While I don’t usually write reviews for TV shows or movies I watch, the friend I watched this with tossed out the idea once we finished watching it a little while ago, as I clearly had so much to say about (as I had already said at length during our post-episode discussion sessions). Mulling it over, I decided I did indeed have enough to say to at least take a crack at writing up my thoughts about the original Macross series, so I’m giving it my best shot here. We watched all 36 episodes of the original series at the pace of about 2 episodes every weekend over the course of about five months. Fair warning: This review will have spoilers galore, as it’s really impossible to relate my issues with Macross as a show without getting into specifics about its plot.
The 1982 anime, Super Dimension Fortress Macross is the story of the titular ship, the Macross, and the interstellar war that it takes part in in an imagined early twenty-first century. In the last couple years of the twentieth century, a mysterious interstellar object crash lands on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. That object is in fact an extra terrestrial space ship, and the massive tsunami from its impact as well as the fight as to who would take possession of it sparks a massive conflict known as the Unification Wars that take the better part of the next decade. At around 2008 (over two and a half decades from when the show was released), the Unification Wars have resulted in a united Earth government, and the Macross itself is just about ready to launch, having been under repair for nearly that entire time. However, just on its landing day, another extra terrestrial visitor comes to Earth, aliens known as the Zentradi who have been pursuing the Macross. Their attack on the island the Macross sits on culminates in that very ship initiating a “fold”, a worm hole jump, to escape the combat, but a technical mishap results in the Macross as well as the island and town surrounding it being un-folded out past Pluto in the depths of space. The Macross’s perilous trip back to Earth and the ensuing conflict with the Zentradi take the course of the show’s first 27 episodes, with the last 9 episodes detailing events two years after the end of the first 27. Our show follows a young man named Hikaru Ichijyo. Starting the series as just a teenager, he’s pulled into the Macross conflict and the military branch of the Macross after attending the ship’s opening ceremony at the request of his senpai, Roy Focker (a decorated veteran of the Unification Wars). Additionally we have Lynn Minmey, a young girl who loves to sing and who ends up becoming the Macross’s biggest cultural pop sensation after their trip into space, and we also have Misa Hayase, the captain of the bridge crew of the Macross. If nothing else, Macross would becoming most famous as a series for its love triangles, and the relationships between Hikaru, Minmay, and Misa are the core of this show (beyond its often confused politics). Macross had a very troubled production. Being inspired (as so many shows were) by the big sci-fi anime boom that the original Gundam launched, it would take passing between several publishers (each with their own visions of what they wanted this show to be vs. what the actual creators had in mind) and the help of several extra animation teams to get Macross to the finish line. On top of that, the publisher they ultimately found gave them only 27 episodes, but the first 3 episodes were such a massive hit that they then gave them another 9 (resulting in just how different and separated the last 9 episodes feel compared to the previous 27). With all this in mind, it is no wonder that the execution of the original TV series’s story is so scatterbrained as it tried to help pave the way for future plot-focused sci-fi anime that were more than just a “monster of the week” experience as past shows had so often been. However, understandable as its production difficulties may have been, that doesn’t really make Macross any easier to watch in the current year. Just as the Macross within the show was a large vehicle assembled as it went along, so too was the show that it starred in. The hurried production schedule has left a large and very visible aftermath along the whole of the show, resulting in a lot of larger plot details that are either swept away out of convenience, or stated suddenly with no prior established reason for their existence. The crew of the Macross will suddenly and inexplicably have key information about their adversaries, mechanical problems in the ship itself will undo themselves after enough episodes have passed, and the exact nature of the danger they’re all in will shift and change beyond what we’ve previously been shown. It all makes for an overall experience that will very often leave you asking yourself, “Wait, what? Since when did that happen?” But there is no casualty of this “write as you go” production schedule that is greater than the show’s characters and the themes they represent. This is a larger web of relationships so big and messy that it’s honestly hard to know where to start, but we may as well start with Hikaru and Minmay. Hikaru gets tangled up in a vague romance with Minmay that takes over a lot of the show’s first two thirds, but Hikaru’s career in the military and Minmay’s rising pop-star successes keep driving them apart. Hikaru is a confused young man trying to balance his own feelings about the life he lives and the conflict he’s a part of and the girl he loves. We get a ton of windows into Hikaru’s frustrations, but very few into Minmay’s. It’s ultimately very unclear that she has much agency in anything beyond what her managers tell her to do, and that’s especially true once her cousin (and eventual sort-of boyfriend) Kaifun enters the picture. Once we get to the show’s first sort-of finale at episode 27, Minmay’s reveal to Hikaru that she only ever thought of them as friends (despite all the romantic dates and such that they went on) comes off as nothing short of absurdity in service of the plot, but with the momentum the plot has at that point, it gives Hikaru some sort of closure and allows him to pursue Misa as a more responsible romantic partner. It’s hurried, sloppy writing, but at least it seems to serve a kind of purpose. Near the mid-point of the overall show and especially after the 2-year time skip, Hikaru has matured into a much more logical and duty-driven young man. He still makes mistakes here and there in his interpersonal life, but he is virtually always correct when it comes to the military conflict he has such an important role in. This is not true, however, for Kaifun, Minmay’s cousin/boyfriend and eventual manager. Kaifun is positioned as a sort of romantic rival for Hikaru, but he’s also positioned as a kind of ideological rival as well. Kaifun is staunchly anti-military. Not just anti-war, but anti-military, and he takes every opportunity he can get to rail against the military that he sees as single-handedly continuing this conflict simply because it can. However, we the viewers know that this is nonsense. The Macross, its crew, and all of humanity are locked in a defensive war for their own survival. Early on, you could attempt to write off Kaifun’s words as simply the result of his ignorance of the larger stakes of the conflict, but this becomes impossible to excuse as the story goes on and he becomes a more and more important figure in the story. Other characters (such as Hikaru and Minmay) express similarly baffling statements at times, asking in frustration when the fighting will end as if their superiors have any choice in the matter. It all results in a story that comes off as incredibly pro-military, as anyone who expresses ideas of pacifism or non-violence are either making clearly illogical statements or shown to be simply wrong in their assertions (either implicitly or explicitly). Kaifun in particular feels like a far-right conservative’s idea of a “useful idiot” pacifist, where their calls for non-violence are so illogical that it just plays exactly into the enemy’s hands, as this is shown to us over and over with Kaifun and others. This is a show that has very messy themes, but the supremacy and moral virtue of the military is one very consistent theme throughout the entire show. Adding to this very conservative vibe that Macross has is its treatment of its aliens, the Zentradi, and their strengths and weaknesses. The Zentradi are a warrior race of giants who know only war. They know no culture (no literature, song, or fiction), and exist only to fight. Men and women of the Zentradi are forbidden to serve on the same ships, and they know nothing of love either. They can’t even repair their own ships or vehicles they’re so single-minded in their fighting. Now the first 27 episodes focus on this a fair bit, as the “culture shock” they experience upon being exposed to human culture, especially Minmay’s songs and ideas/depictions of love & romance, gives them the realization that there is something else to live for other than fighting, and it leads to huge defections among their ranks to the point that a lot of them choose to size-down and try to live among humans. However, this isn’t just “beauty taming the beast”. Repeatedly, we are shown that the Macross and the earthlings are willing to use culture not as an olive branch but explicitly as a psychological weapon. It’s how they defeat the larger Zentradi fleet in the climax of the 27th episode, and many times before then it’s used similarly to catch off guard and ambush other Zentradi enemies. Culture and love are shown time and time again to not be some illuminating light to let us escape from constant war, but as weapons of war no different than any bullet or missile. This gets even more problematic and troubled once we get into the 2-year time skip and the last nine episodes. Zentradi (both big and small) have chosen to live among humans and indulge in a shared culture together. This is especially true after, earlier in the show, we are given confirmation that Zentradi and Earthlings are effectively biologically identical. This even extends to a sized-down female Zentradi falling in love with an ace pilot among the humans, and them getting married in a very public ceremony. Their union is explicitly used in-universe as not just proof that Earthlings and Zentradi can get along, but as a propaganda tool. They are even even shown to have had a baby together during the time skip. However, regardless of all of this, the show takes very explicit steps to show that the Zentradi are biologically tied to violence. There are some small attempts here and there done to suggest that the long Earthling history of warfare shows that they’re no different, but these ring very hollow when the whole premise of the last 9 episodes is that Zentradi, unable to assimilate into normal society due to their biological need for violence and warfare, begin defecting to a surviving Zentradi commander with whom they launch a rebellion against the new Earth government. A major plot element of the show, one that is never refuted, is that while these aliens, these foreigners, SOME of them can assimilate and be normal and peaceful like us, ALL of them still carry some risk of falling victim to their biological urges for violence, and it’s just not safe for them to live among peaceful Earthlings. They even are explicitly shown to be using the machine repair skills that the Earthlings taught them to build tools for their rebellion, and say things like “this will make them regret teaching us ‘culture’”, casting doubt on the value of rehabilitating former enemies like this at all. It’s all an extremely xenophobic and racist message that also ties into the earlier pro-military messages. The military and its actions of segregation and skepticism are shown to ultimately always be right compared to those who wish to give the benefit of the doubt to self-realization and self-governance, because anyone who gives the good aliens the benefit of the doubt and stands against the military government just turns into a sitting duck to be killed and attacked by all of those bad aliens out there. The military is always right, and aliens, even the good ones, are always most safely viewed with some level of suspicion of their unquenchable base urges for warfare. Then, last but certainly not least, we have the show’s approach to gender, love, and romance, best shown through the very troubled character of Misa Hayase and her relationship to Hikaru. Misa is a competent and very accomplished woman in the hierarchy of the Macross military, and is one year Hikaru’s senior. Her and Hikaru have a long, troubled courtship over the series that at least in part has to do with some similar things they’re both working through. She too has a past lover that she’s been trying to forget, and she also has trouble balancing her important military job with her personal love life. By the time we reach the original climax of episode 27, they’ve fallen into something resembling a quiet, mutual understanding of affection, even if there’s nothing explicit. However, as with most trouble in this show, the real difficulties begin once we reach the time skip. Once we skip forward two years, Misa is hopelessly emotional over her non-relationship with Hikaru almost constantly. Apparently, between now and the time episode 27 takes place, they had never actually started dating or explicitly expressed their affection for one another, and she’s just been building a stockpile of passive aggression until the time we rejoin the story in episode 28. Unlike Hikaru, who especially post time-skip is shown to be competent, logical, and driven by his sense of duty, Misa is a constant storm of emotional impulses that frequently endanger her and her comrades and cost countless innocent people their lives. At one point, she nearly goes to Hikaru to tell him how she feels, but upon seeing him simply talking with Minmay (someone he hasn’t seen at all in nearly two years), she instead turns heel immediately and sobs all the way home. Speaking of Minmay, she also receives a very odd character change in the last nine episodes. Where she was largely devoid of much inner life or character motivation in the previous 27 episodes, she now has a far more fleshed out and better character. She’s matured a lot, and has grown increasingly distant from Kaifun who, in addition to being a useful idiot pacifist, is now inexplicably incredibly greedy for cash and compensation as the manager/boyfriend of a famous pop star (as if the viewer needed more reason to dislike him). She repeatedly fights and tries to leave Kaifun and try things again with Hikaru, who she has only now realized she truly does have romantic feelings for. Despite the utterly baffling final scene with Kaifun (as he spouts wisdom utterly out of character towards her in an exchange that would frankly make more sense if he were the one being chastised instead of her), Minmay actually manages to really determine what she wants in life and goes back to Hikaru for good. She realizes she loves him, and Hikaru hasn’t been able to stop thinking about her since they last parted. The only real things you could call mistakes that Hikaru makes in the post-time skip period is repeatedly (and somewhat heartlessly) blowing off Misa to instead hang out/go on dates with Minmay. What ultimately seems to draw Hikaru back to Misa doesn’t so often seem to be love, but guilt. Meanwhile, Misa has been getting relationship advice from Claudia (Roy Focker’s fiance) that is easily one of the most explicitly poorly aged thing in the show. While Macross’s romance subplots have airs of this, Claudia’s story of her initial courtship with Roy really exemplifies how much this show pushes the idea of “no means yes” when it comes to relationships between men and women. Despite acting like a pig to her constantly, Claudia is still head over heels for Roy despite him doing virtually nothing to earn it, and her only real trouble is not knowing how to tell him how she feels in return (and this is exactly the situation Misa finds herself in with Hikaru). When Misa actually finally builds up the courage to tell Hikaru how she feels, he and Minmay are already living together they’ve become so close. Minmay is completely in love with Hikaru, and it takes some completely out of character Kaifun-like useful idiot anti-military nonsense from Minmay to try and plead with the viewer to not see just how heartless this whole situation is. Keep in mind, Minmay has lost her love for singing because of Kaifun’s greed and abuse, and she has thrown all of her career away to be with Hikaru. As a result, despite how heartless Hikaru was towards Misa earlier, he and especially Misa are FAR more heartless towards Minmay in the climax of the show, and the only way that the episode seems able to break the tension is with a final enemy invasion to force the scene to end, because otherwise we’d need to deal with just how little sense it makes for Hikaru to leave the loving and very emotionally matured Minmay for the emotionally mercurial and obsessive Misa. Hikaru’s ultimate reason for choosing Misa feels something closer to “well, we work together, so this just makes sense” rather than any “we live in different worlds” that was the original 27 episodes sort-of justification for Hikaru and Minmay growing apart. This is really where it all coalesces. Misa is shown to be weak in both reason and ability because of her emotional state, and it’s only once she overcomes these emotions and instead chooses duty (to protect the Macross, to do her military job) that she is able to do good things again. This mirrors very well the transition Hikaru went through earlier in the show as well. Once he’s able to put the conflict in key focus instead of obsessing over girls constantly, he’s able to find success in both duty and love, as now the women in his life he used to chase now chase after him. Following Roy Focker’s advice from earlier in the show, that the best thing in life is to fight in the military to protect the women in your life, Hikaru finally finds success and happiness. This is a show that first and foremost glorifies the military (its power structures, governments based around it, the relationships it facilitates) and portrays emotion as a point of weakness. Those who feel emotion and let it get in the way of their duty, in the way of the military, are just messing everything up, compromising their ability to accomplish anything, and effectively just aiding the enemy who are only just waiting to take advantage of their bleeding heart notions. That really is my ultimate problem with Macross. Sure, it’s a mess of a show plot-wise, and it’s not particularly pretty either. Characters change their motivations seemingly with very little motivation, the military political situation changes just as conveniently, and you really just need to not pay much attention and let the momentum of the show carry you if you want to enjoy it on a plot level. As for its aesthetics, some of the less talented studios who assisted in animating this left error-prone and ugly looking episodes strewn throughout the entire series. These are things unavoidable when talking about Macross, and are largely just the result of the troubled production it went through to exist. But the real devil in the details here is in the writing. Given the political culture of the early 80’s, I can honestly understand, to a degree, why Macross would’ve found such popularity in the past. But the messages it pushed were bad then and they’re still bad now. Its age isn’t even a particularly good excuse, as there are plenty of other sci-fi anime of the early 80’s (like one of my favorites, Galaxy Cyclone Brygar) that have much healthier and better aged theming and messaging. Intentional or otherwise by its creators, the themes of Macross have said no to more anti-war and progressive sci-fi anime and gone with a staunchly conservative approach instead. Macross is a show that loves the *vibes* of Vietnam War-style anti-war stories. Stories where the government is waging a war that's completely meaningless beyond pure aggression, and raging against the military industrial complex and the government enabling it is righteous work for good. But the problem here is that Macross either just fundamentally lacks cognizance as to why those types of anti-military resistance apply to a Vietnam War story or just doesn't care. It loves the style, but doesn't understand (or doesn't care about) the substance at all. All of the anti-war/anti-military pacifism in this show, from Kaifun to Hikaru, makes a lot more sense if you view it through the lens of a Vietnam War movie. The kind of conflict where "when will the killing stop?" makes sense as a complaint from a soldier towards his superior if their side is the aggressor. It's gibberish if he's on the defending team. What we end up with in Macross is equivalent to if you made a Vietnam War movie where you have a Viet Cong soldier raging at their superior to just end the war already. It makes no sense and comes off as FAR more pro-military and anti-pacifism in how nonsensical it makes those arguments look, but that's the story Macross is, and it's frankly disgusting. Despite all of the trouble in the production, despite all of the animation troubles, the plot of the first two thirds having needed to be condensed, last third of the show being written way later, all of that, the show still maintains that pro-military, very conservative message from the beginning to the end. This is a show that is very right-wing, very xenophobic, and very sexist (despite what all of the women in the main cast might lead you to believe otherwise). As a result, at least for the messaging, unless you’re of a very conservative bent, you’re likely not going to like the writing in Macross at all. If you’re anything like me, you’ll likely find it quite abhorrent. But even if you agree with the messaging, then we run into the problems born from the troubled production, and then we just have a show that’s paced very badly and plotted even worse, and it doesn’t even look terribly nice as a last consolation. With a very wide range of animation that runs the gamut from great to awful, dreadful pacing, and a reprehensible moral compass, Macross is a show I really cannot recommend at all. The most generous possible reading of it I could give places it at a very solidly mediocre mess, and even then, with all of the far better sci-fi anime (even from the same era) that's out there, your time is worth more than this. If you’re a huge sci-fi fan, perhaps you’ll find it worth your while to watch it if only to get a better grasp of its place in history, but outside of that scenario, Super Dimension Fortress Macross is a show worth staying far, far away from.
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AuthorI'm an avid gamer who likes to detail their thoughts about what they play in the hopes it might aid someone else's search for a game to play. Archives
April 2024
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