MACROSS MEGA MARATHON | EPISODE 20: PARADISE LOST

Iconic Scene: What is this? A rummage sale for ANTS?!

Quotable Quotes: I guess we're Macrossians now?

Best Character: Loli, Conda and Warera for being the secret purveyors of culture. :)

Best Death: None in this episode, as I recall

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And another good build to the plot here. After the last episode where the characters are beat down with the hopelessness of their situation, it begins to spread to the civilians as well but they take a more optimistic view of it. With the Zentradi, Loli, Conda and Warera have begun their tenure as the Heralds of Culture, spreading it amongst the fleet.

Global has to break the news to the Macross's civilian population and his heartfelt speech helps to deflect some of the anger that might come his way and the way of the military crew as well as Minmay's speech and song, probably more on Minmay's part more than Global. Incidentally, the scene where Kaifun pats Global on the back... considering his attitude before now, after and during the after war arc makes me consider this action to be wholly out of character. Must have been a hiccup on the part of the writers' minds or somesuch.
Also, I wonder what the different colored stripes on the three spies' uniforms mean? Likely nothing as you can see more than a dozen and a half variations on the UN Spacy uniform on just the Macross.

MACROSS MEGA MARATHON | EPISODE 19: BURST POINT

I  think they must have blurred this out for the BD release.

I remember it being much more... graphic in the ADV dub.

Iconic Scene: So long, Kakizaki.

Quotable Quotes: The barrier is going to overload!

Best Character: Hard to say in this one but I think we can award this one to Kakizaki's widow, 20 oz. Porterhouse. :3

Best Death: Kakizaki is going away this time, although his death here is not nearly as gruesome as it will be in DYRL.

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Now THIS is a twist. Hot on the heels of Roy's death comes the death of Kakizaki and not JUST that but the final dashing of the hopes of getting the Macross's civilian population off the ship. This was a good place for this as we're nearing the end of the second third of the show and Macross was originally supposed to end eight episodes from now. It's time that the characters got kicked down and kicked again before they can rise back up. Hikaru has now lost not just his squadron leader but his sempai and now his wingman. Misa is depressed over various things, Minmay is being driven into exhaustion and generally there is an air of hopelessness. Certainly doesn't help that the UN Spacy brass has decided that a ship full of both thousands of their soldiers and thousands of civilians needs to be their sacrificial lamb.

MACROSS MEGA MARATHON | EPISODE 18: PINEAPPLE SALAD

Iconic Scene: The deadliest thing in the universe, an anti-plot armor equation.

Quotable Quotes: Hikaru's lucky, he's got a real ace on his team...

Best Character: C'mon, it's Roy. This is his going-away party and it's great.

Best Death: Do I even need to say?

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What else can be said about this episode except that it likely had a bigger impact here in the west than it did back in Japan. Sempai characters dying is not something new to anime (just looks at Ryu Jose from Gundam) and indeed the trope of mentor characters dying so the hero can stand on his own feet is about as old as stories themselves.
The one thing I do have to wonder about this episode is, why did Roy do what he did? Why go to Claudia's instead of the hospital? My theory is that he figured he was bad enough off that there was as much a chance of dying on the operating table as surviving and if this was his time to go, might as well spend it with his lady love than being cut open by the docs.

MACROSS MEGA MARATHON | EPISODE 17: PHANTASMS

Iconic Scene: We're flying, E.T.!! (insert John Williams score here)

Best Character: Giant Dream Kaifun for dying

Quotable Quotes: "Today, 1st Lieutenant Hikaru Ichijo, also known as the Crash King, tried to fly his bike into space."

Best death: No ACTUAL deaths but still fun to see Kaifun get the end he should have had in episode 34.

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Back in 1989, as the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation wrapped up, they did a clipshow as the season finale called Shades of Grey. A somewhat appropriate title as the episode involved flashing back to a lot of the worst moments of seasons 1-2 of TNG (and there were a LOT of those). The flashbacks were presented as a kind of coma dream that they were giving Riker and the same sort of thing happens in this episode. Even though it comes just two episodes after the last clipshow, it's presented with new footage that makes for a surrealistic dream of Hikaru's. One thing to note is that in the dream, Dream Kaifun says that he won't let Minmay date anyone from the military. Hikaru doesn't hesitate in ripping off his flight suit to reveal his old civilian flight suit underneath. However, two years later when Minmay herself asks Hikaru to quit the military... he hesitates and ultimately doesn't go through with it.

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If you want to be reminded of how bad Shades of Gray was, here's SF Debris' video review of it!
(His service isn't working ATM. I'll post the link as soon as it's restored.)

MACROSS MEGA MARATHON | EPISODE 16: KUNG-FU DANDY

Iconic Scene: Kaifun getting just a little bit of what he so richly deserves.

Quotable Quotes: "Wha! Wha! Wha! Wha! (seriously, that's what Kaifun sounds like to me.)

Best Character: Nobody really, just about everyone gets the short end of the stick in this episode.

Best Death: Once again, no deaths but Misa almost seals Hikaru's fate.

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Personally, this episode is one of the worst, not in a general sense but just that it focuses so much on new character Lynn Kaifun. I hate Kaifun. I really, really, really, REALLY hate this guy. I HATE this sanctimonious, smug, self-righteous, John-Travolta-In-Saturday-Night-Fever-Imitating, hypocritical dandy!!!

But then again, you’re supposed to hate him, even staff members hated this guy (I suspect that might be why his role in the franchise is continually reduced; they don’t even feature him in the pachinko footage at all). As other people have pointed out, the primary problem with Kaifun is his pacifism. Not that pacifism is inherently bad or anything (although thanks to Gundam Wing I can now spell pacifism backwards…) but Kaifun just spouts off some good-sounding ideas mixed with a bunch of complete bullcrap such as “soldiers only join the military because they like killing.” Which is then immediately undercut by Misa, Claudia and the bunnie's discussion on why they didn’t join the military for that reason. Everyone is just in a bad mood this episode, I suppose it’s because Kaifun spreads misery and ruin wherever he goes. Oh and to top it all off, why did even Misa have to get caught up with this guy and nearly kill Hikaru? And even though she admits to herself at the end of the episode that Kaifun is not Riber, she’s still going to be mooning over him for several episodes more. ARGH!

Lynn Kaifun: designed to be hated and succeeds spectacularly!

MACROSS MEGA MARATHON | EPISODE 15: CHINATOWN

Iconic Scene: NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!

Quotable Quotes: "Our personal relationship has no bearing here!

Best Character: Captain Global, for keeping a stiff upper lip, even when its clear the brass has thrown them to the proverbial wolves.

Best Death: Again, no notables here.

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The waters are beginning to get even more choppy here. Misa and Captain Global deliver their report about the Zentraedi fleet to the UN Spacy bigwigs, who seem remarkably reluctant to believe said report. Global and Misa also find out that the story the brass spun about the Macross's disappearance was that it was destroyed along with the city and all of South Ataria Island and now they won't let the civilians off the ship. This seems to be a very strange attitude to take because their explanation is that they didn't want to cause a panic by revealing the earth was under the attack of alien forces. But doesn't everyone already know that aliens exist? When the Macross crash landed back in 1999 it was not exactly subtle. As a final F-you, Misa's father, who is also one of the bigwigs, gives her a note telling her to get off of the Macross. On the one hand, I can understand why he wouldn't want his daughter in such a dangerous situation. On the other hand however it seems, again, cold-blooded of him to not give two damns about the tens of thousands of civilians on board Macross but want to make sure that his own daughter is safe. Newsflash genius: your daughter's in the military and if you didn't want her to be in danger you should never have let her join!