Macross Frontier (Review)
Possibly misleading post title
This not strictly a review of Macross Frontier. There are going to be a lot of those on the web, of varying quality and opinions. And I’m guessing a lot of people are going to say they liked it, with some complaining about a botched ending or how Alto didn’t stick it in your favorite girl, blah blah. And they’ll be right about many of their complaints: the end was a copout and the love triangle was lukewarm at best. But after all the shipping, all the whining, and all the missile spam, what did Macross Frontier really do for the franchise? While thankfully some reviewers can look at Frontier as its own sci-fi series, if you’ve seen previous versions it’s harder to divorce any series from the overall Macross “experience,” the way you could with (for instance) a Gundam series.
First, let’s have a look at what other series and films have brought to the table.
- The Super Dimension Fortress Macross. The birth of Macross.
- Do You Remember Love? Established Kawamori as one of those artists who obsessively paints the same picture over and over — in this case, the chill-inducing juxtaposition of an incredible battle with a majestic song performance.
- Macross 7. Took the vague mystical concepts of Lynn Minmay and turned them into vague hard science. Also made Macross a bit silly and fun.
- Macross Plus. Set a higher standard for music and characterization, and opened up the possibility of a more mature Macross.
- Macross Zero. Gave fans real perspective on the Macross world, and a new view on Protoculture. In a way, Zero made Macross “real.”
Macross Frontier
Zero animator Satelight is back, and this time they’re out to turn all your characters into cyclops. The computer work is better, in fact it’s amazing. But the end result doesn’t smell as good as I’d like it to.
The contribution… What is it? In my mind, when I try to reach a conclusion about what Frontier means to the franchise, I come up short. Since it’s Macross, here’s a musical analogy: Frontier is less like a new album by a master songwriter and more like one of those awful tribute albums — or worse, a re-recording of old tunes by the original artist with none of the fire intact.
There’s no new Macross here, only more of the old Macross. More songs (which is a good thing), more singers to sing them, more space battle, more guy-who-looks-like-Global, and more more more references to past Macross.
The peppering of little smirks and nods to Macross lovers is a cool form of fanservice, and just as panty-shots of Mylene Jenius are a rare and notable thing, so should be those references, or they become less… nifty. Sorry, saying “special” in reference to Mylene’s panties seems totally wrong.
I like a captain who looks like Global, I like the dread inherent in a pineapple dessert, I like filming a movie about the events of Zero, but put them together along with all the other (often forced) wink-wink-nudge-nudge fanservice in this series, and two things happen: instead of creating something original, you’ve created a collection of references; and it only reminds me that all those shows you’ve referenced were better than this one.
Deja Vajra
Not only is Frontier determined to look toward the past, it’s basically made of past Macross spare parts. Take, for instance, Sheryl’s climactic performance on the battle stage, an enemy who is not actually your enemy in the end, or a fold engine for Valkyries that’s newly invented. What the flying fuck? How many times must we invent this thing? Gamlin used one in M7, Isamu used one in Plus, and suddenly Bilrer’s a flipping genius for making another one. Re-inventing the VF fold engine only served to iron out a story issue that should have been solved through quality writing.
The point is…
Perhaps I’m missing the point. Fanservice seems to form the basis of plenty of series these days anyway. Maybe Macross fans deserve to have a TV series that tells a very “Macrossian” story with a modern look, bright colors, and more songs than ever before. And I think I can get behind that idea.
The problem is, Kawamori and Satelight didn’t deliver. If the goal is to sum up the “Macross experience” in an all-encompassing story, then it deserved more consistent production values, a tighter story, and better characters (Ranka…). If the goal is simply a jumbled Super Dimensional antique store full of basic nostalgia, then I guess they did well.
Let’s just say it didn’t leave the best taste in my mouth, that way I’m justified in using this picture.
- otou-san out!
September 30th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
In my mind, Macross Frontier messed up in the stage between outline and final draft. When I make a bulleted list of what happened in Macross Frontier, it looks pretty badass and the story seems like a great introduction to what makes a Macross series. Unfortunately, the finished product is very uneven, as if the important parts weren’t made important enough.
As for the Macross fanservice, I would have preferred more “Bonta-kun in the background” as opposed to “Haruhi selling me coke” because I felt like I was getting clubbed over the head with references I didn’t really get. I still don’t really know what protoculture is, but I bet the Vajra could have been tied in with protoculture more effectively. The theme of communication between different entities could have been presented more strongly.
Is that dude at the bottom eating a leaf??? Also, maybe patent law is different in the Macross universe, hence constantly remaking that engine. Poor NUNS with their knockoff engines and refurbished jets =(.
September 30th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
o…k… i’m actually planning to pick this up as my one sci-fi/mecha for the (next) season. do i really need to watch all the other series in the franchise to understand it? i only watched one movie of macross, which i don’t remember anymore - while it was a stand alone, i had a weird time because my best friend had to explain to me who the characters were.
September 30th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Kabitzin - I think you may be right on with that. A little more thought would have probably improved the pacing, and hopefully the Ranka as well.
Emphasis might very well be one of the problems I was having a hard time pinning down. When the entirety of the Zentradi fleet de-folds in the original Macross, you can feel its magnitude. But some of Frontier’s truly significant plot developments were downplayed in favor of pineapple cakey. There were moments, sure, as with Show ▼
, but overall that was a big issue with the execution.
Don’t get me started on protoculture. Protoculture is the alien race that brought civilization to the humans in one giant evolutionary leap, and who basically built the Zentradi to be its fighting force. Grace’s monologue at the end about how protoculture emulated whatever it was that she tapped into really cheesed me, because in my mind it basically destroys all the significance you can garner out of Macross Zero. It’s another example of trying to add super-significance to something that they couldn’t back up with proper execution.
And yes, Nekki Basara (of Macross 7) is eating a leaf there. Truly lulzworthy moment of that series.
biankita - You really don’t need to see the other series, but as Kabitzin said, you will be hit over the head by a lot of references you won’t necessarily understand. I have a hard time imagining how it stands on its own since Macross occupies a pretty large chunk of my mecha-addled fanboy brain.
The movie you probably saw was Do You Remember Love? which supposedly stands alone but does a very poor job of explaining the characters. When it was made, I’m pretty sure everyone alive in Japan had seen SDF Macross so Kawamori and co. probably didn’t deem it necessary to do any exposition. The characters in Frontier all stand alone, as does the plot — you may even get more out of it because you won’t notice what parts are retreads.
September 30th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I’d say you can watch it without knowing anything about Macross. The little blurbs they had at the start of the first few episodes fill you in on most of what you need, and anything else can be solved with a quick look on wikipedia.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
I’ll indeed second the recommendation. I was a Macross virgin before tackling this and I came out just fine.
Every reference you mention flew right over my head, and so a lot of that annoyance you felt at the show’s pandering to its franchise’s roots was absent from my experience; what was left was a rather serviceable sci-fi show with decent production values (let’s be honest, after Sekirei I consider animation that gets the most basic anatomical proportions right a boon) and a story that wavered a little in the middle as it searched for its overarching plotline.
I’ll second you on the ending cop-out though… In fact I wrote exactly that in my episode 25 review before I read yours. Final verdict: not the kind of comfort show you’ll watch on a rainy Sunday curled up on the couch with a tub of ice cream, but hardly wasted time either.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
They were doing fine until Ranka’s episode throwing the horns for the first time, after that the series went downhill fast. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it till the end and would recommend it without hesitation, but as you said I would have loved less winks and more proper story development.
The remix of the last episode was nice, I won’t deny I liked it, but I would have much preferred a new song than a bunch of old ones (wtf did they get Yoko for?). The hurried way a bunch of stuff was explained just so they could move on and show us more eye candy was very annoying too.
And my pity for Sheryl was completely wiped after Ranka used her Jesus-hands and cured in two seconds flat (so blah). Just like Ozma, she would have been so much better off dead. The drama would have raised them to hero status.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
The production team got lost in doing tributes to the various Macross titles that have come before, so much so that they ended up with a cliche-filled, average anime story that looked and sounded very good. A good tribute for me would have been to explore the many unsolved mysteries of the previous Macross titles. Instead, we had some re-creations of events from earlier titles to evoke imagery of the past. I gather this will be lost on those who’ve not seen Macross (which I encourage people to watch), but fans like me who have watched, these re-creations soon become mostly pointless (like the stuff in episode 13-14, which is where I began to grow weary of Macross Frontier).
Bah! I’ve already blogged about this so no need to repeat myself. *lol*
One thing Macross Frontier did do for me is get me to watch Macross Zero (I still can’t get passed the first episode of Macross 7). Having watched that OVA, the elements discussed in episode 10 made more sense to me.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Well, this is the first Macross thingy I’ve seen so …
Ranka is cool
September 30th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Mr. K - I think “serviceable” about sums it up, but I couldn’t help watching it and thinking that with some pacing fixes, more solid characters, and in general a little ramping up of the story, we’d have had a “good” or even “rad” show.
yaku - It’s interesting, I never tried to trace it to a point but when I think about it the episode where Ranka joins the high school started me going all skeptical. I figure that’s fine and all, these are the times and they wanted a Macross set in high school, ok… but I did not enjoy the panty chase or any of the other school-associated shenanigans. The moment you’re talking about may very well be the one, though. I am afraid it was always a little more about “Ranka is cute” than the story, but that sealed the deal.
I absolutely loathed the megamix, forgot to mention that in the post (I think because I kinda ranted on Kabitzin’s post)… it felt jarring, and just when you think you’ll hear Sheryl sing “Watashi wa Kare wa Pilot,” the ultimate Macross song, it jumps around all weirdly to something else.
AstroNerdBoy - You pretty much sum up my sentiments, that’s what I mean by superdimensional antique store. Except I guess you’re right, these are just knockoffs. Give Macross 7 a shot. I haven’t seen it all yet, but it really is a lot of fun when you get into it.
blissmo - how I’ve missed your insight
October 1st, 2008 at 10:34 am
I intentionally picked up Macross Zero for this and it was great, though I doubt I’d go any further back just to understand the entire thing. Then again, if it wasn’t for Ranka, I wouldn’t have bothered with this, so yeah, Sieg Ranka!
October 1st, 2008 at 12:00 pm
[...] disagree with otou-san and the verdict that Macross Frontier offers nothing new. In fact MF has the most unflattering [...]
October 1st, 2008 at 11:46 pm
@otau-san: i’ll still watch it. lots of people say the references shouldn’t be anything i should worry about much. but i’ll probably drop it if the references becomes so non-macross fan unfriendly.
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:10 am
Well I think you are being overly harsh in demanding better production values, one of the things that has always plagued Satelight and Macross series in general. If you remember Macross 7 had its share of recycled shots, and SDF Macross was QUALITY animation. In the end though it was a celebration of 25 years of Macross and given how you actually made it through 7 while I am still slogging through it for almost a month now surely when the Battle Galaxy Gauntlet was tossed down part of you had to have suspected that all the stops would have pulled out for the final mecha battle?
I think that Frontier takes much of that old nostalgia and turns it on its head somewhat. I have stated this else where in a tl;dr post but I think that Frontier is a much darker Macross because it does cast NUNS in a rather negative light. The weaponization of music and Ranka’s betrayal of her song are note worthy departures from the tried and true positive power of culture and song. If there was one message that MF brought that was new was the folly of human arrogance, ambition, and greed. This is the first time within Macross where we see the humans being jerks to other groups be it the bugs and the Zentradi.
Given how Ranka ended up on the short end of the stick I suspect that Kawamori might have been trying to say something about this newfangled moe thing. More over like every other Macross Series Kawamori the tree hugger and music industry critic did sound off one some things. Even if things are not spelled out for us it still doesn’t make watching Sheryl and Alto-hime grow closer any less enjoyable based off what was presented. It’s easy to be ticked off over the Kawamori troll of episode 25 but that does mean that MF never left the shadow of its predecessors.
Just my 2 cents.
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:13 am
*It’s easy to be ticked off over the Kawamori troll of episode 25 but that does not mean that MF never left the shadow of its predecessors.
Damn where’s that edit function?
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:58 am
biankita - I think you’ll be fine, let me know what you think.
Crusader - I plan on responding on your post as well, but here’s a couple quick points. As far as production values, all really I wanted was a little consistency. I would rather see some of the big expensive space battles dropped in favor of a steady level of animation over all 25 episodes.
I’m not sure I’m getting the “dark side of NUNS” thing — UN Spacy certainly left the original SDF Macross out to dry, and they did try to weaponize music before with Jamming Birds, much to Basara’s dismay. Granted, it was nothing as sinister as what Grace did with Ranka, but it was still a perversion of “Macross values,” if you will.
I can say this — I was affected by episode 24, that ultra-dark moment of hopelessness when you realize that “Ai Oboete Imasuka,” the song that was humanity’s savior (at least in one telling) was being used to destroy it. I’ll admit, that was cool.
That is an interesting theory, I don’t know if I buy it exactly, but I like it. The fact that Minmay helped lay the groundwork for that phenomenon makes me think there’s something there.
October 10th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
WHAT!? As long as I see thousands of Valkyries and reaction missiles flying around, I don’t care if the characters are still-animation and stick figures! Perhaps they shouldn’t have made two first episodes AND a re-cap. Maybe then they would have had enough time to Fit in ANOTHER battle (preferably involving more of those sexy Ghost V-9s)
Since I never saw the original Macross I actually kinda liked the nostalgic fanservice, But I understand how you “experienced” fanboys wouldn’t like it so much.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
What does Macross Frontier bring to the table?
After 25 years I think that what it seems to bring is a fresh face for a younger generation.
Sure you can sit through those 1980’s SDF Macross shows and feel a love long remembered from your younger years. But (and I’ve experienced this) try setting that DVD box set in front of a younger crowd and watch them wince in pain. Seriously…SDF Macross just doesn’t hold up.
Frontier is a fresh start for people who have never sat through a single episode of the older series. With Frontier, they can sit and enjoy all the things that we know and love about the old series. These things appear as nods to days gone by to the fanboys and as genuinely original moments to the newbie.
I could never get my 15 year old brother to sit through 30-some-odd episodes of 1980’s Macross. But he’s really interested in checking out Frontier.
In the end, maybe that’s all it has to do. Bring in more new fans so that they can celebrate 50 years of Macross down the road and not have all the fans be geriatrics.
October 21st, 2008 at 1:24 am
Geriatric fan here, and is pleased. I don’t disagree with the criticisms leveled at Macross Fronitier. I think these are fair and well-argued. It just amazes me that it does nothing to affect my abject joy in watching this series.
@ Kintigire
I know what you mean. I re-watched SDF Macross a year ago and winced in pain as well. Nonetheless, Macross taught me how it is to be a fan. I’m talking about mind-bent, logic-hole-overlooking, never apologizing, always in love fandom.
I’m going on a journey to watch every single episode chronologically: from Zero to Frontier (including ALL of Macross 7 but not Macross II). I remember love!
November 1st, 2008 at 1:05 pm
[...] know that much of knowledge on the Macross franchise so I had reservations about picking it up when otou-san mentioned in his review that you may not be able to appreciate the show if you never watched the [...]