Macross 7 Discussion

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I actually hated the outrageous color palate. I hated the flight demonstration team colors on combat aircraft. I have the Yamato VF-11C toy, and it feels really strange, because it feels unpainted...

It's a 90's thing... I was only a kid back then, so to me it's rather nostalgic.

That said, the flight demonstration team colors on combat aircraft thing is never going away because Macross has to sell toys and that makes them very action figure-ous. 

[Bolt]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's a 90's thing... I was only a kid back then, so to me it's rather nostalgic.

That said, the flight demonstration team colors on combat aircraft thing is never going away because Macross has to sell toys and that makes them very action figure-ous. 

And that's why the low viz is so coveted.

[pengbuzz]

On 3/1/2020 at 7:11 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

It's a 90's thing... I was only a kid back then, so to me it's rather nostalgic.

That said, the flight demonstration team colors on combat aircraft thing is never going away because Macross has to sell toys and that makes them very action figure-ous. 

Well, ya gotta admit: when Roy's valk is standing out like a sore thumb and the enemy still can't hit him for a hill of beans, that's gotta bee the most embarrassing thing ever! lol

[jvmacross]

Found this...not sure if it has been previously posted....

Contains M7 discussion, Kawamori interview with some awesome original VF illustrations, Bandai toy and kit commercials, and even talk about Macross Outpost Earth....

 

 

[ScrambledValkyrie]

On 3/1/2020 at 7:11 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

It's a 90's thing... I was only a kid back then, so to me it's rather nostalgic.

That said, the flight demonstration team colors on combat aircraft thing is never going away because Macross has to sell toys and that makes them very action figure-ous. 

I was in my 20s when 7 was released, and would agree that yes, it does fit with that early '90s visual style. I think it's safe to say that every Macross series is to some extent a product of its times, and the trends of some decades age better than others. I just finished another watch-through of 7, and while the animation looks good (albeit frequently repetitive) I don't think the colorful style has aged as well as some other series like SDFM and Zero.

The other thing I noticed about 7's animation is that they didn't do such a great job of making Fire Bomber look realistic while in concert. As a musician myself, I notice this sort of thing, and can usually tell if an actor is really playing or not. As much as I've heard that Kawamori and crew go to great lengths to research accurate fighter pilot moves, you'd think they would have done the same with a series that relied so heavily on its music.

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, ScrambledValkyrie said:

The other thing I noticed about 7's animation is that they didn't do such a great job of making Fire Bomber look realistic while in concert. As a musician myself, I notice this sort of thing, and can usually tell if an actor is really playing or not. As much as I've heard that Kawamori and crew go to great lengths to research accurate fighter pilot moves, you'd think they would have done the same with a series that relied so heavily on its music.

Given how tight the budget on 7 was, that may just be a consequence of how bloody expensive it is to draw someone properly playing something like a guitar, bass, or keyboard that requires complex finger movements.

Macross 7 and Macross Dynamite 7 were hand-animated, not like the later Macross Zero OVA and Macross Frontier series that leveraged the latest digital animation technologies.  

[treker14]

I always considered Macross 7 the odd man out. Pun intended, Basara being the only male singer in any of the Macross series. Comparing it to SDFMacross, Frontier, or Delta, it has a more comedic plot. That being said, I do enjoy it very much.  As far as it's look, it's defiantly a 90's look but the artwork isn't bad for it's time. However, the one thing that does bother me was the repetition of scenes especially the battles. Most of Gamlin's launches and transformations appear to me to be the same as do the coming and going of Gagile's fleet.

As far as Macross being a series to sell toys, Macross 7 is again in my opinion the odd man out. Two things I collect when dealing with anime are production cels and trading or emotive figures. Again compared to SDFMacross, Frontier, & Delta, I can find hundreds of Lynn Minmay, Ranka Lee, Sheryl Nome etc. figures but very few Basara figures. In fact I have found more Mylene figures than Basara and no other characters from Macross 7 at all.

However, I feel Frontier and Delta have given Macross 7 a boost especially when you find out Frontier's Ozma Lee is a Fire Bomber fan and continually plays their music. 

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by treker14

[Seto Kaiba]

15 hours ago, treker14 said:

However, the one thing that does bother me was the repetition of scenes especially the battles. Most of Gamlin's launches and transformations appear to me to be the same as do the coming and going of Gagile's fleet.

Yeah, Macross 7 makes some fairly extensive usage of stock footage in order to keep its production costs down.

A lot of anime titles do that as a way to keep costs down, some more blatantly than others.  Complicated transformation sequences and that kind of thing are great fodder for reuse like that.  Gundam SEED Destiny is, if anything, even more blatant about it with every launch of the Impulse Gundam.  Like two minutes of recycled footage every time that thing sets out.

Being a music-heavy series even by Macross standards, Macross 7 can't have been cheap to produce given the cost of studio time to record the songs.  Hoist by its own petard, as it were.  

 

15 hours ago, treker14 said:

As far as Macross being a series to sell toys, Macross 7 is again in my opinion the odd man out. Two things I collect when dealing with anime are production cels and trading or emotive figures. Again compared to SDFMacross, Frontier, & Delta, I can find hundreds of Lynn Minmay, Ranka Lee, Sheryl Nome etc. figures but very few Basara figures. In fact I have found more Mylene figures than Basara and no other characters from Macross 7 at all.

However, I feel Frontier and Delta have given Macross 7 a boost especially when you find out Frontier's Ozma Lee is a Fire Bomber fan and continually plays their music. 

To be frank, I think a lot of that has to do with *retch* "waifu" status.  

Basara's a dude, so he's kind of automatically at a massive disadvantage when it comes to things like figures/statues just in general.  In my experience, that kind of collectible is mainly aimed at guys and therefore mainly figures/statues of girls.  When a series does have a primary or periphery demographic of female viewers you tend to see figures/statues for pretty boys (e.g. Alto Saotome in Frontier).  Basara's not exactly bishounen material.

[Bolt]

From what i hear, Basara is still extremely popular in Japan. There is a solid following for the lad

[Bariaburu Faita]

3 hours ago, Bolt said:

From what i hear, Basara is still extremely popular in Japan. There is a solid following for the lad

Enough to have a dedicated theme bar for M7. Which was closed due to covid for a while but recently reopened.

Edited September 27, 2020 by Bariaburu Faita
added detail

[treker14]

8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, Macross 7 makes some fairly extensive usage of stock footage in order to keep its production costs down.

A lot of anime titles do that as a way to keep costs down, some more blatantly than others.  Complicated transformation sequences and that kind of thing are great fodder for reuse like that.  Gundam SEED Destiny is, if anything, even more blatant about it with every launch of the Impulse Gundam.  Like two minutes of recycled footage every time that thing sets out.

Being a music-heavy series even by Macross standards, Macross 7 can't have been cheap to produce given the cost of studio time to record the songs.  Hoist by its own petard, as it were.  

 

To be frank, I think a lot of that has to do with *retch* "waifu" status.  

Basara's a dude, so he's kind of automatically at a massive disadvantage when it comes to things like figures/statues just in general.  In my experience, that kind of collectible is mainly aimed at guys and therefore mainly figures/statues of girls.  When a series does have a primary or periphery demographic of female viewers you tend to see figures/statues for pretty boys (e.g. Alto Saotome in Frontier).  Basara's not exactly bishounen material.

I totally agree with you 100% about the figures mainly being women and aimed at guys as their targets. However, I don't know if you have ever watched any of the Gundam series. Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is a very dark and dramatic series. One could compare it to SDFMacross. It's sequel Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ is more of a comedy much like Macross 7. When looked at there are more toys for both SDFMacross & Zeta Gundam then their comedic sequels including figures and mecha. Macross 7 & Gundam ZZ are less followed by fans and have less toys than their dramatic counterparts. Whether it is because of the fact that they are comedies or as I noticed their use of repetitive stock artwork I don't know.

[Bolt]

5 hours ago, Bariaburu Faita said:

Enough to have a dedicated theme bar for M7. Which was closed due to covid for a while but recently reopened.

The FireBomb Bar is definitely a Macross fans destination 

[twich]

I watched Macross 7 in the early 2000's, right after I first joined this site.  The thing that stuck with me, at least for the mecha aspect and as I have seen further Macross series developments, is that the amount of varied mecha was probably the most of any series.  You had the:

VF-11C

VF-11D Jamming Birds

VF-11MAXL Mylene Custom

VF-17D

VF-17S

VF-17T Custom

VF-19F

VF-19S

VF-19 Kai Fire Valk

VF-19P

VF-5000G

VF-5000T-G

VA-3C

VF-1C (civilian model)

VF-22S Sturmvogel II Custom x3

FZ-109A

Fz-109F

Az-130A

FBZ-99G

and I am sure that there are more, like the police destroid.  This is the things that really sets Macross 7 apart for me, besides the fact that it was the most prolific, episode wise, of the Macross franchise.  I will agree, yes it used a lot of recycled footage, and if I heard Planet Dance once more, I thought I was going to pop, but the story and the mecha make it one of the Macross greats for me.

Twich

Edited September 28, 2020 by twich

[Seto Kaiba]

15 hours ago, treker14 said:

I totally agree with you 100% about the figures mainly being women and aimed at guys as their targets. However, I don't know if you have ever watched any of the Gundam series. Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is a very dark and dramatic series. One could compare it to SDFMacross. It's sequel Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ is more of a comedy much like Macross 7.

TBH, if I were going to compare Macross 7 to any Gundam title it'd have to be Mobile Fighter G Gundam.

Macross 7 started airing pretty much right as G Gundam was hitting the middle of its story (between Ep26 and 27) and G Gundam ended when Macross 7 was about half done (between Ep23 and 24).  Despite G Gundam being more of a super robot series, they had a very similar aesthetic and were very hotblooded and full of boisterous enthusiasm.  Lots of grown men shouting about their burning emotions and such.

For the record, I've seen most of what Gundam has produced animation-wise except for Gundam AGE, Build Fighters and its spinoffs, and the SD Gundam shows.  I've not seen Narrative yet, but it's on my to-do list.

 

15 hours ago, treker14 said:

When looked at there are more toys for both SDFMacross & Zeta Gundam then their comedic sequels including figures and mecha. Macross 7 & Gundam ZZ are less followed by fans and have less toys than their dramatic counterparts. Whether it is because of the fact that they are comedies or as I noticed their use of repetitive stock artwork I don't know.

Macross 7 has a pretty damned big following in Japan, and tie-ins to it are ALL OVER THE PLACE in Macross.

The most blatant perhaps being Macross FB7, an entire OVA devoted to Frontier characters revisiting Macross 7.  However, we've had Macross 7 characters feature prominently in SRW games, in Macross's own games (esp. Macross 30), the Macross Frontier prequel Macross the Ride is almost as much a Macross 7 spinoff as Macross Frontier prequel with all of the main characters having some tie to Macross 7, Macross Delta's gaiden manga Macross E ties into Macross Dynamite 7 fairly blatantly, and then of course there's all the different times they've acknowledged Fire Bomber was almost as culturally impactful in-universe as Minmay like in Macross Frontier and Macross Delta.

It had its fair share of toys when it was new, to the point that I'm actually pretty surprised we haven't seen Bandai or Arcadia releasing the Fire Valkyrie, Super Thunderbolt, Nightmare, etc.  It's actually really weird now that I think about it, given how beloved Macross 7 is in Japan.  Macross Plus wasn't nearly as well-received as 7 when they were both coming out, and we've seen a lot more stuff from Plus for some reason.  (WRT Gundam toys, I think a lot of those are just plain easier to make because they don't transform or like the Zeta and Double Zeta Gundams they're minimal transformations, so they get made in greater profusion.)

[pengbuzz]

On 3/1/2020 at 7:11 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

It's a 90's thing... I was only a kid back then, so to me it's rather nostalgic.

You and I both, my friend. 

 

On 9/27/2020 at 2:10 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Basara's a dude, so he's kind of automatically at a massive disadvantage when it comes to things like figures/statues just in general.  In my experience, that kind of collectible is mainly aimed at guys and therefore mainly figures/statues of girls.  When a series does have a primary or periphery demographic of female viewers you tend to see figures/statues for pretty boys (e.g. Alto Saotome in Frontier).  Basara's not exactly bishounen material.

And if you were to ask Basara, he wouldn't care anyways.

 

  

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by pengbuzz

[arbit]

We're talking Macross 7? Okay, here's my take:

I'm a 70's - 80's Yamato, Macross, Zeta, type of guy, and when I saw M7 it was blasphemy.  I couldn't stand the bad animation, kitschy story line (do Exedore's giant head, vampires and spiritia ring a bell?). There was none of the "real" air combat stuff I loved as a teen, there was no classic love triangle, and the constantly repeated music and GETTA transformations grated on my nerves. In all, I saw maybe two frames of well drawn valkyries: One of the MAXL in gerwalk stance under a sunset and the Max/Miria launch at the end of the series; That's it, all other Valk key frames where designed for toddlers. 

But despite all the above complaints, which never improved, and I still hate to this day, the series grew on me. It had great characters, great attitude, an unforgettable force of the unviverse named Basara (who I assume was cloned from Minmay, daculture, and John Lennon), and the music was great, especially the CDs released after the series (I mean seriously, Fire Bombers vocalist is amazing).  

I will never rewatch it, it is not "my macross", but I am ready to listen to the music or rewatch Dynamite and the OVA's anytime to get my Fire Bomber fix.

Edited September 29, 2020 by arbit

[Bolt]

Lol. I hear ya @arbit

I felt very much the same. But  M7 has really grown on me. Initially, it didn't compare to M+. (M+ is still one of my favorites). But M7 covered a lot of intellectual real estate and creativity, IMO. Even now, when a new Macross idea comes up, we all get to say "Macross 7 did it first!"

[jeniusornome]

On 9/27/2020 at 10:39 PM, treker14 said:

Macross 7 & Gundam ZZ are less followed by fans and have less toys than their dramatic counterparts.

Er, Macross 7 is huge in Japan. There were less toys made during the show's run that collectors may be interested in today (people go nuts for 1/55 VF-1s, but no one is really out there clamoring for reissues of the 1/65 DX Fire Valkyrie), but the show was and still is massively popular. I wouldn't count # of toys released as a metric for popularity of a show. For Macross, maybe soundtrack sales would be a better indicator.

ZZ Gundam is less popular than other UC Gundam media in Japan, although I've read that a good portion of that is because the show, originally planned as a direct sequel to (and with lots of recurring characters from) Zeta Gundam was changed once the Char's Counterattack movie was approved. I wouldn't chalk it up to comedy or re-used animation so much as a complete shift away from the characters everyone was expecting to see, and having the plot focus on what was essentially a side story in the main UC timeline instead.

But saying these are "less followed by fans" is accurate if you're talking about Western audiences (which I assume you are?). ZZ Gundam didn't get a US release until 2016 - 14 years after the US release of Char's Counterattack. Gundam, in the US, had moved on to newer, flashier shows by then, and so the only people in the West really interested in it were those who wanted to see this "missing" part of the UC timeline, who also didn't mind that it doesn't directly play in to Char's Counterattack (although it does help to provide some additional background info for Unicorn). The UC timeline isn't even how most people were introduced to Gundam in the US - Gundam Wing really holds that spot for most US fans.

And Macross 7 has never had a release in the US, so it's no surprise that it isn't as popular here. Whereas Macross II and Macross Plus were actually released in the US and I think that's one of the reasons they are so popular with Western audiences - for a while, if you wanted Macross, it was all you could get. Even the AnimEigo remaster of the original show didn't come out until 2001, and that was years after the two OVAs were available here on VHS (and a year or so after their DVD releases). Western fans know Macross Plus because HG let it have a US release. Macross 7 also wasn't made for Western audiences (neither was Macross Plus, despite what some people might think). But I think if M7 had been released here, it would have met with similar reception to Macross II.

[Jeff J]

I finally got around to watching FB7.

It's been 25 years since I watched Macross 7. I didn't enjoy the series, but I was such a completionist back then that I made sure I got through the all of it, or at least almost all of the M7 stuff. There were some things I genuinely enjoyed, but overall, that show was not for me. I do like most of the Fire Bomber tunes, though.

Watching FB7 was a weird mix of getting a nostalgia rush, bopping to the music, but also being bored and anxiously awaiting the end. I don't recall ever having a feeling like that for anything I watched the first time. Even though I didn't enjoy the series, it had its moments, and seeing those moments commemorated was enough to make me think, "Oh yeah, I remember that, it was pretty cool." Music speaks for itself. But, unfortunately, FB7 also reminded me of all the things I didn't care for. I thought there must've been some meta joke about how in the first 15 minutes of FB7 they keep repeating people asking Basara what the heck he was doing, since that pretty much was my recollection of the first 20-25% of the series.