Sooo im rewatching SDF Macross and....

[sharky]

Well, that was quite refreshing to say the least. I forgot how much the animation quality improved as you get to the end. Finished up the series today, and I also watched DYRL to cap it all off. I'm going to watch FB2012. I already watched Zero and Plus the other day.

I think it's time to give M7 another try. I can't seem to make it to the end.

[SchizophrenicMC]

I just finished rewatching SDFM a couple weeks ago myself. I think the part that shocked me most was just how reasonably vulnerable to attack the Zentradi were. They weren't super OP like the enemy super alien race often is, even in Macross. They have a few ace pilots, but they're overall just as easy to blow up as any cannon fodder VF. This revelation was especially powerful coming off the back of a recent viewing of Space Battleship Yamato 2199, in which the enemy's ships are nigh indestructible against conventional weaponry.

(And generally makes me wonder: Wave Motion Gun or Macross Cannon, which is better?)

On the topic of comparison, can I just say, Global was never particularly brilliant? Everything clever that they do is because somebody else thought of it, and the greatest errors they make are because Global rushes into things. The Fold drive being totally untested, for example, and its maiden flight transporting an entire island to Plutonian orbit. Or when the omni-directional barrier fails and destroys a huge area in Canada because he insisted on flying low over populated areas to get the citizens of the Macross (who are only there because of his tactical error over a year prior) offloaded.

On the other hand, Hikaru was just as unremarkable a pilot as I remembered, though a fair bit clingier to Minmay than I recalled. She never really even leads him on. Literally every time she refers to him to a third party, he's always "my friend, Hikaru" or "just friends". Get the damn clue, dude. Especially as close as she and her cousin are, as creepy as that is. Of course, all that does change a bit after Love Flows By, but by that point it's obviously too late for anything meaningful to happen between them. The story has sold Hikaru's heart to Misa already, and frankly that's much more compelling. Those two actually get character development together, whereas Minmay spends all of her time with Hikaru self-absorbing while he gushes.

But now I'm ranting. All in all, I think Macross really only suffers from typical 1980s anime problems. And, coming off of Space Yamato 2199 when I rewatched it, I can't help but feel like a true-to-form remake would be super good. And not a SEED-like retelling a la Frontier (or Gundam the Movie, that is, DYRL?)*, I mean an actual modern telling of the story with modern animation and sensibilities. Instead we're getting Love Live: All That VF Edition. At least the Ace Combat scenes look impressive so far.

*I should mention I do really like Frontier- even the movies- and DYRL? remains one of my favorite anime films. But the fact that it's retconned as an in-universe film about Space War I says pretty much everything I need to. I want TV Macross with its space assault carrier attack Daedalus and copious amounts of blue paint.

[kajnrig]

Doesn't Macross play fast and loose with canon anyway? Especially with regards to the design of the SDF-1, and which version appears in which sequel? So any retconning isn't really retconning because everything is sort of retconning everything else anyway.

Also, Wave Motion Gun =/= Macross Cannon how?

[JB0]

On the topic of comparison, can I just say, Global was never particularly brilliant? Everything clever that they do is because somebody else thought of it, and the greatest errors they make are because Global rushes into things. The Fold drive being totally untested, for example, and its maiden flight transporting an entire island to Plutonian orbit. Or when the omni-directional barrier fails and destroys a huge area in Canada because he insisted on flying low over populated areas to get the citizens of the Macross (who are only there because of his tactical error over a year prior) offloaded.

In fairness, a lot of what Global does is offscreen. It's strongly implied that he is behind a lot of what goes right, and explicitly stated he's behind the move towards making peace with the zentradi(accepting refugees, making a large production out of Max and Millia's wedding).

And the fold accident wasn't his fault. That was a side effect of the boobytrap(as was the gravity controller failure). That said, he still saved his ship and the city around it from complete destruction. And he WAS sort of ordered to take an undercrewed and untested ship into combat.

Among the things I wish Macross had time for in it's original run, giving Global some development is among them. There's implications he's a lot deeper than the show ever has a chance to show us.

[Gubaba]

In fairness, a lot of what Global does is offscreen. It's strongly implied that he is behind a lot of what goes right, and explicitly stated he's behind the move towards making peace with the zentradi(accepting refugees, making a large production out of Max and Millia's wedding).

And the fold accident wasn't his fault. That was a side effect of the boobytrap(as was the gravity controller failure). That said, he still saved his ship and the city around it from complete destruction. And he WAS sort of ordered to take an undercrewed and untested ship into combat.

Among the things I wish Macross had time for in it's original run, giving Global some development is among them. There's implications he's a lot deeper than the show ever has a chance to show us.

There's a lot about that in the books...

[kajnrig]

Doesn't he have a relationship with one of the Bridge Bunnies the same way his expy (forget his name) does in Frontier?

[Mr March]

SchizophrenicMC

I think some of your points are unfair criticisms that are being analyzed in a vacuum.

Global's action to fold the Macross - as disastrous as it was - saved the humans from total defeat. There would not have been a Space War I and the humans would have been conquered right there on South Ataria Island had the SDF-1 Macross not escaped and drawn the enemy from Earth. Also, Global is not a main character, he is supporting cast and is B-story fodder at best. So of course his character arc and his actions will be half-baked, subject to plot, and suffer as a result of being written in support of the A-story, like ALL supporting characters (hello Max!). Because we are not told the story from Global's perspective and only see the consequences of his actions that are written for plot, often times he can appear ineffectual and unintelligent. That is not a character weakness, that is necessity of a story that is focused entirely about the characters of Hikaru, Minmay and Misa.

And on the subject of Hikaru, Minmay and Misa, let's not lose sight that ALL drama (especially melodrama like Macross) needs to artificially prolong the conflict and sexual tension between characters in a love triangle until end of the series can resolve that status quo with a sufficient climax. Many dramas are guilty of this, especially those dramas that manufacture perpetual character relationships when their past conflicts would have permanently ended any normal relationship between two such people in the real world. That's not a flaw or fault of a particular era of Japanese anime, that's a conceit of ALL melodrama, including much of our current entertainment, such as most of the super hero shows currently airing on North American television.

Putting aside Yamato (which has to be it's own thing), I can say that the balance of forces in Macross has to be carefully structured for the sake of audience perception of the protagonists and antagonists. Make the Zentradi too overwhelming and the UN Spacy and your mighty VF-1 Valkyrie (for which you're trying to sell toys) comes across as useless and ineffectual. Make the Zentradi too ineffectual and they come across as no threat. So yes, SDF Macross has it's own balance of the two, which I feel sometimes made the Zentradi feel like silly comic book villains. But IMO, they redeemed themselves by wiping out most of the Earth

[Gubaba]

Doesn't he have a relationship with one of the Bridge Bunnies the same way his expy (forget his name) does in Frontier?

No, but the interview with Noboru Ishiguro on the AnimEigo DVDs hints at something going on between Global and Misa.

[JB0]

No, but the interview with Noboru Ishiguro on the AnimEigo DVDs hints at something going on between Global and Misa.

I kinda felt like the framing scenes in Global Report implied it, as well.

[Gubaba]

I kinda felt like the framing scenes in Global Report implied it, as well.

Yeah. As does Episode 20 (which I'm watching right now).

[SchizophrenicMC]

SchizophrenicMC

I think some of your points are unfair criticisms that are being analyzed in a vacuum.

Global's action to fold the Macross - as disastrous as it was - saved the humans from total defeat. There would not have been a Space War I and the humans would have been conquered right there on South Ataria Island had the SDF-1 Macross not escaped and drawn the enemy from Earth. Also, Global is not a main character, he is supporting cast and is B-story fodder at best. So of course his character arc and his actions will be half-baked, subject to plot, and suffer as a result of being written in support of the A-story, like ALL supporting characters (hello Max!). Because we are not told the story from Global's perspective and only see the consequences of his actions that are written for plot, often times he can appear ineffectual and unintelligent. That is not a character weakness, that is necessity of a story that is focused entirely about the characters of Hikaru, Minmay and Misa.

And on the subject of Hikaru, Minmay and Misa, let's not lose sight that ALL drama (especially melodrama like Macross) needs to artificially prolong the conflict and sexual tension between characters in a love triangle until end of the series can resolve that status quo with a sufficient climax. Many dramas are guilty of this, especially those dramas that manufacture perpetual character relationships when their past conflicts would have permanently ended any normal relationship between two such people in the real world. That's not a flaw or fault of a particular era of Japanese anime, that's a conceit of ALL melodrama, including much of our current entertainment, such as most of the super hero shows currently airing on North American television.

Putting aside Yamato (which has to be it's own thing), I can say that the balance of forces in Macross has to be carefully structured for the sake of audience perception of the protagonists and antagonists. Make the Zentradi too overwhelming and the UN Spacy and your mighty VF-1 Valkyrie (for which you're trying to sell toys) comes across as useless and ineffectual. Make the Zentradi too ineffectual and they come across as no threat. So yes, SDF Macross has it's own balance of the two, which I feel sometimes made the Zentradi feel like silly comic book villains. But IMO, they redeemed themselves by wiping out most of the Earth

Bit of a late response, but the point I'm making here is, Global isn't portrayed as the revered, decorated captain that he's thought of. He doesn't get much screen time, and the exposure he does get offers no exposition into his character or backstory, and he's only depicted having a moment of brilliance once or twice in the whole series. Which is odd, because I've always imagined Global as this really amazing captain who led the Macross to victory against the warmongering, powerful Zentradi. And then to watch the show again and have him not hold up to that, it shakes my view of him. I feel like that was a misstep Macross made in its original run, which is understandable, really. Limited funds had to be devoted to developing the main characters and garnering ratings to prove the show could be worth keeping on TV.

Actually I feel like Yamato and Macross are largely comparable. And while I wouldn't try to compare them in terms of better or worse, they have a lot of similarities, and they share a lot of the same weaknesses in their initial runs- and a lot of the same strengths. I especially liked the way Okita was portrayed in 2199; I felt it fit the character he was said to be in a way that the original didn't have a chance to show because it needed to sell merchandise to kids more than it needed to tell its story and show off its characters. I feel like Global could stand to have a more in-depth portrayal. Obviously, he has to be a storied officer with a brilliant streak a mile wide, if the UN was willing to give him their flagship. SDFM just does a bad job showing that, resorting to simply telling us he's great, when every good thing that happens to the Macross is due to somebody else being brilliant (Daedalus Attack, for example) or the Zentradi holding back, unwilling to destroy the ship outright. For that matter, most of the really bad things that happen to the Macross are due to tactical mishaps on Global's part. And they may not be his fault, per se, but we really just do not see enough of Global being the brilliant commander he's made out to be.

Coming back to the topic about a month later, I don't necessarily know if I still feel like Macross could use a remake, but I do think Global deserves a better portrayal. Give us the captain we deserve.

[Mr March]

That's fine, but really that's all a personal perception issue and is not fair to have any bearing upon a critical analysis of what the whole show is trying to accomplish or even just the role of Global alone. One could examine any one character in a complete critical breakdown that questions' their worth. Luke Skywalker can be broken down into a religious fundamentalist terrorist and mass murderer if we do so outside of context (or some argue, even WITHIN!). Macross as a series is telling the story of other characters that DON'T have it all together, who aren't yet wise and experienced and are not on top of their lives and those around them.

To be honest, the nuanced, young characters and their journey is what I liked about Macross. There's no shortage of stories with leading main characters being nothing but awesome. That wasn't Macross. Roy died and Global wasn't always there to save the day. Our three heros had to do it for themselves, and they had to take life more seriously than Kazkizaki to do it. Macross was made for young people, to give them confidence, teach them to become their own people, to avoid relying on older folks to do everything, to attain agency over their lives, to achieve what might initially look like the impossible, to inspire them, and to sell lots of toys while doing it, LOL! Write Global too strongly, and he undercuts the characters and their struggles, he undermines their agency and their independence. Writing him too strongly also shifts focus away from Hikaru, Misa, and Minmay. It becomes less Macross and more something else, perhaps the Space Battleship Yamato that you might want it to be. "These are the voyages of the starship SDF-1 Macross..." and so on.

I think the Global character is definitely balanced right for the greater story of SDF Macross. Sure, some might like to see another Han Solo or Captain Kirk, but Macross is a different story with different characters. They need to tell their story, have their moments and that comes at the expense of the supporting cast. As it should be.

[SchizophrenicMC]

See, I really think you're taking my concept of how Global's character could have been implemented a bit too far there. All I'm saying is, 37 episodes, and we never get to have much understanding of why the captain is who he is. The show is really bad about spending time on character development in that way. Max and Milia meet at the end of one episode and are married by the end of the next episode, and the only real backstory we get for anybody who isn't a part of the triangle is a brief silent flashback of Roy and Claudia. And, given the writing prowess available to them, I can't help but blame the animation budget being tied down to selling merchandise in the 80s for that. All the reused generic action sequences take up a lot of time at low cost, but it uses up time that could have been spent better establishing the world Macross takes place in, and the characters who live in it. There are really compelling aspects of the story that are barely touched upon in favor of saving on animation. The closest thing we get to character backstory exposition, really, is Misa's flashback about Karl Riber. Everything else is a sentence or two about the character's past and motivations. While they really pull that off well with Hikaru, who only holds onto one aspect of his past (his affinity for flight), we're left with a lot of blank space for everyone else. It's only been a month or so since I watched the show last, and all I can remember about Minmay's past is that she lived in Somewhere, Japan, with her parents and attended some kind of music lessons? I think that might have even been all of her backstory. The main characters really don't get a lot either, and while we spend more time with them, it's a really slow process to build on the weak foundations we get, and the result isn't very good in a lot of ways. A lot of what we know about these characters, we know because of accompanying media that came out later. Looking at Macross as a whole, we don't think about it, because they eventually did give many of these characters their backstories, and almost 35 years on, we're familiar with them now. But looking at SDFM in a vacuum, like it was when it came out, it's obviously a product of its time.

SDFM really suffers, I think, only from being an early 80s mecha anime. It had to deal with founding this universe, and creating the kernel of a great story that people would rally around, because the budget could go at any time. It shares a lot of the same story weaknesses as Gundam, Yamato, and any other iconic title from its time. But, it shares their strengths. The story of Macross is ultimately compelling. It's something we relate with. We can understand the uncertainty the people on the Macross must feel, we relate with not understanding the culture of others, and with the need to experience our own culture. I, for one, think the Zentradi are the most compelling anime bad guys that whole decade. They're not evil, they don't fight wars for conquest and power, they've just only ever known fighting, and everything they do comes within that context. That's refreshing even today. I just think the story could have been even better if we understood the protagonists better. It's like, the show is good, but with a bit more polish in some areas, some clarity could have been added and it'd be even more of a timeless classic. The story of Macross is really good, but it's stuck trying to decide whether it wants to emphasize the story of the Macross and its journey, or the characters experiencing that journey. It wants to be the latter one, but it plays it safe too often and we get the former. And one or the other is fine, but we got the mishmash we got. And that's fine too. It was 1982, after all. This was genesis. I wouldn't change the show we got. I'd just like to see how the story could be told today, with the kind of writing and animation we can muster on a modern Macross budget. A chance to really get at what the writers wanted to make the show, without the restrictions of what was possible in '82 with a tight toy commercial budget.

[Tochiro]

The main thing I'd say that needs to be kept in mind is that Macross was never meant to be viewed in a vacuum.

It has always been a multimedia franchise, with different aspects of each entry being covered by animation, audio dramas, novels, manga, games, and even events. These elements are all 'canon' within the greater universe (although that term in general should be avoided when it comes to Macross) and many came out around the same time as each other.

For example, it's very difficult to understand the chemistry between Hikaru and Minmay without listening to the audio dramas. Similarly, many elements of both M7 and MF would be left unknown without each series respective audio dramas. And there's more material to Macross 2 outside of the medium of animation than there is within it.

Much of this content was written by the orriginal authors and is also often plot threads or details that were originally written but not animated.

Now, you could argue that you are watching the show in a vacuum because the animation is all that's available to you and I don't think there's any problem with that.

But it's best to keep in mind that this means your understanding of characters and motivations may differ from what the creators intended or the audience in Japan knows because you don't have access to all facets of the story as it was intended to be consumed.

Edited December 18, 2015 by Tochiro

[sharky]

I just want to mention they do spend a drecent amount of time on how Roy and Claudia got together. They show them back before Space War 1 during the Unification Wars.

And with regard to Minmay, we get introduced to her and her life early on in that she lives with her Aunt and Uncle and they run a restaurant on the island. We are also taken to her parents place when the Macross returns to Earth and get introduced to Kaifun. I mean we learn what is important and relevant about her life all through out the series. She's rather young so what else could they have gotten into about her prior to the events in the series?

Edited December 18, 2015 by sharky

[VF-1A Grunt]

I really need to watch the real SDFM. I've only seen a few episodes in Japanese and then watched the poor Robotech adaptation in its entirety. Is there a good place to buy the complete set without paying $150+ like some of the offers on Amazon?

Edited March 7, 2016 by VF-1A Grunt