Macross Frontier Episode 1 is out!

[chrono]

Nowadays? Any old cheap crap will float. Though generally quick & bright splash's of color and semi-cypritic jargon will make any anime 'popular'. The rest animation quality and coherent story lines are thrown away.

Older macross never moved away from it's successful theme because it was success! Sadly this time they dropped the vital 1/3 of their formula for the sake of increasing more of the rest.

[SebastianP]

There's serious drama aplenty in Frontier - it's been brewing for a while, and it will start bubbling to the surface some time soon if I'm *any* judge of things. There's the entire moral issue of making genocidal war against the Vajra - on whose say-so, exactly? Remember that the people in charge are listening to *Grace* on the topic of whether the Vajra can be reasoned with, and she's the most villainous character in Macross history, as far as I can tell... When the main cast figures out exactly what her motives are, and what they've been doing while carrying her wishes (as delivered from the people whose ears she has), drama will most definitely ensue.

There's the Ranka/Sheryl issue - not just the love triangle. What happens when Ranka notices what's been happening to Sheryl, her idol, while she's been blinded by the spotlights? Regardless of them being rivals, Ranka really wants to be friends, and I think Sheryl wants that as well. Again, Grace is in the way of communication, though...

Macross Zero flopped from being too different in style, music and story-wise, from the others. Mecha nerds like me loved it for the awesomely done animation, but the music wasn't catchy and wasn't exactly the type to play on the hit lists, and the plot was maybe *too* dramatic, what with most of the main characters winding up dead or missing in what's more Tomino's style than Kawamori's...

SP

[chrono]

Don't mistake smoke & mirrors story telling for Space Opera drama unless you get both sides of the story, which you are not. Space Opera's are about the characters motivations & feelings as much as they are about the action, music, and storyline. Without an equal balance between all of them it's junk! IF you knew Grace's side of the story then she and her side of the story would flare to life making you feel for her. You absolutely cannot 'feel' for the 'bad guys' because they are flat & generic villians-of-the-week.

Ranka/Sheryl issue? What issue? Issues are for characters that are something more than flat lifeless stereo-type drawings. Throw out the smoke & mirrors BS and inject them into a Space Opera setting and they might work, because then they become a tightened up little personal drama. Right now they take up far, far too much story time for too little writing to be of value. Too little substance for too large a space to fill, and fill well.

One of my biggest gripes about M:F's copy/paste plot being "A subsection of humans rebel against the establishment." version 3 or 4. Gods come-on already!! You're exploring an entire GALAXY!! Stop rehashing! :<

I really am beginning to think that the cry of "DE-CULTURE!" was less about the Zen response and more about the shows creator sticking his tongue out at his audience....

[juanxer]

But that's nothing new under the sun: things are just as cliché as in every other animé production, the only Macross one with certain saving graces being the first one because of its effort at having a certain complexity and tightness in structure. Every other subsequent Macross' characters' personalities, even Macross Zero's, were a cookie cutter-fest. Only the OVAs had a somewhat tightened story just because of their few episodes' format.

That's why when you talk about a core Macross anything... Well, my guess is that you are refering to the original series only, because I fail to see its virtues reflected in any other subsequent Macross. Even Macross Plus, which seems to be the pinnacle of Macross OVA-making, had lots of problems to me.

(What befell the so glorified around Macross Zero, IMHO, was mostly its real abuse of cliched characters, plus its meh! "chariots of the gods" Protoculture artifact mistery and the usual WTF pseudomystic ending. Its main fault: the characters were ultimately unengaging, one-notes, no matter the backstories)

Mind you, I agree completely with you in that this Macross has a brittle skeleton of a story under tons of fat, this whole Vajra and Macross:Galaxy conspiration looking sillier and sillier as episodes go by. Yes, I am getting satisfied with very little of value, but the thing is, I've gotten to like the main characters, so I am hooked (even if megacliché, Alto and Sheryl have a certain vivaciousness I didn't expect to see, so...). I simply disconnect the higher functions of my brain, and let the primitive one, the 4chan one take over

[Killjoy01]

Honestly I've seen up to episode 18 and so far I'm not impressed. The graphics are awesome and the animation is great but it's like anything else lots of flash apretty lights with no substance or a reheated TV dinner from the other night. After years of developing the Macross storylines you'd think they could finally leave the whole singing for salvation thing alone.

Ok in Macross (Robotech) it worked and it was awesome but Robotech also had an awesome story to go with it and made use of all it's dynamics making it a great space opera, the whole politics between Earth and the RDF not allowing them to land and using SDF-1 as bait for the Zentradi I mean it was pure and simplistic but also involved and intruiging sure it was geared for children but there were alot of heavily adult influenced motives and ideals laced through out.

Macross frontier, is just a huge glorified rehash of everything the the original embodied with a few sparkly bits thrown in to make it seem like not so much of a direct copy. The Alto Sheryl Ranka thing is just Rick Lisa and Minmei IMHO and you can honestly keep it, actually its kind of disturbing what with Ranka's obviously pre-teen body structure although I thinks she's supposed to be the same age as Alto I think.

I mean it's just smacks of that strange Japanese fascination with ambiguously drawn male female characters that could pass for either or and the disturbing allure of the pre-teen form. That make the Klan and Michael thing even worse IMO. It's like God leave it alone already and lets have some true adult relationships here or at least some true high school relationships that won't get people locked up for years and failing that leave it out altogether and focus on the story at hand.

Yeas what great opera is complete without a love story in the middle but damn at least give the viewers some credit for having a brain. Chrono is right about the villains, until you know their story you don't give a damn about them other than being the bad guy. So right now Grace is just an evil bitch and that's where we are and until we know what this whole Triumvirate personality is that she has going on in subspace and all it's meanings she's just what she looks like a horrible conniving manipulative person.

Right now the story is at a stall for me and I'm hoping it will pick up the pace into something less recognizable as a born again Robotech and really develop into something great but I can't see it happening really. They tend to take the template of a story and beat it to death and it's sad because in something with this much ground to explore in a Galaxy wide story you can surely come up with something better than the Songstress saving the day genetically modified or otherwise.

That's why I enjoyed the robotech Sagas so much more even though Harmony Gold mashed Genesis Climber Mospeada and Southern Cross together with Macross to form Robotech you only had Minmei saving the day with song in the Macross saga and the rest of the story was about the fight for Earth without that plot device. I understand Ultimately somewhere in all the Macross incarnations the Music is going to be a factor but Dammit people let's not let it be an overriding determination of simple creativity.

Meh my 2 cents.

[juanxer]

I guess the success of Macross 7 has defined the safe way to produce a successful regular series format, and they wanted no risks with the Anniversary thing.

Are the current Gundam ones so infantile, too?

(I read the whole Robotech novels collection: it was quite good a space-opera, really, managing an adult tone and Dune-level ambitiousness)

[chrono]

I'll agree with that juanxer. It's a 'safe' anime. But it's so safe it's basically driven off some of it's audience except for the apologists and hardcore fanboi's who will like anything with Macross in front of it.

Are the current Gundam ones so infantile, too?

Not much of a reach since it's basically Japan's national anime against war. The current Gundam is a weird mix between regular Gundam, Code Geass, and terrorism.

"Hey lets kill people to force technological change and to force humanity to the stars! Hey we're morally right because it's for the good of humanities immediate future, so we're not evil or villains of any type. "

[chrono]

Coming to a computer near you!

P I N E A P P L E
S A L A D!

[Berkut]

Originally Posted by chrono

Coming to a computer near you!

P I N E A P P L E
S A L A D!

lol, what?

[chrono]

The new episode of M:F has shown. And the saying is an in-joke from SDF: Macross.