Macross Δ (Delta) - NYE Special Talkback - READ 1st POST

[d3v]

I think Lady M is actually Dr. Chiba. After his song energy theory was proven and he contributed to saving the universe, his perhaps-excessive fandom fell over the edge into obsessive madness. He now dresses in classic idol costumes and demands everyone call him Minmay. Lady M is a name people use for him in public to avoid any embarrassing explanations, and let Dr. Chiba's legacy live on unstained.

I might be wrong, though.

Well his middle initial is M.

Speaking of which.

[JB0]

Oh, god... that image is terrifying. Glorious, but terrifying.

If the Var Syndrome is galaxy wide affecting Earth and the Core region as well I can see the Walkure isn't the only Tactical Music Unit.

I can see Basara, Mylene, Sheryl and Ranka doing their part.

All in the same concert? Because that would be the show of the century.

And Basara's doubtless helping, but not particularly because anyone asked him to. He's just found people that haven't LISTENED TO HIS SONG yet.

Edited January 4, 2016 by JB0

[Chicago]

I have to say im pleasantly surprised as to how many people like Delta here. I was expecting more people to dislike the magical girl aspect.

I would call it fanboyism imo. The show is not good.

Edited January 4, 2016 by Chicago

[d3v]

Oh, god... that image is terrifying. Glorious, but terrifying.

All in the same concert? Because that would be the show of the century.

And Basara's doubtless helping, but not particularly because anyone asked him to. He's just found people that haven't LISTENED TO HIS SONG yet.

I can imagine it now. The concert, all the idols are singing but the battle is still being lost.

And then from out of nowhere we hear the words!

ORE NO UTA WO KIKE!!!

and it begins.

Saa hajimaruze SATURDAY NIGHT

choushi wa dou dai?

LET'S STAND UP

BEAT o kanjiru kai.

[Gubaba]

Don't. Care.

Then why comment in the first place?

Edited January 4, 2016 by Gubaba

[RedWolf]

Since Song Energy is a type of Fold Wave and Var Syndrome is triggered by a Fold Wave sung by the mystery singer what the Walkure are doing is basically jamming the transmission with their own Fold Wave.

The Walkure are likely recruited and specially trained for their Dimensional Resonance Ability. Among pure blooded humans that is rare. Basara is one his Song Energy Fold Wave is so great he is dubbed Anima Spiritia. The Nomes Sara, Mao and Sheryl have have it on account the Mayan priestess bloodline was allowed to have Dimensional Resonance Ability to activate the Bird Human. Part Zentradi Mylene, Emilia and Ranka have it too. Though in Ranka's case she is attuned to the Vajra Fold Wave frequency from birth.

[Lenneth]

So after reading a few impressions in here, I thought I should add in my own two cents as well for what it's worth. I've seen almost every Macross show to date (except M7), and I enjoyed them all to various degree. So I thought Delta would be no less interesting...but my first impression of the preview was bad, and I was extremely disappointed. Frontier had very much brought back my excitement for the series, and I remember being very impressed with the Deculture version of episode one. I loved how they introduced the characters and especially the VF 25 in the backdrop of an impressive setting. The first time we see the Frontier fleet through Sheryl eyes was very impressive and exciting to me and then we see her concert, and then the VF 25 engaging the Vajra...

Let just say, the preview of Delta was the opposite for me. I wasn't excited at all, at least not till the end did it started to get interesting for me.

I thought the BGM and songs were kinda of weak, and I wasn't feeling it. The 2D animations and art designs were good, but the CG was a real let down. I think I was disappointed by the CG the most. It didn't mesh well with the background and it was very stiff and dull looking as where Frontier had a cell shaded look to the CG that I like. Also I was not a fan of the idol group style thing it had going on, and I just find the dancing Valks kind of goofy. All in all, first impression was bad.

A few days later I decided to go back and watched the preview of Delta with a clear mind, with no preconception of what I thought it should be. And you know what? I like it a lot! I really do! I like that M2 vibe it had going on, and I started to like the music and song too! I like Freyja and Mirage design and I can't wait to see more.

Edited January 4, 2016 by Lenneth

[Duke Togo]

Okay, let's flip that around then. Do you feel that it's strange for grown women who like watching movies like Transformers (that are targeted towards teen boys)?

Also, I actually watched the episode raw as I'm not a fan of gg in the slightest... I didn't want to ruin the experience with their notorious trolling. "Japanese doughnuts"? Yeah... Same old, same old.

I feel it's strange that anyone would watch the Bayformer movies. They're horrible.

[Seto Kaiba]

Since Song Energy is a type of Fold Wave and Var Syndrome is triggered by a Fold Wave sung by the mystery singer what the Walkure are doing is basically jamming the transmission with their own Fold Wave.

Not sure that "jamming" is the right word for it. Walkure seems to combat Var syndrome by using an externally-generated fold wave (via song) to correct some kind of imbalance in a person's natural (biological) fold waves. At this point it's not really explained whether Var syndrome is a communicable disease, or some form of adverse reaction to certain types of fold waves (like a super dimension allergy?), but whatever outside agency is manipulating Var syndrome for its own ends is definitely either causing the syndrome or at least exacerbating the symptoms with some manner of inimical fold wave/song.

The Walkure are likely recruited and specially trained for their Dimensional Resonance Ability. Among pure blooded humans that is rare. Basara is one his Song Energy Fold Wave is so great he is dubbed Anima Spiritia. The Nomes Sara, Mao and Sheryl have have it on account the Mayan priestess bloodline was allowed to have Dimensional Resonance Ability to activate the Bird Human. Part Zentradi Mylene, Emilia and Ranka have it too. Though in Ranka's case she is attuned to the Vajra Fold Wave frequency from birth.

At this point, Macross seems to have established a relationship between living beings and super dimension space not dissimilar to living beings and the warp in Warhammer 40,000. The mental or emotional states of living beings seem to have a measurable presence in super dimension space as fold waves, which apparently can be affected by outside sources. Mechanical amplification and transmission is apparently also possible, as Chronicle suggests that spiritia and song energy are a form of fold wave as well. Var syndrome would seem to be a physical manifestation of an attack on a person's ethereal/mental body in fold space.

On that basis, it seems that Walkure is effectively Sound Force 2.0... a unit of people who can (consciously or not) manipulate the polarity of their natural fold waves (making them Anima Spiritia) and, with appropriate assistance, broadcast them at other people to achieve various effects.

(Sheryl and Ranka may also be capable of this, but they seem to be a somewhat special case... since their bodies were modified via the v-type infection to broadcast a particular type of fold wave other than their natural one (the zero-time fold waves the Vajra use for communication).

[Mazinger]

I've never been a fan of Japanese pop music, I feel they latched onto the "Happy Hardcore" electronic sound back in the mid nineties and have held onto and taken it too far. Despite that I've been able to appreciate a catchy melody here and there but this stuff was both uninteresting from a musical and production standpoint.

This has been my challenge with the music from the Frontier series. It just all sounded repetitive. I am however a fan of Ska and have listened to it from all over so adding Japan to the mix and in my favorite anime series is mana from heaven after what feels like an eternity.

[Mazinger]

I quite enjoyed the first two seasons of MLP, actually. Lots of smart writing that didn't talk down (much) to the children it was aimed at. It respected traditional gender ideas without limiting gender, which was (one of the reasons) why it worked as well as it did. The brony phenomenon I think actually hurt that aspect of the show as time went on; the showrunners started catering more towards that (very vocal, very male) audience, and eventually you had a fourth season that ended with a Dragonball Z Kamehameha battle. But the first two seasons are solid.

First 2 seasons were great. My oldest daughter at the time was about 4 when the show premiere since it came out, but j think j was the biggest fan in the house particularly because of all the homages and quoting they did from older pop-culture phenoms. It was looney-toons++.

[Jasonc]

I find it strange that you seem to take it personally when people have an opinion that differs from yours. It's a cartoon ffs.

In reading all that, it seems you are the one who took it personally. As an outsider in that part of the conversation and having no dog in that fight, this statement clearly shows you took it personally enough to respond with the default "Don't take it personally..." comment. He was clearly just pointing something out. Calm down, man, It's a cartoon ffs.

In other news, I've seen it 4 times. 3x by myself, once with my wife. She enjoys it, although she does say it's different. Not bad, just different. I happen to be really happy with it. There are a few negatives that may just be due to it being unfinished, but they aren't things that detract from the story. They're more technical aspects of it. That said, I actually really like all the music in it, but especially Ikenai Borderline. It's got a mid 90s ska sound to it, with a bit of an update. It reminds me quite a bit of a band called Save Ferris that retired a number of years ago. They had a few upbeat ska tunes that hit this type of catchy draw. If people are so against idol music here, that may be one song you can at least enjoy more. If not, to each their own. It's the least "idol" song I've heard since before Frontier (where Zero had hardly anything anyways).

Edited January 4, 2016 by Jasonc

[Convectuoso]

Until late last year, the only Macross series I hadn't watched was Macross 7. I thought the entire focus on Music wouldn't pay off. Finally I decided to watch it, and it wasn't as bad as I thought. As for Delta, I think it builds upon a lot of the concepts from that series, and I can't help but to think of Walküre as an evolution of the Jamming Birds idea. Having been on Japan a few months ago and experienced the whole idol group phenomenon there, I kind of had an idea of what was to come. And I'm not really a fan of the way where Delta seems to be going, but after watching the first episode, I think I can live with it.

To me, what happens with the Macross series is similar to what happens with Windows releases: it has it's ups and downs:

Windows 98 (excellent), Windows Millenium (terrible), Windows XP (very good), Windows Vista (a disaster!), Windows 7 (good), Windows 8 (a joke), Windows 10 (surprisingly good)

In my opinion, SDF Macross is one of the best series of all time, then I really like Macross Plus, and I don't know why I loved Frontier so much; but then I think Macross II was poor in almost every aspect, Macross 7 was just average, and there is Zero... Zero had impressive animation for it's time, but it lacked character development (again, in my opinion)

Given all that, I think my expectations were particularly low for the Delta Pilot, but it had some good action sequences, I liked the Regult-Queadlunn merge, and I think it may end up being a fun show to watch at the very least.

Expecting something as SDF Macross these days is really naive, but if the new series manages to entertain, then count me in. In the end, TV is just supposed to be entertainment.

[tout-puissant]

The show holds up pretty well with repeated viewings. Watched it a third time with my six year-old and once the work mecha started dancing, she got hooked (despite not being able to read the fansubs). My wife is a singer (and has even covered some J-pop over the years - look up "Irulanesque" on YouTube) and as with Frontier, she came to like it too.

And of course, it had GIANT ROBOT SPLOSIONS, so I was happy. I'm looking forward to how the story will unfold. We were told it the setup involved people singing to counteract a plague that's been inducing violent outbreaks on the outer rim of the Galaxy. That's Macross-esque as it is, but the premiere throws a faction of humanity who seem to be using this "Var Syndrome" to their advantage, and have a beef against a quartet of cute singing girls and their hotshot pilot partners. It seems a better evolution at the outset than Frontier was from 7 (in that the plot doesn't have to re-discover how music is used against an antagonist), and takes using music as a weapon (and a plot device) further down a logical path for this universe. Looking forward to the continuation.

And not that it makes much of a difference, but oddly enough Frontier and 7 were set towards the galactic core and involved ancient alien threats, while Plus and now Delta are more rimward and involve menaces from within the futuristic societies of the Macross universe. Coincidence?

Mark

[Phobos]

In reading all that, it seems you are the one who took it personally. As an outsider in that part of the conversation and having no dog in that fight, this statement clearly shows you took it personally enough to respond with the default "Don't take it personally..." comment. He was clearly just pointing something out. Calm down, man, It's a cartoon ffs.

Interesting, but incorrect. I've been following this thread to see what people think about Delta, and I commented on a pattern I saw displayed by the poster. Now, to put your comment into the context you placed mine, I could say the same for you, although I disagree with you claim as "having no dog in the fight". Clearly you do if you viewed it 4 times.

[cyde01]

I find that strange since you don't seem to hate the made up language the Zentradi use...

just trust me when i say that if you understood japanese too you'd most likely also find it annoying. it sounds kinda like valley girl meets the grandma from beverly hill billies. the zentradi language does not sound like valley girl meets grandma from beverly hill billies..

Edited January 4, 2016 by cyde01

[David Hingtgen]

The "var-causing song" sounds a LOT like the "song of destruction" from the end of Zero. (you know, the floating carriers etc scene).

I really think there's a link between Zero and Delta, with that song. It's the same "high-pitched ethereal chant". (which also sounds a bit like Nephilim's song in Xenosaga)

[aerocombatpilot]

Well his middle initial is M.

Speaking of which.

MY EYES! MY EYES!!!

[dizman]

I finally got around to watching the preview, it was ok nothing special. Characters seemed like the standard cast for this kinda show, nothing new or interesting. I like how the tech has advanced since MF and the valk designs were cool. The idea of going planet to planet to prevent the Var sounds fun, better than being stuck on a colony ship for most the series. Here's to hoping this is the start of something fun!

[s001]

Am I the only one who sees that load of crap as what it is? I'm officially done with any new macross stuff. That was insulting. I guess Satelight likes money better too.

[Gubaba]

Am I the only one who sees that load of crap as what it is? I'm officially done with any new macross stuff. That was insulting. I guess Satelight likes money better too.

Yes, you're the only one. No one else in this thread has said anything remotely negative at all.

And OF COURSE Satelight likes money. People generally like to get paid.

[kajnrig]

just trust me when i say that if you understood japanese too you'd most likely also find it annoying. it sounds kinda like valley girl meets the grandma from beverly hill billies. the zentradi language does not sound like valley girl meets grandma from beverly hill billies..

Could be it's one of the dialects/accents found on the fringes? Like Okinawan Japanese (I think), but even more geographically isolated, which would explain why it sounds strange to Japanese ears. People simply have not heard it (or rarely) on a nationally televised show.

[Gubaba]

Could be it's one of the dialects/accents found on the fringes? Like Okinawan Japanese (I think), but even more geographically isolated, which would explain why it sounds strange to Japanese ears. People simply have not heard it (or rarely) on a nationally televised show.

It didn't sound familiar to me (although, unlike some dialects, I could definitely hear the difference), but on the podcast, they seemed to think it was some kind of Kyushu accent... maybe.

[s001]

Yes, you're the only one. No one else in this thread has said anything remotely negative at all.

And OF COURSE Satelight likes money. People generally like to get paid.

Dude! Tell me one good thing about this first episode, besides the valkyrie designs. Which by the way are not the best of Kawamori's work.

[Cloris]

The "var-causing song" sounds a LOT like the "song of destruction" from the end of Zero. (you know, the floating carriers etc scene).

I really think there's a link between Zero and Delta, with that song. It's the same "high-pitched ethereal chant". (which also sounds a bit like Nephilim's song in Xenosaga)

Could be. I also noticed we have an alien race of fish humanoids (who may inhabit Ragna?) and another race of alien humanoids (?) who seem to have a special relationship with the wind.

Speaking of the Var song, it reminds me a lot of Barcarole from ARIA, composed by Mina Kubota who is one of Delta's three composers.

[Gubaba]

Dude! Tell me one good thing about this first episode, besides the valkyrie designs. Which by the way are not the best of Kawamori's work.

Well, it's all opinion, anyway, so YMMV... I thought the building designs on Al Shahal were really cool. I loved seeing the Regults in action. I've been listening to "Ikenai Borderline" pretty much nonstop for the past few days. The boomerang drones were awesome. Mikumo's song attack at the Q-Rau was badass. The dogfight at the end was great. I like Freyja. The "magical girl" transformations made me laugh. The opening with the suicide bomber was shocking. Having Guld as the narrator and the Delta captain was a nice throwback.

Should I go on...?

[aerocombatpilot]

Dude! Tell me one good thing about this first episode, besides the valkyrie designs. Which by the way are not the best of Kawamori's work.

WE GOT THE ZENTRAEDI BACK, MAN!!! No energy draining vampires or space-folding bugs!! When you think about it Delta is a logical continuation to the original Macross storyline than Mac7 or Frontier. A girl band with Valkyries singing songs to control Zentraedi that have been driven mad by an unknown enemy makes total sense! When I saw the poster for Delta I thought that Kawamori had lost his mind, but after watching the first episode I realized that he's going back to the roots of Macross! I nearly teared up when the girls started their first song together because it reminded me of Minmay from the TV version having to sing to keep the peace while the Zentraedi adjusted to a new way of life on Earth. It's also like Macross VFX and the Milky Dolls where you have a band of girls singing against the Zentraedi. Macross Delta has definitely won me over!!!

Edited January 4, 2016 by aerocombatpilot

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

man you're both leaving out the best part

Mirage w delta 04

[Gubaba]

man you're both leaving out the best part

Mirage w delta 04

He said BESIDES the Valkyries...

[cyde01]

Could be it's one of the dialects/accents found on the fringes? Like Okinawan Japanese (I think), but even more geographically isolated, which would explain why it sounds strange to Japanese ears. People simply have not heard it (or rarely) on a nationally televised show.

it's not okinawan. anything more geographically isolated and the dialects actually become unintelligible to mainland japanese (example, Amami dialect and Yaeyama dialect are considered separate languages by linguists). as the podcast says, closest thing is the kyushu dialect, but to my ears it sounds like kyushu dialect mixed with granny-speak mixed with anime moe-speak. hence i find it annoying.

Edited January 4, 2016 by cyde01

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

He said BESIDES the Valkyries...

Mirage then. best character

[Gubaba]

Mirage then. best character

Possibly. For now, Makina had me at "Regult-chan."

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

^she's in love w/ retro mechs. if she starts showing up w/ vf-1 references, Mirage is going to have some serious competition.

[locidm]

the only thing that I really hated was the one scene when the valks were dancing. I also didn't like the Walkure, the way they fight seems too unrealistic (head on with fully loaded regult and no harm done? come on). They do too much "fighting" in my opinion. Leave the fighting to the valks and just sing!

The songs were great. Love the destroids and regults, The setting was good. The two main characters seem interesting so far.

the enemy mechs rock.

[jenius]

the only thing that I really hated was the one scene when the valks were dancing. I also didn't like the Walkure, the way they fight seems too unrealistic (head on with fully loaded regult and no harm done? come on). They do too much "fighting" in my opinion. Leave the fighting to the valks and just sing!

The songs were great. Love the destroids and regults, The setting was good. The two main characters seem interesting so far.

the enemy mechs rock.

Totally agree. Walkure's efforts start to finish were too much and completely subverted Macross with Sailor Moon. I would expect that this will get toned down as the series continues. If it increases I'm sure i'll find myself checking out.