CHOUJIKUU YOUSAI MACROSS

DESCRIPTION

CAST

OVA ActionMacross Zero
OVA ActionMacross Plus
OVA DramaChoujikuu Yousai Macross FLASH BACK 2012
MOVIE ActionChoujikuu Yousai Macross: Ai Oboete Imasu ka
MANGA RomanceChoujikuu Yousai Macross THE FIRST
NOVEL AdventureChoujikuu Yousai Macross: MY FAIR MINMAY - Yumemiru Prelude
Not Available ActionMacross (Shinsaku Animation)
OVA ActionMacross XX

REVIEWS

• 

  JellySnake

  70/100
  The beautiful mess that is Macross

  As a franchise, Macross is this sort of amazing unique thing that continues to surprise me just in the fact that it even still exists after some 30 years. As a series, it's an often ugly tonal mess of a show with great highs and shockingly low lows. That said, even acknowledging the turbulent production and range of quality that SDF Macross spans, it's easy to see why it’s still regarded as a classic even now.

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  Super Dimension Fortress Macross was originally conceived in 1980 as a sort of Gundam-style space opera by a group a Gundam nerds, including creator and mechanical designer Shoji Kawamori (Escaflowne, AKB0048) and character designer Haruhiko Mikimoto (Gundam 0080, That 2016 Zombies on a Train Show I Forget the Name of), who previously worked together on a Gundam fan magazine in university. After a slew of production setbacks and alterations, Macross released in 1982 kind of not resembling Gundam all that much, which was probably for the best.

  In an alternate-reality 2009, the United Nations attempt to repair a crashed alien dreadnought. During reactivation, the ship, the city it houses, all of its inhabitants and a good chunk of the surrounding land are suddenly warped to the far side of Pluto. Macross covers their long journey back to Earth. Of course, not all is hunky-dory on their way back, as they suffer various setbacks such as not knowing how to navigate an alien ship and a war with a race of space-faring, war-mongering, cultureless giants, just to name a couple. Macross is, after all, a space opera at its core. Hanging off of that core, however, are a couple of bells and whistles that have come to set it apart from pretty much anything else.

  _Itano Circus good_

  Bell Number One is its focal parity between the primary war story thread and the romantic ‘sub’-plot. Whilst fighting in the war, main character rookie fighter-pilot Hikaru Ichijou is unwittingly embroiled in a love triangle with commanding officer Misa Hayase and local idol Lynn Minmay. The show manages to tell these two seperate stories in such a way that they play off each other quite frequently while still having a pretty equal balance in screentime. Obviously, any romance’s development will be informed by events outside of the romance itself, but even then it’s rare for both sides to be equally interesting and immersive. The war story, while considerably wackier than most, is well done and treads an interesting arc that ranges from all-out war to subterfuge to heel turns and unlikely alliances. The love story, on the other hand, had me invested pretty deeply to the point I was yelling at my boy Hikaru to stop being such an idiot and see that [REDACTED] is 100% not worth the heart ache. She’s a realistically complex and well-written character, but you seriously don’t want to go there, my dude.

  As mentioned previously, one point of the triangle is a local idol named Lynn Minmay, also known as Whistle Number Two. In addition to being a sci-fi war anime and a romance anime, Macross somehow also finds the time to be an idol anime. Not just any idol anime either, a pioneer of idol anime, launching Minmay and her VA, Mari Ijima, into national fame all the way back in 1982. While not boasting quite as large a collection as more recent entries, every single one of Minmay’s songs is great, with Silver Moon, Red Moon being one of my personal favourites of the franchise. Mari Ijima’s soft voice lends itself perfectly to the light melodies of early 80s J-Pop, but also has the range to carry the heavier ballads. This aspect of the show chronicles Minmay’s rise to stardom as the voice and face of Macross City, becoming integral to the other concurrent stories as it goes. Morale of troops and citizens during wartime is such an uncommon topic in anime and the way that SDF Macross leans so heavily into it was a huge surprise to me and what I thought was one of the best elements of the whole show.

  It all eventually culminates into an overarching theme of ‘make love (or music), not war’ and the fairly wide-reaching umbrella term of ‘culture’ they use I think is a notable high point for the franchise. While later series tend to bank on the music aspect, likely because that’s Macross’ cash cow, SDF has a broader scope on what it deems more powerful than war, making it feel that much more like a genuine message and less like a marketing strategy. At the end of the day, it’s an interesting story about the biggest culture clash in history and the importance of art and entertainment to human civilization. It tends to be fairly exaggerated and somewhat cartoonish at times, but it’s anime and it knows it. At one point, the giants capture a group of humans and force them to demonstrate how humans procreate which leads to some funny hijinks. At another, a pilot of one of the Variable Fighters (Oh, Macross is also a mecha anime) dresses up their robot in a giant’s uniform and manages to slip past defenses despite being a fucking robot. It’s some pretty fun dumb stuff, which actually is a pretty decent segue into the next thing: the tonal shifts.

  _Left: How she should look Right: How she usually looks_

  For a sci-fi-war-romance-idol anime, SDF gets pretty damn dark at times. Accidental operation of an energy shield incinerating an entire town here, hull breaches sucking innocents into the cold depths of space there. Early on, a couple of the main characters get trapped in an unknown sector of the ship and one suggests a double suicide (which immediately sent up a million red flags regarding that character in my mind). Almost directly preceding that is a scene where Hikaru ties himself to the ship, holds his breath and then dives off it to catch a giant tuna that happened to be floating through space. That scene by itself is fucking nonsense, but when contrasted with the other it’s just surreal. This weird juggling of the tone continues throughout the whole show and while I actually found a lot of the dumb weird shit to be legitimately funny, it can be pretty jarring at times bouncing back and forth. It definitely doesn’t help when the animation quality tanks and makes what are supposed to be serious scenes just come off as goofy and ridiculous.

  Which brings me to my next point: Unfortunately, SDF Macross never quite manages to escape its troubled production. Animation quality dipping is frequent. Frequent and severe. Haruhiko Mikimoto’s designs and overall style are among my favourites and to see them not given justice is a crying shame. This show is also the birthplace of the amazing Itano Circus and there are a lot of scenes that do actually look really good. Despite that, most are average at best and some are downright awful. On top of off-model faces, cels not being aligned correctly to backgrounds and other such problems, there’s one scene in particular that lacks any in-between frames at all and as such plays like a slideshow. It can get pretty egregious at times, but thankfully I think the rest of the show carries enough weight to support this weak link.

  _Knife Fight bad_

  Another production quirk is the addition of 9 episodes on the end of the series. Originally planned for 27 episodes, the positive response to Macross’ airing resulted in the show’s sponsor stretching runtime to 36 in the middle of production. The show has a very clear ending point with a strong climax and definitive romantic conclusion so in order to make up those last 9 episodes they present a sort of epilogue that focuses on post-war rebuilding efforts. That in itself I thought was actually pretty neat, as the aftermath isn’t often seen in this sort of show, but to extend the love triangle some characters have to go through some developmental regressions and it completely undercuts the impact of episode 27’s resolution. I will say, though, that one character in particular gets a nice bit of development at the very end that helped redeem them in my eyes.

  

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  Macross is weird. For every tragic loss there’s a space tuna. For every minute Hikaru spends shooting down mooks he spends another angsting over his teenage love. I didn’t even mention that the damn ship transforms into a giant robot. Or the Daedalus Attack. Man, Macross is dumb as hell. It’s great.
  
  P.S Maybe to make up for the series’ shortcomings, a movie adaptation called Do You Remember Love? was made from the ground up and released in 1984. To this day, it’s one of the prettiest anime movies I’ve ever seen. Some designs and aspects of the story were altered, so it’s not quite the same experience, but regardless I cannot recommend it enough to anyone that likes anime.

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• 

  Pockeyramune919

  79/100
  This classic and interesting take on mecha flies high for most of its run before suffering from a bumpy landing.

  [ ](https://anilist.co/review/7384) Super Dimensional Fortress Macross was a doozy. I know that doesn't instill much confidence in its quality, but I can assure you that the show never dipped into absolutely awful territory. There were times when I was amazed at the show and there were moments where I couldn't help but wonder what were the writers thinking. As a bit of a forewarning: it's difficult to go into a show (or any type of media, really) without it being colored in any way by one's previous experiences and notions. Prior to watching Macross, I had already immersed myself in the other premier mecha anime series: Mobile Suit Gundam. In fact, I spent a lot of time comparing Macross to its contemporaries - the original Mobile Suit Gundam as well as Zeta Gundam. Parts of this review will detail how I believe the show stacks up to the aforementioned shows while it will mostly focus on the merits and shortcomings of the show in and of itself. Macross is the story of the aforementioned battleship - the SDF-1 Macross, a mysterious, extra-terrestrial battleship discovered and refurbished by the military. On the day of its reveal, the ship is attacked by robotic battlepods. Caught in the midst of the conflict is the pilot Hikaru Ichijo. It's a bit hard to give the premise without revealing too much, part of this being that Macross does a great job of hooking viewers in during its early episodes with a series of revelations that will keep them on their toes. Fortunately, Macross doesn't run out of steam as it goes on, maintaining a good pace and interesting plot...for most of its run, at least. Despite the sci-fi setting, Macross does a good job in keeping its exposition light and interesting. With the Gundam series in mind, the presence of extra-terrestrial beings and faster-than-light travel intrigued me and immediately helped make Macross distinct in my mind. It opened the possibility for a conflict greater than the scope of mankind and the show delivered in flying colors. While it's not a perfect show, Macross is great in that it doesn't offer a boring episode (for the most part, we'll get to that later). I never had to force myself to continue nor did finishing an episode ever feel like pulling teeth. Boring is not a word I'd use to describe Macross. The music of Macross is wonderful and tracks fit scenes very well. And that's just the OST, Mari Iijima as the pop star Lynn Minmay has a beautiful voice and I love her songs, even if "My Boyfriend is a Pilot" is a bit overplayed (I guess it's Minmay's Wonderwall). As far as voices go, I listened to the English dub. The voice actors played their parts well and I definitely recommend it. The character designs are simple, yet unique and pleasing to the eye. As far as animation goes, you'll be able to tell quite easily that is an 80s TV anime, arguably from a still. This isn't a detraction, however. In fact, I believe it gives the show a bit of charm. There are quite a few animation errors, making a few scenes look quite wonky. The battles look great and they're exciting. The protagonists' planes, of the VF-1 Valkyrie line, can transform into walking mechs (similar to how the Zeta Gundam, a mech, can transform into a plane), an ability that makes fights more dynamic. Plane-on-plane dogfights are a bit more prevalent than mech action, but this doesn't make the battles any less exciting. In fact, it could serve as a breath of fresh air and can give mecha fans something new to watch. In comparison to its Gundam contemporaries, I'd say the action is superior to 1979's Gundam and generally a bit inferior to 1985's Zeta Gundam. The characters are also enjoyable and feel like actual people. I was very invested in their struggles, their goals, and their journeys to achieve them. Even characters that seem like they'll be simply side characters show a surprising amount of charm and depth. I enjoyed Macross' story and its theme. Macross leans in the archetypical "war is hell" category, but not nearly as much as a typical Gundam show. In fact, while tragedies do occur, I felt Macross overall maintained a generally optimistic tone, which, coming from Gundam, is quite refreshing. Instead of detailing why humans are destined to murder one another until the end of time, Macross explores the relationship war has in being an agent of culture as well as the effects of culture shock. This combined with Macross' focus on music and idols made for an intriguing, unique take on mecha and war stories. Despite the faults that I detail, Macross' unique concept and its aptitude in handling this aspect of the story makes this an anime worth checking out. Unfortunately, things begin to fall apart here. Besides being a war story, Macross is a love story complete with a love triangle. This love triangle both makes and breaks the anime. The focus on romance is another aspect of the show that makes it both unique and interesting. While many mecha shows have romance subplots, few have it as a central focus - Macross and DARLING in the FRANXX are the only ones that jump out at me. From the love triangle to depictions of other romances, your enjoyment of Macross hinges on how well you believe the show pulls it off. During the first twenty-seven episodes, the love triangle realistically progresses and the characters act in a way that makes sense. All members of the triangle are fleshed out and no character is explicitly made to be demonized. I say this because I refuse to acknowledge Lynn Kaifun as an actual character. In recent memory, no character has made me so vitriolic, so irately angry as Lynn Kaifun, a...__thing__ thrown in the story with no other purpose than to add drama. Fine, love triangles do this all time, I'm used to it. But Lynn Kaifun is so annoying, so smug that by the time the final episodes rolled around I wanted nothing more than to destroy my computer screen in the manic hopes that he'd feel it. I wish I was exaggerating, but he's just that insufferable. A big part of this is that he's a devout pacifist in a show about a war in which the military is an absolute necessity so more often than not, he's whining. When he's not whining, he's a control freak. When he's not whining or a control freak, he's a smug idiot. When he's not whining, a control freak, or a smug idiot, the one-dimensional Kaifun doesn't exist. Things seem to wrap up on episode twenty-seven. Both the war and love triangle are seemingly resolved. If anything, there's probably one more episode. Maybe an OVA epilogue or something. There are _nine_ more episodes. This is the low-point of the show in my opinion. Macross, which I previously stated was exciting and interesting, now becomes a slog. It's still not awful, but at the same time, the difference is like night and day. The love triangle effectively resets and Hikaru acts like a moron in order for the love triangle to stay alive. I cannot tell you how many times the other member of the triangle would see the two others at the wrong moment and as a result, would run away crying. The triangle just refused to die and it baffled me. Everything was wrapped up so nicely in twenty-seven. Even the conflict in relation to the war palls in comparison. Maybe that was the point, but it fails to be entertaining, which really is unfortunate because the show was so good before the final nine episodes. Episode thirty-six paradoxically feels both too much and not enough is happening. The final battle has the OP theme, which, while epic, I can't help feel isn't earned. It's a bit of a bummer that I finished the review on such a sour note. I did actually enjoy SDF Macross and it has a unique spin on the mecha genre. Unfortunately, the final nine episodes really do bog down the show in a way that it doesn't deserve. I recommend SDF Macross, though acknowledge that it hits quite the snag at the end. 7.9/10

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• 

  SpiritChaser

  100/100
  An incredibly told romance that's painful and tough to watch play out. Protoculture reactions are comedy gold.

  There will be spoilers.

  In my experience, Macross pulled me into, as a witness to, a love triangle so painful and hard to watch that by the end I couldn't even decide. Even more bittersweet, is that it was a decision that ultimately came down to being more out of circumstance than personal choice. If you watch the film, "Do You Remember Love?" which I watched first, It makes the love triangle even more complicated because of the differences between that and the film's approach. The movie pushes in favor of Minmay and makes the effort to make Misa look very unlikeable in how hot headed she is and with rushed emotional development. One the other hand, the series pushes far more for Misa's very pleasant growth and emotional development with Hikaru for a long while, while making Minmay look unpleasant instead. The series however, takes full focus on the love triangle at the end, and makes Minmay so much more likeable and caring that it made me choose her one more time during the finale. As much as I love Misa's character, I was won over by Minmay's sincerity and her chase of Hikaru after she ran away from her idol career to go see him. Still, and to make matters worse, Misa began feeling depressed at that point and wanted to quit the military altogether, and to go away somewhere alone far away. It would be too painful for her to have to work with Hikaru and to see him every day.

  As the drama continues, the staff's writing flips it one last time at the very end, and makes it concrete, plain and simple, that it was impossible to choose Minmay, and Misa becomes the one for Hikaru. This crushed me. My emotions were successfully played and toyed with during this rollercoaster of a romance. At the end, with all things considered, Misa was the better choice more out of circumstance, not from personal choice. As much as Minmay and Hikaru loved each other, they came from two completely different worlds. Hikaru is a soldier, and was not fully willing to give that up for Minmay. Minmay is an idol singer, that though being overworked, can't really give that up in hopes that it will get better, and can't deal with Hikaru always putting his life on the front lines when he goes off to war.

  You could say all three were at fault to a certain degree. Hikaru would not tell Minmay his feelings, and was too oblivious to Misa obviously haven fallen in love with him. After the epic ending to episode 27, I don't understand how they were both that dense and clueless that nothing happened between them during the time skip. Once Minmay finally learned about how Hikaru felt, she came to share the same feelings for him. For 2 years her Idol career would slowly drain her away, while having to also deal with a cousin so blind that he only saw her as a cash cow and nothing else. Though she would return Hikaru's feelings, she was unable to deal Hikaru's career choice. It's a problem all too real for many of us when careers get in the way and make relationships feel impossible.

  At least the film made Hikaru more decisive and assertive. In the series, he's confused and unsure of what to do nearly the entire time. He's chosen Minmay, but he'll run back to Misa. He'll choose Misa, but can't get over Minmay and go see her again. He'll even shamelessly use Minmay's scarf that she gifted him to try and wrap himself and Misa up in while he's back on a Misa binge, just to get caught when Misa notices the "Hikaru loves Minmay" writing on it that he wasn't aware about. He can be rude, doesn't express himself very well, and is what I would call a confused liar and deceiver. That's because down at the bottom of Hikaru's heart, he is a good man, and I don't mean to attack him so harshly.

  The series develops an army of very likeable characters, all whom I enjoyed. Major Focker is the bold and confident ladies man who looks out after Hikaru like a brother. He is the life of the party with a powerfully amusing laugh. Claudia is his partner who would become Misa's emotional support in the love triangle. The women staff of the Macross are all loveable and likeable staff members. Captain Global is a sincere and honest captain who truly seeks the best for all 56,000 people on board the Macross. He'll fight the politics of the government on earth to see to it that the best interests of his staff and people are met.

  The music is iconic. The opening eventually grew on me, while the themes in the anime are all memorable. The trumpet song when the Zentradi attack sort of grates my ears though. Minmay's songs are all amazing, though it was a bit annoying how she would perform "My Boyfriend is a Pilot" way too much.

  The animation is a double edged sword. On one hand, I love the detailed animation, and much of it is more impressive than a lot of the trash that's out today. Despite the flaws, I prefer Macross's animation instead of the mostly horrifying CGI that exists now, 30 years later in technological advancements, as disappointing as that sounds. Due to tight schedules, that did result in some hilarious animation in Macross. Many times, Minmay and Misa looked like they were made out of clay. There's the infamous knife fight scene between Max and Milia where Milia's eyes get soo crooked it is horrifying. I remember an episode where they didn't have time to animate and it was a slide show battle that I couldn't help but laugh at.

  Speaking of laughing, I am confused as to why this series doesn't get labeled as a comedy, seeing as though it is one of the most hilarious and clever written series I have ever seen. Director Noboru Ishiguro, who would later go on to direct Legend of the Galactic Heroes, said in an interview that comedy is his specialty, and it really shows here. The idea of Protoculture, what it is, the Zentradi, what they are like, and their reactions to it are always comedy gold.

  The Zentradi, as well as the humans (or miclones as they say), both came from an ancient peoples from hundreds of thousands of years ago. The Zentradi are seen as aliens since the humans don't know much about them, and they were made strictly for battle. They lost their culture along the way, and after finding a way to reproduce on their own, they went to war against their own women. Their fights are such spectacles that the battle zone can be as big as a large planet. The leadership of the Zentradi are aware of a warning from long ago about the Protoculture and it's ability to pacify and make their forces useless. The hilarious part about this is what Protoculture is. It's intimate and every day things people do. But to the Zentradi, they have lost this culture to such an extent, and have fought against women for so long, that it shocks them to see something as simple as a man and a woman standing together.

  The reactions here are ridiculously funny. Seeing something as simple as a kiss, would make them scream and panic. One of them manages to get a small Minmay toy that can sing. When it starts singing and dancing, they think it's a weapon of psychological warfare because of how it makes them feel, drop their guns, and run away scared. The Humans would use this to their advantage against them in battle. But the most powerful Protoculture is Minmay's songs. It wins over the Zentradi fleet so much, that as the culture returns and awakens in some of them, they rebel and the Zentradi fleet goes into chaos over protecting some idol songs. There are three spies that the Zentradi send in, and it's always funny seeing them get caught up by Proculture over and over again, not knowing what they got themselves into.

  The Macross, as powerful as it is, nearly faced defeat many times. They often survive out of lucky coincidences, improvising with it's mysterious functions, and the use of Protoculture through Minmay's singing. Near the end, the Macross takes a savage beating after it survives the center of a giant explosion, and later on a direct energy blast to the chest, climaxing with a Zentradi ship ramming it and destroying one of its arms. Fortunately, the main crew of the Macross never get seriously harmed.

  The Zentradi are also so serious they do not know what being seen as a fool is. Exsedol, to let people know he was talking about Minmay, decides to sing and dance one of her songs like she does to explain to them who he's talking about. Everyone looked at him as if he lost his mind. Exsedol would also ask about why he feels funny after looking at a poster of a woman in a bikini, which he had never seen before, and also asks about what the lingerie store he saw later is. The soldier would feel to embarrassed to explain and Exsedol would hilarious say it's fine; that it must be a military secret.

  The humor outside Proculture is also well done. Sometimes it's odd like Hikaru and Minmay finding a giant Tuna in space and nearly dying trying to get it in for food.

  Though episode 27 felt like a finale, and initially was before the staff were told to make more episode due to the success of the series, I do appreciate the final arc of earth rebuilding itself during these new struggles. Most importantly, the further development and conclusion of the love triangle.

  After this, I wanted to watch more, but sadly, there is little known as to what happens after the series since all the other series take place in the future and don't really bring back the characters. To those curious, there is a 6 minute sequel out there if you look for it that does reveal some events after in a brief way. I finished the series yesterday, and it was one of those I had to wait a while before being able to talk about it as there is so much to think about after finishing it, it felt overwhelming. After the fact, it has now risen to one of my top 3 favorite anime of all time. What all three of them have is the ability to use it's story telling to express sincere and meaningful emotions in the viewers. It speaks to the viewers in personal way in this manner. It's something I have rarely found in anime.

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