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Macross Frontier - Evil Midnight Lurker - 04-15-2008
...Discussion thread GO!
![[Image: smile.gif]](http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/smile.gif)
Shinsen-Subs haven't come through with their take on episode 2 yet, but the two existing versions aren't half bad.
Opening credits... hm. No one there who obviously isn't part of the Frontier Fleet; not really possible to point at any of them and say "here is the
Enemy du Jour!"
Careful pausing during the opening sequence reveals one of the new variable configuration Monsters and a lady who is, presumably, its pilot. (Do those things
qualify as Destroids or Battroids? Is it a Destroid with a Battroid mode? Ah, terminological confusion.)
Ranka's hair continues to mystify. At minimum, it seems to be under a lighter gravity field than everything else in the area.
As we figured, she'spart Zentradi. (And has anyone else noticed, last episode, that she works at what seems to be a franchise of the Lynn family restaurant? ^.^)
Further confirmation that the civilian government and Spacy were expecting these Vajra things to attack; there are
cover-up protocols in place already... the galaxy is known to be a hostile place, why bother with this secrecy crap?
BOMBER!!!
...and Alto is a nineteenth generation Kabuki performer. That explains a lot. n.n; For starters, it looks like he wants to get the heck out of the family
business. Expect to see some nasty parental confrontations in future episodes.
Huh, he had no idea that his classmates were in SMS. This ought to be amusing.
Looks like they're dispensing with a long buildup and cutting straight to the love triangle...
ETA: On the one hand, we've got a massive homage to the original first couple of episodes, what with the Ranka-rescue and all. On the other, Alto is in
one sense a reverse Hikaru, as he WANTS to be a fighter pilot but there are all kinds of obstacles in his way...
--Sam
"Sarsaparilla and fresh horses for all my men!"
- Valles - 04-16-2008
I like the new version of the first episode much more than the original one for the clear and simple reason that it reveals one critical element of Sheryl's character: namely, that she's not some spoiled brat solely concerned about her spotlight. Someone like that would have thrown a tantrum at having some hired goon she didn't even want there crash into her - and instead, she rolls with it and saves the show.
She is a professional.
On another note, I continue to have a very hard time believing that Ranka's supposed to be anything more than twelve.
I don't think I like Ranka's brother much, though. "No!" or "Fuck no!" would have been reasonable responses to what was obviously a spur-of-the-moment demand. Decking him? Way over the line.
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===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
- Berk - 04-16-2008
Zentradi impulse control issues?
- Grumpy Uncle Gearhead
- Evil Midnight Lurker - 04-17-2008
Shinsen-Subs' version of the standardized ep 1 is now out at the above link.
...and I'm thinking that if an official remixed version with all scenes from standard and Deculture editions isn't made, some fansubber ought to...
--Sam
"Gorgeous, delicious, and deculture!"
- Evil Midnight Lurker - 04-19-2008
I think I finally understand Alto's rant from episode 1.
It's not that he thinks Sheryl and her escort should have helped with the evacuation, it's that he thinks she
shouldn't have left the stage, no matter what. Ingrained work ethic from a family tradition he hates but can't get out of his head.
--Sam
"Gravity is a harsh mistress."
- Valles - 04-20-2008
...tuna buns. And grabbing destiny. Y'know, I think I like this girl...
And she bakes. Hee.
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===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
- Evil Midnight Lurker - 04-20-2008
I love the mix of San Francisco and Los Angeles that is Frontier's primary city. They even have Griffith Observatory! ^.^
Ranka's song... reminds me very much of Myung's from M+...
This puts a whole new wrinkle on the tradition of Ranma-Macross crossover fics. Can you imagine Nodoka insisting that honor demands that Ranma and Genma quit
martial arts and get back into the family business? o.o;
"It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and become one with all the people."
...and we should be getting an infodump on the Vajra next episode. Should.
--Sam
"I weave a lethal net of baked goods that few can escape."
Macross Zero comment - Murmur the Fallen - 04-23-2008
According to the creators, there are three elements to Macross that make it Macross (beyond the transforming jet robot):
Pop Music, Love Triangle, War.
So far, only the original Macross has featured all three elements prominently and arguably equally.
Macross Plus focussed on the music and the love triangle (Sharon Apple wasn't so much a war as a firefight, though the opening battle sequence in the
original three-part version was very cool).
Macross 7 focussed on the music and the war elements (the love triangle between Basara, Mylene, and Gamlin was pretty good-natured, all told).
Macross Zero focussed on the war elements for the most part, along with the spiritualism of music and touched on the love triangle element somewhat.
Macross Frontier seems to be following 7 with its focus on music and war, though of course there are pretty blatant hints as to a love triangle or two
developing.
Anyway: compared to Plus and especially pop-heavy 7 the music, particularly the opening, isn't very strong. The opening is surprisingly generic, despite
vocals from Sakamoto Maaya (Escaflowne's Hitomi).
However, the animation is eye-popping, and not just in the fight sequences. This is another step-up for the franchise since the superlative battle scenes in
Zero.
However, is it just me or did the animation quality drop, though not significantly, in the third episode? Maybe it was just the version I watched.
The characters are all appealing, from Alto to Ranka and Sheryl. Though I, as a longtime Macross fan who waited friggin' five years for Animeigo to finally
ship the Macross dvd box set (and yes I'm still bitter about waiting that long, but god was the set worth it), appreciated all the continuity touches like
the Ranka rescue scene in episode 2, I am glad that they're trying different things with the character archetypes here. By having both Sheryl and Ranka we
get to have, in a sense, Minmei from the beginning of the series and from the end interact. And so far nobody has shown the sort of fanatical monomania that
Isamu and Basara showed in their own way.
Looking forward to the rest of the series.
And later I'll talk about why it's okay for me to have earth-military style ranks and uniforms here but not in Baen books.
-murmur
Oh, and for you destroid fans, I think I caught sight of one in episode 2.
- Evil Midnight Lurker - 04-23-2008
Yep, one of the SMS members pilots a Konig Monster, a variable-config version of the old-school Monster destroid. (Apparently, non-VC mecha have fallen out of
favor as being insufficiently adaptable on the modern battlefield.)
I want to see a new version of the Tomahawk, still my favorite mech from the original series...
Ranka, so far at least, seems like a much nicer person than Minmei. I'm actually rooting for her...
--Sam
"He beat up ten ninjas with a loaf of french bread!"
- Murmur the Fallen - 04-26-2008
I think one of the things that I appreciate the most is that Sheryl does not dress like a refugee from an 80s music video. The Bandannas and the fringe . . .
(Also, pointing out the S&M current in the military was pretty sweet).
Anyway: Macross vs. Baen re: military ranks and uniforms. I think it works in Macross because, well, because of it's timeline. It's like:
Macross-Earth, everything was Cold War until a giant alien spaceship crashlanded and destroyed a bunch of cities. People go ape-shit and start a global civil
war until World Federalism reigns supreme (as, you know, it should). And it's basically the Western world's military structure as descended from, I
believe, the French military (I may be wrong here) and it continues on on Macross-Earth, even as they start up space military.
And then the Zentradi come and blow up the planet and it's only the Macross which survives. And so there's only one military for humanity and it's
based on the same old Western military structure.
But the Webber books, and the Moon books, seem to just have people on alien planets acting like it's 1952 in space with girls. There's kind of a
cultural disconnect. I dunno, maybe I'm being unfair.
Anyway: Macross Frontier: I'm interested as to what the point of having SMS is in the plot. It's certainly showing the increased importance of
Corporate Mercenary Armies (I refuse to be euphemistic about them) once again in the real world, but I wonder what plot purpose it serves. Certainly it would
be easier for Alto to join SMS than the UN Spacy. Maybe that's it. Although the way they contrasted the funeral for the spacy pilot and the sms pilot . . .
maybe there's something deeper going on.
-Murmur
--Oh, and I flipped through Von Neumann's War by John Ringo and some other dude. It is terrible.
- Evil Midnight Lurker - 04-26-2008
To be fair, in the Moon books, Earth's military structures have almost certainly been influenced by both Imperial factions over millennia. (The mutineers
went so far as to give the Waffen SS their uniforms.
![[Image: frown.gif]](http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/frown.gif)
)I can't remember what the rationale might be in Harrington's world, and I've never read the March books...
--Sam
"What kind of corn soldiers are you?"
Episode 4 - Evil Midnight Lurker - 04-27-2008
Word of God from Shoji Kawamori: Ranka's mobile hair is a rare Zentradi trait.
Adding to the SMS confusion: according to the Wikipedia
page, which is translated from info on the official series
webpage, they apparently have their own Macross-class ship, the Macross 25, separate from the fleet flagship
Macross Frontier. Damn that fleet's gonna have some firepower with two big guns...)
Twenty-five laps in unpowered power armor? Aieee.
A Valkyrie backpack! Kawaii! (Also: boingy!)
QUEADLUUN-RAU! Woohoo!
There is something deeply WRONG about the words "Saotome-sensei" being spoken with genuine respect. Not that, at first glance, I have any plans to
respect him.
Alto is at the very least taking to the career better than Hikaru did. Y'don't see him tuning into the
contest while on duty. ^.^
Ranka's singing voice: better than Minmei or Mylene, I think.
...beam saber? Valks have BEAM SABERS now? I can't decide whether that's a good thing or not...
This is a first: a Kabuki berserker.
Klan Klein: ...so, so, SO much boingy.... o.O;
...and now it's completely GONE. O.o; Zentradi genetics, ladies and gentlemen! Two, two, two fetishes in one! (She'd fit right into Disgaea in
either mode, don't you think?)
Cute and clumsy did not win the day. ;.; Rigged, I tells ya!
Closing thoughts: they're using a lot more anime goofiness in this one than previously. Kinda throws me off my stride. The Zentradi battleground: nice
touch. And we still don't really know anything more about the Vajra than we did last episode, although Alto may have been told more than we saw...
--Sam
"Bring him to the pants... bring him to the pants...!"
- Valles - 04-27-2008
Beam daggers, I think. We saw Ozma use his in Ep 2, IIRC.
'So... much... boingy... O,O' was about Alto's reaction, too, I think.
What I still don't get is why the UN is covering up the Vajra. It's not like mysterious alien menaces are anything new to the UN or its people, after all.
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===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
- Evil Midnight Lurker - 04-27-2008
I can't speak to specifics, but CYA has been the SOP of Macross governments since day one.
First, the old UN hushed up the exact physical nature of the Zentradi while arming to fight them, on the grounds that news of thirty-foot-tall soldiers would
cause a panic. Like revelation of the mere existence of heavily armed potentially hostile aliens wasn't?
Then, when the Zentradi actually showed up, the UN -- after having risen to global dominance on the threat of alien invasion, don't forget -- chose to
COVER UP THE INVASION FOR OVER A YEAR, even after the Macross came back intact, and then tried to shovel all the
negative publicity onto Global, his crew, and the civilian castaways.
Now you'd think that the reconstructed UN Spacy led (at least at first) by Britai hizownbigself would have a healthy disrespect for this kind of nonsense,
but then we have the Varauta/Protodeviln attacks on M7, and Max's flat refusal to let the civilian government led by his
wife know anything more than the absolute bare minimum possible "yes enemies exist," for no damn
reason that makes any sense to me.
Military policy remains as fucked up as ever in the Macrossverse. I have no doubt that over in your nBSG crossover there'd be generals and politicos
trying to keep the mere existence of the Colonials and Cylons a secret at any cost (whether they'd succeed is of
course up to you, but I can't imagine that they wouldn't exist).
--Sam
"Kyuu, kyuu, kyuu, kyuu..."
- Florin - 04-29-2008
I'd like to know what kind of Drive system the fleet is using. It's pretty clearly not fold drive but I doubt it's a generational Slower than Light
fleet cause if Miss Macross is a yearly event, and this one is the twelfth then they're way to close to Earth to not smash the Vajra with a giant robot
shaped hammer. Unless they folded to the edge of known space then went STL from their.
I forget how Superluminal drive works in Macross land, is it like Star Wars where you hit it and your safe or is it like Star Trek/Babylon 5 where it just
adds a nifty background effect to your fights.
Also, Shinsen-Subs has episode two up in case anyone was waiting for thier version.
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all.
- Valles - 04-29-2008
Macross fold drive is a Star Wars type, I think, though slower. My conclusion is that the Frontier fleet is sitting in one place, stocking up on raw materials
and such from that convenient asteroid belt we've seen repeatedly while small detachments of scout ships go out and survey the area.
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===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
- Epsilon - 04-29-2008
From what I recall of the series Macross fold drives aren't like Star Wars type. but they aren't Babylon 5 type either. They literally fold space
around the ship, which results in pretty much instant teleportation from place to place. However it requires more energy/longer build-up for a space fold than
a hyperjump in either other series. Essentially the actual space fold itself is instant, but all the build up to it is not and during that time the ship is in
realspace in some fashion.
-----------------
Epsilon
- Evil Midnight Lurker - 04-30-2008
I suspect that they might only have started the Miss Macross contests twelve years ago after having been in space
longer than that...
Fold drive does strange things to time. It's not instantaneous from either point of view -- it might take several hours from the perspective of the people
on board to transit from place to place while several days or weeks pass in the outside universe, at least that's how it worked in the original series.
The version used in Macross 7 seems a lot more like instantaneity, at least on the outside.
Incidentally, I was wondering why the Macross Frontier fleet rates a President instead of a mayor. Turns out Howard Glass is THE President of the whole damn
New United Nations in addition to being the administrator of the Frontier fleet...
--Sam
"Gorgeous, delicious, and deculture!"
- Evil Midnight Lurker - 04-30-2008
Huh. On rewatching... something I should've spotted earlier...
Twice now, once when Ranka screamed in terror, once when she sang... Vajra some considerable distance away from her (in a battle blocks away the first time,
concealed on the outside of the ship the second) have noticed. Her voice
draws their attention.
Spiritia? Culture shock? Some entirely new manifestation of the Power of Song?
(WAG 1 of n: A resurgent Protoculture civilization has created the Vajra to seek out and destroy all Zentradi and
Supervision Army forces, neither knowing nor caring that peace has broken out...)
Also, Shinsen-Subs has finally come through with their version of ep 2.
--Sam
"Blood covers The City like a big red Afghan."
- Berk - 04-30-2008
There are several possibilities for who the Vajra are, from a remnant of the Protoculture panicked at seeing more new people driving through the neighborhood
(remember, the fleet Misa, Hikaru and Minmei were on went this general direction too) to another offshoot of Protoculture colonization efforts who are further
along or on a different tech track.
A lot of human technology is derived from Zentradi technology. Seeing those ships going through and mistaking them for Zentradi would give anyone with past
experience with them a fit too.
- Grumpy Uncle Gearhead
Episode 5 - Evil Midnight Lurker - 05-04-2008
Yet more San Francisco IN SPACE.
Ozma totally deserved that. (Minmay doll!)
..they're really pouring on the high school anime tropes here.
An Archivist caste Zentradi? Or just really ugly?
Ha! I knew it! Okay, that's two love triangles so far.
...I am reminded of the moment from Symphony of the Sword with Miki's pocketwatch. Pity Alto hasn't had a Dantrovian religious experience...
(singing) Macross Frontier, open your golden gate, open your gate and let me in...
...and welcome to Haight-Ashbury, IN SPACE! (I know, I know, I'll stop...)
Macross is going cyberpunk. Odd, the legal differences between fleets...
...Zentradi... dairy farmers... o.O
...Holstein HIPPOS... O.o
I would have thought that having so many Zents at full size would be too much of a strain on the life-support systems, but apparently not...
Her lyrics are incomprehensible, but I love her singing voice...
...aaaaand CLIFFHANGER.
This just keeps getting better...
--Sam
"Did he just say 'apotheosis'?"
- Murmur the Fallen - 05-04-2008
Looking through the opening of episode 5, I'm wondering if the Frontier is actually BIGGER than the Macross 7. Seems like the exact same type of ship but
them giving up space inside to have a river and a lake makes me wonder.
More later.
-murmur
- Valles - 05-04-2008
A tea saucer full of idol. Oh, my.
Anyway, I figure that, given that the NUN is still likely heavily interested in expanding its population base, it'd make sense to include considerable room for growth in the colony fleets' environmental plants. Evidently Frontier uses a good chunk of that surplus, at the current time, to support a differently arranged biomass.
Alternately, Zentradi foodstuffs would probably be subject to substantial problems of scale anyway, so they may eat off of the more 'efficient' vat-grown products that I'd presume exist as backup.
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===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
- Evil Midnight Lurker - 05-05-2008
Quote: Looking through the opening of episode 5, I'm wondering if the Frontier is actually BIGGER than the Macross 7. Seems like the exact same type of ship butTo be utterly pedantic, the Macross 7 and Macross Frontier may be about the same size, but I do believe that Island One is indeed considerably
them giving up space inside to have a river and a lake makes me wonder.
larger than City 7. There's no doubt whatsoever that the Frontier Fleet has way more living space, what with all those wagon train modules.
From a design standpoint, Island One seems like the equivalent of folding the entire M7 fleet into one dome...
--Sam
"J'accuse!"
- VladimirTherin - 05-06-2008
As a side note, any one else think that having anyone with any talent at all sing to a bunch of zentradi, is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel?