A No-Depth Look at Macross – Do You Remember Love?

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Thus begins my journey to decultard-ism. Watching Macross Frontier piqued my interest so much that I bombarded my mecha-head friends for their copies of the other Macross series (if they had any). Of course, they would. Well, I finally got my hands on Macross Zero, Macross Do You Remember Love, Macross Plus…, and a couple of things I don’t remember anymore. I hope my other friend would be able to supply me with Macross 7 soon enough. Yes, my obsessive personality is driving me to watch every single one of them.

I want to watch all of it. Chronologically if possible. But I wasn’t in the mood to watch marathon Macros Zero so I just started with Macross DYRL first – the movie was only two hours long anyway. And if most of them were made in different generations, I would be able to watch them all without having any problems with chronologically.

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My Crap Summary:

Lyn Minmay is the biggest popstar in the Macross colony. So big that she has her own doll…

Sticks: Good for poking foreign dollies.

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…that fanboys like Valkyrie pilots like Hikaru Ichiju would ask for her autograph when they got trapped in an engine block when Macross was attacked by Zentraedis.

Fanboy Instincts: Trapped inside an engine block and the first thing you do is ask for your idol’s autograph.

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Being there with no one else for except each other, they fell in love. It was all over the news when they were found kissing each other in zero gravity.

Impeccable Timing: Making out in zero gravity only to be found by the rest of the world.

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After that, they met each other in secret and took a joyride on the rings of Saturn where they were found by her commanding officer Hayase and her manager.

Valkyries: Good for joyriding.

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All four of them were captured by the Zentraedi (along with Roy Focker) and placed in a jar where they had to explain their way of life t the Zentraedi.

Microns in a Jar: I want one too!

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Anyway, they were separated (Mnmay & her manager and Hikaru Hayase & Focker) and the three managed to escape in their ships and Roy Focker died so Hikaru and Hayase can get away. ~Why do they always kill the awesome characters??? ;A;

My Favorite Macross Guys: Always getting killed off, damn it!

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Hayase and Hikaru got trapped in a fold where they ended up a completely destroyed Earth. After a month of being with no else but each other, they end up falling in love. Oh, they found an ancient city of the Protoculture civilization.

Plan: Let’s start populating Earth by having a dinner date.

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Macross came back to Earth to answer their distress call and everything pretty much cam eback to normal, Then the  Meltradis attacked them but they were saved by the Zentraedis who used the ancient soundbyte of Protoculture as hummed by Minmay to drive the women away.

Valkyrie Pilot Curse: Why you should never talk about chicks in battle.

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The humans and the Zentraedis made peace and used Protoculture’s advanced genetic knowledge to manipulate the Zentraedis to micronize them.

Micronized Zentraedis: I marvel at the progress they made in 2059 in genetics but can’t understand how their street sweeping machine remain the same.

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After an awkward reunion, Minmay passed by Hikaru’s place to tell him that she was still in love with him and Hayase managed to decipher the lyrics of the Proculture melody and passed by his place.

Door Locks: Invented to avoid awkward situations like this.

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Hikaru tries to assure Hayase that it was all a misunderstanding and that the one that he was in love with her and their tearful reconciliation was interrupted by the Meltrandi defolding to attack Earth to get the Proculture back.

Let’s save humanity… after breakfast.

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Because of the disappearance of Minmay and the human’s inability to decode Protoculture, the Zentraedis didn’t care anymore and attacked.

Slap: A good way of knocking sense into dramatic chicks who doesn’t care if everyone dies.

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Hikaru found and knocked some sense into her when she refused to sing the song Hayase translated. She sang the song and encouraged peace between humans and the culture-loving Zentraedis against the factions that don’t desire culture.

Admirable: Still being able to perform despite stuff exploding around you.

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Yay! We win.

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Thought(less Babble)s:

Characters:

I really, really appreciate the fact that the characters are not pimply teenagers trying to save the world – that seems to be a trend nowadays.

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Hikaru struck me as kind of a wimp at the start – they were stuck inside the engine room with Zentraedis outside their colony and all he could think about is to have Minmay’s autograph -_-”’ Doi~ But I developed a certain level respect for him when Hayase came by his place and found Minmay there. Now that is the adult way of handling situations: face-to-face confrontation and just seriously confess to the firl you like. Not the chickenshit way of running away secretly hoping that he’s go after you to stroke your ego. Anyway, I can already say that he’s not my favorite (but he’s not my most hated) character in the Macross franchise.

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In this movie, I found Hayase Misa a bland character without much of a personality. I kinda thought that she was kinda mildly (my generous word) developed. But all in all, I just saw her as someone who was just… there, even though she’s the character who did the most, like understanding the Zentraedi language, the girl that Hikaru ended up with and the one to decipher the song. I really hope there’s more to her in the series when I finally get around watching it.

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Lyn Minmay is a  kind of an easy character to empathize with – probably because of my inclinations towards the shoujo genre. She actually compensated Hayase’s lack of personality by having too much personality. But some reason, I always see “starry-eyed shoujo main character” whenever I see her, especially in that scene at Hikaru’s apartment.

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But I gotta say that my most absolute favorite character has to Roy Focker. Despite being presented as a cocky, drunken ass, the dude was labeled as my “awesome character for this one” when he announced that a little alcohol shouldn’t stop a Valkyrie pilot from flying and was still able to kick ass. Then promptly, they killed him off. Shitballs!!! I shat bricks at the thought that characters I love in Macross always end up dying. ~Well, I’ve only watched this and Frontier and the two characters I find so awesome died. Well, what I’m so happy about is that they’re epic deaths so damn the pineapple salad!

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I have a totally different opinion of Zentraedis here than to what I saw in Frontier. At least I know they can get happy being exposed to culture without turning into pathetic nosebleeding Ranka fanboys -_-”’ (and there I thought “This is the race that brought much terror in the hearts of humanity???”)

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Music:

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I take back what I said about my not so much liking the music of Macross Frontier because it was too j-popy. I’m lesser of a fan of synthesizer music than today’s j-pop and the BGM brings back memories of the old-school sentais of my youth. Waaah! But it can’t be helped, right? This is an 80s movie so I am in no position to complain. But I really enjoyed the songs because the lyrics are so damn nice. Although that “My Boyfriend is a Pilot” song is getting to me and it’s only the second series I’ve watch.

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Plot:

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I really enjoyed the movie a lot, even if the plot can just generally sum up to the Zentraedi wanting to mate with the Meltrandi with a love song. Well, yeah, that’s a really shallow way of looking at it… Seriously, it was more about culture and how it can be used to promote relations between two entirely different species – because despite difference in… well, everything, there are still things that will never change in the nature.

To be frank, this 2-hour movie gave me more insight about the Macross universe than Frontier did. Or is it because Frontier was the first series I watched and I just took it as it was. It was probably that. I often wonder if it was a better idea to watch it chronologically, but that would be like closing the barn door when the horse is out since I’ve already gone through two and that I’m still missing one more series (Macross 7) in my borrowing spree.

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The battle scenes was pretty much like watching Star Wars that wasn’t digitally re-mastered, but who am I really to complain? Though I’m not sure if this has something to do with the fact that this is a movie, but it’s way better animated than a lot of the mecha shows I’ve seen recently. Or maybe I just have a high appreciation with for painstakingly drawn and painted detailed animation compared to CGs.

Overall, the movie was awesome, but there are some parts I find unsatisfying (other than the fact that Roy Focker died) like the lack of Hayase’s character development. The mechahead friend did say that this was a clumped up version of the series with some changes. This was actually confirmed by ghostlightning and otakusecret in some of Twitter conversations. Now that I realize that this is a fictionalized/romanticized version, it has has somewhat tainted my view of the movie and would rather see the series.

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