New Macross TV Series in 20xx (sometime this decade)

[Focslain]

1 minute ago, pengbuzz said:

O.o  Okay, after seeing "THIS GUY'S" version of "brutal war", I decided to just remove what I said previously. Let's just go with "War is Serious" and I think that would be good.

Will have to watch later, but lol.

Also thank you @Seto Kaiba for the info. I don't tend to go into print versions of mecha anime so didn't know about most of what you described, but once again thank you for the lesson.

[Master Dex]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

With all the hoops they have to jump through to justify PMC protagonists, you'd think it'd be easier to just say "Ooo! Look! A NUNS Special Forces team!"

 

This part is especially notable. For all the flack the show gets (and a lot of justifiable). This is basically what Macross 7 did. Diamond Force and Emerald Force were both basically special forces teams that used special equipment and/or state of the art fighters (purpose built VF-17Ds for DF, and the newest VF-19F/S for EF) while the main force was still using the by then horribly outdated VF-11C. This was of course around the time they were realizing that the plans to make the VF-19 the mainstay fighter would become too difficult (which resulted in the cheaper, but still all around improvement over VF-11 that was the VF-171, right as decentralization took place). Even the VF-22s were meant for special forces use.. though in the show it was mainly to give the bosses new and unique things (Though this is Max and Milia, they deserve it, even if they certainly don't need it). Gamlin later gets one too.. but we have no idea if that is a new Diamond Force thing or just him.

I rambled but the point is clear.. it has been done but it seems Kawamori wants to go a different route now for nothing other than contrived reasons. He has certainly always implied that "The Man" was a problem in each show, even in SDFM and M7 where is was just command that was problematic, not our heroes.

[pengbuzz]

33 minutes ago, Master Dex said:

I rambled but the point is clear.. it has been done but it seems Kawamori wants to go a different route now for nothing other than contrived reasons. He has certainly always implied that "The Man" was a problem in each show, even in SDFM and M7 where is was just command that was problematic, not our heroes.

Yeah; in SFDM, "the man" didn't exactly want to negotiate peacefully with the Zentraedi.

[505thAirborne]

14 hours ago, Graham said:

I'd love a new Macross series or OVA that's a s brutal as Gundam Thunderbolt, but I doubt it will happen.

I'd be on board for that! 

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

O.o  Okay, after seeing "THIS GUY'S" version of "brutal war", I decided to just remove what I said previously. Let's just go with "War is Serious" and I think that would be good.

Yep... the Macross titles where the conflict du jour is taken seriously tend to be much more developed, satisfying stories.  While Macross's signature trait is being fairly upbeat because it's a love story set in wartime, there's such a thing as too upbeat.  It always did feel a bit unnatural how Basara was totally unaware of people dying around him, or how quickly Hayate gets over things like that Freyja's singing could kill him or that his dad is partly responsible for the worst atrocity in Windermere's history.

 

 

3 hours ago, Focslain said:

Also thank you @Seto Kaiba for the info. I don't tend to go into print versions of mecha anime so didn't know about most of what you described, but once again thank you for the lesson.

No problem.  It's really frustrating that they don't put worldbuilding details like that into the shows themselves... there's actually a whole faction of antagonists in later Macross titles who became antagonists because they were PO'd about the devolution of governing authority to the individual colonies and the decentralization of the military.  That's Latence, from Macross VF-X2 and its splinter/remnant FASCES from Macross R.

 

 

2 hours ago, Master Dex said:

I rambled but the point is clear.. it has been done but it seems Kawamori wants to go a different route now for nothing other than contrived reasons. He has certainly always implied that "The Man" was a problem in each show, even in SDFM and M7 where is was just command that was problematic, not our heroes.

In that respect, the Macross Delta series is kind of a subversion.  The gaiden manga for the Aerial Knights reveals that the cause of the 2060 war was essentially Windermere wanting all the benefits and none of the responsibilities of New UN Government membership, and even the New UN Spacy's acts that the show tries to present as villainous are revealed to be sound strategic and tactical decisions intended to avert disaster and neutralize a great threat only they knew about with the minimum possible loss of life and property.  "The Man" is the show's secret, uncelebrated Big Good, while two groups of arrogant and immature hotheads screw things up time and time again.

It's so weird that Kawamori and co. are fine with having the New UN Spacy be a well-organized, well-trained, and highly competent force and don't shy away from having protagonists from the military... but when the time comes to put them in a show, they're only around to be subject to the Worf Effect to show that the new antagonist is serious business.  They've proved that they can still do stories where the protagonist is a proper soldier and do it well, but why they don't actually do it for TV is a mystery to me.

 

 

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah; in SFDM, "the man" didn't exactly want to negotiate peacefully with the Zentraedi.

Not entirely... "The Man", by which I mean General Hayase and the other brass, were perfectly happy to pursue a negotiated peace with the Zentradi Army.  They were just determined to do so from a position of strength via showing off the firepower of a Grand Cannon before proposing peace talks.  If they'd tried it earlier it might've actually worked via shock and awe, but they waited too long and Boddole Zer concluded that Earth had to be destroyed.

Edited June 15, 2017 by Seto Kaiba

[Convectuoso]

Why do all the main characters in anime these days have to be teenagers? I'd love to see a show with more mature characters, with deep background stories. 

We've had enough in Macross of amateurs turned to ace pilots. It's not believable. 

Edited June 15, 2017 by Convectuoso
Typo

[Podtastic]

17 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Oh, it's beautifully animated... the mechanical designs would be the standard OYW fare if not for the mountains of extraneous garbage bolted to their backs like some kind of junkyard Super Pack.  The one big problem with Thunderbolt is that the story is an action-heavy but otherwise threadbare, barely-there mess that makes Delta look like Hugo Award material.  Thunderbolt's story is deeply devoted to Gundam's "War is Hell" message (hence the brutality), but that's the only trick it has in its playbook so it all comes off as rather forced and gratuitous.

 

As much as I'd like to see a Macross series that returns the protagonist focus to the actual military instead of suspiciously hypercompetent (SMS) or blitheringly incompetent¹ (Xaos) PMCs, I'd find a Macross show that tried to sell itself on gratuitous violence even less watchable than Macross Delta with its apparent disinterest in the actual war being fought.  That's just not what the Macross series is about... war is hell, but Macross is all about love, peace, and communication.  Leave this guy's fantasies to The Show That Must Not Be Named.  

 

1. AKA a realistic PMC, were it not for the way Macross Delta treats Xaos as designated heroes the audience is supposed to be rooting for even though they lose or at best draw every battle they fight in, botch every infiltration operation, cause civilians to get hurt by hindering a military-led evacuation, play directly into Windermere's hands for almost the entire series and make things immeasurably worse, and achieve less in 26 episodes than the New UN Spacy resistance does in part of a single episode yet still badmouth the military.

 

What if it has a good plot to go with the full on action like SDFM  did? I mean this is a sci-fi mecha anime, surely we deserve our Roman spectacle as it were.

[hachi]

8 hours ago, Convectuoso said:

Why do all the main characters in anime these days have to be teenagers? I'd love to see a show with more mature characters, with deep background stories. 

We've had enough in Macross of amateurs turned to ace pilots. It's not believable. 

It's more believable than Gundam though--most pilots in Macross go through training iirc. In Gundam, well, they become ace pilots because they're Coordinators or Newtypes...

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, Convectuoso said:

Why do all the main characters in anime these days have to be teenagers? I'd love to see a show with more mature characters, with deep background stories. 

We've had enough in Macross of amateurs turned to ace pilots. It's not believable. 

That's an easy one... it's because the target audience for the vast majority of anime and manga is tweens and teens.  Creators want the audience to be able to relate to the characters, so the characters are often of a similar age to the target reader/viewer.  This does sometimes lead to characters doing jobs that nobody of their age would realistically be qualified or trained for without some kind of special circumstances like a soldier or giant robot pilot, a live-in butler, a revolutionary leader, etc.

A similar principle is in play to ensure that, even in fantasy or futuristic settings where traditional nationalities are no longer a thing or never existed to begin with there is always someone on the main cast (if not the main character him/herself) who is identifiably Japanese or part-Japanese.  This is also at work in stories set in foreign countries too.  They might be the only Japanese or even only recognizably asian person on the entire cast, but to keep it relatable to the audience there's usually at least one.  

That's not to say that shows based around more mature characters can't be successful... it's just harder for their target audience to relate.  (I do have to wonder if spectacle and gunpla sales are all that's keeping Gundam Thunderbolt going, given that every character's a completely unrelatable total bastard.)

 

 

5 hours ago, Podtastic said:

What if it has a good plot to go with the full on action like SDFM  did? I mean this is a sci-fi mecha anime, surely we deserve our Roman spectacle as it were.

If we're demanding bread and circuses, I want some proper garlic bread... none of that whole grain nonsense.  

 

 

2 hours ago, hachi said:

It's more believable than Gundam though--most pilots in Macross go through training iirc. In Gundam, well, they become ace pilots because they're Coordinators or Newtypes...

Most of the time, anyway... the worst offenders in Macross are Basara and Hayate, neither of whom had any kind of formal pilot training before being dumped in the cockpit of a next-gen VF and somehow surpassing ace pilots easily.  (It's especially galling in Hayate's case, since we know he didn't have a bunch of offscreen practice and couldn't even keep his lunch down in his first flight.)  The vast majority of Macross protagonists are already qualified pilots when we meet them... e.g. Hikaru (a veteran stunt pilot), Hibiki (a licensed operator of civilian market VFs), Isamu and Guld (adrenaline junkies with a flight fetish), Gamlin (special forces pilot prodigy who completed 3 years of training in 2 years), Shin (a trained F-14 pilot), Alto (a 2nd year student in a pilot training vocational school), or Chelsea (a retiring NUNS soldier).

Gundam used to be more circumspect about it... like having most of White Base's victories being down to the superior performance and durability of the Gundam rather than any particular skill on Amuro's part.  Still, a fair few of Gundam's protagonists are fully-qualified pilots when we first see them too, like Shiro, Bernie and Chris, Kou, Uso, Garrod, Bellri, etc.  (Some of that is because of rushed training (Shiro), absurdly young enlistment ages (Bellri), or questionable parenting decisions (Uso).)

 

Still, I'd like to see a return to the protagonists in Macross being part of the actual military.  The PMCs are trying too hard to make themselves seem rebellious by badmouthing the military, which falls hilariously flat when they spend the entire show at the military's beck and call.  (Did nobody tell Arad not to bite the hand that feeds?)

[ZOR prime]

In any case it should be interesting 

So gundamental has a new series out?

 

Interesting,lol grumpy old men

[Focslain]

14 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yep... the Macross titles where the conflict du jour is taken seriously tend to be much more developed, satisfying stories.  While Macross's signature trait is being fairly upbeat because it's a love story set in wartime, there's such a thing as too upbeat.  It always did feel a bit unnatural how Basara was totally unaware of people dying around him, or how quickly Hayate gets over things like that Freyja's singing could kill him or that his dad is partly responsible for the worst atrocity in Windermere's history.

No problem.  It's really frustrating that they don't put worldbuilding details like that into the shows themselves... there's actually a whole faction of antagonists in later Macross titles who became antagonists because they were PO'd about the devolution of governing authority to the individual colonies and the decentralization of the military.  That's Latence, from Macross VF-X2 and its splinter/remnant FASCES from Macross R. 

Well speaking from experience, it didn't surprise me about Hayate's recovery from Freyja's singing, but his dad I'd have to see the sequence again.

 

As for world building it would be nice to get a series that does just that, a nice side story that gives what other media has been doing. More I think about it I'd like something like Frontier but with Delta's concert style.

[ZOR prime]

Yeah that would be nice

[Zx31]

Basara has a ton of unaccounted time between meeting Ray and when he ends up on City 7. Based on Ray's military connections and comments in the show about him being an ace pilot, it's not hard to imagine he's been groomed and trained by Ray as a pilot and musician.

Hayate is probably a more sound arguement for unlikely ace, but it is pointed out by Messer a few times that he's only held his own thus far because of his natural ability and his unpredictability. Throw in super human abilities from Freyja singing and Fold Quartz and he does well enough to survive against the Arial Knights but you'll notice he has few real victories against them with his own skill.

[NightmarePlus]

Is there any new updates regarding the new series? Usually by now we'd get a teaser image and or trailer if Macross Delta's advertisement is anything to go by.

[ZOR prime]

On 6/21/2017 at 7:55 PM, Zx31 said:

Basara has a ton of unaccounted time between meeting Ray and when he ends up on City 7. Based on Ray's military connections and comments in the show about him being an ace pilot, it's not hard to imagine he's been groomed and trained by Ray as a pilot and musician.

Hayate is probably a more sound arguement for unlikely ace, but it is pointed out by Messer a few times that he's only held his own thus far because of his natural ability and his unpredictability. Throw in super human abilities from Freyja singing and Fold Quartz and he does well enough to survive against the Arial Knights but you'll notice he has few real victories against them with his own skill.

Seems that the zentadie can be manipulated by the enemy on m7.

Which shows up in other macross series.

[ZOR prime]

Nope haven't seen any signs yet.

[Bolt]

Well. It's always good when we get more Macross, of course. 

I imagine this is going to be Delta related. 

I can't imagine them taking any chances and going in a different direction with the new series. Oh well. 

Speculate..speculate ..

Those of us that have been at this for decades often fantasize about all the overturned stones left along the way .

Oh, the thinks you can think !

But the series deals with the current fan base usually. Which perpetually hovers in the tween/teen market..

That's why I love Plus and Zero.

And so, every series and OVA can be picked apart all day,  but it just comes down to opinions .

Let the party begin!

 

[Valkyrie addict]

Please God don't let them continue their worst Macross story (Delta)

Something completely new as far away from Delta as possible

[Mommar]

41 minutes ago, Valkyrie addict said:

Please God don't let them continue their worst Macross story (Delta)

Something completely new as far away from Delta as possible

I wouldn't say it's the worst, just the most poorly executed.

[ZOR prime]

7 hours ago, Bolt said:

Well. It's always good when we get more Macross, of course. 

I imagine this is going to be Delta related. 

I can't imagine them taking any chances and going in a different direction with the new series. Oh well. 

Speculate..speculate ..

Those of us that have been at this for decades often fantasize about all the overturned stones left along the way .

Oh, the thinks you can think !

But the series deals with the current fan base usually. Which perpetually hovers in the tween/teen market..

That's why I love Plus and Zero.

And so, every series and OVA can be picked apart all day,  but it just comes down to opinions .

Let the party begin!

 

Yep, even frontier wasn't that bad

[jenius]

Frontier was awesome... though I'm not a fan of the movies. 

Delta has some interesting bits but was sloppy in execution. There's a good chance a movie version of Delta could improve it substantially. I think they should do 2 movies with the first being the original war on Windermere and ending with the bomb drop. They can slip in the idea of a combined air show and concert,  the pc ruins, the communication from Megaroad 1, and tease the Mikumo plot (may require some chronology resampling). Then movie 2 is Windermere's revival and an established Walkure defeating them. 

Movie 1 gives us Svards vs VF22 and others... would be fun.  Maybe young Arad kicking butt. 

[Graham]

14 hours ago, ZOR prime said:

Yep, even frontier wasn't that bad

Frontier was awesome IMO, I actually now prefer it to SDFM and my beloved M7.

[Seto Kaiba]

14 hours ago, ZOR prime said:

Yep, even frontier wasn't that bad

... trying to get into the running for Understatement of the Century?

Macross Frontier wasn't perfect by any means, but it hit closer to the mark than any other Macross series to date in my opinion.  If it'd been maybe two or three episodes longer to give them more time to build up to the climax, and the love triangle had been more balanced instead of favoring Sheryl so heavily, it would've beyond exceptional.

[Podtastic]

On ‎2017‎/‎07‎/‎13 at 6:56 AM, Valkyrie addict said:

Please God don't let them continue their worst Macross story (Delta)

Something completely new as far away from Delta as possible

Delta was a total waste.

[Convectuoso]

23 hours ago, ZOR prime said:

Yep, even frontier wasn't that bad

I loved Frontier. It's one of my favorite Macross series

[ZOR prime]

Lol yeah Delta was different.

Frontier showed the zentadie adjustmenting to a peaceful life.

[Podtastic]

2 hours ago, ZOR prime said:

Lol yeah Delta was different.

Frontier showed the zentadie adjustmenting to a peaceful life.

And getting snappy flight suits for their female pilots.

[ZOR prime]

I do like the Macross time line, it shows the micronians and zentadie, going across the galaxy. No

In macross 7 encore,it was strange. Mylene never did make up her mind. Between Basara and Gamlin? And the strongest women?

Macross 7 plus fills in some gaps

Edited July 14, 2017 by ZOR prime
because

[Kyp Durron]

Delta needs to be swept under the rug and forgotten. Frontier for me was the second best Macross with the original still being #1 and the standard by which I judge all the others by. Seto Kaiba said it best on Frontier: 

On 7/13/2017 at 9:24 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

... trying to get into the running for Understatement of the Century?

Macross Frontier wasn't perfect by any means, but it hit closer to the mark than any other Macross series to date in my opinion.  If it'd been maybe two or three episodes longer to give them more time to build up to the climax, and the love triangle had been more balanced instead of favoring Sheryl so heavily, it would've beyond exceptional.

To put it simply, we need another one more like Frontier, and a LOT less like Delta, IMHO.

[Seto Kaiba]

21 hours ago, Kyp Durron said:

To put it simply, we need another one more like Frontier, and a LOT less like Delta, IMHO.

Delta, I think, had the potential to be a much better show than it ended up being.

The setting was unique and interesting, the reasons for the conflict were thought-provoking, the main trio was solid, the mechanical designs were solid, the music was great... but the plot meant to string all that together was a train wreck of lazy writing and lousy pacing.  The villain's plot didn't even come out until the show was practically over, the huge cast left individual characters flat and undeveloped (ironic, in Makina's case), and they reused too much from previous titles.  Roid's plan being the same one Grace had in Frontier wasn't even the laziest of them... that'd have to be Mikumo.  You can sum up her entire character as "Sheryl Nome by way of Mina Forte", and the reveal that she's only 3 made every piece of art they did for her retroactively creepy as hell.  (Maybe the reason we haven't seen Lady M is because she got busted by Chris Hansen on To Catch a Space Predator.)

[Kyp Durron]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Delta, I think, had the potential to be a much better show than it ended up being.

The setting was unique and interesting, the reasons for the conflict were thought-provoking, the main trio was solid, the mechanical designs were solid, the music was great... but the plot meant to string all that together was a train wreck of lazy writing and lousy pacing.  The villain's plot didn't even come out until the show was practically over, the huge cast left individual characters flat and undeveloped (ironic, in Makina's case), and they reused too much from previous titles.  Roid's plan being the same one Grace had in Frontier wasn't even the laziest of them... that'd have to be Mikumo.  You can sum up her entire character as "Sheryl Nome by way of Mina Forte", and the reveal that she's only 3 made every piece of art they did for her retroactively creepy as hell.  (Maybe the reason we haven't seen Lady M is because she got busted by Chris Hansen on To Catch a Space Predator.)

Edited July 17, 2017 by Kyp Durron

[jenius]

She may be 3 chronologically but she is an adult so nothing needs to be too creepy. She clearly doesn't have mental faculties or physical attributes of a 3 year old... it's kind of the Android thing. 

I'd say Frontier had a hard time portraying Galaxy well but it was less of a sin because Galaxy was a shadowy bad guy working behind the scenes.  Delta tried to put Roid front and center but it felt like they were just making up his ambitions and motivations as they went. 

[akt_m]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Delta, I think, had the potential to be a much better show than it ended up being.

I agree with you. Until around messer's death the series was going really well. Then the winderemers got way too much focus and those characters were f*cking boring.

[davidwhangchoi]

1 hour ago, akt_m said:

I agree with you. Until around messer's death the series was going really well.  

i thought the same too. i can't believe Keith and dancing 31J didn't have a final battle after all that talk when walking they were walking the plank.

[jenius]

I thought the first episode was very off-putting but that it did gain momentum after that until the end mid point... where it promptly fell apart.