MACROSS MEGA MARATHON | SDF MACROSS: INTERLUDE 1

And so the first third of the series is over. As I said in a previous post, although Macross had gripped me with the sci-fi space action of the first 9 episodes but I also enjoyed the anachronistic charm it had. This is a future world that has transformable fighters, giant robots, laser cannons, FTL travel and spaceships that can traverse the Solar System at sublight in just a few months... yet it's also a world where no one seems to own a PC or laptop and if you want to call someone, even a video call, you have to use a public terminal. Oh and no answering machines either.
The characters are engaging and even at this point I could feel myself sliding over from wondering if Hikaru and Minmay were going to be getting together to if Misa was going to be his girlfriend. Add to that the revelations of what life was like for the Zentradi and how much of a threat they truly were and I had high hopes for the second third of the show, which were slightly dashed by the character that makes his debut in this part of the show.

MACROSS MEGA MARATHON | EPISODE 12: BIG ESCAPE

Iconic Scene: Milia gets ready for her first sortie in her Queadluun-Rau (the first that we see anyway) Quotable Quotes: "They're just miclones, I can more than handle them myself." (right up until you tangle with a certain blue-haired miclone) 

 Best Character: It's a tough call so I'll go with Milia for having a badass entrance. 

 Best Death: The brownies who were the first to suffer Milia's wrath. 

 And so our characters make their big escape while Loli, Conda and Warera are secreted aboard the Macross. Here we see Laplamiz and Milia for the first time. Milia's a fan favorite and I must admit, I'm a sucker for ladies with green hair (and/or green skin) but I think a lot of this is down to Mikimoto's design of her. Most of the Macross characters are not what you'd call deep or complex but Milia unfortunately tends to get the short end of the stick in this regard, especially in a certain later episode. Also, the short end of having her character look consistent between episodes. Also, a funny little thing to note: The Zentradi are unaware of culture, yes? So why does Milia always look like she's wearing lipstick?

This. Is. My. BOOMSTICK!!! (I had to include it.)

MACROSS MEGA MARATHON - EPISODE 11: FIRST CONTACT

Iconic Scene: Miclone interrogation 

 Quotable Quotes: Show us what this "kiss" is! 

 Best Character: Once again, Max, for being the Macross James Bond. 

 Best Death: Nobody dies here but Bodolza does threaten Misa. 

 Objectively speaking this is the worst episode of the entire series. Mostly due to the fact that the animation quality here takes a sharp nose dive and then augers right into the ground. Not just that the quality is bad but there is tons of key frames and inbetweening missing that makes everything go herky-jerky all the time. According to some of my friends like Richard Clark, this episode was in fact so bad that it almost got Macross canceled. The staff then promised to make the finale of Macross, or what was supposed to be the finale and episode 27, look really really good in exchange. Other than that this episode starts developing a lot of things that will become important to the plot later on, mostly how the Zentradi are completely ignorant of any aspect of culture except for warfare. Now this is a point that I kind of missed on my first watch of the show but it should be understood that the Zentradi are not stupid. They obviously know how to use their technology, case in point being when they're able to translate the human language from just a few transmissions. The problem with the Zentradi is that they have been doing the same thing for so long , For so many hundreds of years that they have just simply forgotten everything else. That said their reactions to Misa and Hikaru's kiss is very, how shall I put it, Star Trek-ian. But it still feels very genuine and is starting to add a lot of depth to the Zentradi that wasn't there before.