Macross Frontier

[Florin]

And once again my lack of knowledge of Macross backstory comes around to bite me in the ass. I thought the original Macross/SDF-1 was destroyed on Earth by
Kamjin/Khryon's suicide attack! So what's it doing out in the middle of nowhere?
--
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. 

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

Point 1: it wasn't destroyed at all in original Macross, just damaged, and everyone survived, not just Misa/Lisa. It has since been seen in Macross Plus
(taking place in 2040), restored but still in the center of Macross City.

Point 2: We don't know whether the Macross on Gallia 4 is the Macross or one of the early colonization ships patterned after it. The next-episode
teaser even calls it "a first-generation Macross."

--Sam

"Kyuu-kyuu, kyuu-kyuu..."

[OpMegs]

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

---

Ranka is 16, I believe; Sheryl and Alto were both 17 at series start, which makes Alto 18 as of the last couple episodes.




--Sam


"If that's art, then art is dirty and weird!"

Yeah, that was my impression. She reminded me of your average high school girl. Sheryl, by contrast, comes across as more mature, but it's "anime
can't keep their portrayals straight with their cast's "official" ages for the life of them" syndrome*, not her proportionately greater
age.

* Major example: Yoko of Gurren Lagann is supposedly the same age as Simon: 15
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

[OpMegs]

And it's halfway through the 26 episode season.

Time for shit to blow up.

Don't believe me? Try the entire planet they were just on.

Also noticed here:

- Grace was poisoning/intentionally making Sheryl ill?
- Grace is confirmed as Brera's handler?
- Grace has something called the DIMENSION EATER?
- Grace is dead as she detonates said DE and freaking ENGULFS THE PLANET?

Also, something about Ranka's memories, and the whole Vajra fleet that just escaped, but that's another matter altogether.

Next episode: all out Vajra attack.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

...Eek? O.O;

I think we may be justified in classifying this as a Lensman Arms Race now...

Grace? So not dead. She's just hopped to another body. (Valles? YOU WERE RIGHT. THE CYLONS ARE HERE.)

And the Underpants Lizard is growing tentacles... n.n;

--Sam

"This is my Cylon. There are many like her, but this one is mine."

[OpMegs]

What's necessarily worrisome is that the Underpants Lizard has the same eye structure(two black eyes, central red) as the small bug that scares Alto and
Ranka in this ep(and is noticeably carapace possessing), and the LARGER bug that Alto finds in a tube inside the Macross....which is notably a Vajra...

And the Vajra queen herself was green....
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

...New wild guess of doom.

Galaxy Fleet and the Vajra are under the iron fist of Sharon Apple. ^.^

--Sam

"This is graveness."

[Rod.H]

Y'know I think Grace is more a boomer then a Cylon. Also who noticed the DE came from LAI, the company Luca is connected with.
Gee, just what are the researchers at LAI on, if they thought a unstable one-shot fold drive would be an ace idea for a bomb.

--Rod.H
now listening to random track from ????F O.S.T.1 ????

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

Wild furball this ep.

President Glass is not too bright. And Leon is just getting greasier.

Luca! NOOO! Don't say things like that at a time like this, we'll have to change your callsign to Deadmeat!

Alto has done a complete turnaround since the opening. He may be the least annoying Macross protagonist ever just
now.

Sorry, Sheryl, but theme music powerup just isn't enough. ^.^

...Could Ranka literally be the intended engineered controller of the Vajra...? No crazier than anything else, I
suppose.

And Grace is back, none the worse for total disintegration. Gotta love those Resurrection Ships.

--Sam

"I'd just like to say...knock off all that evil!"

[OpMegs]

Poor Raramia. No VA, barely any screentime, and she gets blown away, not after a decent dogfight, but one stray shot from a Vajra. Clearly, Luca redirected his
plot-begging-to-get-offedness onto her somehow. HAX!
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

Hm. Grace is part of a collective. And testing Sheryl's blood would reveal something incriminating.

...If this doesn't end in a threesome, I'll be very disappointed. Steam must have been shooting out Alto's ears by the end of that duet.
(Krusty: "His ears if we're lucky!")

Mr. Bilrer: "Welcome to the Land of Make-Believe. Wouldn't you like to be my neighbour?"

Like I thought, Sheryl's entire career was meant to get her killed. Good luck finding a new agent.

...And it's beginning to look like the Protoculture might actually be involved here. Might.

Well done for a clip show.

--Sam

"I never seen a cow eat a guy that fast."

[Elsa Bibat]

http://gabrielarobin.com/279/newtype-yo ... ranslation

Nice interview with Kanno and Kawamori describing what exactly they wanted with Frontier: A mecha musical!!! ^_^

[OpMegs]

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

---

...If this doesn't end in a threesome, I'll be very disappointed. Steam must have been shooting out Alto's ears by the end of that duet.
(Krusty: "His ears if we're lucky!")

Ain't that the truth? The fact they interspersed it with images showing Alto's chemistry with both of them made it worse. I'm
sincerely hoping Sheryl's convenient coughing fit isn't a hint of things to come that could simplify the decision.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

[Florin]

For that whole duet scene, I kept expecting Alto to look over the edge of the rail to appraise the survivability of making a jump for it. Not that that
would save him in the end. Poor poor doomed Alto.

I'm sincerely hoping Sheryl's convenient coughing fit isn't a hint of things to come that could simplify the decision.

I had the same thought... and although it's still to early to kill off someone as plot important as Sheryl, it is just about time to spin the Wheel of
Random Character Death.
--
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]

I just got caught up, episodes 11 to 15 in a marathon...

...Alto is very quickly going to become famous in his own right as the Luckiest Bastard In The Galaxy.
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[OpMegs]

And 16 proves that Grace is a heartless bitch. She drops Sheryl almost in a second. I don't know if she's still pretending to be her manager or not,
but it's obvious she's moved on to Ranka.

Ranka, incidentally, gets used as an experimental weapon, directing her song at the Vajra...apparently it works well enough, but she doesn't seem too
pleased by this.

17, by contrast, seemed to be Ozma's swan song, including a pineapple salad reference, no less. The Vajra have evolved to be resistant to reaction warheads
as well as anti-Vajra munitions, though Brera's quantum beam rifle still works. However, Ozma proves he's a freaking beast by not only pulling a
*successful* Mu La Flaga last minute bridge save, but surviving it, going on to massacre Vajra in close combat(as the VF-25's knives are still effective)
and leading an inspiring charge that turns the tide.

And the collapsing while bleeding profusely at Ranka's concert.....and surviving his wounds. Kawamori's a freaking tease.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

I'm having technical problems with 17. The downside of the GG subs has always been poor synchronization -- the animation and the soundtrack refuse to move
at the same speeds -- and this one is the worst by a long shot. It's barely watchable. And no one else seems to have subbed it -- I'd even take a Kei
version at this point!

Anyone know how to fix the damn sync, or know of another subber for this episode?

--Sam

"I kill for the trees!"

[Rod.H]

Aside from ripping the subs from the GG-vers. Nada.

Poor synchronization has always been my bugbear with Matroska files, as any I've downloaded have been affected by such to some degree.

So I'm waiting for a xvid or mp4.

--Rod.H

[OpMegs]

My current method is to watch GG subs and such on Veoh, so I can stay current, and then download Shinsen, when they come out. But then, I'm a barbarian
that only downloads .avi embedded subs.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

[Kurisu]

What 'bout Lunar's versions?
_____
DEATH is Certain. The hour, Uncertain...

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

Lunar is running oddly late, as is Kei...

--Sam

"Did he just say 'apotheosis?'"

[Kurisu]

I only ask this 'cause Lunar is further along in the series than Shinsen... but if I had to make a choice 'tween the two, I would choose... Shinsen.
_____
DEATH is Certain. The hour, Uncertain...

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

Shinsen's are the ones I save and burn to disc, but they're weeks behind and I need a fix NAO dammit, and GG doesn't satisfy... >.

[SkyeFire]

Wow. For once, I'm ahead.

After Finally getting the gg fansub to download, and wading through it (and dangit, it seems like no matter which OS or player I use, softsubs always walk all
over each other when they try to overlap dialogue -- the music lyrics kept overlapping the spoken dialogue through this entire episode)...

Brute Force Works: Against hackers *and* Vajra. You just need to apply it properly.

Foods of DOOM: Okay, never, EVER, offer a character in a Macross series anything made with pineapple. You might as well paint a bullseye on their back.

Calling Pink Floyd: Talk about breaking the (fourth) wall...

Flashbacking: Ozma figures something out, something important. And we learn that he didn't just pick Ranka up out of the wreckage of the 117th fleet --
he had some associtation with her family earlier.

B&E: Alto must have played Lupin III at one point.

"By the pricking of my thumbs": *count* the omens and foreshadowing in this ep, it's ridiculous. Especially if you include the number of
wink-wink nudge-nudge references to Original Macross by the script writers.

Cat fight: Sheryl, it seems, has Figured Something Out. This ain't gonna be pretty.

Dress you up in my love: Klan trying to look her age rather than her... um... anyway, that was just too cute for words, with a side order of tragic. I feel
for the girl, I really do.

I'm just a soul whose intentions are good: Michel, for once, *isn't* womanizing. So of course he asks Klan to hook him up with another girl.

SETEC Astronomy: who *are* all these players? How many agendas are there in play? And what the heck is Luca up to?

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

Lunar Anime has come through at last!

Dear God, he LIVED THROUGH A PINEAPPLE MOMENT. Ozma is officially indestructible now. And the most hotblooded character in the series, outdoing even Bobby.

Ozma didn't just associate with Ranka's family. He knows the secret, whatever it is.

Sheryl channels Cartman: "I am so... pissed... off...!"

The Vajra... make fold quartz. And they evolve. Ho boy this ain't good.

Further evidence for Underpants Lizard Aimo-chan's larval Vajra status. And it shredded Alto's
paper airplane... that can't be a good sign...

Agendas... there's the Grace Collective, which appears to want a massive war. There's Bilrer, who may want to rule the galaxy. And there's Leon,
who I'm still not sure who he's working for. (Honestly, Leon probably just works for Leon, and is almost certainly the only person still alive who
knows that.)

--Sam

"I'll make short work of him with my envelope gun!"