Macross Δ (Delta) - Mission 21 - READ 1st POST

[RedWolf]

They're excellent at running away and screaming in terror... the rest, not so much.

They did succeed in calming down those Vared Zentradi when their Fold Receptors got stronger. On Alfheim they arrived a bit too late but managed to save some like Messer. But with one of them quitting Lady M had to bring in her secret weapon, Mikumo.

I'm paraphrasing what Colonel Barton said about the Jamming Birds. "Fire Bomber got to where they are after trials. They need training to cope with battles."

Walkure were like the Jamming Birds who eventually managed to sing effectively like Sound Force at the end. However Mikumo is their Basara, their ace singer.

[kalvasflam]

Ep13? That sounds about right, Messer's death was essentially the high watermark for this series, 12 and 13 were passable as the prelude and the action sequence, although not as well as ep 13 on Frontier.

I hope they find a way to redeem this, they need to make a new series just to rectify the mistakes here. May be SK is having his Lucas moment, although I can't tell who the Jar Jar is in this series... Bogue?

So, the next logical step is sell the rights to Disney, or the equivalent there of in Japan, Sunrise? They'll do an equivalent of TFA and make us forget about Delta.

[Aries Turner]

Reina is some kind of movie magical hacker who as soon infiltrates massively an enemy network, including all military vessels, as fails dramatically. It is no worse than hacking a key number by number. Take it as proof that this is again not canon, but a 2067 tale as told in 20XX, as allways in Macross.

AFAIK, there was no Zentran Q-Rhea back in Episode 1, so I assume that one is a first. It seems the same model used on Galia-4.

Also, are those mini missile exits in the pod used by the Kairos when rescuing Kaname?

I hope they find a way to redeem this, they need to make a new series just to rectify the mistakes here. May be SK is having his Lucas moment, although I can't tell who the Jar Jar is in this series... Bogue?

Bogue is crossover Escaflowne's Dilandau. Kawamori was also involved in Escaflowne: that is why the SV-262 battroid seems a step away of unsheathing a sword, as the VF-25 sported a Bobby knife.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Aries Turner

[Raptor One]

Blonde chick was cute.

Yes, that is the extent of my commentary

[BlueMax]

Just saw the Chinese subs. Very disappointed with this and the last few episodes. I used to be looking forward to what the next episode had to offer and hit the forums to see what kind of insight there are from others and perhaps join in the discussion. At this point, I seriously don't care about this series anymore. There isn't anything really new to discuss besides lamenting about how the producers are squandering the series (I think it is pretty much unanimous). What a shame too, since we only get a new Macross series/ OVA maybe once for every 2 Olympics summer games.

Perhaps the last few episodes will be different. Maybe, but I remember ourselves saying that a few episodes ago too, so, like I said, i don't really care at this point. Even through the rose tinted glasses as a Macross fan, this series had effectively jumped the shark since episode 13.

[RedWolf]

AFAIK, there was no Zentran Q-Rhea back in Episode 1, so I assume that one is a first. It seems the same model used on Galia-4.

The ones used by the 33rd Marines on Gallia 4 were Queadluun-Rhea. What really think it's exclusive to Pixie Squad?

NUNS Space Marines have them in their arsenal.

[Sandman]

Episode 13 wasn't even that good. It was okay but it was no Frontier ep7.

[grigolosi]

Redwolf you just beat me to the punch......lol. I even screenshot the exact same scene......

Edited August 22, 2016 by grigolosi

[Aries Turner]

gg Macross Delta (Preview Special) - 01 E4E85FC6.mkv_snapshot_18.02_2016.01.14_12.49.52.jpg

queadluun-rhea-green.jpg

The ones used by the 33rd Marines on Gallia 4 were Queadluun-Rhea. What really think it's exclusive to Pixie Squad?

NUNS Space Marines have them in their arsenal.

As I HAD already told. By your answer, I assume it is TRUE that this is the FIRST time those appear on Macross DELTA.

Redwolf you just beat me to the punch......lol. I even screenshot the exact same scene......

If I were to point Pixie Squadron as if I thought of them as the sole users of the type, why would I point to Galia-4 where Temjin, a male, a Zentran, would pilot the green type? Why not point instead to ANY of the other episodes or places of Macross-F?

Edited August 22, 2016 by Aries Turner

[MisaForever]

Is Kawamori writing and directing these episodes? Doesn't feel like it.

Blonde chick was cute.

Yes, that is the extent of my commentary

One of the best parts of this episode! <3

[CRYO]

From official delta site the major writer is 根元歲三，there are many below standard 2nd half episodes written by others...

[azrael]

Perhaps the last few episodes will be different. Maybe, but I remember ourselves saying that a few episodes ago too, so, like I said, i don't really care at this point. Even through the rose tinted glasses as a Macross fan, this series had effectively jumped the shark since episode 13.

The last few episodes will be different because obviously, the series is heading toward its finale. The problem is the road were taking to get to that finale. It's not a good one. Since we got past the halfway-point (perhaps even earlier), this show has been a narrative mess. They could have used parts of other previous episodes to incorporate what we have been seeing for the past few weeks instead of as they've done, drop 3 weeks of info on us. I'm sure this show will end in grand Macross-fashion, but that doesn't excuse the story dragging we've been through for the past 8 episodes.

[eko.prasetiyo]

yup elysion just sit there as a backdrop and just fire its cannon once.

[Seto Kaiba]

They did succeed in calming down those Vared Zentradi when their Fold Receptors got stronger. On Alfheim they arrived a bit too late but managed to save some like Messer. But with one of them quitting Lady M had to bring in her secret weapon, Mikumo.I'm paraphrasing what Colonel Barton said about the Jamming Birds. "Fire Bomber got to where they are after trials. They need training to cope with battles."Walkure were like the Jamming Birds who eventually managed to sing effectively like Sound Force at the end. However Mikumo is their Basara, their ace singer.

The problem with your reasoning here is that they didn't actually get better at this... they're STILL ineffective and nigh-useless. Without the fold wave amp, they're demoted from "nigh-useless" to "genuinely useless". Mikumo's the only member of the group worth a damn until Freyja shows up.

As far as comparing them to the Jamming Birds goes... that has its own logical problems. Namely, even Basara required amplification for his songs to have any real effect on the brainwashed soldiers of the Varauta Army, so it wasn't like the Jamming Birds being ineffective was all that surprising. They had a solid 20+ episodes of Basara being useless coming to their defense. In Walkure, the abilities of Freyja and Mikumo are strong enough to accomplish the calm a Var sufferer without mechanical help, and the enemy has the means to disable fold amplification systems. Kaname, Makina, and Reina are useless without the fold amp, and they're kind of crap at everything else too... as we've seen from an incredibly awful and apparently completely unnecessary attempt to infiltrate the hospital ship that saw them foiled by a single sliding door and one inept rent-a-cop.

In short, where the Jamming Birds simply lacked confidence... Walkure's three deadweight members genuinely suck at their jobs.

I hope they find a way to redeem this, they need to make a new series just to rectify the mistakes here. May be SK is having his Lucas moment, although I can't tell who the Jar Jar is in this series... Bogue?

Honestly? I don't think there's one single character who is a concentrated cauldron of wretchedness like Jar-Jar. It's spread out across a bunch of the superfluous cast who are all teaspoon-shallow one-dimensional cardboard standees... Makina, Reina, Kaname, Messer, Keith, Gramia...

Kawamori was also involved in Escaflowne: that is why the SV-262 battroid seems a step away of unsheathing a sword, as the VF-25 sported a Bobby knife.

I don't know why you keep repeating the bit about the connection to Escaflowne like it's a revelation... it was fairly obvious the minute Kawamori and co. revealed the antagonists would be the "Aerial Knights". The way that's written (空中騎士) is a riff on the original title for the Kawamori design series that eventually became Escaflowne: 空中騎行戦記, often styled as the Air Cavalry Chronicles.

That project split in two, with the story undergoing a genre shift to become The Vision of Escaflowne and the mechanical designs getting developed further for use in Macross 7 and Macross M3. The Zaibach mecha became the Varauta Army's fighters, Fanelia's mecha found their way into the service of the UN Spacy and Windermere Kingdom as the VF-9 and Sv-154, and a Fanelian mecha became the VA-3 Invader.

The Macross Delta series almost feels like it's built of the bits and pieces of previous Kawamori and Studio Nue projects. The Aerial Knights were recovered material from Air Cavalry Chronicles, Windermere seems like it's a militant version of the Emaan from Super Dimension Century Orguss complete with head-tentacles, and so on...

Blonde chick was cute.

Yes, that is the extent of my commentary

The Ragnan girl was cute too. Can we trade Makina and Reina for those two?

As I HAD already told. By your answer, I assume it is TRUE that this is the FIRST time those appear on Macross DELTA.

Nein, there's a Queadluun-Rhea in the first episode... Mikumo cures the pilot's Var syndrome a minute or so into Forbidden Borderline.

[Zinjo]

Ernest has good taste for decorations:

...well... ONE item for decoration

Makes me wonder if he once captained one? I would expect so.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Zinjo

[Zinjo]

From official delta site the major writer is 根元歲三，there are many below standard 2nd half episodes written by others...

Kawamori tends to write the outline of the story for the production and lets other scribes flesh out the details.

[azrael]

Kawamori tends to write the outline of the story for the production and lets other scribes flesh out the details.

Not sure how it works in Japan, but that's how it usually works in Hollywood. Someone pitches an idea (or writes up the outline) for an episode and then someone goes about writing the script. Who pitches the idea and who writes it varies from a writer to the executive producer (the EP being Kawamori in this case). Then the executive producer and/or director approves. In Hollywood, the pitcher is supposed to write his/her episode. Again, not sure how this works for animation.

[Aries Turner]

>I don't know why you keep repeating the bit about the connection to Escaflowne

It simply annoys me a little, as the Ka-Bars do. I even learnt about the trivia in your website, and me liking the VF-9 is related to it originally being intended for something other than Macross.

>Nein, there's a Queadluun-Rhea in the first episode... Mikumo cures the pilot's Var syndrome a minute or so into Forbidden Borderline.

I thought it was the Regult with Q-Rhea lookalike arms previously seen. Thanks for correcting my mistake.

[Edit]: I have reviewed #1 and it certainly was a Zentran Q-Rhea. However, an interesting animation mistake is committed as Mikumo extends her arm towards the Q-Rhea faceplate and a Regult eye is shown instead.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Aries Turner

[RedWolf]

Makes me wonder if he once captained one? I would expect so.

That is the original SDF-1 Macross with the Prometheus and Daedalus. As far as we know Ernest is a merc not NUNS that once was an instructor and military advisor to the Windermerean government before he got transferred just before the independence war.

[Seto Kaiba]

It simply annoys me a little, as the Ka-Bars do. I even learnt about the trivia in your website, and me liking the VF-9 is related to it originally being intended for something other than Macross.

Kawamori doesn't seem to like to let ideas die... sometimes he'll go back to ideas he had a decade or more ago for ideas or designs to make a show.

Perhaps the most blatant example is Macross Plus: the OVA was conceived and developed as a non-Macross title back in ~84-85 via a design series called Advanced Valkyrie, and became a Macross project some time in the early 90's in order to get funding for production. Its Macross-y aspects were late additions, which is why they seem so superficial compared to the other shows.

I thought it was the Regult with Q-Rhea lookalike arms previously seen. Thanks for correcting my mistake.[Edit]: I have reviewed #1 and it certainly was a Zentran Q-Rhea. However, an interesting animation mistake is committed as Mikumo extends her arm towards the Q-Rhea faceplate and a Regult eye is shown instead.

Nyet... what you're seeing there is the camera eye under the Q-Rhea's ridged protective faceplate. It had that design feature in Frontier too.

That is the original SDF-1 Macross with the Prometheus and Daedalus. As far as we know Ernest is a merc not NUNS that once was an instructor and military advisor to the Windermerean government before he got transferred just before the independence war.

Strictly speaking, we don't know enough of Johnson's background to say with any certainty that he never served in the New UN Forces. His backstory only goes as far back as 2059-2060, when he was a hired trainer for the Windermere kingdom's local defense forces. He had to learn space warfare tactics somewhere, and he's probably 40-50 years old, so he may have done a stint in the (N)UNS somewhere in the 2030's or 2040's.

[grigolosi]

I know from interaction in the military with officers (pilots), they will have models like that on their desk. Usually of aircraft they have either flown or greatly admire. Navy officers are the same way but then they will also have ship models or pictures of both historical ships and ships they have served on. As Seto said he may have served for a stint in the Spacy and may have served on one of the SDFN's or holds an admiration for the SDF-1. Either way it is a nice desk ornament.

Edited August 23, 2016 by grigolosi

[RedWolf]

Who knows when nobody is looking Ernest transforms it into a Storm Attack mode playing with it.

[grigolosi]

Sooooo...kinda like this......

Edited August 23, 2016 by grigolosi

[Kcsquare]

Ernest: Daedalus PUNCH!!!

[no3Ljm]

I'm missing... valkyries... flying... zoom out... scissor-scissors... then face close-up... shouting... then scissor-scissors again... and kaboom!

[Graham]

I'm missing... valkyries... flying... zoom out... scissor-scissors... then face close-up... shouting... then scissor-scissors again... and kaboom!

Heck yeah, at this stage I'd be happy with any Valk combat even if it was just scissors again

.

[Aries Turner]

I see some serious Mecha Deprivation Syndrome. I'll even settle for a mecha choreography https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKNoo8MbuNU

[azrael]

Heck yeah, at this stage I'd be happy with any Valk combat even if it was just scissors again

.

At least Walkure is sounding better these days.

[Heron]

This is what I want to see for the end, with Siegfried's and Drakens going at it with Walkure Music mixed with Previous Macross Music. The fight choreography would be a mix of Battroid Martial Arts with a generous dose of flying. ^^

As a rookie member of Delta Platoon, Hayate is instructed to hang back while his comrades-in-arms go ahead with their mission to take down Roid Brehm after it’s learned he plans to finish what Macross Galaxy started with their Hivemind project. However, the team's cover is blown (Or did Roid already know they were attacking?), and Roid unleashes every ancient Protoculture defense system within Sigur Valens. Now Hayate must take command and lead his remaining team on an ultraviolent charge through the ship to complete -- and survive -- the mission.

Edited August 23, 2016 by Heron

[no3Ljm]

^ And as a 'rookie', he'll probably get a cool Valkyrie upgrade towards the end mission to finish the heavy fight.

Edited August 23, 2016 by no3ljm

[azrael]

^ And as a 'rookie', he'll probably get a cool Valkyrie upgrade towards the end mission to finish the heavy fight.

Unfortunately, the logical part of me says that should be the last thing Xaos does.

[Seto Kaiba]

I know from interaction in the military with officers (pilots), they will have models like that on their desk. Usually of aircraft they have either flown or greatly admire. Navy officers are the same way but then they will also have ship models or pictures of both historical ships and ships they have served on. As Seto said he may have served for a stint in the Spacy and may have served on one of the SDFN's or holds an admiration for the SDF-1. Either way it is a nice desk ornament.

Captain Ernest Johnson would be a senior citizen if he'd served in the First Space War... but given his age, it seems a safe bet he's a part of the peace children generation born in the aftermath of the war, like Elmo was. I'd say that'd explain him having a model of the SDF-1 on his desk, given that peace children wouldn't be a thing if not for the Macross's effect on the Zentradi.

I see some serious Mecha Deprivation Syndrome. I'll even settle for a mecha choreography

At this point, I think most of us consider the show to be a disappointment on the mecha front. The mecha action's been thin on the ground, and the dogfight choreography has been flat, boring, and utterly lacking in Macross's distinctive high-mobility high-variability combat style. It's like we're only being allowed to watch episode previews for a mecha series between long dull slogs through a badly written Escaflowne slashfic.

Of course, after the last few episodes I'd be hard pressed to deny that this show hasn't started to turn into an all-fronts disappointment. It says a lot that I was much more excited for a single picture of a VF-31A Kairos in NUNS livery for the SVF-168 Death Adders in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-4 Lightning III than I was for Macross Delta Ep21.

(Said picture mentions the existence of a Variable Fighter Master File: VF-31 Siegfried in its caption... possibly an in-book in-universe tease like the one for the VF-4 book years ago.)

I suppose I could sum up my feelings on the second half of the series with a paraphrased quote from Gioachino Rossini... (originally directed at Wagner.)

Mister Nemoto has good moments, but awful halves of an hour.

[Heron]

Unfortunately, the logical part of me says that should be the last thing Xaos does.

Hey as long as it looks good and looks good kicking arse, I can overlook the sudden upgrade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=883Z3erI-k4

Edited August 23, 2016 by Heron

[DJ_Convoy]

It's like we're only being allowed to watch episode previews for a mecha series between long dull slogs through a badly written Escaflowne slashfic.

Harsh!

But... probably fair.

[505thAirborne]

Since many of you are homesick for some Dogfighting!