What can we expect from a new Macross Series?

[Podtastic]

On 9/29/2020 at 11:57 PM, Zinjo said:

as popular in Japan as M7

That's just crazy. M+ may not be my favourite, but M7 was worse than Delta.

I'd guess its the music, except that M+ had far superior music as well.

[Focslain]

6 hours ago, Podtastic said:

That's just crazy. M+ may not be my favourite, but M7 was worse than Delta.

I'd guess its the music, except that M+ had far superior music as well.

Different culture, different tastes. 

Remember that regardless of what works in the west, Macross will be designed for a Japanese audience. That is it's main audience and primary backer. Same thing can be said of Zero, which did poorly in Japan but was well received by western fans.

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, Podtastic said:

That's just crazy. M+ may not be my favourite, but M7 was worse than Delta.

I'd guess its the music, except that M+ had far superior music as well.

Nope, that's not crazy... that's objective reality.

Macross 7 was a smash hit in Japan.  It was the right show at the right time, and did extremely well in its initial broadcast run and in subsequent airings.  Even now, more than twenty years after its debut, Macross 7 is still getting referenced on a regular basis in non-Macross anime and manga.  Macross Plus was "also present".  It's only really in the west where Macross Plus was well-received, like its predecessor Macross II, though Japanese audiences did warm to it a bit back in the 25th-30th anniversary when it was buoyed by Macross Frontier's popularity.

(It's no accident that, in Macross sequels and spinoffs, Macross 7 references are EVERYWHERE while Macross Plus references are few and far between.)

It'll be interesting to see if Macross Delta can make an enduring impact the way Macross 7 did, or if it'll be overshadowed by its predecessor Macross Frontier.

[Podtastic]

3 hours ago, Focslain said:

Different culture, different tastes. 

Remember that regardless of what works in the west, Macross will be designed for a Japanese audience. That is it's main audience and primary backer. Same thing can be said of Zero, which did poorly in Japan but was well received by western fans.

Yes I think that's been established, that that's how things are currently.

But who is "the West" exactly? Sometimes get the impression that in this context it pretty much means "anyone outside Japan".

 

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Podtastic said:

But who is "the West" exactly? Sometimes get the impression that in this context it pretty much means "anyone outside Japan".

Generally, when "western audiences" or "western markets" is used, it usually means one of two things:

• The Anglophone audience (North America, UK, Australia)
  OR
• Western Europe, the Americas, and Australia

A lot of anime distribution in those regions flows through distributors based in the United States to their subsidiaries/sublicensees/distribution partners in the various regions.

[Sanity is Optional]

2 hours ago, Podtastic said:

Yes I think that's been established, that that's how things are currently.

But who is "the West" exactly? Sometimes get the impression that in this context it pretty much means "anyone outside Japan".

People who are on the other side of HG's leaky border-wall.

It's no surprise that Macross focuses on a domestic audience when they're legally barred from selling the show or merch internationally.

[Einherjar]

I know I keep coming back to bringing it up, but despite all the HATE people have for Macross 7 out there over the years it’s pretty sad that something like Robotech Remix came around and did not even try to hide that it was clearly inspired by it.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Einherjar

[Seto Kaiba]

26 minutes ago, Sanity is Optional said:

It's no surprise that Macross focuses on a domestic audience when they're legally barred from selling the show or merch internationally.

Even if they weren't, the domestic audience for anime is so much bigger than the international audience for anime that they'd still focus on the domestic audience's wants.

Rare is the day that a western audience's preferences are accounted for.  The last time I recall that actually happening was when The Big O turned out to be huge in America while its reception in Japan was only lukewarm, and its second season ended up coproduced by Americans for an American audience.  That was twenty years ago.

 

16 minutes ago, Einherjar said:

I know I keep coming back to bringing it up, but despite all the HATE people have for Macross 7 out there over the years it’s pretty sad that something like Robotech Remix came around and did not try even to hide that is was clearly inspired by it.

Didn't Titan have at least one self-confessed Macross fan on staff for that one?  They're also pretty clearly borrowing from Macross II rather than do Southern Cross.

[Focslain]

2 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Rare is the day that a western audience's preferences are accounted for.  The last time I recall that actually happening was when The Big O turned out to be huge in America while its reception in Japan was only lukewarm, and its second season ended up coproduced by Americans for an American audience.  That was twenty years ago.

IIRC the producer of [i]Shield Hero[/i] went on record saying he was/is trying to shift the series to a more western demographic. But yeah it's rare that an anime series will actively try to go for an international market specifically. 

[Thom]

No love triangle! I don't know about anyone else, but I hope the next series has just a straight-on love story to go along with the main plot, with two people you know are going to get together at the end, despite all their troubles. Watching Frontier again and finally finishing Delta, I've come to the realization that, for me, the most fulfilling romances on any of the shows have been with the background characters! Max and Miria. Roy and Claudia. Ozma and Cathy. Luca and Nananse. Michael and Klan. Reina and Makina.

They have their bumps and dramas, but I've liked their stories more because there is no 'will he choose her or her?' kind of dynamic. Plus, there is a fifty-fifty chance of not liking the outcome, as so far I am 1 for 3 between original Macross, Frontier and Delta.

Or perhaps flip it around and have three of the secondary characters in a triangle?

I know it's a staple of a Macross story, but still I can dream.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Thom

[BlackRose]

All I want is a more balanced series like Frontier, 7, or the original.

Delta is too much a Walkure commercial and not enough an actual story for me to get excited about it.

I kind of want to see them go back and animate something like VF-X2 since that was so important to the story going forward.

[Podtastic]

6 hours ago, BlackRose said:

Delta is too much a Walkure commercial and not enough an actual story for me to get excited about it.

You hit the nail on the head there.

 

[Einherjar]

It’s been over 30 years since Macross deviated from the supposedly serious, no nonsense show called Robotech.  Don’t get mad at it for not matching your extremely high and unrealistic ideals, and don’t come to it projecting the unrealized ideals that Robotech failed to deliver over and over again.

[deathzealot]

Honestly. I think I mentioned it before but one major thing I want to see in the next Macross series would be Kawamori's original proposal for Delta which was a Competition between two different Valkyrie Demonstration Squads. I personally think that is going to be what the second Delta Movie is going to be about since the war story is over with the first movie therefore we could actually see that original proposal in some form with maybe a grand Walkure concert. Shrug. Just a guess.

Still I have a couple of other ideas I want to see in the next Macross series.

The first is something similar to that of the Megazone 23 series having two colony fleets getting into a war with one another. We had some of that in Frontier between the Frontier and the Galaxy but I want to have entirely being human vs human instead of being a backdrop of another human vs alien fight. I know we also got some of that in Delta but the Kingdom of Windermere are not really a human colony but a Protoculture seeded human-like alien race. Not to mention already established colony worlds. I want a war between two different colony fleets lightyears from any other human claimed space or colony. Just these two fleets that just decided to go at it for some reason or another.  Anyways just an idea I would like to see.

The second idea I have is maybe focusing on a human colony fleet encountering the Supervision Army in some form. Macross 7 had humanity fighting against the overall leaders in charge of the original Supervision Army the Protodeviln but not on the Supervision Army itself which is still in a constant fight with the Zentradi. Basically having a colony fleet stumbling into a portion of space that is a constant battlefield between a Zentradi Grand Fleet and a Supervision Army Fleet. I think that would be an interesting story and a different style from that of the original Macross.

Okay. That is my couple of ideas for what we can expect for the next Macross series.

[Focslain]

Personally would love to see the VFG line added to the anime, in that same vein they could do a version of Macross the Ride. Just want something a little more mecha heavy after the music took the stick in Delta.

[deathzealot]

3 minutes ago, Focslain said:

VFG line

What's that?

And yes I would love to see some of the side stories be animated in some way. Like the Macross The Ride.

[Focslain]

21 minutes ago, deathzealot said:

What's that?

And yes I would love to see some of the side stories be animated in some way. Like the Macross The Ride.

These

[deathzealot]

1 minute ago, Focslain said:

These

Ah. Should have guessed. Variable Fighter Girls. Similar to that of MS Girls from Gundam. Thanks.

[Podtastic]

On 10/7/2020 at 10:13 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Even if they weren't, the domestic audience for anime is so much bigger than the international audience for anime that they'd still focus on the domestic audience's wants.

That's an epic fail for anime if true.

Millions to billions of potential customers aren't interested in the product, or don't even know about it.

[Bolt]

I don't see that as an epic fail, the success of Macross is based on the domestic market. It  has not relied on other markets to dictate its success.

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, Podtastic said:

That's an epic fail for anime if true.

Millions to billions of potential customers aren't interested in the product, or don't even know about it.

*sigh*  No, it's not an epic fail... the industry professionals know their business and you don't.

Like a lot of TV, anime operates on fairly thin profit margins.  They develop new programming based on the preferences and desires of their target demographic in their primary market.  That's how you maximize your chances of success and attract advertising and merchandising partners to your production.  For anime, that's the audience in the Japanese domestic market.  For American shows, it's the continental US audience.  If you go chasing nonexistent or minimal periphery viewer demographics the way Southern Cross's creators did in '84 or Star Trek's current showrunners did, you run the very serious risk of not only failing to pick up viewers from the viewer demographic you were chasing, but also alienating your primary demographic.  Lose too many viewers, and your show gets cancelled.  Fail too often, and you're out of a job.  It's almost unheard-of for a periphery demographic to turn out in such strength it can become the new primary demographic for a show the way it did for, say, The Big O.

Anime is kind of screwed coming and going in that respect since a lot of it airs late at night in time slots that the advertisers aren't exactly queueing up for, while in the west its only real mechanism for profit is streaming and home video rights since TV networks don't carry much anime and animation in general is still very much stereotyped as "for kids".  It's very rare for an anime series to be given proper merchandising support outside the Japanese market.

As it is, anime does fine in western markets without having to make any real concessions at all for western audiences.

[Focslain]

Honestly I hope anime never really tries for the 'wide appeal' angle, aim for the niche and strike hard and true and you'll get a decent series. Swing wide and you'll more often than not miss by a mile.

Plus I like the different out-look, it's what makes foreign TV interesting.

[Einherjar]

It’s hard to take people seriously when they say Macross, and recently Delta, is a failure when there is a second movie coming out, especially when they are really not hiding that they are damaged goods from another franchise with different expectations.

For added context, remember that a dead ringer for Nekki Basara now exists in a certain comic book meant for a more “mature” and “serious” mecha crowd.

Edited October 9, 2020 by Einherjar

[Alita_is_Best_Valkryie_gal]

Honestly, i really wish Macross came back to it's Plus and Zero Roots. but. im asking too much to a franchise that is trying to be more Music than a Supposive a REAL Triangle scheme..

 

Especially we're still going to have more Wooden Gay ass Characters that looks like it was ripped off to a Generic no.995 anime. I wouldn't say Macross is dead

 

but a Supposive Murder by the modern Japanese marketing.  Japs loves there Crappy wooden Predictable Romance with Heavily focus on Music. while the west Loves there better story with actual Triangle at the Process with  Hardcore Mech Battle. and i'm on the West side. only because Delta had the most unlikable cast in Macross history. 

 

now my signature from the Macross Community. 

 

they made Max and Mirage Dirty.

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, Alita_is_Best_Valkryie_gal said:

Honestly, i really wish Macross came back to it's Plus and Zero Roots.

Now there's an absurd statement. 

For the record, Macross Plus wasn't even a Macross series for most of its development and neither Plus nor Zero were particularly well-received by Macross's core audience in Japan.  If you asked Macross's intended audience what the roots of Macross are they'd point you to the romance story in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series and the emphasis on music from Macross: Do You Remember Love? or Macross 7.  Delta was fairly close to those roots in terms of the importance of music.

[DYRL VF-1S]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Now there's an absurd statement. 

For the record, Macross Plus wasn't even a Macross series for most of its development and neither Plus nor Zero were particularly well-received by Macross's core audience in Japan.  If you asked Macross's intended audience what the roots of Macross are they'd point you to the romance story in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series and the emphasis on music from Macross: Do You Remember Love? or Macross 7.  Delta was fairly close to those roots in terms of the importance of music.

 

[Alita_is_Best_Valkryie_gal]

8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Now there's an absurd statement. 

For the record, Macross Plus wasn't even a Macross series for most of its development and neither Plus nor Zero were particularly well-received by Macross's core audience in Japan.  If you asked Macross's intended audience what the roots of Macross are they'd point you to the romance story in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series and the emphasis on music from Macross: Do You Remember Love? or Macross 7.  Delta was fairly close to those roots in terms of the importance of music.

Yea, i'm really aware that Plus and Zero Wasn't even Recieved well on Japan. I think that's why we are never going to see Yf-19 in all form and scale. Especially the Zero series. Wich im really salty about it. Knowing the Japs are gonna buy More of Big tittie loli Idol singing Model kits and statues and put it on a jar than buying the main selling point of Mechs. 

 

Honestly im suprised you didn't mention Frontier. Since it was Recieved Mix in the West. And Japan. I may be wrong by Japanese side. Since Frontier went back to its Real Macross roots. Mechs/Real Romance/Drama/ and Singing. 

 

Im gonna get Looked weird. But 7 was my guilty pleasure and i enjoy it. Only because the cast are just fun. Especially the main character. (bassura i think?) Yea, i know it's the worse from them all, but atleast the cast are much more likable than the Delta cast. While 7 knows there doing this for fun. than Trying soo hard to be serious but immediately Upreptly by fan service or forced in comedy. *coughs* Delta *coughs* coughs* 

 

The Vrigin Hayate vs the Chad Bassura. 

[Bolt]

Macross 7 did it first!

 

[jenius]

This seems like a podcast question:
Has the music from Delta been more successful than the music in Frontier? I was under the impression that both Ranka and Sheryl's music sold really well but I was also under the impression that Walkure has done even better. So, maybe Frontier was the better received overall (based on sheer volume of merch) but Delta was a different kind of success. 

When we were kids, cartoons were 30 minute commercials for toys. Now they're 30 minute commercials for idols. I think there's a lot of people in their 40s who want things to go back to how they were when we were 10 and under and it's just not going to happen. Frontier was great though, hopefully the next series finds that balance.

[Bolt]

I know there's going to be another live "Frontier " concert. That really says a lot about the success of the music.  In the end, I wonder if Delta's music will endure so long..

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Alita_is_Best_Valkryie_gal said:

Knowing the Japs are gonna buy More of Big tittie loli Idol singing Model kits and statues and put it on a jar than buying the main selling point of Mechs. 

First, stop calling Japanese people "Japs".  That's racist.

Second, the mecha have never been the main selling point of Macross.  Never.  Macross has always been, first and foremost, a character drama.  If you ask Macross's creators, they'll be only too happy to tell you Macross is - and always has been - a love story set against a backdrop of space warfare.  Not a space war story with a love subplot, a love story with a space war subplot.  The mecha are not the main selling point.  They're entirely incidental and it's perfectly possible to have a Macross story that lacks them entirely (e.g. Macross the Musiculture).

 

3 hours ago, Alita_is_Best_Valkryie_gal said:

Honestly im suprised you didn't mention Frontier. Since it was Recieved Mix in the West. And Japan. I may be wrong by Japanese side. Since Frontier went back to its Real Macross roots. Mechs/Real Romance/Drama/ and Singing. 

Frontier isn't Macross's roots.  Frontier is a show that didn't stray far from Macross's roots... Super Dimension Fortress Macross for the love triangle and Macross 7 for the emphasis on music.

 

 

43 minutes ago, jenius said:

This seems like a podcast question:
Has the music from Delta been more successful than the music in Frontier? I was under the impression that both Ranka and Sheryl's music sold really well but I was also under the impression that Walkure has done even better.

All in all, I think that's more a "time will tell" sort of question.  There's more marketing emphasis on live concerts for Walkure because, if you assemble an idol group that's your main profit mechanism and an idol group is not cheap to maintain.  I think the telling part will be whether Walkure is still a hot ticket item with the fans a decade or more after the ending of the Macross Delta series the way Sheryl Nome/May'n and Ranka Lee/Megumi Nakajima are.

(TBH, I don't think they will be.  Idol groups tend to split up past a certain point, as individual members start looking towards solo careers.  Walkure also got a lot less development as characters in Macross Delta than the very-memorable Sheryl and Ranka did.)

It's harder to use sales figures to make that determination since digital downloads have muddied the picture somewhat.

[Alita_is_Best_Valkryie_gal]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

First, stop calling Japanese people "Japs".  That's racist.

Second, the mecha have never been the main selling point of Macross.  Never.  Macross has always been, first and foremost, a character drama.  If you ask Macross's creators, they'll be only too happy to tell you Macross is - and always has been - a love story set against a backdrop of space warfare.  Not a space war story with a love subplot, a love story with a space war subplot.  The mecha are not the main selling point.  They're entirely incidental and it's perfectly possible to have a Macross story that lacks them entirely (e.g. Macross the Musiculture).

 

Frontier isn't Macross's roots.  Frontier is a show that didn't stray far from Macross's roots... Super Dimension Fortress Macross for the love triangle and Macross 7 for the emphasis on music.

 

 

All in all, I think that's more a "time will tell" sort of question.  There's more marketing emphasis on live concerts for Walkure because, if you assemble an idol group that's your main profit mechanism and an idol group is not cheap to maintain.  I think the telling part will be whether Walkure is still a hot ticket item with the fans a decade or more after the ending of the Macross Delta series the way Sheryl Nome/May'n and Ranka Lee/Megumi Nakajima are.

(TBH, I don't think they will be.  Idol groups tend to split up past a certain point, as individual members start looking towards solo careers.  Walkure also got a lot less development as characters in Macross Delta than the very-memorable Sheryl and Ranka did.)

It's harder to use sales figures to make that determination since digital downloads have muddied the picture somewhat.

Oof, i never knew The word Japs was a racist word towards the japanese, my apologies. I thought it was a short word. I should just call them jps for now.

 

Also, no wonder why Zero was poorly Received, since Zero was more Gundam than Macross. I always thought the Mechs was the main selling point. But this is someone who is still new to macross and it's message. Thanks for telling me what's the real macross is about. I feel like a clown for saying stuff like "Real Macross" towards a series n stuff. 

[Roy Focker]

Or You can just call them Japanese.

[Podtastic]

On 2/27/2021 at 10:18 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

First, stop calling Japanese people "Japs".  That's racist.

I thought that was nips, from the war. 

Do you have any confirmation of any Japanese individuals/groups saying that they feel offended by the term?

On 2/27/2021 at 10:18 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Second, the mecha have never been the main selling point of Macross.  Never.  Macross has always been, first and foremost, a character drama.

So an 80's anime series, chockablock full of awesome mecha was not meant to sell toys and model kits to young Japanese boys and teens?

Very hard to believe. 

On 2/27/2021 at 10:18 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

The mecha are not the main selling point.  They're entirely incidental and it's perfectly possible to have a Macross story that lacks them entirely (e.g. Macross the Musiculture).

And be boring as hell. Half the fun in watching Star Wars or mecha anime is "I gotta get me one of those!"

On 2/27/2021 at 10:04 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

they'd point you to the romance story in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series and the emphasis on music from Macross: Do You Remember Love? or Macross 7.  Delta was fairly close to those roots in terms of the importance of music.

So instead of having the intellectual dignity of being a sci-fi space opera and/or alien invasion saga up there with TOS Star Wars and the War of the Worlds it belongs instead in the company of...Mills and Boon and Thoroughly Modern Millie?

Edited March 1, 2021 by Podtastic

[jenius]

1 minute ago, Podtastic said:

I thought that was nips, from the war. 

Do you have any confirmation of any Japanese individuals/groups saying that they feel offended by the term?

Lol, where do you live? In the US at least, both terms were frequently used as racial slurs and are quite clearly frowned upon to the point of "where's your proof?" is like asking for someone to prove water is wet. Apparently though, someone did compile a list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs