Macross Frontier ep 1
Hmm, funny with all the good anime I’ve been watching recently, like Shion no Ou and Baccano!, that I would feel the urge to write up on the first episode of something I didn’t really like that much.
Macross… I can’t believe it’s been 25 years. I saw the original on Thai TV when I was a wee kid (that particular ep had Khyron, I think), bought the metal die-cast VF with the green booster pack armour plate stuff, collected illustrations off the Thai comic books, got head over heels again several years later with Robotech… It was soap opera, it was epic struggle, it was death and rebirth and falling in love and out of love. I may never have loved an anime as much as I loved Robotech. I had the entire Macross arc on tape minus two eps which were victim of power failure, and oh how I cried when I missed them. I watched each episode over and over; my only focus in life was speeding time up so the next broadcast would arrive sooner.
Would it be a surprise to say I cared little for Macross Plus? And that I dismissed Macross 7 as soon as I saw the flying guitars in space? And that Macross Zero was but a tiny blip on my subconscious? You see, Macross was great because it was the story of humanity against the worst of odds, everything hinging on efforts of heroes who were flawed but utterly heroic. At the age of 11, it captured my heart like no other story. 6 years later, the story was grown up but the characters sucked. A few years after that, the story was probably epic, but it was too kiddish for the me of that time.
Which brings us to Macross Frontier. I had just heard of it when I was surfing blogs for new Spring anime to watch. I grabbed it because hashihime said it was enjoyable, and I stopped watching after the OP, because it was too happy j-pop and felt like highschool hijinks in space.
Then Cinnamon Ass wrote that the OP was by Kanno/Maaya. And so I decided I had to rewatch, since I musta missed someone special there in some time warp of insanity.
So… the verdict is…
Nope, still don’t like the OP. The rest of the ep was okay. Too much CG in everyday anime scenes, making the whole thing feel like a throwback to the old days of unnatural crappy looking anime-when-they-just-started-using-CG. I did think the CG for the mechs was cool, but unfortunately it was a bit too many fast fast cuts to actually feel like good action direction. Main female character Lanca was ho-hum, not too annoying but not too interesting, and honestly how can it come to the point when you are grateful that the heroine isn’t as irritating as you feared she would be?! Main male character Altoh looks kinda cool but he reminds me of hmmm twenty-odd other slightly dour male leads, eh?
So, this brings me to the personal highlight of this series so far, Sheryl. Oh yes, she’s a first-class bitch. But boy is she a really good looking first-class bitch ^_- Who whips ass with her professional “the show must go on, even when the fuckup fucks up” attitude. And, I really like her songs and costumes. In fact, I give the writers kudos for pretty creative futuristic concert as far as these things go in anime. Sheryl! Sheryl! That hair rocks man.
Oh, and the new VF-25s were sweet. I sooo miss these planes. I only wish we got more decent action, longer shots of the mechs and stuff. And gimme the Zentran! Where are they!!
You know what would make this series like double its value in my book? If they had kept the Ai Oboeteimasu Ka remix from the preview ep for the actual series ED. I checked it out just now on YouTube and it gave me the shivers, it did.
Nothing beats nostalgia.
