Will the next Macross be the last Macross?

[Roy Focker]

Sorry for the clickbait Topic Title.

Macross has been going on for nearly 40 years.   We consider any Macross that Kawamori has worked on to be canon.   He's currently 61 years old.  I'm sure there's examples of people in the 70's still working in anime.  Many people have retired by then. 

[jenius]

There's already been one Macross without Kawamori.

[Seto Kaiba]

So... is the actual question "Will a handful of butthurt fanboy gatekeepers fold their arms and refuse to accept a new Macross series from Kawamori's successor?"

I'd bet on it.

But who cares?  It'll be like the droning of cicadas in summer.  Inevitable, but trivial, background noise.

Kawamori's been pretty clear about his view that Macross has no canon and that the Macross titles he didn't work on are as valid as his own.  I doubt most Macross fans will really be at all bothered by it.  

Will the next Macross be the last Macross?  No.

[Einherjar]

1 hour ago, Roy Focker said:

Sorry for the clickbait Topic Title.

Macross has been going on for nearly 40 years.   We consider any Macross that Kawamori has worked on to be canon.   He's currently 61 years old.  I'm sure there's examples of people in the 70's still working in anime.  Many people have retired by then. 

[Bolt]

He's not done designing Valk's. Is my bet.

[jvmacross]

1 hour ago, Roy Focker said:

Macross has been going on for nearly 40 years.   We consider any Macross that Kawamori has worked on to be canon.   He's currently 61 years old.  I'm sure there's examples of people in the 70's still working in anime.  Many people have retired by then. 

I don't think we can apply our definitions on what is too "old" to the Japanese....lol

If Kawamori needed to be "de-aged" for a documentary of his early days in the business, it wouldn't require that much CGI!

[azrael]

Will the next Macross be the last Macross? No.

Will the next Macross be Kawamori's last Macross? Maybe. Possibly. Depends. Retirement just left and is heading to his place. Everyone knows this day is inevitable. Hell, it's coming for all of us. 

[Roy Focker]

We get a new series every several years.  It is likely that his involvement will decrease after the next series.  He'll show up to design some new valks but others will take over.

[Bolt]

4 hours ago, azrael said:

Will the next Macross be the last Macross? No.

Will the next Macross be Kawamori's last Macross? Maybe. Possibly. Depends. Retirement just left and is heading to his place. Everyone knows this day is inevitable. Hell, it's coming for all of us. 

Ain't that the truth!

 

8 minutes ago, Roy Focker said:

We get a new series every several years.  It is likely that his involvement will decrease after the next series.  He'll show up to design some new valks but others will take over.

Agreed..

[jvmacross]

The Leader of the Free World is 78 years old......pretty sure Kawamori will hang in there for quite a few more years....how stressful can his life be?  He is an artist...I doubt he will ever stop creating whatever it is he wants to create...be it Macross or something else...and fans will continue to eat it up!

[isamu]

I haven't seen Macross Delta yet, but from what I hear it's, well....pretty darn bad. And if that's true, maybe the question should be....*SHOULD* the next Macross be Kawamori's last? When was the last really good Macross in you guys' opinion? 7? Zero? Frontier?

[Bolt]

That's a separate thread. Lol. 

[Bolt]

27 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

The Leader of the Free World is 78 years old......pretty sure Kawamori will hang in there for quite a few more years....how stressful can his life be?  He is an artist...I doubt he will ever stop creating whatever it is he wants to create...be it Macross or something else...and fans will continue to eat it up!

True enough.

[sketchley]

Two things to keep in mind about "retirement" in Japan:

1) many people continue working well after retirement age (if they were employed at a big company, that generally means they lose that job and work somewhere else: https://www.jeed.go.jp/english/elderly/index.html)

2) Kawamori-san can be classified as both a freelance worker and the boss of his own company.  "Normal" retirement rules don't apply.

[Bariaburu Faita]

See Hayao Miyazaki as an example of how his retirement might go.

[jvmacross]

31 minutes ago, isamu said:

When was the last really good Macross in you guys' opinion? 7? Zero? Frontier?

[Bolt]

[jvmacross]

A real Macross show would never allow the cannon fodder pilots to be more badass than the main characters.....expected when your main character looks like a girl....

[AN/ALQ128]

The japanese have different cultural views on what masculinity looks like (see; Raiden of MGS fame). For what its worth, Alto behaves very masculine.

[Bolt]

1 hour ago, jvmacross said:

A real Macross show would never allow the cannon fodder pilots to be more badass than the main characters...

They're weren't 

 

1 hour ago, jvmacross said:

expected when your main character looks like a girl....

He's a pretty boy. With a bad a$$ ride

[Radd]

2 hours ago, isamu said:

I haven't seen Macross Delta yet, but from what I hear it's, well....pretty darn bad. And if that's true, maybe the question should be....*SHOULD* the next Macross be Kawamori's last? When was the last really good Macross in you guys' opinion? 7? Zero? Frontier?

I thought Delta was a bland rehash of Frontier. If it weren't reusing so many concepts from Frontier then I might have enjoyed it. Then again, I didn't care for the music either and that's a big part of Macross, so there's that. And the designs, aaside from the Elysion, were kinda bland.

In my mind, the last really good Macross was Frontier. I had some issues with it, like the main characters being mostly high school age, but I liked the characters, story, music, designs and animation.

As for the OP's question, no I don't think the next Macross will be the last. Will it be the last with Kawamori? Maybe, maybe not. If Kawamori enjoys what he does, he might never really retire until he's physically incapable of keeping up with the job.

[Einherjar]

Yoshiyuki Tomino Aims High: "My Next Work Will Crush Demon Slayer and Evangelion"

This happened today.  These people will live and die making anime.

[JB0]

9 hours ago, isamu said:

I haven't seen Macross Delta yet, but from what I hear it's, well....pretty darn bad. And if that's true, maybe the question should be....*SHOULD* the next Macross be Kawamori's last? When was the last really good Macross in you guys' opinion? 7? Zero? Frontier?

Seven. Definitely Seven. I'm pretty sure this is a unanimous vote and will generate no controversy.

[Bolt]

2 hours ago, JB0 said:

Seven. Definitely Seven. I'm pretty sure this is a unanimous vote and will generate no controversy.

Lol. +1

[Bariaburu Faita]

So, eventually someone else will have to take over as the main show runner of Macross. Who should it be? So far Hidetaka Tenjin has been producing excellent Valkyrie designs faithful to Producer Kawamori`s originals. And he has been given the opportunity to direct some of the recent Delta promotional shorts, so with a couple more years of learning production craft, I think he would be an excellent prospect as a successor.

[Mog]

53 minutes ago, Bariaburu Faita said:

So, eventually someone else will have to take over as the main show runner of Macross. Who should it be?

Someone who can come up with a damn good, coherent story.

Some nice choreographed dogfights that make smart use of quickly switching back and forth between the three modes and some memorable characters would be nice too.

[treatment]

Kawamori's next Macross project will be singing mascots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Beltane70]

On 4/16/2021 at 12:43 AM, Radd said:

In my mind, the last really good Macross was Frontier. I had some issues with it, like the main characters being mostly high school age, but I liked the characters, story, music, designs and animation.

Which isn’t really an issue considering that Hikaru, Max, and Kakizaki were all high school age in the original TV series. 

[Bolt]

And considering the target audience..

[Dynaman]

14 hours ago, Beltane70 said:

Which isn’t really an issue considering that Hikaru, Max, and Kakizaki were all high school age in the original TV series. 

Maybe true but they are not shown sitting in a classroom acting like children.  If it were not for the ages being stated you could just as easily think them to be older than stated - which is what I do.

[JB0]

1 hour ago, Dynaman said:

Maybe true but they are not shown sitting in a classroom acting like children.  If it were not for the ages being stated you could just as easily think them to be older than stated - which is what I do.

That's kinda unfortunate, since their age is logical for the circumstances and underlines exactly how screwed up a situation the Macross is in. They're accepting children as pilots because they need pilots desperately enough to ease up a bit on societal standards.

[Dynaman]

No, their age was there as pandering to the target demographic of teen boys.  I'll say no more on it since it will go nowhere.

[Bariaburu Faita]

17 hours ago, Beltane70 said:

Which isn’t really an issue considering that Hikaru, Max, and Kakizaki were all high school age in the original TV series. 

Isn't the vast majority of main Macross charactes high school age?

The main exceptions are Plus and Zero. And the lack of character goods sales for those characters probably influenced them to go back to younger main characters.

[Bariaburu Faita]

1 hour ago, JB0 said:

That's kinda unfortunate, since their age is logical for the circumstances and underlines exactly how screwed up a situation the Macross is in. They're accepting children as pilots because they need pilots desperately enough to ease up a bit on societal standards.

I think its a little of both. The industry standard at the time had mecha pilots as teen boys by default. Macross found a in universe justification for it as well.

[Seto Kaiba]

19 minutes ago, Bariaburu Faita said:

Isn't the vast majority of main Macross charactes high school age?

Yes... which is understandable, given what the show's primary demographic is.

Spoiler

Super Dimension Fortress Macross
Hikaru: 16
Misa: 19
Minmay: 15
Max: 16
Milia: 15
Kakizaki: 17

Macross: Do You Remember Love?
Hikaru: 18
Misa: 21
Minmay: 17

Macross II: Lovers Again
Hibiki: 17
Sylvie: 17
Ishtar: ? (~17?)

Macross Plus
Isamu: 24
Guld: 25
Myung: 23
Jan: 17

Macross 7
Basara: 21
Mylene: 14
Gamlin: 19
Veffias: 20
Ray: 28 (jesus, really?  He looks 40+!)

Macross Zero
Shin: 18
Sara: 16
Mao: 11
Roy: 26
Edgar: 18
Aries: 26
D.D.: ? (~30?)
Nora: 25

Macross Frontier
Alto: 17
Sheryl: 17
Ranka: 15
Michael: 17
Luca: 15
Brera: 19

Macross Delta
Hayate: 17
Mirage: 18
Freyja: 14
Mikumo: 3 (she's a clone)
Kaname: 22
Makina: 18
Reina: 15
Arad: 33
Messer: 21
Chuck: 24
Keith: 19
Roid: 21
Bogue: 15
Theo & Xiao: 16
Qasim: 23
Hermann: 33

Though it's worth noting one odd touch in the Macross setting is that the Age of Majority under the UN Government and New UN Government is apparently 17 not 18... so many of the characters who are nominally "high school age" are, in the context of their respective stories, legally adults.

(For Macross Delta, the ages skewing young may be justified in that Windermereans only live for about 30 years on average and so their society has different standards with regard to age.)

Macross Plus has the oldest main cast with none younger than 23, followed by Macross 7 where all but one are at least 19, and then Macross Zero where roughly half the main cast is in their mid-to-late 20's.