The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

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AceWhatever
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

I don't think Kawamori is so hamstrung by Macross canon that he would need to make an AU to explore other ideas. Pretty sure Aquarion is his outlet for that.

As for romance, it's a problem less specific to Macross and more of a problem with the whole genre really. Alot of shows struggle to make even a single pairing feel meaningful to the point where a love triangle just feels like they're biting off more than they can chew.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

False Prophet wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 3:12 am Oh yeah, the peace negotiation things. I could already see how the writers might branch out to Windermere's domestic affairs and show how their society reacted to defeat.
Windermere IV's government is a monarchy... either an absolute monarchy or a fairly weak constitutional monarchy in which the monarch wields the vast majority of the political power. The populace doesn't seem to really be invested in the business of government except for the social elite who volunteered for the knighthood (e.g. Roid, Keith, Theo and Xao, Bogue) or those who joined the knighthood to satisfy their personal vendettas against the New UN Government (e.g. Qasim). Odds are Windermerean society has no bloody clue about the actual reasons for fighting the war or the reason it ended badly for them.


False Prophet wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 3:12 am Maybe some terrorists trying to sabotage the negotiation? It is not the first time Macross has dealt with terrorism.
To what end?

While it is true that it wouldn't be the first time Macross featured terrorists as an antagonist, they were only ever generic "excuse plot" antagonists who had no real ideology and existed pretty much exclusively to justify video game titles having VFs fight other VFs or Destroids. The first time a Macross story actually explored the motivation of "anti-government terrorists", the alleged terrorist groups were revealed to actually be anti-fascist groups who'd taken up arms against an Earth-supremacist fascist movement that had infiltrated the New UN Government and military at very high levels and had made you (the player) an unwitting instrument of their oppression of governing autonomy in the emigrant worlds. The second time, the terrorists were a leftover splinter faction of those same fascists who had decided to try to overthrow the government by force of arms after being ousted years earlier by the anti-fascists who had taken up arms to protect democracy.


False Prophet wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 3:12 am Then again, Macross is also not that keen on socio-political commentary.
...
...
...

The original Super Dimension Fortress Macross had a pretty damned blatant anti-war message, Macross II's OVA had a pretty clear anti-censorship message, Macross Dynamite 7 was a conservationist diatribe about how wrong whale-hunting is, Macross Frontier and Macross Delta both had fairly clear warnings about how very dangerous nationalism and corporate corruption in government are...


False Prophet wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 3:12 am Say, Kaiba, do you ever think that Kawamori will do Macross AU?
Kawamori's attitude is that all Macross titles are stand-alone... to him, they're ALL AUs.

His stance has, historically, been that all Macross stories are dramatizations of a "true" history.

It's Big West, Macross's owners, who have a vested interest in maintaining a continuity between titles to market stuff to fans who care about that kind of thing.


False Prophet wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 3:12 am Also, is it me or does it feel like the development of romance relationships in Macross is more often miss than hit?
Kind of, yes... though there are only so many ways you can develop a love triangle story. Part of it may be that, apart from Macross 7, every Macross series has been shorter than the original... leaving less time to develop that love triangle properly. Macross 7's was less a love triangle and more a series of one-sided infatuations, and the ones in Frontier and Delta had a pretty obvious bias in terms of screen time that made the outcome a little too apparent from the outset. Sheryl and Freyja got WAY more screen time with their love interests than Ranka and Mirage.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Seto Kaiba wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 2:10 pm Windermere IV's government is a monarchy... either an absolute monarchy or a fairly weak constitutional monarchy in which the monarch wields the vast majority of the political power. The populace doesn't seem to really be invested in the business of government except for the social elite who volunteered for the knighthood (e.g. Roid, Keith, Theo and Xao, Bogue) or those who joined the knighthood to satisfy their personal vendettas against the New UN Government (e.g. Qasim). Odds are Windermerean society has no bloody clue about the actual reasons for fighting the war or the reason it ended badly for them.
Didn't similar reactions occur after some wars in real life, like the South after the Civil War, or Germany following WWI? Of course, in both of those case the elements of historical revisionism and propaganda were strong. Do we have a bigger picture of the Windermerean populate, their socio-political strata, their consensus, etc.?

And why couldn't the elites who threw their lots to the war rebel when their country is about to parley for peace? A bunch of Imperial Army officer actually tried to kidnap Emperor Hirohito to prevent him to declare Japan's surrender on the radio.

On a side note, I always wonder how good could a war movie carry an anti-war message. The moment you tries to imbue it with any kind of grand moralistic good vs. bad narrative, or just good action scenes, the majority of viewers will completely miss the message. This is why I admire the original Macross. It did a bang up job making clear of its messages.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

False Prophet wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 10:19 pm Didn't similar reactions occur after some wars in real life, like the South after the Civil War, or Germany following WWI? Of course, in both of those case the elements of historical revisionism and propaganda were strong.
Well, yes... but it's worth noting that, in those cases, that kind of thing usually comes about not because the end of the war itself but because of the perceived (or actual) occupation of the losing side's territory by the forces of the winning side, the consequences of political and/or economic sanctions against the losing side, and additional economic pressure like the destruction of the local economic base or treaty obligations to pay war reparations.

Windermere IV's main reason for going to war against the New UN Government in 2060 was because the planet's economy - like the rest of the Brisingr cluster's worlds - was growing slowly due to the entire cluster's economic stagnation as a result of its isolation. The only real immediate consequence for Windermere's population in the 2067 war is that the planet lost its minimal interstellar commerce to the discovery that its food exports were a vector for triggering Var syndrome. It's unlikely that the local populace there, for whom Heinz is both king and religious figure, would revolt against the government.


False Prophet wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 10:19 pm Do we have a bigger picture of the Windermerean populate, their socio-political strata, their consensus, etc.?
Not really, all we've seen of Windermere has been the upper echelons of their society... the closest we've seen to an actual commoner apart from Qasim was Theo and Xiao, who were the sons of merchants instead of nobles.


False Prophet wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 10:19 pm And why couldn't the elites who threw their lots to the war rebel when their country is about to parley for peace? A bunch of Imperial Army officer actually tried to kidnap Emperor Hirohito to prevent him to declare Japan's surrender on the radio.
That was rather different.

King Heinz Neirich Windermere is the actual head of state and is also a quasi-religious figure due to his status as the Wind Singer. He wields most, if not all, of the actual governmental power on Windermere IV. Hirohito was a figurehead with relatively little actual power who was used as a symbol of power by a military junta that ran the country in actuality.


False Prophet wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 10:19 pm On a side note, I always wonder how good could a war movie carry an anti-war message. The moment you tries to imbue it with any kind of grand moralistic good vs. bad narrative, or just good action scenes, the majority of viewers will completely miss the message. This is why I admire the original Macross. It did a bang up job making clear of its messages.
Making a war movie carry an anti-war message isn't about moral abstracts like "good" or "bad"... and more about drawing a line under the fact that war itself is a degrading, soul-destroying, utterly unnecessary atrocity which carries a gargantuan human toll.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Seto Kaiba wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 12:03 am King Heinz Neirich Windermere is the actual head of state and is also a quasi-religious figure due to his status as the Wind Singer. He wields most, if not all, of the actual governmental power on Windermere IV. Hirohito was a figurehead with relatively little actual power who was used as a symbol of power by a military junta that ran the country in actuality.

Making a war movie carry an anti-war message isn't about moral abstracts like "good" or "bad"... and more about drawing a line under the fact that war itself is a degrading, soul-destroying, utterly unnecessary atrocity which carries a gargantuan human toll.
I don't know, man. There were those among that Japanese kidnapping who were really motivated by religious reasons--they confessed that they would rather be traitors than let the Japanese people heard the voice of their Emperor which itself was considered divine.

(It's crazy to look back at the layers of mythologies and the religious fervor surrounded the Chrysanthemum throne before WWII. Even in Germany the occultist Nazi were the minority, not the entire population like Japan.)

And the point about war movie, yes you are right, but what I am saying that if you want to spread an anti-war message, a war movie might not be a great way since people would just be distracted by the action scenes and the good guy-bad guy narrative. I've met people who seriously think that humanity was awesome in Starship Trooper without realizing how brutal and absurd they were.

I suppose that the only way to make an anti-war movie that no one would have missed the message is to make something like Barefoot Gen.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

False Prophet wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:17 am I don't know, man. There were those among that Japanese kidnapping who were really motivated by religious reasons--they confessed that they would rather be traitors than let the Japanese people heard the voice of their Emperor which itself was considered divine.
... nope, that's never been given as a motivation in any scholarly source I've ever read on the Kyujo incident. The actual motivation given for the actions of the conspirators was that they viewed the Supreme Council for the Direction of War and the Imperial Family deciding to surrender according to the terms the Allies laid out in their Potsdam Declaration as dishonorable. Their reasons were a lot more personal and mundane, mostly revolving around the Potsdam declaration terms the supreme council had agreed to mandating the abolition of the current (military-run) system of government in Japan, the total disarmament of the Japanese military, and the arrest and prosecution of war criminals. They saw the Emperor in the same light as their superiors who refused to join their coup... he was a useful tool, who had a good deal of symbolic power but very little actual authority.

False Prophet wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:17 am (It's crazy to look back at the layers of mythologies and the religious fervor surrounded the Chrysanthemum throne before WWII. Even in Germany the occultist Nazi were the minority, not the entire population like Japan.)
Far from being a subject of religious fervor, for centuries the Japanese Emperor had been so far removed from the day to day lives of the Japanese people that he was less a person and more an abstract symbol of authority they'd never seen, heard, or interacted with in any way. The idea that the Emperor was a powerless figurehead wouldn't have even been a novelty to the older citizens in Japan since the office of the Emperor had only held actual governing power for 58 years and two previous emperors (Meiji/Mutsuhito and Taishou/Yoshihito) when Showa/Hirohito took the throne. Meiji was the first emperor to have real governmental authority in about seven centuries... and boy did that not last.



It's not really comparable to the situation on Windermere IV, a planet with a medieval civilization where the King of the Kingdom of the Wind is an a monarch wielding absolute or near-absolute governmental authority... though Grammier's Honor-Before-Reason Lawful Stupid tendencies made him rather easy for his corrupt chancellor to manipulate into a second shooting war with the New UN Government, and the young Prince Heinz's naive trust in the same chancellor and his revenge-driven blood knight of an older brother didn't help matters either.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Say, do you guys think that there are some degree of crossover between Macross fans and idol anime (Idolmaster, Love Live, etc.) fan? Looking back at the sheer number of opinion that Kawamori should just make a pure idol Macross next, maybe that is the case? Of course, without VF and war could we even call it Macross? I suppose that next to the crossover fans, there are those who just want to go with the most popular choice at the moment.

And a side question: Next to Macross, Yukikaze and Area 88, which anime have good dogfights? I have been watching 801 T.T.S. Airbats, which I do enjoy it but wishing there is more aircrafts.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

False Prophet wrote: Sat Oct 24, 2020 5:51 am Looking back at the sheer number of opinion that Kawamori should just make a pure idol Macross next, maybe that is the case?
Isn't AKB0048 already just that?
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

AceWhatever wrote: Sat Oct 24, 2020 6:07 am Isn't AKB0048 already just that?
Yeah, I know. The same people whom I mentioned in my post also begged for another season of AKB0048.

And AKB0048 is weird in a way, too. I almost never heard people discuss it while it was still on air, but everyone who had watched it told me that they loved it.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

False Prophet wrote: Sat Oct 24, 2020 5:51 am Say, do you guys think that there are some degree of crossover between Macross fans and idol anime (Idolmaster, Love Live, etc.) fan? Looking back at the sheer number of opinion that Kawamori should just make a pure idol Macross next, maybe that is the case? Of course, without VF and war could we even call it Macross? I suppose that next to the crossover fans, there are those who just want to go with the most popular choice at the moment.
A bit, but not much until recently.

A pure idol Macross series would be a waste of time and of the Macross name. Audiences have expectations of Macross content-wise, and a pure idol anime wouldn't meet them.

False Prophet wrote: Sat Oct 24, 2020 5:51 am And a side question: Next to Macross, Yukikaze and Area 88, which anime have good dogfights? I have been watching 801 T.T.S. Airbats, which I do enjoy it but wishing there is more aircrafts.
There's not really a lot of anime, esp. mecha anime, that has good dogfights. Most mecha anime depends on slow, stompy robots rather than fast-moving fighter aircraft.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

False Prophet wrote: Sat Oct 24, 2020 5:51 am

And a side question: Next to Macross, Yukikaze and Area 88, which anime have good dogfights? I have been watching 801 T.T.S. Airbats, which I do enjoy it but wishing there is more aircrafts.

you can try Girly Air Force, The Magnificent Kotobuki and Warlords of Sigrdrifa. these are basically Ace Combat with Moe Waifu. GAF is Ace Combat 3 ElectroSphere. Both Kotobuki and Warlods are close to Ace Combat Zero if it had WW2 planes. warlords even uses Norse mythology.

there is an OVA of the Salamander game. havent watched it though so i cant say much for its dogfight.

and IIRC, someone, with help from netflix, is planning on making a Galaga Cartoon..
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Just wondering, after Frontier what is the legal status of the Vajra? Does NUNS sees them as a dangerous specie best left alone, a kill-on-sight enemy, or even a party that could be reasoned with through Ranka?
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

False Prophet wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 10:45 am Just wondering, after Frontier what is the legal status of the Vajra? Does NUNS sees them as a dangerous specie best left alone, a kill-on-sight enemy, or even a party that could be reasoned with through Ranka?
The movie version of Macross Frontier seems to lean towards the Vajra being considered protected by the New UN Government's laws governing inhabited planets discovered by emigrant fleets.

Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy leans more towards the New UN Government having an official policy of noninterference with the Vajra, prohibiting hunting them as they're proven to be intelligent but also not having an actual way to negotiate with them.

Macross Delta Gaiden: Macross E suggests the Vajra have mostly solved the problem by leaving worlds in the New UN Government's sphere of influence, but are still considered a protected species.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Watched Frontier episode 9 and found it so amusing how they don't even hide the fact that Grace is the villain. Not even her natural voice when talking to Brera could disguise it.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Iris Scope wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 7:30 pm Watched Frontier episode 9 and found it so amusing how they don't even hide the fact that Grace is the villain. Not even her natural voice when talking to Brera could disguise it.
So... not gonna spoil anything, but there's some ambiguity in there WRT how much of that is actually her that's played with both in the drama CDs and in the movies.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Seto Kaiba wrote: Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:50 pm
Iris Scope wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 7:30 pm Watched Frontier episode 9 and found it so amusing how they don't even hide the fact that Grace is the villain. Not even her natural voice when talking to Brera could disguise it.
So... not gonna spoil anything, but there's some ambiguity in there WRT how much of that is actually her that's played with both in the drama CDs and in the movies.
I see. I should at least word it more like she's up to something.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Iris Scope wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:40 am I see. I should at least word it more like she's up to something.
More like whether she's the architect of the things she's up to... the answer varies in different adaptations of the story.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

False Prophet wrote: Sat Oct 24, 2020 5:51 am Say, do you guys think that there are some degree of crossover between Macross fans and idol anime (Idolmaster, Love Live, etc.) fan? Looking back at the sheer number of opinion that Kawamori should just make a pure idol Macross next, maybe that is the case? Of course, without VF and war could we even call it Macross? I suppose that next to the crossover fans, there are those who just want to go with the most popular choice at the moment.
It almost seems at times that Delta was closer to being a pure Idol anime/successor to AKB0048, as the mech battles seemed to become secondary to the Idol concerts. Granted Macross always mixed the two before , but here the singing seemed to overtake the action. Before the scenes could be somewhat divided(ie there were singing scenes, but there were alot of dogfight scenes with the music only as a backdrop). Here the characters are singing on a platform in the middle of the battlefield (rather than on a hologram or on the bridge), so it seems as though the show really pays the most attention to the Idols above the pilots (rather than before where the story was divided between the Idols and the Pilots roughly equally). Of course the series in general had issues with ignoring characters and plot elements to focus on only a small amount of characters in general, plus Walküre seems to be very popular locally in Japan, so maybe they were just going for what the core local audience seemed to want.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

Mafty wrote: Sun Jan 03, 2021 12:52 am It almost seems at times that Delta was closer to being a pure Idol anime/successor to AKB0048, as the mech battles seemed to become secondary to the Idol concerts. [...] Of course the series in general had issues with ignoring characters and plot elements to focus on only a small amount of characters in general, plus Walküre seems to be very popular locally in Japan, so maybe they were just going for what the core local audience seemed to want.
Macross has a long and proud history of launching the careers of idols and other professional musicians thanks to the show's emphasis on music. Sometimes to the unfortunate extent of the idol in question being typecast, like what happened to Mari Iijima.

When it comes to Macross Delta and Walkure, it feels like the production committee and sponsors invested too much into Walkure and felt they had to guarantee a decent ROI by making the anime into a glorified commercial for their music.

As popular as Delta became via Walkure, it's nowhere close to the level of popularity that Frontier enjoyed and still enjoys.
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Re: The Official Macross Delta Anime Thread Mk I

So... Any speculation on which style of music would they stick with in the next Macross? Would they continue with J-pop, or something else more rock, etc.?

Also, what do you guys think about the idea that one thing makes the original Macross stand out to the sequels was Noboru Ishiguro bringging some of that operatic, epic-like feeling that he would also applied to Legend of the Galactic Heroes? I've been watching his 1980 Astro Boy series, and it does feel to me like Ishiguro directed with some theatrical influences in him. It's much more melodramatic than the original black-and-white Astro Boy, that is for sure.
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