Super Dimension Fortress Macross

Macross... The original.

Originally intended to be just a parody of Gundam, it evolved into becoming an entity of its own, with a compelling storyline and a deeply anti-war message.

Genre-defining character designs by Haruhiko Mikimoto, excellent space craft and mecha designs by Shoji Kawamori and Kazutaka Miyatake and great directing work by Noboru Ishiguro were the first part of Macross' enormous success. Shoji Kawamori's VF-1 Valkyrie is one of the most easily identified anime mecha ever and for good reason: I've yet to see one that can match its sleek, yet strong and purposeful lines. It looks like it's ready to take off and go on a war, whereas other mecha often look like gimmicks.

The characters seemed to actually live and breathe, developing their personalities through the ordeal of their perversely unequal war against the Zentradi, the loss of friends, loved ones, the senseless suffering and carnage that war is, their change of heart over time...

And all this enhanced by the very fine voice acting of Arihiro Hase, Mari Iijima, Mika Doi, Akira Kamiya, Michio Hazama, Noriko Ohara and other distinguished Japanese voice actors and actresses, who conveyed the dialogue in a manner forceful, economical, emotionally wealthy and mature.

Add to this Mari Iijima's excellent voice and performance on each and every one of Lynn Minmay's songs - even the songs seem to evolve as Minmay grows: from the childish and girlie-love pop of "Zero-G Love" and "Watashi No Kare Wa Pairotto" ("My Boyfriend Is A Pilot") to the beautiful, softly-sung and emotionally overwhelming anti-war "Ai Wa Nagareru" ("Love Drifts Away"), which was performed during the Macross' battle against Gorg Bodolzaa's armada, the equally powerful elegy "My Beautiful Place" or the series' last song, "Yasashisa Sayonara" (Farewell Tenderness"). And the rest of Macross' soundtrack is a wonderful merger of a symphonic orchestra with rock, jazz and even blues influences.

Macross is a sad story; it is not quite an epic, although it features battle after battle. It's an anti-war story - it brings forth a message to everyone, a message stating that the works of peace and culture are immensely superior to the cruel barbarity of war.

Sadly, in the haste to produce the episodes fast enough, a number of episodes was farmed out to a Korean studio named Anime Friend, whose work was sub-par and introduced a fair number of animation errors. Despite this, Macross still is a shining gem and deservedly enjoys a strong following in Japan and internationally, even now, 20 years on.

Unfortunately for the Western world, in 1985, an American company named Harmony Gold and someone named Carl Macek combined Macross with two other anime series (Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Pit Climber M.O.S.P.E.A.D.A.), dumbing down the dialogues, to which they added even more (to the point where you wondered if the characters ever stop talking), replacing the meticulous use of silence with excessive narration with someone who sounds like a sportscaster on steroids, the cohesive storyline with a mangled patchwork, the artful voice acting with over-the-top "performances" by third-rate "actors", the lovely soundtrack with generic synth stuff, Mari Iijima's wonderful songs with outrageous "creations" "performed" by the Reba West (Rebecca Forstadt), who is more annoying than a car alarm. The worst display of Harmony Gold's inability to comprehend ANYTHING that Macross stands for is the replacement of "Ai Wa Nagareru" with the jingoistic attempt at anthem-writing titled "We Will Win".

This anime series is one of the most outstanding anime series available. As many have said, it was one of the first I saw and it hooked me to anime for life. Now the original Macross series is available uncut on DVD from Animeigo. I recently purchased the limited edition box set and it was amazing! For all you searching for this series, it's now easily available in the U.S.! It's a must.

Anime at first before it became a common norm in American entertainment culture, it was a novelty which revolutionized animation and changed the way we watched cartoons forever.

Macross was the first anime I saw and it's still the best in my opinion; and I will dare say it this show is not just my favorite Anime of all time but it's also my favorite romance story and one of my favorite TV shows in general.

There are a lot of qualities to admire about the show. For one thing the style. The animation is beautiful looking from the backgrounds, mecha, but most importantly the human characters look a little more human. I still feel the animation holds up today in my book, I feel it's a prime example of using animation well and for the right reasons. The battle sequences are violent and well choreographed, the combat vehicles look cool from the way they function mainly the Veritech which is supplied with the options of changing into a half robot half jet, or a full robot, seeing how it functioned I wanted one of my own to drive. The soundtrack is just beautiful to listen to, from the theme song which to me is one of my personal favorite themes in general, down to Minmei's actually songs, they just have a big operatic feel to it.

However the true strength of the show is in it's characters and their drama, in fact that is the real plot of the show while the war with the aliens is really just icing on the cake. Despite animated I deeply cared about them on a human level which was something thats never happened, not that I didn't care about characters in some usual cartoons I watched like "G.I. Joe" but never on a deep level because I always knew the good guys would be alright let alone not much depth. The show was revolutionary in characterization at the time, because they all felt human it was easy to forget their animated. All of them had wants, needs, loves, and development; they physically and psychologically struggle with the war down to their person dilemmas intermixed. Also people die in the show, one character I really liked dies and it made me actually tear up which is something that doesn't happen with me much. You could say the interaction and development plays out almost like a soap opera but I feel saying that is insulting because unlike soap opera characters the characters of Macross are given believable situations, talk and deal with their dilemmas like everyday person would.

This was also revolutionary in developing story arcs which are common now from current shows like "Battlestar Galatica (revival version)", "The Walking Dead" and others. Like the little one with human pilot Max and Zentradi beauty Milia a strange romantic couple whom have fought each other as enemies but this rivalry turned to love, I feel that's a good message that it's better to make friends and significant others then to create bitter rivals.

But the one arc that was the main drive of the show was fighter pilot Hikaru, superior officer Misa, and celebrity Minmei. The love triangle plays out with just enough romance and tension that it actually feels like it matters because of how interesting all three characters are and their development. Hikaru at first is a young hotshot who is a bit arrogant and brash but is compassionate and slightly mature. Misa is slightly older but a beautiful woman who was strong and feisty, has criticism which can be a little unforgiving but is mature and has strong desires in her career but most importantly love. Minmei is a character I both liked and disliked at the same time from her positive qualities looks, beautiful singing voice, fun/funny vibrant persona however her negative qualities are what make her lose points in my book from her immaturity down to being short sighted, self centered and immature.

This romance sort of plays out like a sci-fi version of Jane Austin's "Pride and Prejudice. The relationship between Hikaru and Misa sort of reminded me of Darcy and Elesebeth even in characteristics their uncannily similar. We already know both character are clearly right for one another but the question is when and how they'll make the connection. Hikaru and Misa at first don't really like each other, in fact almost hate each other due to some ill timed first encounters which created lots of misunderstanding. But as the story develops both develops a close friendship, here we already know Misa is the right one for Hikaru do to how well they understand each other; I actually found myself routing for them to get together because both make sense like Castle and Kate in the TV show "Castle", Helo and Athena in "Battlestar Galatica", and well you get it. But like any great romance before true love can blossom both have one obstacle to get past which is themselves.

Super Dimension Macross isn't just another cartoon but one of the greatest love stories of all time.

Rating: 4 stars

The Important stuff first; if you've seen the entirety of the non-Robotech version, then you've seen the series that's included in the Blu-ray version. The only thing that you're missing are some booklets and the "special disk" which includes some re-animated sequences using a mixture of CGI and traditional cel-animation.

The entire TV series has not been re-animated, as I and others were led to believe with this super-expensive special edition.

Background; I was first introduced to this series as Robotech way back in 1983 or 1984, and I didn't think much of the animation, as even for offshore Japanese animation it seemed a bit more jerky than normal compared to other shows.

Where I was impressed with the dynamics of the story, I had a hard time watching it because of the quality of the animation. So, fast forward to 2012 and the "30th Anniversary" blu-rays come out, only I've got lots of obligations to meet, and no time to buy, watch and enjoy this show. If and when that big promotion comes, then I'll splurge, but, as fate would have it, I would have to wait five more years.

In the meantime I'm seeing snippets of the special edition, and I'm seeing new intro and musical sequences for Lynn Minmay. It appeared that the show had been re-animated. I mean, wow. That's something worth buying. Unfortunately the entire series was not reanimated, as I had hoped.

In 1984 I was shown the Feature Film via a bootleg copy based off of the same TV show, and was impressed with it. It wasn't quite Disney quality in terms of the actual animation, but it was many time better than the TV series, and the entire saga was compressed into a two hour format from hours of animated TV episodes, and done with exceptionally high production values.

Regrettably only select segments were redone, and are on the "special disk" included with this set. It's not worth spending the extra cash, even if you're a millionaire. Oh sure, if you have a lot of friends who were Macross fans back in the day, you all might get a kick out of it, but otherwise pass it up.

The real odd things is that the opening episode is repeated on the special disk in addition to the Blu-ray disks of the actual show. What for, I can't imagine. There's even a recording from the VHS release included on this disk. Again, why this is I have no idea--perhaps to compare the image quality.

In short, it's not worth buying. If you have the money, and really want the show on bluray, then buy the less expensive no frills version.

I hope this helps.

In the year 1999 a city-sized extraterrestrial battle cruiser crash lands on Earth, and over the next decade scientists and engineers repair its damage and refit it into a hybrid of human and alien technologies. What the Earth-folks don't realize is that the ship has been tailed by an entire armada of heavily armed space battle cruisers who seek to claim the ship and its secrets for themselves. The aliens, called Zentraedi, are a formidable race of giants who have been bred for warfare, but as they approach their presence triggers a booby trap on the downed space-fortress — called the Macross — that plows through them with a devastating energy weapon. Thinking the Earth fired upon them intentionally, the Zentraedi retaliate, thereby launching Space War I. Realizing that it would probably be a good idea to move the conflict off of the Earth (which has just gotten over a long on-planet war), the captain of the Macross orders the use of the ship's untested "fold" system to warp the ship to the dark side of the moon; the warp is initiated, but it brings the small city that had grown around the Macross with it, plus, to the horror of all involved, they find themselves just outside orbit near Pluto (that's what you get for messing around with technology that you don't know how to operate!). And as if that isn't bad enough, the fold system has completely vanished, leaving the ship's crew and the now-rescued inhabitants of the city no alternative but to make their way back home using only conventional engines. And as the Macross crawls back to the Earth, the enemy fleet is not far behind...

That's the basic setup, but what makes Macross stand out from the plethora of alien invasion space operas that came before it — most notably the classic Space Battleship Yamato (1974) — is its focus on the human element of its story, becoming in essence a soap opera in sci-fi drag. Nearly every character is in some way flawed, and despite the military experience held by many of them, that experience frequently proves moot in the face of deep space combat and technologies that they simply do not comprehend. The ostensible hero, sixteen-year-old stunt pilot Hikaru Ichijo, comes of age during the course of the narrative and we follow him through every awkward step, tracing his evolution from prodigy civilian airman to ace space-fighter, as well as seeing him swallow his reluctance to kill once he joins the United Nations Space Navy (annoyingly dubbed the "UN Spacy" for short). Hikaru's also at the center of a love triangle that sees his emotions split between a cute Chinese girl who ends up going from waitress to pop idol overnight, and his by-the-book career military commanding officer; this triangle is milked for all it's worth and is the primary reason that the series proved so popular with female viewers, along with the romantic trials and tribulations of the rest of the voluminous cast.

Another thing that sets the series apart from the cliché template is the pan-cultural scope of the cast. The hero may be Japanese, but the rest of the characters run the ethnic gamut, the bridge crew alone being comprised of a couple of Russians, an American or two, an Italian, and a black chick. This was very refreshing at the time, with the then-most-contemporary multi-cultural cast of characters being found in the various incarnations of Cyborg 009, but each member of that international team was drawn in the most broad of ethnic stereotypes. Not so with Macross, which didn't make a big deal ou t of the characters' ethnicities and saw only the Chinese character standing out because of her frequently-worn Hong Kong-style dresses and hairstyles.

And while the show certainly has a contingent of fans who revere it for its space battles and transforming mecha, I have to say that I love it most for starting things off on a footing that allows the viewer to think they know exactly where the story's going to go and then consistently pulling the rug out from under them. The love triangle plays out in a way that sees all three participants change and grow, the B-characters go through some serious drama involving the tragic casualties of war and the possibilities that can blossom between even the most bitter of enemy rivalries (let's hear it for Max and Millia!!!), and even the enemy aliens prove to be far more than just stock evil world-conquerers when their strange and ancient history proves that there really is something to the universal nature of basic "humanity."

Super Dimension Fortress Macross is easily the most well-crafted and intelligent of the space operas from the 1980's, both in terms of narrative and visual impact, and totally raised the bar on how such material can and should be handled. In fact, the only serialized alien invasion show to come along since that even comes close is Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), a series that wears its Macross influence on its sleeve but somehow comes up a lot less satisfying. If you can get your hands on the Animeigo boxed sets of the original uncut and subtitled Macross series — avoid the sequels and the not bad Americanized version, Robotech — do yourself the favor and check them out, starting with episode number one because the whole thing's one long story told in thirty-six chapters. Even if you're not an anime fan I urge you to give this stuff a chance. Space operas seldom get any better than this, and Super Dimension Fortress Macross sure as hell beats the three recent Star Wars atrocities.