THE GREAT MACROSS REWATCH – Delta Mini-Theatre 5

DELTA MINI-THEATRE 5

ICONIC SCENE: Stylish!

RELEASE DATE: November 25, 2016

I think I like the shorts better when they actually present some background info, like about Walküre’s equipment, but here at least, the Draken III glasses are pretty fun, and I’m surprised no one has made them yet.

Other than that, the jokes are a little generic, involving Mirage feeling embarrassed for being out in a tank top and sweat pants, and about everyone’s horrible ideas for a new jellyfish dish at Rag-Nyan-Nyan. Still cute, though.

THE GREAT MACROSS REWATCH – Delta Mini-Theatre 4

DELTA MINI-THEATRE 4

ICONIC SCENE: Kaname’s embarrassing past…

RELEASE DATE: October 26, 2016

And this was really is just fluff, although we get a scene of what Kaname had to go through to (try to) become a star, we see the twins with apple hats, and Reina dresses up as a sausage to try to make Messer smile. And we DO see Messer smile… just not at Reina.

THE GREAT MACROSS REWATCH – Delta Mini-Theatre 3

DELTA MINI-THEATRE 3

ICONIC SCENE: Messer, expert pizza delivery man.

RELEASE DATE: September 27, 2016

So, two days after the show finished airing, the third DVD and blu-ray disc came out, featuring one short in which we discover that Xaos has branches in so many different businesses, from entertainment to military contracting to pizza delivery, that NO ONE really knows where it begins and ends. And the video tape sneaked out by the Jussila twins this time promises to have more info on the VF-31 Siegfried, but all we find out before Reina shuts it all down is that the Siegfried is adapted from the VF-31A Kairos, and that it has a fold adaptor which increases its power in connection with Walküre’s singing.

Again, hardly essential, but definitely fun.

THE GREAT MACROSS REWATCH 167 – Eternal WALKÜRE

MACROSS DELTA
MISSION 26: Eternal WALKÜRE

ICONIC SCENE: Gets ya right in the feels…

STORY DATE: 2067

BROADCAST DATE: September 25, 2016

1. Another episode (like Mission 1, or 13, or the last episode of Frontier) that has no OP sequence. I don’t care WHAT anime series you’re talking about, that always means “strap yourself in!” The lead-in to the title also mirrors the first episode in its choice of music and the way that the title appears.

And Heinz has already decided to start peace negotiations. Unfortunately, he’s decided to start them AFTER the Star Song is used… basically, after Windermere wins. That said, it does seem like feeling the deaths of everyone in the NUNS fleet has seriously rattled him.

And Roid connects himself to the mechanism that allows him to control Mikumo, and sure enough, it interfaces with his runes. Only a Windermerean could use it… which does lend credence to his idea that the Windermereans are the true heirs to the legacy of the Protoculture.

It also, um, makes him look a little silly…

2. Fittingly, Arad names this last offensive “Rangarök,” which of course is the armageddon from Norse mythology. But I wonder if I’m correct in seeing also “Ragna ROCK!!” in there, as well…

And Hayate’s got a new fighter, which looks almost exactly like his original fighter except that it has emblem of a knight’s helm on its back, which is clearly based on Messer’s Grim Reaper skull.

3. The first part of the fight happens in the asteroids surrounding Ragna, in what (again) seems like a deliberate parallel, this time of course to Episode 6.

And then Mikumo starts belting the Star Song (named some variation of “Arkan,” Sara’s song from Macross Zero), and not only does it make everything go all wobbly and creepy, but it ALSO has the song “Do You Remember Love” woven into it. Most of the song (like all of Mikumo’s singing work) is sung by JUNNA, but the “Do You Remember Love” section is sung by Mikumo’s voice actress, Ami Koshimizu.

4. And then we find out what Roid’s plan all along has been, and boy, is it disappointing. The Star Song can create a “Fold Bio-Neural Network,” which can join all consciousness in the galaxy together as a single being, bringing eternal peace and allowing the Windermereans (and everyone else) to slough off their bodies and live forever, rather than the short lifespan they currently have.

Now, if this sounds familiar, it may be because you’ve seen Macross Frontier, where Grace’s plan to connect everyone’s minds together in a galaxy-spanning fold network.

And if sounded familiar even THEN, you’ve probably seen Evangelion, which also had a similar idea.

So yeah… Seriously? No one could come up with anything even SLIGHTLY different? It’s a really sour note in what I think is an otherwise wonderful episode.

5. One GOOD part that comes out of it is glimpses into some of the characters’ memories. We see Keith being jealous at the birth of Heinz, Hayate with his father, and, most tantalizingly, Mirage as a child checking out a VF-9 Cutlass at a hangar with a sign proclaiming “JENIUS AIR.” Did the Macross Seven finally settle down on a planet and Max and Milia opened their own flying school? I’m sure we’ll never know, but honestly, I would absolutely watch a show about kid Mirage and her talking VF-9 traveling around the galaxy, solving mysteries and nabbing bad guys.

6. It seems like everyone still retains their consciousness in fold space, if not in the “outside world,” and Freyja keeps trying to sing to “wake” everyone up… and then Heinz joins her. So yeah, Heinz has FINALLY realized that what Roid is trying to achieve probably isn’t a GOOD thing for everyone. Although he STILL thinks that they’ll deal with the NUNS forces afterwards.

Naturally, this being Macross, it’s the power of love that breaks everyone out of their bondage, although I suspect that any forceful positive emotion would’ve done the trick. Hayate confesses his love for Freyja. Then Mirage confesses her love for Hayate, primarily to motivate Freyja to do the same… which she does. This scene, by the way, is accompanied with a great visual touch: Freyja is crying as she’s seeing memories of her with Hayate together, and her tears are falling and landing on some kind of invisible surface hovering over the memories. Again, even when the story’s inventiveness flags (as it definitely does here), the visual inventiveness doesn’t.

7. In a deliberate parallel to Mission 13 (of which there are several in this episode), Freyja starts singing “If I Love Only Once,” which finally manages to break through the psychic cobwebs. Everyone wakes up, except for the Windermerean pilots who AREN’T the Aerial Knights. The other pilots’ Drakens turn white to signify that they’re now protecting Roid, much as the Vajra under Macross Galaxy’s control changed color as well.

But still, even with her wound not fully healed, Makina manages to get suited up and out there singing with the rest of Walküre. She really is a tough, tough woman.

Although it almost doesn’t matter, since a couple of minutes later, she, Freyja, and Reina get blown out of their Elysion stage when one of Roid’s beams hits the ship.

Now, if the beams hitting the Elysion JUST as Walküre is singing “Bang! Bang! Bang!” seems a little too on the nose (and honestly, much of this sequence seems EXTREMELY on the nose), Kawamori is surely to blame. He personally did the storyboards for all the music/battle sequences in the show, and really seems intent on making the action match the song (just, I hasten to add, as it did in “Do You Remember Love” and “The Wings of Farewell,” to cite just two examples of many). Indeed, as Delta was airing, the staff credits would show up on the official Macross website a few days before each episode aired (usually… once, they didn’t appear until JUST before the episode in question was broadcast), and a number of my friends and I would scour them to see if his name was listed under the storyboards. If it wasn’t, we knew there wasn’t going to be any real mecha action in that week’s episode.

8. After having a couple of times in the series where we see Makina go all out to save Reina from falling to her death, it’s nice to see Reina reciprocate here. And it’s even NICER to see Bogue save both of them from certain obliteration (while blushing). He’s grown as a character… no longer a complete ass, now he’s just mostly an ass.

And yes, he kinda lunges forward when shouts Walküre. I count it.

9. The rest of the battle plays out predictably but stylishly. The Elysion goes in for the kill, Mikumo is rescued, and Keith supports Hayate and Mirage and kills Roid, sacrificing himself in the process.

10. The denouement comes quickly. Too quickly, apparently, for many viewers who found it inconclusive. To me, it seems clear that the war is over, since Roid’s last gambit failed. And yes, there’s no easy fix or lengthened lifespan for Freyja, who probably only has fifteen years of life left at the very most. But I think that’s the point: her life will be short, but as long as it’s filled with exuberance, it can’t be considered tragic or wasted. She’ll live it to the fullest, with no regrets. And Hayate will be there for her as long as he can.

FINAL. And, again, just like with every Macross TV series, this isn’t the end, since just last month, a Delta movie was announced. This shouldn’t have been a surprise, but apparently many viewers had talked themselves into believing that Delta was an abject failure, to be swept under the rug and forgotten as quickly as possible. For some reason, these fans didn’t seem to think that the Walküre albums hitting #1 on the charts, or the sold-out Yokohama Super Arena shows, or strong blu-ray sales, or continued enthusiasm on Twitter and NicoNico and Pixiv to be indicative of popularity, but I have no idea why not. Heck, if I didn’t know better, I’d say a lot of these viewers were doomsaying because they WANTED Delta to fail, and fail hard, which makes no sense, right…?

For a number of the more heavily-invested Robotech fans, it wasn’t just doomsaying but what I can only describe as an almost gleeful rage that after all these years of productivity and popularity, Macross had finally (FINALLY!!) crashed and burned and ABSOLUTELY NO ONE LIKED IT ANYMORE!! YAY!!

(Seriously, one Robotech.com moderator whose use of Twitter had been extremely infrequent was suddenly posting many times a week during Delta’s run, with increasing (and palpable) anxious desperation as he tried to convince others (and himself, I suspect) that no one liked it.)

Uh… nope. Sorry, guys. Guess you still have to grimace at Macross coming out with movies and series on a timely schedule while you wait endlessly for Shadow Rising or Academy or the live-action movie. (Or maybe not, since it’s now possible – unlikely, but possible – that Harmony Gold might lose their license to the shows that make up Robotech in 2021. We’ll see.)

But look… excessive negativity aside (and I do really enjoy Delta), I’m left somewhat unsatisfied. Part of it, of course, is the ending cribbing too much from Frontier, but also, many of the episodes in the second half don’t seem quite as dramatic as they should be. It’s still eminently watchable, with excellent designs and some really great animation. And if history has taught me anything, it’s that any hate against it will surely mellow over time, especially as more and more new fans get into it. And ultimately, that’s more important. To me, anyway.

OP: None.

ED: “Absolute Zero θ Novatic”

EYECATCH: The Macross Elysion

NEW SONGS IN THIS EPISODE: None.

NUMBER OF TIMES BOGUE HAS LUNGED FORWARD: 16

THE GREAT MACROSS REWATCH 166 – The Singer of the Stars

MACROSS DELTA
MISSION 25: The Singer of the Stars

ICONIC SCENE: Catching up with Hikaru, Misa, and Minmay…

STORY DATE: 2067

BROADCAST DATE: September 18, 2016

1. First thing we learn is that Makina’s condition is stable. Whew!

Then we get the voice recorder from the VF-22, where we learn that Hayate’s father disobeyed orders and tried to get to an unpopulated area with the Dimension Eater, but it was detonated by remote by the NUNS.

We also find out that Hayate’s dad was a secret agent. And that his last word was, of course, “Hayate.”

2. And good ol’ In-n-Out Berger shows up, with another tale to tell. And just like last time, it cuts between him telling his story and the Aerial Knights discussing exactly the same thing. In this instance, it’s Mikumo being the Singer of the Stars.

Last episode, Roid told Mikumo that something was stolen from Windermere seven years ago… here we learn that it was a DNA sample used to create Mikumo, and that it was stolen (you guessed it) by Hayate’s dad.

Some viewers seemed to think that this meant Mikumo is an actual Protoculture, but nothing the show itself says appears to support that. She IS basically human, just “enhanced” with ancient Windermerean DNA.

3. Also, the Singer of the Stars can affect people to put them easily under mind-control… and other things. And Roid notes that the thing that appeared atop Ragna’s Protoculture system is “The Temple of the Stars,” where her singing will be able to reach the entire galaxy. There’s also another reference to Macross Zero, when Roid says the Temple is on Ragna because to be activated, it needs “the wind and the sea,” which on the one hand refers to Windermere and Ragna, but also is the title of the first episode of Zero, as the two important elements to the people of Mayan Island.

4. Roid is being unusually candid with the Knights about his plans, and gets some resistance, until Heinz tells them to obey Roid. Heinz also lets them see how far the scaly aging stuff has invaded his body.

He also gets extremely manipulative with Keith, once again reminding him of the fun times they had together as children. And especially how he was better than Keith at flying.

5. And a NUNS fleet shows up, ready to blow the hell out of the entire Brísingr Cluster. It’s led by the same asshole who tried to blow up the Protoculture ruins on Ragna. Don’t worry, though. They won’t be a threat for long.

6. Next, Berger drops a MASSIVE metaphorical bombshell. Let’s face it, when you’re talking with Macross fans (especially Western Macross fans), what keeps coming up? Again and again and again? Generally the Megaroad-01, right? Any time a new series is announced, usually SOMEONE will say, “I hope it’s about the Megaroad-01!” And usually that person gets shot down by people like me, who say “Kawamori has said that he doesn’t want to revisit those characters.”

And it’s true… he’s said that he doesn’t do direct sequels, and he’s pretty much stuck to that (Macross Dynamite 7 being the only exception that I can think of off-hand, although I suppose you could make allowances for Aquarion EVOL). I’ve quoted before an Animag (or was it Animerica…?) interview I read many years ago, regarding the original series, where he said (quoting from memory), “We’ve done the TV series and the movie. If we used those characters a third time, you’d be bored of them, too.”

HOWEVER, instead of just saying, “The Megaroad-01 landed on a nice planet and everyone aboard lived happily ever after to the end of their days,” the official timeline (created by Kawamori and “Dr. Chiba.” The REAL one, not the Macross Seven character) says that Unified Forces lost contact with the ship in 2016. Further material (a game) says that they flew into a black hole, following a singing voice emanating from it. Even FURTHER material (Macross Chronicle magazine) says that they may have reached another galaxy. The Macross the First manga implies that they may have jumped through time somehow. (And, weirdly, the first Macross 7 album, “Music From Galaxy Network Chart,” says that after the Megaroad-01 disappeared, a song written by Minmay aboard the ship was found… HOW it was found, they don’t explain.)

So, instead of a nice happy ending, we have a MYSTERY. Now, this wasn’t really a problem at first. As far as most viewers were concerned, the last time we saw Hikaru, Misa, and Minmay was in Flashback 2012, as they fly off to their destiny. The stuff about losing communications and black holes and shit was relegated to written material, which only a minority of fans ever seek out. But then we got the bit at the end of the Frontier TV series, where it turned out that Richard Birla was hoping to be connected with every mind in the galaxy because he wanted to find Minmay (who, ironically, might have actually been in a DIFFERENT galaxy at that point). Suddenly, the idea of the Megaroad-01 being lost entered the anime as well as the “expanded universe” of books and comics and games and such. And again, it’s a mystery. An unresolved mystery.

So the clamoring got louder. What happened to the Megaroad-01? WE WANT TO KNOW!! (And we want to see a series with the VF-4 as the main Valkyrie.) How could Kawamori solve the riddle without bringing back the old characters he was bored of (and was afraid we would become bored of, too)?

(His concern, by the way, is not unwarranted. I know plenty of people who like the IDEA of “Robotech II: The Sentinels,” the series that was supposed to be about the further adventures of “Rick,” “Lisa,” and “Minmei,” but more people like the idea than like the actual novels and comics that covered that story. Indeed, in my experience, many people who say they want an animated version want one BECAUSE they don’t like how the story was handled in the novels and comics and script outlines, and want a “better” version to be “official.” And one of the biggest problem with the Sentinels, in my opinion, is that the most compelling parts of the three main characters’ growth had already been covered. In the Sentinels, they are definitely boring leads.)

So… a solution. And a rather elegant one. Berger says that soon after Frontier, a signal was found, belonging to the Megaroad-01, and contact was reestablished. No mention of the whos, whats, wheres, or whys, just that it happened. The Megaroad-01 has been found. And apparently, through “Lady M,” has been calling the shots for Xaos. Now, we don’t know WHO Lady M is, although we’ve got plenty of fan theories (and let’s not even get into GG fansubs’s stupid “TL Note,” okay?), but we now know that the Megaroad-01 has been discovered, probably safe and sound. And if anyone asks for a series about it, the staff can answer, “Why bother? We know the ending. It makes contact with Ragna, and everything’s fine.” Kinda takes the suspense out of the narrative, doesn’t it?

This has its own irony, though… most of the people who say (in online forums, or Facebook groups, or whatever) that they want a series about the Megaroad-01 tend to be old-school fans who are often so turned off by Delta that they never finish the series. So, as far as they know, the issue has STILL never been addressed, and when (for example) the new series for 2018 was announced last January, I saw a number of people say, because they simply don’t KNOW, “What about the Megaroad?” To which it’s easy to respond, “Oh, that’s been covered. The Megaroad has been found, and it’s fine.”

So, to boil down the essence of what I’m saying here, if you in your travels see anyone lamenting about the unanswered questions about the disappearance of the Megaroad-01, just suggest that that person should watch Delta. They might not thank you, but you’ll have done them a service, and that is its own reward. Especially if you don’t do that kind of service very often.

7. Now, again (and this is a point that many viewers seem to miss), Delta is the series where singing DOESN’T affect the enemy. So… we KNOW that the final battle also has to be a musical extravaganza, as (nearly) all Macross final battles are. So to ensure that happening, we hear Kaname’s dream of singing on a truly galactic stage, regardless of the war. So no, it won’t help defeat the Windermereans, but it will still happen anyway.

Also, there’s what I think is a deliberate parallel to the battle in Mission 13. There, Delta Flight was impaired, having recently lost Messer. Here, Walküre is impaired, having lost both Mikumo (and Makina). They’re heading into battle with their Most Valued Player gone. Here, it’s a little bit worse, since not only is Mikumo not singing with Walküre, she’s singing with the Windermereans. It’s like if Messer had switched sides rather than died.

Also, there’s still Freyja’s health to consider… she’s using so much of her power that she’s beginning to age prematurely…

8. As usual in “before the battle” episodes, there are brief scenes showing what all the characters are hoping to gain. This is basically like the “preparing for the big fight” that every single action movie ever made has (and it goes back WAY further than that… even the Iliad has a section where Achilleus dons his armor, and it’s exactly like Schwarzenegger checking his ammo and priming his guns).

Part of this is Chuck vowing to find his sister, Kaname holding Messer’s bracelet, and most of all, Hayate and Freyja going through his father’s old letters and gifts to him, sent to Hayate by his mother.

This last part is made all the more resonant by having a lovely instrumental version of “Do You Remember Love” played over it.

Oh, and yes, Hayate’s dad is, as was long suspected, the guy who gave Freyja her MP3 player, which ties him to Freyja as well as Hayate, Mikumo, and Arad.

9. Post-credits, Heinz commands Mikumo to make the NUNS crews all Vár out, and detonate the Dimension Eaters, annihilating the entire fleet. Heinz seems horrified by what he’s done, which will set up his conversion next episode.

10. Finally, the mystery of Hayate’s father’s role in the Dimension Eater attack on Windermere is resolved, and the Lady M mystery is resolved as much as it will be in the series (revealing who she is was apparently NEVER part of the planning for the show). As always before a huge battle, it’s a slow episode, but it sets the final conflict up nicely.

OP: “Absolute Zero θ Novatic”

ED: “Do You Remember Love ~ORCH2067~”

EYECATCH: Don and Q-Lulu.

NEW SONGS IN THIS EPISODE: None.

NUMBER OF TIMES BOGUE HAS LUNGED FORWARD: 15

THE GREAT MACROSS REWATCH 165 – Fatal JUDGMENT

MACROSS DELTA
MISSION 24: Fatal JUDGMENT

ICONIC SCENE: NOOOOOOO!!

STORY DATE: 2067

BROADCAST DATE: September 11, 2016

1. The first thing you may notice is that Berger, when he shows up, sounds different. In August of 2016, voice actor Keiji Fujiwara took a break for medical treatment (he started working again a couple of months ago) and was replaced by Mitsuru Ogata. Ogata’s doesn’t drip with the fake solicitousness that Fujiwara’s does, but he does a good job in the two episodes he’s in.

2. The trial of Hayate, Mirage, and Freyja is a joke, of course, but Heinz seems genuinely interested in why Freyja sings. When she describes the happiness she gets from singing, he says he’s never experienced anything like that. And thus does Heinz’s mind begin to change. This is one of the few Macross series where singing DOESN’T win the war… but a DISCUSSION about singing starts to turn the tide.

3. In a tantalizingly mysterious bit, the judges tell Bogue that “it is forbidden to stain this place with the Kadun of blood,” which was the word that Sara Nome (and a couple of others) used in the sense of a curse or some type. So yes, there appears to be some direct connection between the Windermereans and the people of Mayan Island from Macross Zero.

4. Berger does Xaos a solid by tuning up Hayate’s dad’s old VF-22 so they can use that to escape. No real clue why he does this, although he says that he’ll expect a favor from them sometime in the future. Next episode, he’ll explain that the Epsilon Foundation is pulling of out the conflict, since it no longer seems likely that they’ll make any money off of Windermere.

5. The execution itself is naturally done in such a way to allow our heroes to escape. It involves walking along a beam and then jumping off. Of course, Arad comes along in the VF-22, and Hayate and Mirage’s fighters show up (using the “slave mode” that was a thing in Frontier).

6. Before the “execution,” though, Keith and Hermann give Hayate and Mirage flying advice. Which they probably felt dumb about doing, once Hayate and Mirage escape.

7. The most shocking scene happens when Makina gets shot, and it’s shocking on at least two levels. First, it’s really the first time any of the members of Walküre get harmed (although I suppose you could count Mikumo in Episode 18). And second, weren’t the body suits they wear supposed to be bullet-proof?

Anyway, since Makina survives the episode, I think it’s pretty obvious that her wound is not going to turn out to be fatal, but it does take her off the battlefield just as we’re getting near the finale of the series.

You have to admire her resilience and dedication. Not only does she tell the other girls to stop worrying about her and keep singing, she also sings along herself (albeit quietly).

8. Roid manages to break through Mikumo’s programming to access the Singer of the Stars underneath it all. And her singing makes all sorts of weird stuff happen, from everyone briefly showing up in “Newtype space” to some new kind of structure appearing on top of the Protoculture system (on Ragna).

9. Also, Freyja gets the first scaly white stuff on the top of her hand. Singing with all her might is beginning to take its toll.

And so, without Mikumo and with Makina in critical condition, Delta Flight and Walküre escape. Things don’t look good.

10. This episode is not bad, but, thanks to the drawn-out trial scene, feels a little longer than it needs to be. Makina getting shot adds a lot of drama, even though (again) it’s pretty clear she’s going to pull through. The action scenes are good, whether it’s Valks flying, Destroid Monsters firing, or even Kaname taking out Windermerean soldiers with the Multi-Drones. That said, there are a lot of still shots in the episode… I assume most of the effort at this point was going into the final episode.

OP: “Absolute Zero θ Novatic”

ED: “Destruction of Innocence”

EYECATCH: Hayate’s VF-31J.

NEW SONGS IN THIS EPISODE: None.

NUMBER OF TIMES BOGUE HAS LUNGED FORWARD: 14