New Macross Animation Announced, to be animated by Sunrise

[kajnrig]

5 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

Roy Focker was a alcoholic, so then it would have made sense and been acceptable by showing his VF-1 trying to jag down barrels of fuel? 🤣

Don't threaten me with a good time!  All you've done is made me imagine a Regult getting into a drunken brawl and whipping out the patented Zentraedi Drunken Kickboxing Style!

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Don't threaten me with a good time!  All you've done is made me imagine a Regult getting into a drunken brawl and whipping out the patented Zentraedi Drunken Kickboxing Style!

Not going to lie, that sounds awesome and I want to see it.

[fifbeat]

I think it's about time we see a continuation of either DYRL or SDFM. Like, a direct sequel to those events with the surviving characters. 

Not since Macross Plus have we had an original "Macross" story that worked. Just my opinion. 

[R0P3-F15H]

On 8/15/2023 at 2:34 PM, Raikkonen said:

Well, if the new Macross will be more grounded to the style of the recent Gundam: The Origin, Thunderbolt, Hathaway or Cucuruz Doan's Island, I'm all in. I'm just staying positive it will avoid all the cringiness of 7 and Delta. 

War in the Pocket and 08th MS team come to mind  as well as Iron Blooded Orphans wich was a refreshing take on mobile suits as a entity at all.

 

I’d probably prop Stardust memory up there to honestly, it hits some similar beats to me that Macross has sans idol culture. But I’ll have to disagree on 7, cause honestly that’s what makes that show great, it’s just a really fun time start to finish but I’ve not come around on delta yet.

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, fifbeat said:

I think it's about time we see a continuation of either DYRL or SDFM. Like, a direct sequel to those events with the surviving characters. 

As mentioned in a few previous posts, we can be fairly certain that isn't in the cards because...

• Flash Back 2012 was the epilogue to their story.  Per Kawamori, their story is over and they've sailed off into the (metaphorical) sunset aboard Megaroad-01.
• Not revisiting those characters in future works is apparently a stipulation of the new global distribution agreement with HG.
• There's really no story to tell... the Megaroad-01 sailed interstellar space uneventfully for four years and then lost contact with the New UN Government...
  Spoiler

  ... and if Absolute Live!!!!!! is any indication...

  Spoiler

  ... the reason contact was lost is the ship ran into a fold fault and got stuck back in 2016.

  They basically hit a hyperspace pothole and got stuck fifty years ago and have been stuck there ever since.

   

   

Edited August 22, 2023 by Seto Kaiba

[fifbeat]

28 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

As mentioned in a few previous posts, we can be fairly certain that isn't in the cards because...

• Flash Back 2012 was the epilogue to their story.  Per Kawamori, their story is over and they've sailed off into the (metaphorical) sunset aboard Megaroad-01.
• Not revisiting those characters in future works is apparently a stipulation of the new global distribution agreement with HG.
• There's really no story to tell... the Megaroad-01 sailed interstellar space uneventfully for four years and then lost contact with the New UN Government...
    Reveal hidden contents

  ... and if Absolute Live!!!!!! is any indication...

    Reveal hidden contents

  ... the reason contact was lost is the ship ran into a fold fault and got stuck back in 2016.

   

   

Ah, oh well. Thanks for referencing an early post. 

Despite the legalities alone with HG, wouldn't it be nice to see the events of "the Megaroad-01 sailed interstellar space uneventfully for four years and then lost contact" unfold? 

Hopefully Disney will buy the property. Then I'd get what I want. *sarcasm* 

Edited August 22, 2023 by fifbeat

[SebastianP]

48 minutes ago, fifbeat said:

Ah, oh well. Thanks for referencing an early post. 

Despite the legalities alone with HG, wouldn't it be nice to see the events of "the Megaroad-01 sailed interstellar space uneventfully for four years and then lost contact" unfold? 

Hopefully Disney will buy the property. Then I'd get what I want. *sarcasm* 

Not really. 

I *like* that Macross has the balls to say "their story is done, let's look at someone else's story" and *doesn't* fall for the urge to go back and fill in the blanks (except for Zero, which was pretty, but weak, IMO. So many little things that make me go "but how?!?" on a rewatch with that.)

It's nice to see some characters again *occasionally*, but Macross is much, much better at any other Space Opera I can name that it's a *vast* galaxy, too large to comfortably travel across.

Once you start to deliberately follow one particular cast member around after the end of their initial story, it becomes about *them* instead of about the setting you've built. See Star Wars, which was "The adventures of Luke Skywalker and Friends" so hard that if you look at the official Legends chronology, there's only like one year total out of *thirty* starting with A New Hope when Luke is actually not out and about doing something. (one of the last novels written in the Legends continuity filled in the other gap in that thirty year stretch, so chances are that one year of vacation would have gone as well eventually).

Disney pulling the plug on the Expanded Universe has only fixed the issue in that there's a lot of empty places to put new adventures in now, because every damned official media is still involving the Skywalkers or adjacent characters somehow. (Rebels had guest appearances from Leia and Vader. The Mandalorian guest starred Ashoka and Luke. Boba Fett wasn't a *friend* of Luke's per se, but he was an original trilogy character. Kenobi is Kenobi, and his show included Vader and Leia as well. I haven't actually seen Andor, but it's been touted as the best piece of Star Wars media since Disney took over, and that might be because of a lack of Skywalkers?)

Meanwhile, Macross can and does have the balls to go "yeah, have a story about characters who've never met and are never going to meet anyone from any previous show, at least not on camera", like Macross Plus or Macross Frontier, *and* it has the balls to go "this is a dramatization, and may not be 100% historically accurate" so that people won't get hung up too hard on canon. 

Heck, given how the shows seems to actually alternate a bit? We got Plus, which had no prior characters involved; Seven, which had the Jenius clan; Zero, which had Roy; Frontier, which had no prior characters except for a *connection* to Zero; and Delta, which involved the Jenius clan again, I'm going to speculate and say "the next show might involve relatives of someone *else* in the original series bridge crew". Maybe a member of the Milliome family? (Shammy settled on Luna after Space War 1 and had eleven kids by 2045... and while her hubby was a rich heir type, Shammy was bridge crew on the ship that saved humanity, so maybe some of them took her name?)

[Focslain]

*comes out of lurking*

Honestly I'd like to see something a little low stakes, like Macross the Ride. Plus we can see all the old VFs, That or another colony fleet out there looking for a planet and meeting another protoculture race. Like the early days of Ragnan, only somewhere else.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Focslain

[Raikkonen]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

As mentioned in a few previous posts, we can be fairly certain that isn't in the cards because...

• Flash Back 2012 was the epilogue to their story.  Per Kawamori, their story is over and they've sailed off into the (metaphorical) sunset aboard Megaroad-01.
• Not revisiting those characters in future works is apparently a stipulation of the new global distribution agreement with HG.
• There's really no story to tell... the Megaroad-01 sailed interstellar space uneventfully for four years and then lost contact with the New UN Government...
    Hide contents

  ... and if Absolute Live!!!!!! is any indication...

    Hide contents

  ... the reason contact was lost is the ship ran into a fold fault and got stuck back in 2016.

  They basically hit a hyperspace pothole and got stuck fifty years ago and have been stuck there ever since.

   

   

I agree that due to the new licensing agreement, Bandai wants to expand it's merchandise worldwide through a new series, and not restrict it to Japan. 

But, I disagree there isn't a story to be told about Megaroad-01. So much can be shown to what they encountered while in the unknown to whatever struggles in living in that fold and eventually escaping it. 

And yes, Kawamori said their story is over, but everybody changes their mind. 

At the end, bar the license fence around DYRL, it can be anything... a prequel to Zero showing the early developments of a VF, straight to a sequel to Delta. 

[JB0]

I feel like there's room for a story about the Megaroad, but it couldn't credibly be about Hikaru, Misa, and Minmay. It would have to be about new people, with the old characters having the occasional cameo.

[Seto Kaiba]

When all's said and done, given that nothing exciting has happened to it... I'd expect a story set aboard Megaroad-01 to basically be a Macross version of Red Dwarf.  A terminally bored crew trying to find SOMETHING to do to stay sane.

[JB0]

25 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

When all's said and done, given that nothing exciting has happened to it... I'd expect a story set aboard Megaroad-01 to basically be a Macross version of Red Dwarf.  A terminally bored crew trying to find SOMETHING to do to stay sane.

I'm actually very disappointed that Delta saw fit to peek at Megaroad.

...

Now that people know where she is, a rescue mission can presumably be mounted?

[Seto Kaiba]

5 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Now that people know where she is, a rescue mission can presumably be mounted?

If they can recreate the macguffin that allowed them to be found in the first place, maybe?

But since it's illegal tech, probably not?

[TG Remix]

On 8/21/2023 at 7:37 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

More worldbuilding is always welcome.  FWIW, they built an amazing playground for Delta and then just underused it.  TBH, when it comes to the Zentradi I kind of like how once they got past the "recovering adrenaline junkie" phase they were just normal folks.  It really brings home the "not so different" message in the original series to see them so integrated into human society that nobody bats an eye that their neighbor's cucumber green or has pointed ears.  They're not being pigeonholed based on their species like they might be in so many other sci-fi titles and stuck in quasi-military roles... there are Zentradi artists, executives, research scientists, athletes, musicians, doctors, stay-at-home dads, any occupation that a human would have is open to them.  I'd like to see more of them in non-military capacities in future stories because they really are just "my green neighbor" by the time of Frontier or Delta.

I feel like the closest thing we got to that is Sonia Dosel, a granddaughter of Loli, and the Neo-Zentran movement and the characters it's relating to in Macross: The Musicalture, where iirc it's Zentran who lived in human society who wants to build the Macross 29's military not out of primal instinct but to help the colony fleet's struggling economy. No clue to why a good lot of them (at least Zegand's followers) could be stunned by music like the SDF-era Zentradi (According to gububa's summary,) but I digress; I too would like to see then being expanded on that's not just in side roles as well.

EDIT: How could I forget about Macross: The Ride? The main protagonist Chelsea is a full blooded Zentradi who finds herself struggling to fit in society and goes through many other dynamics of how humans and Zentran are not that different, as people migrating and living in space.

 

On 8/21/2023 at 7:37 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Not really... his motives become clearer in hindsight with Macross 7.  Even in the original, he was a concerned commander looking at an enemy who was seemingly causing a large-scale mutiny among his forces and frightened by that.  With 7 in mind, we know he was probably quietly terrified looking at what appeared to be his forces succumbing to a mind control attack similar to the Supervision Army's.  (Something that frightened even the likes of Exsedol.)

I also believe Exsedol's reaction is also said to be from a Zentradi's instinctual fear of the Protodevlin, which was why there was that riot of Zentradi in one episode and why the Macross 5 fleet had even less then a fighting chance then the Macross 7's and pretty much got picked off like carnival shooting game to be used as Protodevlin food.

Edited August 23, 2023 by TG Remix

[azrael]

22 hours ago, R0P3-F15H said:

War in the Pocket and 08th MS team come to mind  as well as Iron Blooded Orphans wich was a refreshing take on mobile suits as a entity at all.

 

I’d probably prop Stardust memory up there to honestly, it hits some similar beats to me that Macross has sans idol culture.

Ya know...Anytime someone mentions War in the Pocket, 8th MS Team, or Stardust Memory in a thread about the next Macross series, I'm just going to post this:

On 7/17/2023 at 11:47 AM, azrael said:

"I want Macross but without all the Macross-y stuff"
"So you want Gundam?"
"No. I want Macross. But without the stuff that makes it Macross."
"So you want Gundam?"
....

🤦‍♂️ Every time we get a new Macross, this exact conversation comes up. Every. Damn. Time.

Cuz those are the exact same 3 shows that get mentioned. Every. Damn. Time.

[Raikkonen]

11 hours ago, azrael said:

Ya know...Anytime someone mentions War in the Pocket, 8th MS Team, or Stardust Memory in a thread about the next Macross series, I'm just going to post this:

Cuz those are the exact same 3 shows that get mentioned. Every. Damn. Time.

Those are mentioned in context of the grounded feel, like how is Zero, SDF and DYRL, where pop idols aren't the focal point, but instead one of the facets of a cube. 

17 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

When all's said and done, given that nothing exciting has happened to it... I'd expect a story set aboard Megaroad-01 to basically be a Macross version of Red Dwarf.  A terminally bored crew trying to find SOMETHING to do to stay sane.

Frontier introduced us to a whole new species, the Varja... you think that with the size of the galaxy that the Megaroad-1 won't have it's own encounters? 

Edited August 23, 2023 by Raikkonen

[R0P3-F15H]

12 minutes ago, azrael said:

Ya know...Anytime someone mentions War in the Pocket, 8th MS Team, or Stardust Memory in a thread about the next Macross series, I'm just going to post this:

Cuz those are the exact same 3 shows that get mentioned. Every. Damn. Time.

ah hah id like some of it personally, just a touch. i think it could be balanced well with the other aspects of macross! but we really won't know till we see right? and i think im okay with that! so long as we get more mech's and a decent story ill be content.

But i think Sunrise has had a wide berth in stories told, what ever they do i think it'll be close to the heart of macross.... i mean macross is about having hope when there isn't much right? who knows we might get something entirely unexpected! i think thats the fun of it in itself.

[Raikkonen]

1 hour ago, R0P3-F15H said:

But i think Sunrise has had a wide berth in stories told, what ever they do i think it'll be close to the heart of macross.... i mean macross is about having hope when there isn't much right? who knows we might get something entirely unexpected! i think thats the fun of it in itself.

Only certainly is new Valks as selling toys is the long term goal here. 

[R0P3-F15H]

44 minutes ago, Raikkonen said:

Only certainly is new Valks as selling toys is the long term goal here. 

One can hope they aren’t to bad then! Wouldn’t mind seeing refreshed VF-2SS designs

[pengbuzz]

4 hours ago, azrael said:

Ya know...Anytime someone mentions War in the Pocket, 8th MS Team, or Stardust Memory in a thread about the next Macross series, I'm just going to post this:

Cuz those are the exact same 3 shows that get mentioned. Every. Damn. Time.

We could always shorten that to War in the 8th MS Memory.

[Master Dex]

8 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

Frontier introduced us to a whole new species, the Varja... you think that with the size of the galaxy that the Megaroad-1 won't have it's own encounters?

That logic is good, we can follow an entirely new group of people in a new fleet of ships doing exactly that.

Nothing about Megaroad 1 makes it especially suited to anything other than a couple familiar faces who's story was completed. Any other reason to have that ship involved can be accomplished elsewhere. Let's not pretend it's not about nostalgia. 

[Seto Kaiba]

8 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

Frontier introduced us to a whole new species, the Varja... you think that with the size of the galaxy that the Megaroad-1 won't have it's own encounters? 

Considering that it sailed uneventfully for four years and then...

Spoiler

... spent the next 52+ years stuck in a fold fault going nowhere and doing nothing...

... kinda, yeah.

 

One of the issues with how fold navigation works - which is kind of a blessing in disguise for Humanity as they try to keep their burgeoning interstellar civilization "under the radar" when it comes to the massive and massively destructive Zentradi main fleets and whatever's left of the Supervision Army is that when you're traveling by space fold you can't see what's in the space you're circumventing.  With most detection systems being lightspeed or slower (RADAR, LIDAR, etc.), the detection range of individual ships is not high, so the chances of actually running into someone or something out there by accident or coincidence are extremely low.  Not zero, but extremely extremely low.  (That and the strategy of choice for emigrant fleets dealing with the occasional, very rare, cases of blundering into the vicinity of a potential hostile force is to de-ass the area with the quickness to avoid being spotted.  That is to say, "Perhaps it would confuse them if we ran away faster?".) 

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Considering that it sailed uneventfully for four years and then...

  Hide contents

... spent the next 52+ years stuck in a fold fault going nowhere and doing nothing...

... kinda, yeah.

 

One of the issues with how fold navigation works - which is kind of a blessing in disguise for Humanity as they try to keep their burgeoning interstellar civilization "under the radar" when it comes to the massive and massively destructive Zentradi main fleets and whatever's left of the Supervision Army is that when you're traveling by space fold you can't see what's in the space you're circumventing.  With most detection systems being lightspeed or slower (RADAR, LIDAR, etc.), the detection range of individual ships is not high, so the chances of actually running into someone or something out there by accident or coincidence are extremely low.  Not zero, but extremely extremely low.  (That and the strategy of choice for emigrant fleets dealing with the occasional, very rare, cases of blundering into the vicinity of a potential hostile force is to de-ass the area with the quickness to avoid being spotted.  That is to say, "Perhaps it would confuse them if we ran away faster?".) 

 

[Raikkonen]

3 hours ago, Master Dex said:

That logic is good, we can follow an entirely new group of people in a new fleet of ships doing exactly that.

That. There's so many other potential characters in the fleet that the main cast can act as mentors or role models to them? 

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

... spent the next 52+ years stuck in a fold fault going nowhere and doing nothing...

I obviously missed this. Where is it stated or shown that this happened to them? 

[Master Dex]

1 hour ago, Raikkonen said:

That. There's so many other potential characters in the fleet that the main cast can act as mentors or role models to them?

That's... The opposite of what I said. I was saying there's no reason to use Megaroad 1 at all lol. Just do a new group entirely (which is what I honestly expect to happen).

1 hour ago, Raikkonen said:

I obviously missed this. Where is it stated or shown that this happened to them? 

Spoiler

It's in the most recent movie, Macross Delta Absolute Live. 

 

[Raikkonen]

1 hour ago, Master Dex said:

That's... The opposite of what I said. I was saying there's no reason to use Megaroad 1 at all lol. Just do a new group entirely (which is what I honestly expect to happen).

  Reveal hidden contents

It's in the most recent movie, Macross Delta Absolute Live. 

 

You right. I meant 'That' in context of yours, and left out the the 'And' and 'or' as I went along with my next train of thought. 

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, Master Dex said:

That's... The opposite of what I said. I was saying there's no reason to use Megaroad 1 at all lol. Just do a new group entirely (which is what I honestly expect to happen).

Yeah, that's the most likely outcome...

Macross loves to go to new places and tell stories with new people.  It leaves the details of inter-series connections and returning characters largely to secondary works like light novels, manga, and video games.

(Like how Macross the Ride draws connections to Macross VF-X2, Macross 7, Macross Plus, Macross Frontier, and a few other titles in obsessive detail.)

Edited August 24, 2023 by Seto Kaiba

[Raikkonen]

Anyone know the rough timeline of Sunrise's announcements to finally revealing anything of it? 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, Raikkonen said:

Anyone know the rough timeline of Sunrise's announcements to finally revealing anything of it? 

Nothing has been published on that front yet.

If we assume that Macross production at Sunrise will follow a similar timeline to what's been done at Satelight, they'll announce the new show's title in September, do a first promo event around the end of October, and run out the teaser version of the first episode in late December prior to a start of broadcast in April of the following year.

[Raikkonen]

17 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Nothing has been published on that front yet.

If we assume that Macross production at Sunrise will follow a similar timeline to what's been done at Satelight, they'll announce the new show's title in September, do a first promo event around the end of October, and run out the teaser version of the first episode in late December prior to a start of broadcast in April of the following year.

I'll be happy with that general timeline. 

[azrael]

11 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

I'll be happy with that general timeline. 

Unfortunately, we don't have one.

Watch this space.

[Seto Kaiba]

21 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

I'll be happy with that general timeline. 

As both @azrael and I mentioned, we don't have any actual/official timing info.

What I described is the approximate timing they've used the last two times (Frontier and Delta)... but there's no guarantee that Big West will stick to the same schedule with Sunrise doing the animation production.  If they are, we're looking at another 2-3 months before we get any real information about the series in terms of when and where it's set.

[SebastianP]

On 8/26/2023 at 9:47 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Nothing has been published on that front yet.

If we assume that Macross production at Sunrise will follow a similar timeline to what's been done at Satelight, they'll announce the new show's title in September, do a first promo event around the end of October, and run out the teaser version of the first episode in late December prior to a start of broadcast in April of the following year.

You're missing something critical here.

On 8/26/2023 at 10:05 PM, Raikkonen said:

I'll be happy with that general timeline. 

I don't expect the show air until 2025, with a teaser in December next year, for one important reason; We haven't heard a thing about auditions, yet.

Frontier wasn't announced at all - we first heard about it when someone described auditions going on at Victor Entertainment for a "new big-budget anime" and someone said the pamphlets given to the hopefuls mentioned Macross. That was in February 2007. In April, auditions had concluded and Megumi Nakajima was presented as the winner at the 25th anniversary concert. There was the Deculture Edition episode 1 in December, and then the show aired properly starting in April 2008.

Delta was given an "A new Macross TV show is in development" announcement in March 2014, and then we next heard about it in October 2014 when they announced that auditions would begin in December that year. Auditions ran until April 2015, and then there was silence until October, when Kawamori revealed more info; and then we got the first episode preview in December 2015, followed by the show proper in April 2016. 

We are at "A new Macross TV show is in development", and I haven't heard anything about auditions, which means we're at least one year out from today. More likely, we'll get an audition announcement somewhere this fall, and they'll be done by April next year, with the show airing in April 2025. 

(Unless I've been totally oblivious and there *has* been auditions that I missed hearing about. But IIRC all we know about Macross 40+ is that it's being animated by Sunrise.)

Edit: The original thread discussing the existence of auditions for a new Macross show back in 2007 is absolute megacringe. The things people apparently wanted from the new show... thank the Hoary Froating Head we didn't get any of that. 

Edited August 28, 2023 by SebastianP

[Graham]

Unless auditions have already been done in secrecy.

Or.......they are going to break tradition and not have idol singer or band this time. Doubtful I know as the music usually sells really well.

Or, they are going to bring back existing an singer, so no need an audition. 

[azrael]

1 hour ago, Graham said:

Unless auditions have already been done in secrecy.

Or.......they are going to break tradition and not have idol singer or band this time. Doubtful I know as the music usually sells really well.

Or, they are going to bring back existing an singer, so no need an audition. 

Or call in an established singer (likewise, no need to audition). ex. JUNNA, May'n, Yoshiki Fukuyama, Chie Kajiura