Macross 7 Discussion

[Retro Chocolate]

1 minute ago, sketchley said:

Great summary.

I think that's one of the biggest reasons why I like M7 - it is an evolution of SDFM/DYRL.

That said, I do see where some of the complaints about it come from (evolution not being more of the same), and I personally think the production team could have handled a few things better.  Nevertheless, M7 has an undeniably great, original setting!

Oh I definitely see where the complaints come from. M7 is really more of a Super Robot show than any of the other Macross series, and it's certainly not for everyone, but as a huge fan of Super Robot shows, seeing a franchise I love use elements from Super Robot really worked for me.

 

That and Fire Bomber's music is the bomb (no pun intended)

 

 

Anyways I didn't to cover my opinion on Dynamite 7. I thought it was good, albeit not as good as 7, but I felt they either should have covered all of Mylene Beat in the anime, or cut the Mylene scenes from the anime entirely. As it is, some of the Mylene scenes just don't make sense without context (like the lesbian rape scene) and at times there's contradictions due to excising scenes from the manga (like Veffidas and Ray running off with Mylene after the rape scene instead of being attacked by the bird thing)

[sketchley]

1 hour ago, Retro Chocolate said:

Oh I definitely see where the complaints come from. M7 is really more of a Super Robot show than any of the other Macross series, and it's certainly not for everyone, but as a huge fan of Super Robot shows, seeing a franchise I love use elements from Super Robot really worked for me.

That definitely highlights one of the greatest aspects of the overall Macross series: the diversity and tonal shifts between each individual series or production.

[Valkyrie Driver]

19 minutes ago, sketchley said:

That said, I do see where some of the complaints about it come from (evolution not being more of the same), and I personally think the production team could have handled a few things better.  Nevertheless, M7 has an undeniably great, original setting!

I'm not saying that I want ore of the same, because that's boring. There are some elements that should be present to make the show feel familiar, and connected to its predecessors. The Variable fighter is one such example, it's a staple of Macross, and should be present. The importance of music is of course another thing which should remain constant. M7's setting is definitely interesting, and I enjoyed pretty much everything in M7, just some things resonated wrong for me, and that was jarring, but I'd say my overall opinion of M7 is a net positive, with things I liked outweighing things that I didn't.

 

[JB0]

Regarding the "powering up" of music, I think M7 could have gotten away with it by being just slightly more ambiguous. Basically, just get rid of the visual song energy effects. No other change. 

 

Personally, I'd also get rid of the Chiba Sound Units. I dislike making explicit quantitative measures of song energy, and would rather they were vaguer about the actual power levels. But I think striking the visual effects alone is probably "good enough".

[Retro Chocolate]

7 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Regarding the "powering up" of music, I think M7 could have gotten away with it by being just slightly more ambiguous. Basically, just get rid of the visual song energy effects. No other change. 

 

Personally, I'd also get rid of the Chiba Sound Units. I dislike making explicit quantitative measures of song energy, and would rather they were vaguer about the actual power levels. But I think striking the visual effects alone is probably "good enough".

Well IMO the visual effects make the battle scenes cooler. It probably could have done with out them, but I really think this plays back into M7 being more Super Robot than Real Robot, with flashy effects being the heart and soul of Super Robot shows.

Similarly, the Chiba Sound Units act as a mid season upgrade, as well as the combination sequence in every episode, so more Super Robot elements.

I understand the Super Robot elements may be a turn off for some, but for me it just made it all the better. It also makes Basara fit in perfectly in SRW

[JB0]

I think you've confused Chiba sound units with sound boosters. The latter was a hardware upgrade not entirely dissimilar from the traditional FAST packs, while the former was a unit of measurement for song energy. CSUs existed primarily to put a number on Basara's singing so everyone knew PRICISELY how good it was. (And occasionally Mylene's, usually to remind us that Basara was better.)

[Retro Chocolate]

8 minutes ago, JB0 said:

I think you've confused Chiba sound units with sound boosters. The latter was a hardware upgrade not entirely dissimilar from the traditional FAST packs, while the former was a unit of measurement for song energy. CSUs existed primarily to put a number on Basara's singing so everyone knew PRICISELY how good it was. (And occasionally Mylene's, usually to remind us that Basara was better.)

Ah, yes, I misread that. I do agree with this. Power levels in general are pointless in almost any show

[KyunKyunMylene]

New to this thread but I've always wondered what's with the wonky art choices on some of the art. Sure it's somewhat the same from SDF but it wasn't so noticeable like this

 or 

[Valkyrie Driver]

On 12/11/2017 at 9:31 AM, KyunKyunMylene said:

New to this thread but I've always wondered what's with the wonky art choices on some of the art. Sure it's somewhat the same from SDF but it wasn't so noticeable like this

 or 

It might be that I'm just so used to seeing these images, but what exactly are you saying is wonky about the art? I mean, aside from the fact that some of the animation is chunky due to being hand drawn mid 90's anime. 

[Keith]

BOMBA!

[ziggaboogi]

It's interesting for myself as I remember not liking 7 the first time around but with my most recent watch of the entire macross franchise it resonated with me much better. (I'm assuming because I was much more about "serious" anime when I was younger.) The only thing I thought could've been done was not having the series drag out so long and maybe cut out a lot of the redundant bits. So like if the series was 40 episodes rather than 49. 

[Dangerous_D]

just curious, did they ever dub Macross 7

[Master Dex]

4 minutes ago, Dangerous_D said:

just curious, did they ever dub Macross 7

No, and it's pretty much an impossibility due to the usual culprits that keep most of Macross out of America.

(Not for nothing, but even if HG wanted to do it, which 20 years later there is no reason they'd bother now, licensing all the music could be a nightmare of expenses)

[Seto Kaiba]

27 minutes ago, Master Dex said:

No, and it's pretty much an impossibility due to the usual culprits that keep most of Macross out of America.

Given the overwhelming abundance of music in the series... I suspect it probably wouldn't lend itself well to dubbing anyway.

[JB0]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Given the overwhelming abundance of music in the series... I suspect it probably wouldn't lend itself well to dubbing anyway.

In fairness, half of that music is Planet Dance. Dub it once, and you're set for twenty or so episodes.

[camk4evr]

8 hours ago, Master Dex said:

No, and it's pretty much an impossibility due to the usual culprits that keep most of Macross out of America.

(Not for nothing, but even if HG wanted to do it, which 20 years later there is no reason they'd bother now, licensing all the music could be a nightmare of expenses)

On the Macross 7 trivia page on TV tropes they paraphrase an ADV -they didn't say who so make of this what you will (personally I just find it an amusing quote)- who was asked about Macross 7 at a con.

"Maybe if every licensing group in the US pooled their money together, we'd be about

a third of the way to bring over M7 with all of its songs intact."

[Sir Galahad®]

I think a problem with Mac7 was there were too many episodes... I guess there were too many filler episodes and too many times that Basara kept singing the same song over and over, however awesome his songs are. I mean it really started slow, and the story got going in the middle.

This is what I liked a lot about frontier, there was no monotony in the singing.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 3/14/2018 at 12:26 AM, JB0 said:

In fairness, half of that music is Planet Dance. Dub it once, and you're set for twenty or so episodes.

I meant more in the sense that dubs of music-heavy shows tend to be rather poorly received on the whole, since redoing songs usually isn't an option and it's pretty jarring to have characters suddenly switch voices.  Macross 7 is one of the most music-heavy shows out there.

 

On 3/14/2018 at 4:30 AM, camk4evr said:

On the Macross 7 trivia page on TV tropes they paraphrase an ADV -they didn't say who so make of this what you will (personally I just find it an amusing quote)- who was asked about Macross 7 at a con.

That's been the rumor going around for ages... though I've never seen it actually attributed to any one individual or event.  Something about, back in the 90's, JVC wanted potential licensees for the TV series to license Fire Bomber's entire discography instead of just the music that was actually in the Macross 7 series proper.  With something like eight albums in the space of two years and four singles or so prior to Macross Dynamite 7, it would've been a monstrously expensive undertaking.

 

3 hours ago, Sir Galahad® said:

I think a problem with Mac7 was there were too many episodes... I guess there were too many filler episodes and too many times that Basara kept singing the same song over and over, however awesome his songs are.

You'll find relatively little disagreement... most of that filler being the first twenty or so episodes of the show's glacially slow run-up to the main plot, where Basara sings "Planet Dance" OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER until the audience goes quietly mad out of despair hoping for a new song.

[TrickyCustomer]

It's my first time watching mac 7 and i am currently on ep 37. As far as thoughts go comparing it to everything else I've seen in macross, it's definitely one of the weaker series. It's dragged out far too long. The story isn't strong enough to warrant the 49 episodes i feel. It should be the usual 26. It's very repetitive and I'm struggle at times to stay engaged in the story. The music however, is good.  Of the three "macross pillars" the music is the strongest. The mecha is meh, and the love triangle is lame and to be honest just plain wrong. Mecha is always my biggest draw to macross but for mac 7 i have to give it to the music. It was definitely the main focus above everything else. Well done Fire Bomber.

[JB0]

14 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I meant more in the sense that dubs of music-heavy shows tend to be rather poorly received on the whole, since redoing songs usually isn't an option and it's pretty jarring to have characters suddenly switch voices.  Macross 7 is one of the most music-heavy shows out there.

I was just being cheeky and dragging it onto a side route.

Though I do remember back in the days when they DID redub songs. It usually didn't go well, which strikes me as the main reason that redoing the songs isn't an option these days.

[Marzan]

On 3/17/2018 at 9:37 AM, JB0 said:

I was just being cheeky and dragging it onto a side route.

Though I do remember back in the days when they DID redub songs. It usually didn't go well, which strikes me as the main reason that redoing the songs isn't an option these days.

Hearing the Fire Bomber American record you can see how horribly wrong it can go. You have to be absolutely hammered to enjoy that

[Seto Kaiba]

On 3/16/2018 at 6:51 PM, TrickyCustomer said:

It's my first time watching mac 7 and i am currently on ep 37. As far as thoughts go comparing it to everything else I've seen in macross, it's definitely one of the weaker series. It's dragged out far too long. The story isn't strong enough to warrant the 49 episodes i feel. It should be the usual 26. It's very repetitive and I'm struggle at times to stay engaged in the story. The music however, is good. 

For a while now, I've felt that Macross 7 is a show that is better on the second viewing.  It is, yes, about twenty episodes too long and as a result it drags badly in the beginning and it starts out painfully repetitive, but in terms of its adherence to Macross's main themes I feel it's actually one of the stronger and more important entries in the metaseries.

The one thing I've found helps getting through it is to NEVER watch more than one to two episodes in a sitting.  It's not a show that should ever be marathoned, considering the aforementioned repetitiveness of the first half.  

The original Super Dimension Fortress Macross seems to have been almost the perfect length to suit Macross's particular style of storytelling.  Three cours let them pace out the story and left plenty of room to develop a reasonably large cast without sacrificing pacing on the altar of exposition.  The shorter two cour shows, Macross Frontier and Macross Delta, both had kind of rushed pacing in their last few episodes as the writers scrambled to tie up the loose ends in a satisfying manner.  Macross Frontier managed to maintain near-perfect balance in its storytelling and did a fabulous job developing its cast.  Macross Delta had a lot more trouble with it due to its overwhelming focus on music leaving a good deal less time to develop its large cast and its plot, terminating in a graceless stumble to a halt thanks to lost momentum from the exposition dumps.  At almost four cour long, Macross 7 had the opposite problem... way too much episode left at the end of the story, and would've benefited greatly from a reduction to three cours forcing it to start developing the main plot earlier.

 

On 3/16/2018 at 6:51 PM, TrickyCustomer said:

Of the three "macross pillars" the music is the strongest. The mecha is meh, and the love triangle is lame and to be honest just plain wrong. Mecha is always my biggest draw to macross but for mac 7 i have to give it to the music. It was definitely the main focus above everything else. Well done Fire Bomber.

Personally, I felt the mecha weren't so much "meh" as a mixed bag.

The VF-11C Thunderbolt, VF-17 Nightmare, and VF-22 Sturmvogel II are great... but the Sound Force customs are absolutely hideous.

 

 

On 3/17/2018 at 4:37 AM, JB0 said:

Though I do remember back in the days when they DID redub songs. It usually didn't go well, which strikes me as the main reason that redoing the songs isn't an option these days.

There were a few that were pretty good back in the day, like the English version of Tenchi Universe's opening theme, but yeah... a lot of them were terrible.  The English version of "Pioneer" from the Tenchi Muyo! OVAs was appalling.

Doing English versions of the songs is also pretty expensive, which makes it an unattractive option even if you do have a voice actor who can sing worth a damn (which most don't seem to be able to).

 

 

7 hours ago, Marzan said:

Hearing the Fire Bomber American record you can see how horribly wrong it can go. You have to be absolutely hammered to enjoy that

Like the "Mylene Jenius sings Lynn Minmay" album that Tomo Sakurai recorded a while back, I maintain there is no amount of alcohol on this Earth that would make that mess an enjoyable experience.

[Sir Galahad®]

Emerald Force didn't get much love as well...

As for the VF-11C, What annoyed me is that it got blasted too often and then have the ejected canopy be caught and have the pilot's spiritia drained hehe

The Elgerzorene and Panzerzorene should have toy versions. But I guess there is no demand for it.

Edited March 19, 2018 by Sir Galahad®

[JB0]

10 minutes ago, Sir Galahad® said:

As for the VF-11C, What annoyed me is that it got blasted too often and then have the ejected canopy be caught and have the pilot's spiritia drained hehe

Yeah. The VF-11 was pretty cool, but we only ever saw it in the same three stock animation clips.

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, Sir Galahad® said:

Emerald Force didn't get much love as well...

Because Docker.  'nuff said.   

 

7 hours ago, Sir Galahad® said:

As for the VF-11C, What annoyed me is that it got blasted too often and then have the ejected canopy be caught and have the pilot's spiritia drained hehe

7 hours ago, JB0 said:

Yeah. The VF-11 was pretty cool, but we only ever saw it in the same three stock animation clips.

At least we got two moments of badass-ness from it.  Gamlin swiping a VF-11C Super Thunderbolt and proceeding to hand the Varauta forces their asses with it early in the series, and then Kinryu's roaring rampage of revenge in that Armored Thunderbolt.

 

7 hours ago, Sir Galahad® said:

The Elgerzorene and Panzerzorene should have toy versions. But I guess there is no demand for it.

They were pretty ugly...

 

[TrickyCustomer]

I have officially finished watching macross 7!  So glad it picks up the pace towards the ending episodes with some lovely valk action. Seeing Max assault the polar star was it? in a vf-22 was definitely a highlight. He made that suicidal mission seem easy! Awesome. My overall opinion still hasn't really been swayed. I still feel it's a weaker series compared to plus, zero and frontier but it's got the odd good episode here and there. Onto re watching frontier next!

10 hours ago, Sir Galahad® said:

Emerald Force didn't get much love as well...

As for the VF-11C, What annoyed me is that it got blasted too often and then have the ejected canopy be caught and have the pilot's spiritia drained hehe

The Elgerzorene and Panzerzorene should have toy versions. But I guess there is no demand for it.

 I bet if they had put a certain Mr Isamu Dyson in either a vf-11c or vf-19 it would be a different story!

[Zinjo]

On 11/4/2017 at 9:37 PM, JB0 said:

I think you've confused Chiba sound units with sound boosters. The latter was a hardware upgrade not entirely dissimilar from the traditional FAST packs, while the former was a unit of measurement for song energy. CSUs existed primarily to put a number on Basara's singing so everyone knew PRICISELY how good it was. (And occasionally Mylene's, usually to remind us that Basara was better.)

This is where I think Delta did well.  The got rid of the Sound Units and measured "Resonance" levels.  Granted they tied it so fold resonance, which in itself is rather ambiguous.

[Zinjo]

On 3/19/2018 at 10:29 AM, TrickyCustomer said:

I have officially finished watching macross 7!  So glad it picks up the pace towards the ending episodes with some lovely valk action. Seeing Max assault the polar star was it? in a vf-22 was definitely a highlight. He made that suicidal mission seem easy! Awesome. My overall opinion still hasn't really been swayed. I still feel it's a weaker series compared to plus, zero and frontier but it's got the odd good episode here and there. Onto re watching frontier next!

 I bet if they had put a certain Mr Isamu Dyson in either a vf-11c or vf-19 it would be a different story!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, a 1 season series stretched into 2 for the sole purpose of selling soundtracks.  'nuff said.

We got Dyson in a VF-19 Plus in the MF2 movie and outside of the fan service, it had little impact...  Though him still flying a VF-19 was very disappointing for me.  This is a guy who loved to fly the latest and greatest and he is still in a VF-19??  It would have been cool to see him arrive in a YF-29 painted in the YF-19 color scheme, THAT would have turned heads.  He would be instantly recognizable too.

Edited May 6, 2018 by Zinjo

[KyunKyunMylene]

On 12/17/2017 at 12:31 PM, Valkyrie Driver said:

It might be that I'm just so used to seeing these images, but what exactly are you saying is wonky about the art? I mean, aside from the fact that some of the animation is chunky due to being hand drawn mid 90's anime. 

Whoops, its been almost a whole year i havent been on here;

 

But i must have said it wrong since I meant animation, sorry bout that 

[Lexomatic]

I'm working my way through a Macross 7 fansub now (first time I've viewed any part of it since 1997 with my college anime club), and taking Seto Kaiba's advice to do so slowly (I'm alternating with Disenchantment, Stranger Things, Super Dimension Century Orguss, and Trollhunters). I notice that each ep is ~24:30 in length, but after subtracting the OP, ED, and historical recap (hmm, that vanishes after ep 6), it's down to ~20:00. Neat, those recaps reuse music from Macross Plus.

I'm up to episode 8 ("Virgin Bomber") of 49 and the storytelling is ... leisurely, to be charitable. Each episode delivers approximately one each new plot detail/character/worldbuilding detail, such as "Exedol has noticed that the raiders' variable fighters resemble Earth designs" or "Mylene is 14 years old and lives with neither parent" or "there are private space-cars flying between the ships of the fleet like something from The Jetsons".

The most frustrating thing is that the command staff of the fleet are so blasé about the repeated attacks. "Ho-hum, it's those raiders again. Lost some more VF-11s, their pilots are now comatose, and there's a whole lot of raider debris we won't bother to examine. What, there's some dismembered VF limbs in the park aboard the factory ship? We won't examine them either, to notice that they use Earth-standard metric screw fittings." There are a few scenes about the populace being in near-panic re: the "vampires" that have infiltrated the city, but they're outweighed by Mylene berating Basara for his diva proclivities, or Ray evading any explanation about how he obtained Basara's VF-19 custom. So far, Veffidas the amazon drummer has exactly one character trait: she's always practicing. And what is up with girl-in-hat-carrying-bouquet who can never reach Basara?

Even though I've been paying attention to how the characters pronounce "Mylene", they can't displace the wrong pronunciation in my head. It's mee-lenn, rhymes with Delenn, not mai-leen, rhymes with buy polythene.

I've also got definite opinions about the art design and/or civil engineering of the Island- and Island Cluster-class colony ships of M7 and Frontier, but those deserve a separate thread.

Edited September 12, 2018 by Lexomatic
Excess word; girl with bouquet.

[Master Dex]

18 minutes ago, Lexomatic said:

I'm working my way through a Macross 7 fansub now (first time I've viewed any part of it since 1997 with my college anime club), and taking Seto Kaiba's advice to do so slowly (I'm alternating with Disenchantment, Stranger Things, Super Dimension Century Orguss, and Trollhunters). I notice that each ep is ~24:30 in length, but after subtracting the OP, ED, and historical recap (hmm, that vanishes after ep 6), it's down to ~20:00. Neat, those recaps reuse music from Macross Plus.

I'm up to episode 8 ("Virgin Bomber") of 49 and the storytelling is ... leisurely, to be charitable. Each episode delivers approximately one each new plot detail/character/worldbuilding detail, such as "Exedol has noticed that the raiders' variable fighters resemble Earth designs" or "Mylene is 14 years old and lives with neither parent" or "there are private space-cars flying between the ships of the fleet like something from The Jetsons".

The most frustrating thing is that the command staff of the fleet are so blasé about the repeated attacks. "Ho-hum, it's those raiders again. Lost some more VF-11s, their pilots are now comatose, and there's a whole lot of raider debris we won't bother to examine. What, there's some dismembered VF limbs in the park aboard the factory ship? We won't examine them either, to notice that they use Earth-standard metric screw fittings." There are a few scenes about the populace being in near-panic re: the "vampires" that have infiltrated the city, but they're outweighed by Mylene berating Basara for his diva proclivities, or Ray evading any explanation about how he obtained Basara's VF-19 custom. So far, Veffidas the amazon drummer has exactly one character trait: she's always practicing. And what is up with girl-in-hat-carrying-bouquet who can never reach Basara?

Even though I've been paying attention to how the characters pronounce "Mylene", they can't displace the wrong pronunciation in my head. It's mee-lenn, rhymes with Delenn, not mai-leen, rhymes with buy polythene.

I've also got definite opinions about the art design and/or civil engineering of the Island- and Island Cluster-class colony ships of M7 and Frontier, but those deserve a separate thread.

It's worth your time to continue, as Seto has said, the plot doesn't really kick in until after episode 20 or so... and then it really does start to get going. You are right though, early individual episodes basically are just character building. Once plot takes center stage, you'll like that the characters are fully fleshed out and you don't have to worry about who they are as much anymore (you'll even get to expecting what certain characters might do, because you /know/ them). It is not entirely the best way to do it (Frontier paced it way better and got a similar result) but it does end up working at least.

As for why nothing seems to be done in regards to the ongoing crisis.. a lot of comes down to politics and bureaucracy, something often skipped in most shows of this type. Max can't just do anything he wants militarily because the civil government (aka his pissed off separated wife) gets angry. While it seems Milia tends to be unreasonable given the situation, she isn't ignorant, though they do tend to forget to tell you that (they do show later properly she still has that Zentradi warrior inside her, it's just been swapped out over time with being a mother to her daughters and a leader to her people). She has to make a lot of tough choices about how to safeguard the civil populace. Max doesn't deal with that at all, he has no oversight there. It seems by the time of Frontier (and the NUNS), some fleets opted for a more unilateral President who is in charge of both civil and military matters rather than separate like 7 did. That may solve a lot of issues shown in this series, but taken as it is, it kinda makes sense.

As for the Flower Girl, she's a big fan of Basara and wants to give him flowers. That's all (not even joking, that's it).

[JB0]

2 hours ago, Master Dex said:

(you'll even get to expecting what certain characters might do, because you /know/ them).

 

They will shout "LISTEN TO MY SONG" and start shooting people with boomboxes while singing.

[Master Dex]

7 hours ago, JB0 said:

They will shout "LISTEN TO MY SONG" and start shooting people with boomboxes while singing.

Well yeah, though oddly I was thinking about Gamlin when I wrote that. Not for anything specific either, just popped into my head for some reason (Gamlin kick!). 

But yeah Basara is pretty easy to anticipate, but I do feel you get to know him on some level over time in a way that is entirely non exposition based. 

[Convectuoso]

15 hours ago, Lexomatic said:

Neat, those recaps reuse music from Macross Plus.

Not just the recaps. There was no original background music composed for the series, just songs. So whenever no one is singing, you'll just listen to background music from Macross Plus and Macross II. 

[JB0]

10 hours ago, Master Dex said:

Well yeah, though oddly I was thinking about Gamlin when I wrote that. Not for anything specific either, just popped into my head for some reason (Gamlin kick!). 

But yeah Basara is pretty easy to anticipate, but I do feel you get to know him on some level over time in a way that is entirely non exposition based. 

Sorry, I was being flippantly sarcastic. 

Basara does get character development, it is just subtle(the only subtle thing about him).