secure her as soon as possible. That's the reason why Ohnogi liked Sheryl in episode 5 when she flirted openly with Alto, it remembered him his wife. "She was like a lion", that is, a man-eater. Imagine his face when he was told Sheryl was gonna die in the next episodes and Alto was gonna end up with Ranka in the end. He didn't like it so much he convinced Kawamori to let him in. A fan that knows the director is like a computer programmer with a screwdriver.

That's right, Ohnogi is a loser in life and he married the next woman who came onto him because he was desperate, and that's why he was lying when he said he didn't have a hard-on for Sheryl. I bet you and Ohnogi gossiped together about his life over lunch?

Oh wait.

Do you even understand the ridiculousness of what you just wrote? And that's even before we get into the full meat of your post.

Brera underwent slightly bigger changes though. First of all, Kawamori planned to give Alto a rival.

Alto-Ranka-Brera was supposed to be the true love triangle of Macross Frontier. It was like Macross Plus Plus if you think about it. Beside that, Brera was the character that linked Alto to the bigger picture, the Galaxy conspiracy, and made it personal, so he was fundamental to escalate the climax and make things epic.

Well, Ohnogi didn't like Alto fighting with Brera because he understood istantly it was metaphorically a battle over the heart of Ranka, and he didn't want Alto to partecipate in.

It's always a mystery to me when someone takes one or two comments that briefly touched on a rejected love triangle from early production and spin a new fairy-tale on it. If you expect people to take this seriously, then please back it up with relevant sources. You failed to provide support for this profound Ohnogi revelation, and you failed to justify how this testifies against Ohnogi's writing, and all I see here is that you intend on Macross to follow the storyboard that came out of YOUR assumptions, and that didn't happen, you whined because he didn't fulfill your expectations the way you want him to.

The added changes to Alto are clearly his sudden affinity with Sheryl.

Look, it's increasingly difficult not to treat this as a butt-hurt Ranka post as you go on. The way I see it, Alto and Sheryl's relationship was being carefully handled, and it develops in a steady, almost slow pace. Whether it alludes to the creators' hesitant intentions on taking this further than what was already planned or not doesn't matter, they had a good number of episodes to build on a good, solid relationship. No one is forcing you to acknowledge it, but don't give me posts like 'Alto's sudden affinity with Sheryl' and base it on your pre-conceived notions about Alto and the girls and your incessant ranting about polar opposite personalities and try to pass it off as factual truths when it's not.

Ohnogi then thought to create affinity making Sheryl looking like Alto's mother, which is a giant boner killer, but who am I to judge other people's perversions? Well, that fetish freak me out, but that's just me. The fact is that it was clearly tacked on.

Yes, there was that one scene, but you need to take into account that Sheryl was in his mother's bedroom, dressed in his mother's kimono and styled her hair in the same fashion. Alto's shocked reaction was understandable given the situation, but there was never a moment after that scene where the suggestion was ever brought up again. And no, it was not tacked on, it's clear you were only too willing to misinterpret the scene to use it for your Ohnogi tirade. Please be honest about it. It'll be a waste of time if we go round in circles over it.

This isn't a piece on Ohnogi, I can't even respond to the rest of the post because it's nothing more than a long ship-ranting glossing over every detail about how bastard Ohnogi didn't make YOUR MACROSS happen. The post refused to make any distinction between the hard facts and the assumptions, some which were bordering on pure fanfiction, and I'm amazed that no one bothered to call you out on it. If there's one thing annoys me more than anything else, it's watching people obnoxiously pass off their own opinions as if they're substantial truths, without offering any references or sources to fall back to. Twisting the interviews and trying to pit creator against creator to aid stupid shipwars is NOT good tactics for a discussion, it's incredibly degrading to the staff who worked their efforts into the series for months. There will always be dissatisfied fans who offer constructive criticisms of the show, and it'll be good if we focus on the show's qualities and STICK with it, instead of going on about what YOU want to show to happen and cry over it when it DIDN'T, and adding a string of red herrings in hopes they go unnoticed.

Edited March 8, 2009 by noble_roar

[Killer Robot]

Yes. Newtype has (or had) a brief episode synopsis up to a month before the episode aired. I'm sure other guides on TV had larger synopsis. It's only the people who can't read Japanese that were blindsided.

Re: ratings: looks like we'll have to include ratings for the Kansai region in addition to the Kanto region. Nevertheless, I think most fans with a HiViz TV would want to record the show on BD, if not watch it live in it's HiViz glory. I don't think any of the raws every got close to the broadcast level of detail.

Nevertheless, this is all tangental - as my point was the writers/creators/producers/directors of the show listened to the audience, and changed the show to maintain and gain audience. Ratings are just one barometer of many to check.

Again, I can see why people fell into that trap of thinking, but the results just don't seem to support it. If it was just the argument that the crowd who would stay up past midnight to watch Macross Frontier would prefer watching episode 8's high school antics and panty chasing to episode 7's mecha porn, I could believe it to be a disturbing pulse of the state of Japanese fandom. But on the other hand, if Star Date was so popular as has been noted, why did the slow paced bridge episode 6 have a higher rating than either the fun-loving episode 5 or the big production episode 7? Viewers being influenced by what they hear after an episode airs when their friends and fan postings spout about how awesome it was(or how lame), rather than checking TV listings, Newtype, or advertisements for a dry synopsis or a paid commercial for how incredible it's going to be - that just gives a better explanation of the numbers.

I do concede, however, that for a late night series like Frontier, ratings don't mean so much since only the hardcore fans and bored night owls will see it. It all comes down to the DVD and other merchandise sales to show how successful it is.

[magnuskn]

If endings are so incredibly simple to write, why do most anime endings suck?

Good question, actually. I think it has to do with what I perceive as a Japanese thing. They seem to dislike complete resolutions and happy endings somewhat. Many times endings are bittersweet or somewhat unresolved.

[REbirth]

Good question, actually. I think it has to do with what I perceive as a Japanese thing. They seem to dislike complete resolutions and happy endings somewhat. Many times endings are bittersweet or somewhat unresolved.

Eh, happy endings were a common back in the 70s, 80s (except stuff like Zambot 3, Baldios or Ideon or most Tomino-involved stuffs) but I guess kids nowaday just like open-ended/bittersweet ending and they think happy endings are lame and "uncool".

[Gubaba]

Eh, happy endings were a common back in the 70s, 80s (except stuff like Zambot 3, Baldios or Ideon or most Tomino-involved stuffs) but I guess kids nowaday just like open-ended/bittersweet ending and they think happy endings are lame and "uncool".

Animes may have had happy endings, but general release Japanese movies didn't. Do you know Momoe Yamaguchi? Big, BIG star in the late '70s. She had a long string of huge hit singles and albums, and she made quite a number of movies. All of them involve her dying at the end. A lot of old manga, too, had tragic endings.

So I don't think it's new...it's just more common in anime now.

[taksraven]

If endings are so incredibly simple to write, why do most anime endings suck?

I love the way that so many people seem to think that writing is an easy process. God, its so hard, (I have tried) and to end a story is very, very difficult and it is so very hard to please everybody or anybody at times for that matter.

So many writers get stuck just trying to tie up all of the loose ends that a lot of endings become very rushed and jumbled affairs with varying degrees of success. (Macross Frontier and Macross Zero are perfect examples of this) And a lot of the fans are still pissed off anyway.

Personally, I think that writers might as well say "screw the fans, they're going to hate this no matter what we do" for the final chapters/episodes of a saga. Both Evangelion endings were examples of this. The TV series ending mysteriously and the Movie series ending with "Kill em all". The TV series The Prisoner was another one that decided to end on a mysterious ending, and I think that worked well.

I like it best when writers go to the absolute extreme and finish a show, even when they know that they won't revisit it again, on a cliffhanger! I love cliffhanger endings and to finish a show with one is an outstanding idea. (One of the best examples was the ending of Blake's Seven, always loved that one)

Taksraven

[Gubaba]

I love the way that so many people seem to think that writing is an easy process. God, its so hard, (I have tried) and to end a story is very, very difficult and it is so very hard to please everybody or anybody at times for that matter.

So many writers get stuck just trying to tie up all of the loose ends that a lot of endings become very rushed and jumbled affairs with varying degrees of success. (Macross Frontier and Macross Zero are perfect examples of this) And a lot of the fans are still pissed off anyway.

Personally, I think that writers might as well say "screw the fans, they're going to hate this no matter what we do" for the final chapters/episodes of a saga. Both Evangelion endings were examples of this. The TV series ending mysteriously and the Movie series ending with "Kill em all". The TV series The Prisoner was another one that decided to end on a mysterious ending, and I think that worked well.

I like it best when writers go to the absolute extreme and finish a show, even when they know that they won't revisit it again, on a cliffhanger! I love cliffhanger endings and to finish a show with one is an outstanding idea. (One of the best examples was the ending of Blake's Seven, always loved that one)

Taksraven

I agree completely (and I usually adore unorthodox endings as well...Eva, the Sopranos, Gravity's Rainbow, Finnegans Wake...the list goes on and on). Creating a satisfying ending is more than just "connect the dots" as Westlo intimates.

Now in SDFM, creating an ending was perhaps made easier by the fact that the series had already ended once, so it's not like all the juggling balls were in the air and had to be caught in the last 22 minutes....but still Kawamori did a solid job of bringing the series home and making it memorable.

[Strumvogel]

taksraven>> I've always believed that the End of EVA was basically the director Anno getting his payback on the so-called fans and the series itself for causing his so much grief. As such I've always viewed the movie as an oddity and not really canon.

Now the tv series ending was weird in it's own right as well but hey I understood where it was coming from (ie. out of budget and time) and they went for the artistic route which I can appreciate since it really didn't mess with the story. So count me as one of the very few that didn't hate the final two episodes, I think there are a couple of MW'ers that share that same view here.

For SDFM, I loved both the ending at ep27 and 36 and don't really see any problems there. I think people are really just nitpicking too much out of them.

Frontier itself, the only problem I have is that they really didn't build the story up for the end. It just felt like they kinda just meandered their way there at their own time. The ending itself is fine for what it is and me not really caring about the resolution of the triangle is most like why I don't have strong feelings about how it ended. Then again, Alto had never showed any strong feelings to one or the other so I believe the ending reflects that. If anything, there probably would have been a bigger flamewar if Alto suddenly chosen suddenly at the last episode.

[sketchley]

taksraven>> I've always believed that the End of EVA was basically the director Anno getting his payback on the so-called fans and the series itself for causing his so much grief. As such I've always viewed the movie as an oddity and not really canon.

Now the tv series ending was weird in it's own right as well but hey I understood where it was coming from (ie. out of budget and time) and they went for the artistic route which I can appreciate since it really didn't mess with the story. So count me as one of the very few that didn't hate the final two episodes, I think there are a couple of MW'ers that share that same view here.

Count me in as well. It was a bit disappointing to not have a conclusion to the narrative at first, but it was wonderful having a conclusion to the characters. The movies are too nhilistic for my taste (too much anti-fan who are anti-director un-love going on). Nevertheless, the TV series had a great, thought provoking ending, akin to the ending of "2001 A Space Odyssey".

[taksraven]

Count me in as well. It was a bit disappointing to not have a conclusion to the narrative at first, but it was wonderful having a conclusion to the characters. The movies are too nhilistic for my taste (too much anti-fan who are anti-director un-love going on). Nevertheless, the TV series had a great, thought provoking ending, akin to the ending of "2001 A Space Odyssey".

Maybe similar in concept to the end of 2001, but as far as presentation goes, it screamed out (to me at least),

"OH, SH!T, WE HAVE RUN OUT OF MONEY"!!

Which I believe was actually the case anyway.

Better to have everybody blow up in spectacular fashion. (Thats just me though, I love nihilistic, grim endings, they usually signal to me that the makers have balls. Warm and fuzzy happy endings rarely ring true for me)

Taksraven

[Bri]

Same here. Loved the ending of Eva. Neccesity is the mother of invention. If things hadn't gone the way they did, I doubt NGE would be as good as it finally turned out. Luck is a factor.

Don't think the movies were bad just a physical representation of what happened during the last two episodes. Not better but nice in the way of additional scenes and they didn't detract from the series.

As for Frontier, not sure if it's fair to compare it too SDFM and NGE, the latter are more character driven and still have a fanbase even after a 25 respectivly 15 years. That says something about they way they stand out from the crowd.

[Gubaba]

Not to reawaken a thread probably best left dormant, but I have to wonder...where are these Bobby/Ohnogi interviews coming from?

A while back, magnuskn posted the MF "liner notes" (by Shaloom, from Macross Generation) translations that made reference to SDFM novels by Ohnogi.

Now, I knew Ohnogi had written "Misa Hayase: White Reminiscences" and a story in "Dreaming Prelude: My Fair Minmay" (as well as a couple of stories I haven't seen, apparently in the Studio Nue Mechanic Design Entertainment Bibles), but novels?

I did every Google search I could think of, in both English and Japanese, and found nothing. I checked Japanese Wikipedia and Amazon. I found a promising-looking Japanese Macross Wiki. All came to nought.

So I finally asked magnuskn if he would talk to Shaloom, which he very graciously did. And Shaloom was kind enough to provide an answer...that Ohnogi wrote seven Macross novels which were amateur publications.

So I renewed the search, and finally ended up asking the nice people at the macross.co.jp BBS. They told me that "White Reminiscences" was the only Macross novel written by Ohnogi.

I checked my copy of the book, and he says in an interview in the back that it's his first novel.

So I reviewed this thread, and notcied that Ohnogi says the reason he got back in touch with Kawamori was because "in the episode Mother's Lullaby, I saw Kawamori put some tributes to the novels of Macross TV Series written in 1983." (White Reminiscences was written -or at least published- in 1984).

So, since I have all the "Macross F○※△" radio episodes, I decided to go back and check the August ninth episode (#20: "Macross Flash Anime," in case you were wondering) to listen to the interview for myself to see what Ohnogi says.

Strangely, there is no Bobby/Ohnogi interview in the episode. And there were no other Macross Radio shows at the time (although "Macross F○※△" was preceded by "Radio Macross" and succeeded by "Macross F○x△").

So where did this come from...? Is it really from the radio show? And is there a seven-volume Macross novelization about which no one knows anything?

EDIT: In case I haven't made it clear, I want to state unequivocally that I have the highest respect for both Shaloom and manguskn. Both of them have done all of us a service by bringing us information we didn't have before. Magnuskn especially has been quite generous with his time in talking to me, especially since he and I initially got off on kind of the wrong foot here...

Edited March 29, 2009 by Gubaba

[Duke Togo]

Kawamori is alot like Lucas to me. The fact that someone else took over control of the direction of Frontier from him can only have been a good thing.

[bishopcruz]

From what I understand the "radio show" is a commentary or something extra on the DVDs and not an actual broad/podcast.

[Gubaba]

From what I understand the "radio show" is a commentary or something extra on the DVDs and not an actual broad/podcast.

Hmmm...I don't have the DVDs so I can't confirm this. Anyone else care to weigh in?

But it seems kind of strange, since some of the conversation is Ohnogi saying things like "Please watch next week's episode," which adds an element of...temporality, I guess...which commentary tracks and bonus materials generally try to avoid...

[azrael]

There's only audio commentary on 1 episode of every DVD/Blu-Ray. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to listen to it. But just as an example, I don't see Ohnogi's name on disc 7's commentary nor Kenta Miyake's (Bobby's VA) on the commentary track. I see Aya Endo, Kikuko Inoue, Hiroyuki Yoshino, and Yasuhito Kikuchi on disc 7's commentary on episode 18.

[Gubaba]

There's only audio commentary on 1 episode of every DVD/Blu-Ray. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to listen to it. But just as an example, I don't see Ohnogi's name on disc 7's commentary nor Kenta Miyake's (Bobby's VA) on the commentary track. I see Aya Endo, Kikuko Inoue, Hiroyuki Yoshino, and Yasuhito Kikuchi on disc 7's commentary on episode 18.

Well...looks like we have a mystery on our hands, don't we?

Or, perhaps I should say that I do.

[josue]

Well...looks like we have a mystery on our hands, don't we?

Or, perhaps I should say that I do.

Actually you're not the only one. I was wondering myself where did they get their hands on this material... I know Bobby had the Radio Macross show but that was before Frontier. Then on the other radio show they have only invited VA and not other staff.

Quite mysterious...

[azrael]

Well...looks like we have a mystery on our hands, don't we?

Or, perhaps I should say that I do.

And just for the sake of saying they didn't come from the DVDs/Blu-rays...

Disc 1: Yuuichi Nakamura, Megumi Nakajima, Shoji Kawamori on the Yack Deculture edition

Disc 2: Katsuyuki Konishi, Megumi Nakajima, Hiroyuki Yoshino on Ep. 4

Disc 3: Yuuichi Nakamura, Hiroshi Kamiya, Jun Fukuyama on Ep. 7

Disc 4: Aya Endo, Megumi Nakajima, Shoji Kawamori on Ep. 10

Disc 5: Megumi Nakajima, Shoji Kawamori, Yasuhito Kikuchi on Ep. 12

Disc 6: Yuuichi Nakamura, Aya Endo, Souichiro Hoshi, Hiroyuki Yoshino on Ep. 16