Macross 7 Discussion

[Master Dex]

54 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Sorry, I was being flippantly sarcastic. 

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

Part of me wonders if there was an intentional effort to almost shadow develope him considering he is so straight up and boisterous about everything else. 

[Sanity is Optional]

So, I'm finally watching Macross 7, along with a friend of mine (first time for both of us).

It really helps to have someone else there to make fun of the show to.

 

Also, he keeps saying that flower girl should try and kill Basara at the end or something, what with how much she keeps showing up.

[Lexomatic]

I'm up to episode #15, and it's around #10 that the plot starts to move after the not-exactly-captivating first tranche.

#11 "Minmei Video" - Mylene and Basara are recruited to play lead roles in "The Linn Minmei Story" (second in-story evidence of Kawamori's "all of the series are different fictional depictions", after the comment by Battle 7's bridge bunnies about "that movie"), which is actually a Spacy recruitment piece, and features a couple of full-size Zentraedi as Britai and Kamjin. Mylene briefly fangirls about her mother's early days as a giant. Max and Minmei aren't publicly separated.

#12 "Spiritia Farm" - After weeks of her the "vampires" taking samples, Gepelnitch has determined that these prey can regenerate their spiritia levels. Gigil prefers the hunt.

#13 "Fold Out" - Gepelnitch's infiltrators (the name "Varauta" hasn't been used yet) hijack City 7. Miria shows up in her VF-1 and with Basara stop the second fold (by punching the fold drive's control console), but they're separated from the convoy.

#14 "Fighting Woman Mayor, Miria" - Fire Bomber visits the Silver Paradise retirement home. We see the gerwalk mode of the Elgerzorenes and Basara's VF-19, in a battle through the city; a pilot is captured, but Miria is injured (shot through the leg). Aboard Battle 7, Gamlin convinces himself that, during their dates, Mylene has not mentioned her role in a band because her friend, i.e. Basara, is a jerk. Dr. Chiba reveals himself as a Minmei fanboy to Gamlin, who reacts poorly to being force-fed her music.

#15 "A Girl's Jealousy" - The captured pilot won't talk, but DNA analysis reveals he's an Earth-human. Miria holds a carnival of privately-owned mecha to recruit pilots. The three Silver Paradise veterans have a Monster, and foolishly use it as AA against an Elgerzorene. Mylene pilots Miria's VF-1, and confronts Basara about his ongoing pacifism. A love triangle starts to develop, insofar as Mylene is jealous when she believes Basara has slept with biker chick Rex ("you're slow on the uptake," says her bodyguard)

Worldbuilding: From Fire Bomber's concerts, we see that the million citizens of the 37th Long-Distance Colonization Fleet aren't all aboard City 7 -- there seem to be residential areas on each of the specialized vessels, including Hollywood (despite the emphasis in the Macross Mecha Manual profile). The retirees at Silver Paradise would remember Earth pre-Rain of Death, and the veterans (assuming age 70) would've been older members of the UN Spacy during Space War I (2014 - 2010 = 35 years). That carnival has a whole lotta war-surplus mecha -- what kind of storage closets does City 7 have? Some of them seem to have been adapted to workroids (not a term yet?). How is that there are no Spacy personnel in the city? --Even if they're billeted on Battle 7 and the escort fleet, wouldn't some rotating fraction be on leave? The three veterans foolishly target a passing Elgerzorene with the Monster's four topside guns and instead take out a skyscraper, whereupon Mayor Miria reams them out, but really -- how many people did they kill? I expect charges of negligent manslaughter and reckless endangerment (the phrase "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw large-caliber artillery" comes to mind).

Language: Evidence that people are speaking English, not Japanese: Gamlin's Spacy dossier, and Mylene's application to pilot a battloid, are both printed in English. The English word "jealousy" (Japanese pronunciation: "jel-oh-she") is used, not the Japanese shitto. Mylene's name is pronounced either "muh-lenn" or "muh-lane", depending who's speaking, which implies some combination of (a) ambiguous spelling in the script and (b) a voice director who wasn't paying close attention. "Veffidas" is pronounced "vee-fee-da".

Holding the idiot ball: Where are the Varauta hiding their Elgerzorenes such that they keep surpising the city (it's only 6 by 5 km)? For example, why has no neighborhood watch been set up? ("This is Watchpost Seventeen - three bogies emerged from the Fourth Avenue maintenance tunnel.")

I'm paying more attention the BGM now. Macross II on the car radio ... Macross Plus on a different car radio ... at the carnival ... in a restaurant. (This is called diagetic sound -- it originates within the film's world -- as opposed to the non-diagetic sound of an orchestral score.)

Edited September 22, 2018 by Lexomatic
"Her" pronoun re: Gepelnitch. Fission "intriguing" into separate paragraphs for worldbuilding, language, idiot ball. Diagetic sound.

[Zx31]

Gepelnitch is (he) btw

[jenius]

I thought he was a she for the longest time... 

[JB0]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

I thought he was a she for the longest time... 

Me too.

[Master Dex]

We all thought he was a woman at some point early on. I think it might have been a bit intentional even.

[Lexomatic]

In the fansub I'm watching, the first time Gepelnitch appears and Gigil uses the masculine pronoun, a note appears to emphasize that it's not a mistake. (In my post, I remembered to remove all personal pronouns, but missed that one possessive pronoun. Whoops. Thanks for the reminder, @Zx31.)

More important than the character's gender is, of course, their (if ever there was a need for a non-gender-specific single-person pronoun, this is it) very-1990s-anime costume: wide pointy shoulder pads, tall pointy hat with cheekguards, and concealing goggles.

[JB0]

2 hours ago, Lexomatic said:

More important than the character's gender is, of course, their (if ever there was a need for a non-gender-specific single-person pronoun, this is it) very-1990s-anime costume: wide pointy shoulder pads, tall pointy hat with cheekguards, and concealing goggles.

I think Gepelnitch may have set some kind of record in the tall-pointy-hat department.

[Master Dex]

8 minutes ago, JB0 said:

I think Gepelnitch may have set some kind of record in the tall-pointy-hat department.

At least until Basara finishes the song Holy Lonely Light, lol.

[JB0]

3 hours ago, Master Dex said:

At least until Basara finishes the song Holy Lonely Light, lol. 

Speaker pod gamma was the best thing in 7, after the soundtrack and Fleet of the Strongest Women.

[Master Dex]

7 hours ago, JB0 said:

Speaker pod gamma was the best thing in 7, after the soundtrack and Fleet of the Strongest Women.

If listed individually yes. Though Fleet of the Strongest women combined all of that wonderfully, lol. 

[Zx31]

15 hours ago, JB0 said:

Speaker pod gamma was the best thing in 7

I love that they never remove it from the bridge for the rest of the series.

Edited September 23, 2018 by Zx31

[treker14]

Has anyone watched Macross 7 Plus? I loved the Max one. 

[Seto Kaiba]

29 minutes ago, treker14 said:

Has anyone watched Macross 7 Plus? I loved the Max one. 

After almost 25 years?  Yeah, I'd say a few of us probably have.

Some of them, like Spiritia Dreaming or TOP GAMRIN (sic), are pretty interesting additions to the Macross 7 story.  I've got less use for the pure comedy ones like "Milia the President".

For the mecha enthusiast, Spiritia Dreaming can be a bit frustrating since it's the only time we get to see the pre-modification pre-Macross M3 VF-14s.

[ZOR prime]

Not bad

 

Strange though

[Mazinger]

1 hour ago, treker14 said:

Has anyone watched Macross 7 Plus? I loved the Max one. 

I didn't know about these till now. Wow, there's some nice stuff in there. Spiritia dreaming and Gubaba's planet sure add some nice context.

[ZOR prime]

Yep

[treker14]

I really liked them. It just added some backstory to some of the characters.

[David Hingtgen]

And it's the only place to see Milia's canon VF-11. 

[EastwindS2k]

I had to watch M7 with 2x speed because I felt bad when watching in normal. 

Guess M7 is not my kind of show.  

[Marzan]

23 hours ago, EastwindS2k said:

I had to watch M7 with 2x speed because I felt bad when watching in normal. 

Guess M7 is not my kind of show.  

Did you watch the entire 49 episode run at 2x speed?

[JB0]

39 minutes ago, Marzan said:

Did you watch the entire 49 episode run at 2x speed?

Macross 7: the Alvin and the Chipmunks edition.

[ZOR prime]

Yep guess yeah all 49 I guess plus the extras

[Seto Kaiba]

On 9/19/2019 at 5:07 PM, EastwindS2k said:

I had to watch M7 with 2x speed because I felt bad when watching in normal. 

Guess M7 is not my kind of show.  

Macross 7 is actually a pretty fine Macross series, but it's best taken in small doses due to the slow pace and lack of musical variety in the first half.

When I watched it the first time I absolutely loathed it, because I tried to marathon it and the show was just irritating.  It's a lot more enjoyable in small doses, not more than one or two episodes a day so the slow development of the story doesn't get infuriatingly samey.

[ZOR prime]

Yep more enjoyable and you figure out what their talking about.

 

Proto devilin in all that

[EastwindS2k]

On 9/20/2019 at 4:30 PM, Marzan said:

Did you watch the entire 49 episode run at 2x speed?

No I actually watched 20 some episodes with normal, then suddenly realized that watching in 2x is better because the plot is just ridiculous.  

[Seto Kaiba]

36 minutes ago, EastwindS2k said:

No I actually watched 20 some episodes with normal, then suddenly realized that watching in 2x is better because the plot is just ridiculous.  

It's like G Gundam that way... the ridiculousness is part of the entertainment value.  

Admittedly, the first 20 episodes were the ones you probably should've watched at 2x speed, since those are the boring, glacially slow build-up to the actual plot.

[ZOR prime]

Yep

It gradually picks up

[Mazinger]

15 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's like G Gundam that way... the ridiculousness is part of the entertainment value.  

Admittedly, the first 20 episodes were the ones you probably should've watched at 2x speed, since those are the boring, glacially slow build-up to the actual plot.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, I'd love for there to be a fanedit of 7 reducing it to about 10 hours work of video.

Get rid of what is slow and repetitive, emphasize the villains plans, and sprinkle in missing backstory from 7 plus, and you would have something really great.

Sadly I'm not an editor nor do I have the time.

[ZOR prime]

Yeah Gundam goes on forever

[treker14]

I'm probably in the minority here, but I actually like Macross 7. When I first started watching it, I was bored. However, later I felt I had to finish watching it and sorta fell in love with it. The first episodes are slow and a little boring, but it picks up. Everyone mentions G Gundam. I never watched G Gundam so I can't make a comparison, but I have yet been unable to get through Gundam ZZ. I have watched all the UC Gundam series and this is the only one I haven't completed. 

[Seto Kaiba]

3 minutes ago, treker14 said:

I'm probably in the minority here, but I actually like Macross 7. When I first started watching it, I was bored. However, later I felt I had to finish watching it and sorta fell in love with it. The first episodes are slow and a little boring, but it picks up.

It's not really a minority, I think... most of us here appreciate Macross 7, we're just not blind to its faults either.

Basically, Macross 7 was a series with a great story and great music that suffers a lot from having been made twice as long as it needed to be.  The main plot doesn't even kick off until episode 23, and a lot of the stuff in the episodes leading up to that point feels like filler.  If you cut it down to 36 or even 26 episodes, people'd be a lot kinder to it.  That glacially slow start is a big part of what turns western fans off the series, since there's very little musical variety in it and it's mostly just Basara being a self-absorbed jerk to everyone around him.

 

[ZOR prime]

Haven't watched them all myself,waiting for the newest Macross

[EastwindS2k]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's like G Gundam that way... the ridiculousness is part of the entertainment value.  

Admittedly, the first 20 episodes were the ones you probably should've watched at 2x speed, since those are the boring, glacially slow build-up to the actual plot.

Okay lol

I guess M7 is too far off from my expectation of Macross, it's like going to a Chinese restaurant and they serve you burritos with rock n'roll