Macross Δ (Delta) - Mission 7 - READ 1st POST

[Supernova]

I am still a bit ambivalent about Macross Delta right now.

In a lot of ways, Macross Delta is more like Macross 7. With singing more integral to the story, literally, Var is counteracted by singing, and that's the focus, without Walkure, everything would be about firefighting. The setting is also different from the other series, all the other stories had everything revolved around a moving ship.

The original series and frontier also focused on solo singers who happens to make a big difference almost as an aside. You could easily see both of those having no idols and still be very engaging series. The idols weren't the sole focus of the story, that they are essential to the story line is almost an after effect. (at least that's what I think) So, Frontier and the original series would be focused on single pop stars, like a Taylor Swift or a Taylor Dane.

The other thing that I noticed is that as the Macross series expands, the in universe structure seem less and less obvious. I know the governmental structure of the original series, still somewhat sure about what it was in 7 and Frontier, but Delta seems to really muddy things up.

I can't speak for Macross 7, but I can however defend Super Dimensional Fortress Macross and Macross Frontier. Singing is very much an integral part of the story, and without Lynn Minmay and Sheryl Nome/Ranka Lee, everything would be about firefighting. Throughout the episodes of Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, but specifically episode 27 Lynn Minmay's songs are used to counteract the main antagonists. Sheryl Nome and Ranka Lee's songs were also used to counteract their antagonists as their songs slowed down/hindered their enemies and made it much easier for them to fight.

As for the governmental structure, what exactly about it is muddy? Each of the new plants so far, Ragna and Voldor have their own unique political system. Just as how the SDFM fleet and Frontier fleet had their own unique political system.

[Duke Togo]

So is your issue Delta related to the fact that they focus on a J-pop idol group? Or the fact that they use advanced technology which makes them seem magical? Is it the atmosphere of the series thus far or is something different overall?

You missed my point, as you did with Kalv's post. I'm not even going to bother to respond further.

[JB0]

Face it they turned one of the greatest anime franchises into a comedic series featuring cute girlie girls. It can still be fun to watch (like this episode) but the Macross you remember is gone.

Having had this discussion with someone else earlier, and... unpopular opinion, but the Macross I love died with DYRL.

The instant music stopped being simply the most visible aspect of "culture" and became a special thing unto itself, the Macross I loved was dead.

Explicitly magical or not, that was how DYRL handled Minmay. Her singing had an immediate and powerful effect on all the zentradi, with some ridiculous one-liner about genetic memories of pop music thrown in for good measure.

I have enjoyed most of the productions that bear the Macross name, but... none of them are heirs to the show I love.

[Duke Togo]

Having had this discussion with someone else earlier, and... unpopular opinion, but the Macross I love died with DYRL.

The instant music stopped being simply the most visible aspect of "culture" and became a special thing unto itself, the Macross I loved was dead.

Explicitly magical or not, that was how DYRL handled Minmay. Her singing had an immediate and powerful effect on all the zentradi, with some ridiculous one-liner about genetic memories of pop music thrown in for good measure.

I have enjoyed most of the productions that bear the Macross name, but... none of them are heirs to the show I love.

There's nothing stopping the next Macross production from being more in tune with Zero than Delta (though I found Zero to be a bit boring, I am thinking more in terms of overall tone). In the grand scheme of things, 7 and Delta are the outliers in the franchise. You have SDF Macross, DYRL, Plus, Zero, and Frontier on one side of the spectrum, and 7 and Delta on the other.

[MisaForever]

Having had this discussion with someone else earlier, and... unpopular opinion, but the Macross I love died with DYRL.

The instant music stopped being simply the most visible aspect of "culture" and became a special thing unto itself, the Macross I loved was dead.

Explicitly magical or not, that was how DYRL handled Minmay. Her singing had an immediate and powerful effect on all the zentradi, with some ridiculous one-liner about genetic memories of pop music thrown in for good measure.

I have enjoyed most of the productions that bear the Macross name, but... none of them are heirs to the show I love.

So... am I to understand that you DID or DIDN'T enjoy DYRL? As far as I'm concerned it was the same as the original story, just compressed with some other minor things thrown in.

[Saruta]

As far as I can understand JB0, he likes the original concept of Zentradi being swayed by contact with human culture in general, with Minmay acting as a focus of attention.

Then in DYRL, things were changed. Now Minmay was not just an element of human culture - she was singing some specific Protoculture song that triggered something pre-existing in Zentradi.

And since then, song is usually linked to some kind of energy or waves and makes an impact that way - rather than through the beauty of culture.

I think the two ways are sort of linked/balanced in the Macross world, with Basara being a strong rock singer (I don't think the word J-Pop should apply to M7, J-Rock should, despite absence of links to Visual Kei which is the most visible side of J-Rock). He does not *just* do things by "anima spiritia" and in fact does not seem to care much about that aspect - as far as *he* is concerned it's about music and emotion, and the space whale story of Dynamite it does appear to be about that?

Also in Frontier, Ranka's impact on rogue Zentradi on Gallia 4 does not seem to have anything to do with fold waves, this is pure culture at work (unlike stuff that goes on later with the Vajra, who are far too un-human to understand human culture. but they get the fold wave angle).

Delta does not seem to have the culture angle all that much as yet, with Walkure being a group specifically selected for fold reception levels as opposed to music quality. (Just realized this gives an inworld explanation to the drop of music "impact strength" after Kanno left). Moreover Episode 7 seems to show very specifically that, unlike Basara's times, cover singing does not do anything; it's the girls, not the music. The "culture impact" part only exists off-screen, as the original motive for Freyja's escape.

But everything might yet change later in the series...

[MisaForever]

Ah, okay. That would make sense. I guess I never really thought about how they portrayed her and just saw Minmay as.... Minmay.

Except with elf ears.

[d3v]

As far as I can understand JB0, he likes the original concept of Zentradi being swayed by contact with human culture in general, with Minmay acting as a focus of attention.

Then in DYRL, things were changed. Now Minmay was not just an element of human culture - she was singing some specific Protoculture song that triggered something pre-existing in Zentradi.

And since then, song is usually linked to some kind of energy or waves and makes an impact that way - rather than through the beauty of culture.

I think the two ways are sort of linked/balanced in the Macross world, with Basara being a strong rock singer (I don't think the word J-Pop should apply to M7, J-Rock should, despite absence of links to Visual Kei which is the most visible side of J-Rock). He does not *just* do things by "anima spiritia" and in fact does not seem to care much about that aspect - as far as *he* is concerned it's about music and emotion, and the space whale story of Dynamite it does appear to be about that?

Also in Frontier, Ranka's impact on rogue Zentradi on Gallia 4 does not seem to have anything to do with fold waves, this is pure culture at work (unlike stuff that goes on later with the Vajra, who are far too un-human to understand human culture. but they get the fold wave angle).

Delta does not seem to have the culture angle all that much as yet, with Walkure being a group specifically selected for fold reception levels as opposed to music quality. (Just realized this gives an inworld explanation to the drop of music "impact strength" after Kanno left). Moreover Episode 7 seems to show very specifically that, unlike Basara's times, cover singing does not do anything; it's the girls, not the music. The "culture impact" part only exists off-screen, as the original motive for Freyja's escape.

But everything might yet change later in the series...

The Gallia/Gaul 4 incident proves that all cultured Zentraedi are raging idol otaku. With the exception of that jerk Temujin, but then again, knowing his "predecessor", what he probably wanted was some Meltrans to make "culture" with (Temujin for martyr fighting for desegregation in the Marine fleets).

As for songs energy, fold wave theory, etc. At the end of the day, it becomes harder and harder to simply keep using the whole "beauty of culture" and "culture shock" trope. The furthest you can push this is what they did in Frontier where there was a communication barrier with the Vajra due to their alien nature (the hierarchy of alienness from the Enders books).

[Zinjo]

Delta focusing on an idol group is just Macross being Macross by focusing on the popular J-pop trends of the day. Just like how bands and visual kei was on the rise in the 90s (when we got 7), idol groups are the big thing nowadays, with groups like Morning Musume, AKB47, Momoiro Clover Z, etc. being at the zenith of their popularity. Instead of the solo career routes of Minmay, Sheryl, and Ranka (and Mari Iijima, May'n and Megumi Nakajima) most aspiring singers in Japan now go through the whole idol group route (I'm pretty sure Walkure's VAs will be packaged as an idol group IRL as well).

Waklure already is being packaged as a idol group. Their first video is already on Youtube.

[d3v]

Waklure already is being packaged as a idol group. Their first video is already on Youtube.

But what I mean is, is it just for the show (ala DoCo for Ranma, yes, showing my age here) or will it go beyond that?

[kalvasflam]

In the original series, singing wasn't really relevant to conflict until much later in the series. Minmay started singing earlier on, but wasn't until the spies when they really started having an impact. (the first time was during the Miss Macross contest, and the singing was only part of the shock, the other was seeing man/woman mixed together and the swim suits) The contamination of culture happened later after the spies came back from the Macross, The actual weaponization of the song/culture didn't happen until nearly the end of the series when Bol Dolze came in. If I recall correctly, the idea came from the Zentradi to do that, not the humans.

In Frontier, weaponization of song as a tactical advantage against Vajra happened fairly early on (by ep 13 or so if I recall). The same was true in 7.

In Delta, we jump right into the song as a tactical advantage, in fact, it is the full background of the story.

Each of these take a slightly different path, it's interesting to see how the Mac+ universe is evolving along this line.

[kalvasflam]

I'll go with a second post here since I want to separate out the song/culture portion from the VFs.

The one bit that I am not very happy with on the series is the gradual evolution to hero fighters and the consistency in the military. In the original macross, everyone flew VF-1s; the difference might have been that some had custom paint jobs. Ok, I can understand that. But there was no VF-2 for Roy, VF-3 for Hikaru, etc. Everything was a logical extension of VF-1s. The fights were also very explainable, and massive in most cases.

Mac+ was also very explainable, it was a fly off between the next generation fighters, hence the need for specialized fighters fighters.

Mac7 was still very explainable, I can see regular VF-11 like stuff in the regular USAF, then Diamond force was like the F-117. The part that didn't fit was Basara. I actually think they could have pulled this off without him necessarily having the most advanced fighter in the fleet. I've never really bought the argument of him having the VF-19. Way too super robot for me, the stupid thing actually had a mouth.

With Mac Frontier, Kawamori actually tried to explain why there was a hero fighter in the context of the SMS. I guess I can make a stretch in believing non-regular military having superior equipment... the story could've been done without VF-25s. Or with all VF-17s. Basically, the reason for the VF-25s was that someone could sell more toys, I think they could've done that anyway with upgraded VF-17s. I think they could've done more on the fights, because it seemed like for most of the series, Quarter had four VF-25s, Monster, plus a few Quads. You could say that make sense only in the context that Quarter never carried many fighters. But the hero fighters were the sole focus, everyone else was cannon fodder it seemed until about ep 13, when you actually see VF-17s killing off Vajra.

I haven't seen enough of Mac Delta to decide how the VF-31 fit in just yet, it's good to see that they had some grunt units, because otherwise, the Aether would've have been stupid, an entire carrier, home to only five fighters. And if the Aether had a larger complement, where the hell was it in episode 6. Because if you believe it, there was a mere 15 fighters (assuming each platoon has 5 fighters) on the Aether. And if your purpose was to go support a planet from been taken over, the rapid reaction force seem to be absurdly small. A single carrier, with may be 15 fighters, of which only five went into the fight... that is a head scratcher unless the show is implicitly saying that the NUNS pilots and machines are so bad that a mere 5 VF-31 had the ability to take out on a good planetary defense force (backed with the Walkure of course).

Then there are the Aerial Knights, don't get me started on them, so far, I still haven't seen exactly where the Aerial knights are launching from, seems like their home planet. Like I said in another thread, one of their superior physical characteristics must be the ability to hold their pee for a long time during space flight, get in a fight, and then come back. Those guys are like enemy hero units, something that none of the other series had before. it's different, but at the same time, it makes you wonder why anyone in the Macross universe even bother having a military any more.

Edited May 19, 2016 by kalvasflam

[Seto Kaiba]

In Frontier, weaponization of song as a tactical advantage against Vajra happened fairly early on (by ep 13 or so if I recall). The same was true in 7.

Actually, in Macross 7 the weaponization of song started before the series... though it took about 22 episodes for it to actually work.

The one bit that I am not very happy with on the series is the gradual evolution to hero fighters and the consistency in the military. In the original macross, everyone flew VF-1s; the difference might have been that some had custom paint jobs. Ok, I can understand that. But there was no VF-2 for Roy, VF-3 for Hikaru, etc. Everything was a logical extension of VF-1s. The fights were also very explainable, and massive in most cases.

The VF-1 Valkyrie was "in focus" for most of the story, but it wasn't the only type of fighter the Macross carried... and, mind you, it wouldn't be a stretch to argue that the VF-1S was a "hero mecha" too, given its superior performance, special paintjob, and the existence of special optional gear in DYRL? that other fighters didn't get.

With Mac Frontier, Kawamori actually tried to explain why there was a hero fighter in the context of the SMS. I guess I can make a stretch in believing non-regular military having superior equipment... the story could've been done without VF-25s. Or with all VF-17s. Basically, the reason for the VF-25s was that someone could sell more toys, I think they could've done that anyway with upgraded VF-17s. [...]

You've got it backwards, actually... the VF-171 was created because Kawamori didn't want the background mooks distracting from the action, so he created the Nightmare Plus to give them a blander fighter than what the protagonists were flying. The VF-25 was there for the rival pilot and Vajra plot, the Nightmare Plus was the one added for reasons not directly related to the story.

I haven't seen enough of Mac Delta to decide how the VF-31 fit in just yet, it's good to see that they had some grunt units, because otherwise, the Aether would've have been stupid, an entire carrier, home to only five fighters. And if the Aether had a larger complement, where the hell was it in episode 6. Because if you believe it, there was a mere 15 fighters (assuming each platoon has 5 fighters) on the Aether. And if your purpose was to go support a planet from been taken over, the rapid reaction force seem to be absurdly small. A single carrier, with may be 15 fighters, of which only five went into the fight... that is a head scratcher unless the show is implicitly saying that the NUNS pilots and machines are so bad that a mere 5 VF-31 had the ability to take out on a good planetary defense force (backed with the Walkure of course).

It's worth remembering that Chaos is not a military force. They're basically a security detail for Tactical Sound Unit Walkure... and despite the claim that Macross Elysion is the size of a first-generation Macross-class, the Aether seems to be AWFULLY small as a result of its transformation. Their tactics make slightly more sense when you account for the fact that it was Walkure, not Delta Platoon, who were the ones actually expected to turn the tide of the battle... Delta Platoon's involvement was mostly just a skirmish screen to distract and disorient the Var closest to Aether, while Alpha and Beta Platoons were supposed to protect the carrier.

They were reacting to a Var outbreak, not attempting a military intervention after all...

(Mind you, I strongly suspect that the Aether's transformation's implications WRT its internal volume probably limits its carrying capacity to at most two squadrons worth of fighters... say, ~30 planes. Probably half of those would be drones.)

Then there are the Aerial Knights, don't get me started on them, so far, I still haven't seen exactly where the Aerial knights are launching from, seems like their home planet. Like I said in another thread, one of their superior physical characteristics must be the ability to hold their pee for a long time during space flight, get in a fight, and then come back. Those guys are like enemy hero units, something that none of the other series had before. it's different, but at the same time, it makes you wonder why anyone in the Macross universe even bother having a military any more.

What if I want to get you started on them? What then, eh?

We've seen something associated with their forces that looks a lot like the Dulfim-class carriers previously employed by Macross Galaxy, so there's that... or they might be flush enough with fold quartz to equip their fighters with zero-time fold boosters to cut travel time. Those cut fold faults out of the equation and improve efficiency to the point that our last example of them turned a day-long trip with a week's fold-related time losses into an hour's direct jaunt with no time loss.

(Personally, my money's on them having a ship... probably named Tarnhelm, since we're apparently doing Nibelungenlied in Space this year.)

EDIT: They're squatting on Protoculture ruins... I wonder if they have some kind of interstellar version of the fold stones on Uroboros?

Edited May 19, 2016 by Seto Kaiba

[d3v]

It's highly likely that the Aerial Knights have their own carrier. I mean, we actually see their fleet over Vordor.

[RedWolf]

As for songs energy, fold wave theory, etc. At the end of the day, it becomes harder and harder to simply keep using the whole "beauty of culture" and "culture shock" trope. The furthest you can push this is what they did in Frontier where there was a communication barrier with the Vajra due to their alien nature (the hierarchy of alienness from the Enders books).

Well Macross was originally meant to be a parody of Gundam. Fold Receptors are the Macross universe's Newtypes.

In the original series, singing wasn't really relevant to conflict until much later in the series. Minmay started singing earlier on, but wasn't until the spies when they really started having an impact. (the first time was during the Miss Macross contest, and the singing was only part of the shock, the other was seeing man/woman mixed together and the swim suits) The contamination of culture happened later after the spies came back from the Macross, The actual weaponization of the song/culture didn't happen until nearly the end of the series when Bol Dolze came in. If I recall correctly, the idea came from the Zentradi to do that, not the humans.

In Frontier, weaponization of song as a tactical advantage against Vajra happened fairly early on (by ep 13 or so if I recall). The same was true in 7.

In Delta, we jump right into the song as a tactical advantage, in fact, it is the full background of the story.

Each of these take a slightly different path, it's interesting to see how the Mac+ universe is evolving along this line.

From Macross Plus onward starting with Myung we see music being able to disrupt brainwashing. Sharon Apple the Protodevlin, Macross Galaxy and the Kingdom of Wind all use mind control making them antagonists. Thing is starting with Macross 7 there is a science behind it.

[Zinjo]

From Macross Plus onward starting with Myung we see music being able to disrupt brainwashing. Sharon Apple the Protodevlin, Macross Galaxy and the Kingdom of Wind all use mind control making them antagonists. Thing is starting with Macross 7 there is a science behind it.

I would argue there is "science" behind it starting with MF. M7 told the audience it was science but no real explanation into how it could work was really given...

Edited May 20, 2016 by Zinjo

[Supernova]

You missed my point, as you did with Kalv's post. I'm not even going to bother to respond further.

Which is why I asked what your point was. If somebody doesn't understand what you're saying, elaborate and emphasize your point, that's the point of discussion. I'm very interested and intrigued with what you're saying. As for Kalv's post he stated that the Idols from SDFM and Frontier were not apart of the focus of the story, and the story could have progressed without them. Which was inaccurate.

[Beltane70]

As far as I can understand JB0, he likes the original concept of Zentradi being swayed by contact with human culture in general, with Minmay acting as a focus of attention.

Then in DYRL, things were changed. Now Minmay was not just an element of human culture - she was singing some specific Protoculture song that triggered something pre-existing in Zentradi.

Actually, she still was an element of human culture. There was a scene where you see a bunch of Zentradi soldiers interacting with a Minmay doll and freaking out when the doll starts singing "My Boyfriend Is A Pilot". Exsodol also mentions in the opening scene of the movie that some soldiers had become unable to fight after receiving strange sound signals from the Macross. Minmay's singing was affecting the Zentradi quite some time before she acquired Do You Remember Love?.

[Karaoke Ninja]

I'll go with a second post here since I want to separate out the song/culture portion from the VFs.

The one bit that I am not very happy with on the series is the gradual evolution to hero fighters and the consistency in the military. In the original macross, everyone flew VF-1s; the difference might have been that some had custom paint jobs. Ok, I can understand that. But there was no VF-2 for Roy, VF-3 for Hikaru, etc. Everything was a logical extension of VF-1s. The fights were also very explainable, and massive in most cases.

I'd argue the VF-1s were hero fighters when you consider all the main characters piloted them and most of the no names that died in battle were using Destroids which have maybe 6 something variants.

[kalvasflam]

I'd argue the VF-1s were hero fighters when you consider all the main characters piloted them and most of the no names that died in battle were using Destroids which have maybe 6 something variants.

How would you characterize that for all of the canon fodders. No, the original series was very distinctive in the lack of hero fighters, and more true to what you'd expect out of a standard military. VF-1S is a command variant, just like there is a VF-25S, and -19S, and so forth. The point is, everyone pretty much flew the same type of fighters. Don't let a paint job fool you, everyone flew VF-1s. Consider this, would you see a hero fighter, if someone painted a VF-17I in Skull colors?

As for the so called specialized gear, are you guys saying the strike pack couldn't be fitted onto other VF-1? Yikes... blasphemy.

Which is why I asked what your point was. If somebody doesn't understand what you're saying, elaborate and emphasize your point, that's the point of discussion. I'm very interested and intrigued with what you're saying. As for Kalv's post he stated that the Idols from SDFM and Frontier were not apart of the focus of the story, and the story could have progressed without them. Which was inaccurate.

Ummm, in the original series, Minmay was irrelevant until the very end where she was part of culture shock, if you take the story in the grand context of human/Zentradi war, then she is negligible until the end. If you mean in the triangle sense, then yeah, she is relevant.

The same is true with Ranka and Sherly. They were irrelevant to the Vajra war until people figured out that hey, Ranka could cause the Vajra to stop with her song. That they were important in the context of the Triangle I would agree. But clarifying here, the war in both cases were not impacted by them until a) The Zentradi suggested culture shock as a weapon. b) discovering Ranka could cause the Vajra to freeze up.

From Macross Plus onward starting with Myung we see music being able to disrupt brainwashing. Sharon Apple the Protodevlin, Macross Galaxy and the Kingdom of Wind all use mind control making them antagonists. Thing is starting with Macross 7 there is a science behind it

Sure, there may be a science behind it, but if so, it only really gets codified in Delta. Otherwise, Frontier/Galaxy and all the other Macrosses would be running around looking for their own idol singer/super weapon.

to SK: Aerial Knights are holding in their pee as they transit from point A to point B while their opposition doesn't understand what the mission was.

Anyway, I for one would like to see an actual windermere planetary operation. They have to have more than just Aerial knights show up, there has got to be some form of occupation force. In ep 6, I honestly wasn't sure what I was seeing, 70% of local defense force overtaken... ok, then what, do the Aerial knights show up, and do the mop up of the remainder... and then, do the real Windermere military show up with ships and stuff?

Windermere's military must be fantastically weak if they are rebuffed by a single carrier with just 15 fighters while they controlled 70% of the other side when they started the fight.

sorry, I'm nitpicking here, but it's kind of fun until the next episode at least. I wonder if any of the secondary characters like the evil twin brothers are going to bite the dust, or is it too early yet. I'm pegging Hermann to be pineapple saladed by episode 15.

Edited May 20, 2016 by kalvasflam

[RedWolf]

Interesting stuff from the Macross Delta prequel manga. Five years ago Var first affected animals. Giant animals that are like kaiju but still animals. So between that and this episode we can see different phases Var is experimented and spread. First it was animals then it was random people finally targeting military personnel.

[kajnrig]

Having had this discussion with someone else earlier, and... unpopular opinion, but the Macross I love died with DYRL.

The instant music stopped being simply the most visible aspect of "culture" and became a special thing unto itself, the Macross I loved was dead.

Explicitly magical or not, that was how DYRL handled Minmay. Her singing had an immediate and powerful effect on all the zentradi, with some ridiculous one-liner about genetic memories of pop music thrown in for good measure.

I have enjoyed most of the productions that bear the Macross name, but... none of them are heirs to the show I love.

I like this opinion. I don't share it, but I like what you consider to be the beating heart and soul of "Macross" and why.

[Master Dex]

I think it is obvious. The Aerial Knights hold their pee in super dimension space via the use of fold resonance toilets.

Edited May 20, 2016 by Master Dex

[Roy Focker]

I've been gone for the last couple of days. I want to make something clear. Macross since the beginning has always had comedic with serious moments. You can't claim it was always light-hearted just because 20% of the original series was light in tone. You can't claim Frontier was serious because 20% of that series had a darker tone. Some incarnations of Macross were more serious than others. Although Macross was mostly moderate in tone. It made a name for itself in the 80's & 90's by having the perfect mix of the comedic and the serious. It was a product of space opera mecha fans who represented their own demographic.

Its most recent incarnations is a product of marketing and current trends. Macross fans may watch Delta because it has mecha and has Macross in the title but it isn't a space opera in the traditional sense. It is just another anime that represents what's the most marketable right now. This can still be fun to watch. Just don't watch it with the expectations that you'd expect from the golden age of Macross. Enjoy it for what it is. Don't enjoy it just because of its title.

[kalvasflam]

I think it is obvious. The Aerial Knights hold their pee in super dimension space via the use of fold resonance toilets.

Haha, as good an explanation as any. I sure hope the fold resonance plumbing is putting that pee somewhere sanitary and not just dumping it out in the atmosphere from the micro missile ports on the Drakken.

[guyxxed]

It's highly likely that the Aerial Knights have their own carrier. I mean, we actually see their fleet over Vordor.

Twice now (episodes 3 and 6, I think), when the knights were told to retreat, they were instructed to "return to the Branch". That could just be fancy 'wind' talk, but I've assumed that it is the name of their carrier or base ship.

[d3v]

Twice now (episodes 3 and 6, I think), when the knights were told to retreat, they were instructed to "return to the Branch". That could just be fancy 'wind' talk, but I've assumed that it is the name of their carrier or base ship.

I think it's safe to assume that they do have some sort of carrier supporting them. As for why it's not seen, either the Draken III's are capable of short range folds (and they just fold to the carrier), or the carrier itself has some cloaking tech. It makes sense when you consider that, up until now (before episode 6), they've been participating in irregular warfare.

[PrimumMobile]

Most likely why they dont show their carrier because it is a Macross class ship.

[Kshatriya]

Please stop posting Roy Focker's posts on /a/.

[d3v]

Wanting Macross to not follow current anime trends is wanting Macross not to be Macross. What some people may not understand, likely due to the fact that the internet didn't exist back then limiting most people in the west's exposure to actual Japanese pop culture, is that the original SDFM is pretty much a product of the Japanese pop culture trends and tropes of the time. In fact, this is why it works, because it plays with, deconstructs, and yet in the end celebrates those tropes. This follows on with all the later Macross TV series from 7 all the way to Delta. SK, Studio Nue, et. al. aren't just content with rehashing the same tired tropes from the original because they know all too well that the tropes and memes of each generation of anime and j-pop music are aren't always the same as the last. All they've kept are the basic ingredients of music and space battles, but each new installment takes from things from the zeitgeist of the time. This allows each installment to feel fresh and develop it's own identity instead of being tied to that of the original (something that other franchises have more difficulty doing).

[UN Spacy]

Please stop posting Roy Focker's posts on /a/.

[JB0]

So... am I to understand that you DID or DIDN'T enjoy DYRL? As far as I'm concerned it was the same as the original story, just compressed with some other minor things thrown in.

Saruta got it, pretty much.

I enjoy DYRL for what it is, but the significant differences from the source mark the beginning of a fairly strong divorce from the "realistic" drama of the original TV show, most notably in how the power of song is elevated well beyond the bounds of conventional logic.

And in fairness, a large part of that is because you can't fit thirty-six episodes of narrative into a single movie. Things had to be reworked significantly to make a movie, and with no reason to assume it would be the foundation of a multimedia franchise, why not run wild?

Also in fairness, I note that Macross' universe is more heavily tethered to the now-dated "missing link" problem than ever before, but it does not impair the franchise in the least. (Nor does it impair many of the other fictions that chose to fill then-large gaps in the evolutionary chain with external forces)

So it isn't really a problem with realism, just that it chose a direction I liked less than other possibilities.

[Roy Focker]

The original series also covered some universal tropes that goes beyond its time. Your current Macross is still built on a decades old property. Not counting the spotty animation it still stands the test of time. Could a 30+ year franchise be built on Delta if it was the first Macross? Who knows.

[Saruta]

I do somewhat share JB0's feelings re DYRL and power of song, though my main gripe with DYRL is actually what they did with Misa. I mean, come on, Misa, a trained, experienced military officer with a will of iron, grabbing a pilot's joystick from behind? I just can't believe this, whatever the stress she is under. In SDFM she was under no less stress when captured by the Zentradi, yet she stood her ground on a table under the eyes of giants.

[Zinjo]

Most likely why they dont show their carrier because it is a Macross class ship.

THAT would be totally COOL!!!

Wanting Macross to not follow current anime trends is wanting Macross not to be Macross. What some people may not understand, likely due to the fact that the internet didn't exist back then limiting most people in the west's exposure to actual Japanese pop culture, is that the original SDFM is pretty much a product of the Japanese pop culture trends and tropes of the time. In fact, this is why it works, because it plays with, deconstructs, and yet in the end celebrates those tropes. This follows on with all the later Macross TV series from 7 all the way to Delta. SK, Studio Nue, et. al. aren't just content with rehashing the same tired tropes from the original because they know all too well that the tropes and memes of each generation of anime and j-pop music are aren't always the same as the last. All they've kept are the basic ingredients of music and space battles, but each new installment takes from things from the zeitgeist of the time. This allows each installment to feel fresh and develop it's own identity instead of being tied to that of the original (something that other franchises have more difficulty doing).

That pretty much sums it up, aka "You can't go home again..."

...grabbing a pilot's joystick from behind?...

Hey isn't that called a Re*.... Never mind...