My selfless quest for fandom nirvana
Or, how I learned to stop worrying and sort of like Macross 7
I have tried multiple times to watch Macross 7 in recent years — most recently at the onset of Frontier. I just couldn’t manage to get past the first few episodes. The dated-sounding music, the ceaseless dunderheadedness of protagonist Nekki Basara, the generally crappy animation quality. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized, if I want to throw my weight around as a True Macross Fan, I’d have to get down to business and finish this sucker. The insistence of its fans that it was actually good didn’t hurt either.
Anyway. Fortunately, these days it’s totally unneccessary to spend big bucks on an unlicensed series. That’s right, unlicensed. The issues with Harmony Gold, Macross, and Robotech are well-documented and I guess in M7’s case they really got the better of the licensers.
According to Manga, those OVA tit-merchants I love so much [quoted for truth from Wikipedia]:
“It would take all the anime companies working together to be able to afford to bring the series over to America”
And I’m pretty sure if representatives from any of those companies have watched the series, that idea becomes even more laughable.
What’s the big deal?
There were innumerable things wrong with Macross 7 from the start, though there are some great things too. But the more I watch, the more I’ve come to love those things I saw as flaws.
The things I liked from the start:
- Maximillian Jenius, Millia Fallynia Jenius, and Exedol are back from SDF-Macross, acting as the big shots that war heroes of their caliber tend to end up being.
- Valkyries are updated to look like Stealth Fighters. Pretty neat. Which makes me wonder why the old standard fighter plane style came back in Plus and Frontier. At any rate, it’s classic Shouji Kawamori mecha and ship design.
The things I warmed up to:
- I’m finally coming around to Nekki Basara. He’s a real dolt, but he gains depth as the series goes.
- Mylene Jenius, daughter of Millia and Max, also grows as a character after starting off kinda bratty. Plus, she’s good in a Valkyrie and shows far more spunk than emo Ranka — although she’s just as bafflingly short, being half-Zentradi.
- The comedic/goofy feel finally stopped confusing and pissing me off. This is most decidely not Macross Plus. The flower groupie is freaking hilarious, deadpan Meltran drummer Veffidas is used sparingly for laughs now and again, and don’t get me started on the whacked-out Dr. Chiba. Tonal change in the second half? It’s possible.
Things I still can’t get over:
- The music just isn’t up to snuff. Like most Macross series, M7 is all about the music. But the rock anthems (or “folk oldies,” as Alto called them) of Fire Bomber sound hopelessly dated and cheeseball even for the time. Remember 1994? Nirvana was on top of the charts, but the music writers behind Macross 7 were still jamming Twisted Sister and the Crüe on the tape decks in their Camaros — and watering the cock-rock down with anime-pop overtones. To make matters worse, there’s a shortage of tunes. Whereas Yoko Kanno writes a new song for Frontier every time a major character takes a shit, and then pads those with Mari Ijima’s Minmay classics, M7 constantly assaults its viewers with Fire Bomber’s signature hit, “Planet Dance.” I think “Totsugeki Love Heart” has a solid melody and is totally listenable, but after how many more times listening to it will I still think that? I have heard rumors that a couple Minmay hits will rear their heads, so here’s hoping.
- The animation and production values are right up there with the music. SDF Macross looks a little dated, sure, but was great for its time. Do You Remember Love? still looks good for any time. Macross Plus (also from ‘94) is a marvel of early computer-assisted work. Macross 7, however, is cheap-looking and cheap-sounding. Sound effects are of the cheap analog synth variety, recycling runs wild, Variable Fighter transformation scenes are often instant or skipped over entirely, and no one’s going to confuse Fire Bomber’s concerts with Haruhi’s any time soon. On the plus side, it’s consistently mediocre rather that alternatingly impressive/horrific, like some other Macross series I know.
Time (and just under 30 more episodes) will tell whether I consider Macross 7 as deserving of the name as the rest of the OVAs and TV series that bear the Macross name. I’m already tired of the songs and the awful VHS-rip files that are the only reasonable method of watching.
- otou-san out!
September 16th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
I think you forgot that the music is awesome because it sounds “dated”. But I never, ever liked Nirvana, so it’s funny you bring that up–I listened to Smells Like Teen Spirit on purpose a year or so ago, and I can honestly say that I had never heard it before, or even remembered it if I had. Musically, I was essentially raised by my parents refusing to get out of the 60s and 70s, so I grew up as some kind of weird time-traveler who’d somehow managed to be young through both the 60s AND the 70s AND some of the 80s. Outside of that, I grew up in a musical vacuum, as I tended to hate whatever song was popular throughout the 90s, and it only got worse over time. Of course, as my last.fm page helpfully informs you, I can’t make any heads or tails of my taste in music.
In context of Japanese music in the 1990s, it’s often been joked that Japan was somehow stuck in the 80s for the 90s, and then jumped back in step with everyone else in 2000 somehow. Around the time of Macross 7’s airing, popular acts in Japan would be groups like The Blue Hearts, JUDY AND MARY, Spitz, B’z, and the ALFEE (because the ALFEE started in 1974 and still hasn’t actually stopped) and probably zillions of others I can’t remember as I’m not an expert on Japanese popular music. If listening to those bands (especially their recordings around 1994) puts Macross 7 in a better musical context than trying to shoehorn the American musical experience into a completely different country’s musical experience in a time when that sort of cultural exchange wasn’t nearly as easy as it is today, well, so much the better.
If you can somehow manage to hate Holy Lonely Light, though…
September 17th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Just providing context, not endorsing or condemning any particular brand of American rock music. Although Nirvana’s Bleach does make it to the turntable every now and again still.
I’ve heard reference to the phenomenon about Japan’s music in the 90s, but I can easily look through my records and find 90s releases in many genres: Akiko Yano, Boris, Acid Mothers Temple, the Boredoms, Ruins, Merzbow, Sigh, the Pillows, Ryuichi Sakamoto, the list goes on.
But — this is an anime, and arguably some of those acts took a few years to catch on (I won’t even bring Melt-Banana into this), so I can see where you’re coming from with the context argument. And I always try to enjoy music with a little context.
PLus, you’re right. Holy Lonely Light. It sounds like some vintage Judas Priest or something, and it rocks (especially Basara’s opening scream).
September 17th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I see your gravatar is sporting TENTACLES!
September 18th, 2008 at 7:37 am
@OGT: So you’re like Marcus from About A Boy?
@otou-san: Nirvana’s Bleach: Better than Shonen Jump’s Bleach.
@Jason: So that’s what Cute-thulu looks like?
September 18th, 2008 at 11:07 am
The gravatar is Gekka from Kyouran Kazoku Nikki, who is in fact only a jellyfish. An omnipotent, flying jellyfish.
September 18th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
But that doesn’t change the fact that your omnipotent jellyfish has TENTACLES!
September 18th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
@newgeekphilosopher: I don’t know, I haven’t managed to read a Nick Hornby novel yet.
@otou-san: I have the world’s worst taste in just about anything, surely you’ve realized that by now. I don’t like the bands I’m “supposed” to like in the Japanese music scene (especially the scene in the United States, and “the scene in the United States” covers quite a lot of variety, none of which I fit into at all), I don’t like the anime I’m supposed to like (either in Japan or the U.S.), and I don’t even like the books I’m supposed to like (I found M.T. Anderson’s Whales on Stilts! to be far better written and plotted than Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay but that’s because I lack quality detectors).
I don’t really know what the hell that has to do with anything, let alone Macross 7, but, uh, I’m not entirely sure Fire Bomber sounds anything like Judas Priest? I didn’t like Judas Priest last I checked (except for one song, maybe), but I don’t know anymore.
It doesn’t help that I already had the “why don’t I like these things that people say are really good? why do I like these things that people say are really bad? do I actually like these things I say I like?” phase tonight, and it’s still floating around.
September 18th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Uh-oh, sounds like an identity crisis to me.
I have managed to read Nick Hornby and I don’t really care for him. I suppose on at least one level that puts me in your boat. I don’t know what music or anime you’re supposed to like, but frankly I’d much rather hear a dissenting opinion on…. pretty much anything, I guess, than just reinforcement of the norm. Why bother?
Listening to at least a couple of those aforementioned artists has gotten me lumped in the weird, stupid, or pretentious piles before, and being in a band that desperately wanted to be Merzbow got me banned from a few venues, but whatever. If you enjoy things for your own reasons, then they are the right reasons.
Plus, your taste, for better or worse, was a very strong factor in me pursuing Macross 7 for this third time — which was, in fact, the charm.
September 18th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
If (or when) you make it to when Sound Force pops up (which you may have, if you’ve heard Holy Lonely Light used in the series) and you don’t like it any better, you might as well give up. Unless you want to see Gigil being awesome. Which is pretty much the most amazing part of Macross 7. Well, that, and the last episode.
On taste, well, it’s just disconcerting, because I have a perception that I like what is “good”, but then there’s these other things out there that I also recognize as also “good” but I don’t necessarily like them and I may, in fact, hate them, but they’re “good” because I can’t actually say they’re “bad” because “bad” is objective and it’s merely my opinion.
brain exploding please watch for discarded neurons
(On an unrelated note, I’ve yet to see anyone around my campus with any kind of discernibly good taste in music. This, however, is probably because they, like me, are incognito.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:19 am
I’m not sure if “bad” is objective. But that is a real can of worms, one I think you (and lelangir and a couple others) opened before and probably should take a year off from working on again, at the risk of your own sanity.
But yes, I have made it to Sound Force (and its even more incredibly awesome counterpart, Chiba Song Units), and I’m really sincerely and un-ironically enjoying it. It’s really a lot of episodes to get through before something becomes awesome, but I think crazy-ass Dr. Chiba might just make up for it.
I’m not sure why it seems like the technology for all this scientific and exacting use of music as a weapon seems to have been lost between Seven and Frontier (not to mention the Fold Boosters that Diamond Force used but somehow SMS had to re-invent), but perhaps by the end I’ll have figured that out.
September 25th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I can´t say much. The first episodes have some good parts(Mylene in a swimsuit for one) but fast grows boring with “the attack of the week” and they don´t have that many songs. I got attached to My Soul For You. But that is all.
Then we have a boring part where the city Hall gets captured and Basara is the only way for defense. When the protodeviln start appearing the show gets better and it ends in quite a satisfying way.
Yes, I did enjoy most of the songs that were played. Thinking back when Basara lost his voice and Mylene almost got eaten and he plunged himself into the fiery mouth to save her, only to be healed by her singing and then kicking some protodeviln butt was so cool.
So while it should have been way shorter to make it a better show I still can´t complain that much. Bad VHS quality isn´t good though
September 25th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Things have picked up since the Protodeviln appeared and the scene you mentioned really was a winner. At this point (circa ep. 36) my biggest problems have been (a) the length, especially since it took so long to really get going, and (b) the fact that I just don’t care about the conflict between the different villains. They don’t have enough believable motivation to make me appreciate what’s going on between them. Only Gigil is half-interesting.
At any rate, I’m enjoying it but it’s way long, and I’m desiring an end soon.
September 26th, 2008 at 12:52 am
Gigil is awesome
And yes, the show is to long for it´s own good. But when thinking on how they rushed things with Macross Frontier in the latest eps well I´m kinda glad they didn´t do that in Macross 7.
I don´t know what is worse: Have a show rushed or to long.