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.

MACROSS MEGA MARATHON | EPISODE 10: BLIND GAME

What's Max's Valkyrie doing back there? A soft shoe shuffle?

Iconic Scene: Klingon captain KLANG!

Quotable Quotes: "Hey, is she prettier than us?" (RED ALERT QUESTION! Bail out Vermillion 1! Bail out!!)

 Best Character: Probably Max, for continuing to be awesome and fighting Britai hand to hand.

 Best Death: The poor schmuck pilot of Misa's Cat's Eye.

 Things that stood out about this episode: I think Hikaru's making meters out of microns here with Kakizaki's Valkyrie and arguing with Misa for the sake of arguing because that's pretty much their relationship right now. No wonder Roy had to step in. Also, this is where the show will begin taking on more of its own identity. They started that with Minmay's first steps to stardom and will continue it with Misa and the Vermillion team's capture by the Zentradi. Previous to this, Macross was a pretty standard sci-fi space opera.

MACROSS MEGA MARATHON | EPISODE 9: MISS MACROSS

Iconic Scene: the much beloved Armored Valkyrie... which only shows up twice in the TV series and once in the movie. And gets totally wrecked by Hikaru in this episode.
 Quotable Quotes: "I don't think a flimsy uniform [read: swimsuit] like that would be much use in combat."
 Best Character: Normally I'd say Minmay but this show isn't animated well enough for that, if you catch my drift... No, the award this time goes to Roy Focker, who shows much insight into the fact that the Miss Macross is rigged in Jamis Merin's favor... until Minmay wins of course.
Best Death: The Armored Valkyrie's dignity.

 So you might think that having a beauty contest on a warship in deep space, under constant threat of attack is somewhat strange but remember, the Macross started out with 58,000 civilians that they didn’t plan on having onboard. Despite the amenities that have been rebuilt in the city, you have to do something to keep people’s minds off the war and why not district them with titties? Even though a large part of the population is female? Eh, whatever, it works well enough and Minmay has now started her path to stardom… and according to My Fair Minmay there is a LOT of shady stuff going on in the background to get her there (and behind the Miss Macross competition as Roy helpfully points out.) Hikaru is acting here much more like he would in the Reconstruction arc of the series i.e. being really dumb and dense. Seriously, if I was his commanding officer, I would have had him busted back down to flight cadet for wrecking the Armored Valk, not launching with any backup, Ghosts or Valkyries or whatever and watching the Miss Macross instead of doing what he was supposed to. (also, shoutouts to gubaba for translating My Fair Minmay.)

OK, let's see her anyway.  :)

MACROSS MEGA MARATHON | EPISODE 8: LONGEST BIRTHDAY

Iconic Scene: The Aftermath of Vermillion Team's first sortie.
 Quotable Quotes: "Hey, lay off! It's hard being a team leader!"
 Best Character: Maximilian Jenius. Because he's a BAMF and he knows it.
 Best Death: All the poor Reguld pilots that Max shot down. Never new what they were getting into.

 And so here is where Max and Kakizaki show up. Unlike Roy, who is the old veteran and Hikaru who is the main character, Kakizaki is the lovable oaf and Max turns out to be an insanely good prodigy. Neither gets all that much depth to them though and I have to wonder if that's yet again a product of the series being cut down from 52 episodes to 48 then 39 then to 24+2 clips shows with an added 27. Of the two, I do like Max a bit better because Kakizaki seems like the kinda guy who talks a big game but doesn't have much to back it up. Still, he is far more tolerable and likable than a certain character that will be showing up soon.

MACROSS MEGA MARATHON | EPISODE 7: BYE-BYE MARS

Iconic Scene: A solemn farewell.
 Quotable Quotes: "Riber..."
 Best Character: Quamzin for his antics and coming up with an actual halfway decent plan this time. Too bad the Macross crew has the power of the Plot behind them, for his sake.
 Best Death: Riber Fruhling because... reasons.

 And so we come to one of the most famous episodes in the show. Here we get to see some of Misa's background and why she is the way she is. Like with Sheryl Nome in the sequel series Macross Frontier, I didn't particularly care one way or the other about Misa but after this look into her mind, I think this when I, and a lot of us, began to root for her. That being said, like Minmay before her, Misa demonstrates a strange suicidal streak here that never shows up again, even when she and Hikaru are lost in the bowels of Vrlitwhai's flagship. Ishiguro's influence perhaps?