Goddamn, could the animation have been any worse? Minmay never looks the same two shots in a row (and her open mouth is often a pink blotch, no teeth or anything indicating an "inside"), items strobe through two different colors for no apparent reason, eyes change color or turn into black blobs.
[Yeah, the animation was pretty spotty a lot of times; the filler eps. were pretty bad, and they must have used the same exploding zentradi ship at least ten times.]
I now understand the genesis of the term "bridge bunny". And the crew complement on the bridge became such a joke to Peg and me that the one time there was a male besides the captain stationed there, Peg and I turned to each other and did the Lena Hyena "A maaayaan! It's a maaaayaaaan!" bit.
[. . . Oh, sweet Jesus. Yes, they were the original bridge bunnies. Oh, quick note; they actually hooked up with the three zentradi spies. What weird couples.]
Minmay's seiyuu does indeed have a nice voice, and the songs are quite lovely (though Peg and I got thoroughly sick of "My Boyfriend's A Pilot"). But I find I must agree with the seventeeth law of anime physics (The Law of Transient Romantic Unreliability): Minmei is a bimbo. Then again, she's not even quite 18 when the series ends, so you can excuse a lot based on her being a confused teenager.
[Yes, many was the time that Minmay need a good slapping, especially in the last storyline. Not that hanging around Kaifun made things easier.]
I have some problems with the plotting; the last 8 or so episodes (after the Zentradi fleet is wiped out) seem very anticlimactic to me. I mean, I think I know what the creators were doing, storywise, but it just seemed like a long, drawn-out denoument that really didn't work well.
[I suppose that anything after seeing the world scoured and Boldoza's ship blow up and the Macross settling down would be anticlimactic . . . but I think it also showed how there are problems even after the Happy Ending.]
Hikaru was competing with neutronium there for a while.
[Hikaru's the romantic lead. He's not supposed to be perceptive in any way.]
Milia and Max: "Behold the power of a baby!" I joked to Peggy that the Zentradi ran because Komilia needed changing and they didn't want to be stuck with the job.
[Just another Cultural Attack. I guess for a people who have reproduced via big cloning tubes for over a hundred thousand years, the idea of impregnation and live births would be damn freakish.]
Anyway, despite what this might sound like, I did in fact enjoy it. Now I'm curious about the various sequels...
[groovy.]
Later, it's time for work.
-- Bob
And you should definitely see the movie, for three reasons:
-the animation is much better (although the plot makes even less sense)
[Yes, the animation WAS better. You remember the ep. where the world gets destroyed and the macross beats up the zentradi fleet? Imagine a couple hours of that. On the minus side, you get a much more overwrought "romantic" story and the battle of the sexes taken to a whole new level. Oh, and you thought Misa was disgustingly domestic there at the end? That ain't nothing to what she and hikaru do in the movie.]
-The title tune, "Ai Oboete Imasu Ka" (Do You Remember Love?) is a far niftier armada-stopper than AwN
[It's great, but the singing voice actress of Mylene does a great version of it, too.]
and finally,
-Hikaru gets to slap Minmei. Who at that point really REALLY deserves it.
[and the world cheers.]
...And about Hikaru: given that he grew up in a Flying Circus, with his father and Roy as mentors, I can buy the mad skillz thing. Especially since he's at best only the no. 3 human pilot.
[Oh, yes, and when Roy dies the stupidest macho death EVER, Hikaru goes up to number two. But Max is a very high first. He is, after all, a genius.]
As for the other sequelage:
M-II: Interesting... but not great.
[The story lost interest for me two episodes in.]
Macross +: Coooooooool. Freaky tunes, man.
[Oooh, yeah. I just wish that the movie version had kept that kick ass opening scene where the valkyries fight the zentradi. You really get to see the advantages of being a jet and a giant robot.]
Macross 7: I don't know about the rest, but the first eight episodes are highly amusing... except for the whole Max vs. Miria thing. I really don't like where their relationship went, and I hope it was repaired by series end.
[Uhh . . . kind of. It's never explicitly stated that they get back together, but you can see a lot of affection between them. And, not to be too much of a spoiler, but Milia looks great in the captain's uniform.
It seems that I'm one of the few that really liked Macross 7 all the way through. Sure, they used a lot (A LOT) of stock footage, but I really appreciated the slow character growth interspersed with very strange kaiju alien fighting. And you really believe in the mystical power of music. You see music represented as both a way of freeing the mind and as a propoganda tool. And what I really liked about it was that for the first time, the macross love triangle is not so one sided (Minmay is whiney and Guld is a jerk until just before he dies) and is never resolved.]
Macross 0: Has anyone seen this "prequel" yet?
[I've seen the first episode. My god. It's fantastic. The use of CG is not at all distracting, and you really get to see just how COOL being in a transforming mecha is. It takes place during the Unification War, and you see a new character design for Roy Fokker (still voiced by Kamiya "Mendou" Akira, thank god) without the big hair. The VF-0 Valkyries are stubbier than the VF-1 but they still kick ass.
Oh, and romance on a tropical island.]
--Sam
"This letter is clearly the result of too much spinning."
-murmur the fallen
who will scream if Titanite ever meets Doug. Seriously, that's just wrong, dude.
[Yeah, the animation was pretty spotty a lot of times; the filler eps. were pretty bad, and they must have used the same exploding zentradi ship at least ten times.]
I now understand the genesis of the term "bridge bunny". And the crew complement on the bridge became such a joke to Peg and me that the one time there was a male besides the captain stationed there, Peg and I turned to each other and did the Lena Hyena "A maaayaan! It's a maaaayaaaan!" bit.
[. . . Oh, sweet Jesus. Yes, they were the original bridge bunnies. Oh, quick note; they actually hooked up with the three zentradi spies. What weird couples.]
Minmay's seiyuu does indeed have a nice voice, and the songs are quite lovely (though Peg and I got thoroughly sick of "My Boyfriend's A Pilot"). But I find I must agree with the seventeeth law of anime physics (The Law of Transient Romantic Unreliability): Minmei is a bimbo. Then again, she's not even quite 18 when the series ends, so you can excuse a lot based on her being a confused teenager.
[Yes, many was the time that Minmay need a good slapping, especially in the last storyline. Not that hanging around Kaifun made things easier.]
I have some problems with the plotting; the last 8 or so episodes (after the Zentradi fleet is wiped out) seem very anticlimactic to me. I mean, I think I know what the creators were doing, storywise, but it just seemed like a long, drawn-out denoument that really didn't work well.
[I suppose that anything after seeing the world scoured and Boldoza's ship blow up and the Macross settling down would be anticlimactic . . . but I think it also showed how there are problems even after the Happy Ending.]
Hikaru was competing with neutronium there for a while.
[Hikaru's the romantic lead. He's not supposed to be perceptive in any way.]
Milia and Max: "Behold the power of a baby!" I joked to Peggy that the Zentradi ran because Komilia needed changing and they didn't want to be stuck with the job.
[Just another Cultural Attack. I guess for a people who have reproduced via big cloning tubes for over a hundred thousand years, the idea of impregnation and live births would be damn freakish.]
Anyway, despite what this might sound like, I did in fact enjoy it. Now I'm curious about the various sequels...
[groovy.]
Later, it's time for work.
-- Bob
And you should definitely see the movie, for three reasons:
-the animation is much better (although the plot makes even less sense)
[Yes, the animation WAS better. You remember the ep. where the world gets destroyed and the macross beats up the zentradi fleet? Imagine a couple hours of that. On the minus side, you get a much more overwrought "romantic" story and the battle of the sexes taken to a whole new level. Oh, and you thought Misa was disgustingly domestic there at the end? That ain't nothing to what she and hikaru do in the movie.]
-The title tune, "Ai Oboete Imasu Ka" (Do You Remember Love?) is a far niftier armada-stopper than AwN
[It's great, but the singing voice actress of Mylene does a great version of it, too.]
and finally,
-Hikaru gets to slap Minmei. Who at that point really REALLY deserves it.
[and the world cheers.]
...And about Hikaru: given that he grew up in a Flying Circus, with his father and Roy as mentors, I can buy the mad skillz thing. Especially since he's at best only the no. 3 human pilot.
[Oh, yes, and when Roy dies the stupidest macho death EVER, Hikaru goes up to number two. But Max is a very high first. He is, after all, a genius.]
As for the other sequelage:
M-II: Interesting... but not great.
[The story lost interest for me two episodes in.]
Macross +: Coooooooool. Freaky tunes, man.
[Oooh, yeah. I just wish that the movie version had kept that kick ass opening scene where the valkyries fight the zentradi. You really get to see the advantages of being a jet and a giant robot.]
Macross 7: I don't know about the rest, but the first eight episodes are highly amusing... except for the whole Max vs. Miria thing. I really don't like where their relationship went, and I hope it was repaired by series end.
[Uhh . . . kind of. It's never explicitly stated that they get back together, but you can see a lot of affection between them. And, not to be too much of a spoiler, but Milia looks great in the captain's uniform.
It seems that I'm one of the few that really liked Macross 7 all the way through. Sure, they used a lot (A LOT) of stock footage, but I really appreciated the slow character growth interspersed with very strange kaiju alien fighting. And you really believe in the mystical power of music. You see music represented as both a way of freeing the mind and as a propoganda tool. And what I really liked about it was that for the first time, the macross love triangle is not so one sided (Minmay is whiney and Guld is a jerk until just before he dies) and is never resolved.]
Macross 0: Has anyone seen this "prequel" yet?
[I've seen the first episode. My god. It's fantastic. The use of CG is not at all distracting, and you really get to see just how COOL being in a transforming mecha is. It takes place during the Unification War, and you see a new character design for Roy Fokker (still voiced by Kamiya "Mendou" Akira, thank god) without the big hair. The VF-0 Valkyries are stubbier than the VF-1 but they still kick ass.
Oh, and romance on a tropical island.]
--Sam
"This letter is clearly the result of too much spinning."
-murmur the fallen
who will scream if Titanite ever meets Doug. Seriously, that's just wrong, dude.