I held off as long as I could on posting this....
"Fastest Delivery" about made me ill. It was the Frontier equivalent of "The Fleet of the Strongest Women", which itself was an episode so campy that it didn't even get aired as part of Macross 7!
It was nice seeing some of the homages to original Macross - especially since the Zentraedi all seemed to be clones from the same genetic seeds as Breetai's fleet (including an obvious Kravshera as a bad guy). But, it is pushing it that the young EW expert managed to not only get all that LAI equipment that apparently even the NUNS doesn't know about from his family, but got to send Michel & Ranka (especially the latter) to the planet with it. On top of that, Ranka's performance (even with her getting chewed out by Saotome for not wearing the protective gear) was blatantly using Chiba/Lovelock-derived equipment to influence the Zentradi - after all, the fleet HAD been living alongside (but self-segregated) humans for almost 50 years, and some of them even commented that they had been upset they would have missed her first live (and what about the almost magical-girl identification of her - geesh). It would have taken sound-force-style equipment to have gotten the reaction they did from rebels.
We swing from there, to "Memory of Global", which is causing heads to spin in Macross fandom for the exact opposite reason. We find a link to Ranka's past, a link to the Vajra, more confirmation that Brera is Ranka's brother, affirmation that Grace IS the immediate boss of Brera, and the death of all those Zentradi we saw the episode before - some of which I was actually hoping to see more of. We see the Macross Q4 Global, a ship of Ranka's family's fleet - and left wondering what kind of Macross it is. Is it a human-built version of the original class, the standard version of the Quarter (hence the Q designation - we know that the Frontier's Quarter is heavily modified) or what? Grace's body appears to be entirely some sort of cyber, and the fact that she said she'd contact Brera later would indicate it is NOT her only body, since she was at GROUND ZERO of the D-bomb (interestingly enough, made by LAI, and already placed on the planet). Of course, whatever foul plans she and her organization have are about to be screwed up by Michel getting into the Vajra's fold envelope, and arriving back at Frontier with tomorrow's (tonight in Japan - it's already Thursday there) episode.
I'm beginning to think that the writing staff of Frontier is insane, or they have two creative teams, with one of them only having experience writing shoujo romance comedies... The constant swings in mood are distracting, to say the least.
And, it's interesting to consider one thing - it IS 2059, and the use of a fold/Dimensional bomb brings up interesting possibilities for the NEXT Super Dimension series. Orguss does start in the early 2060s, after all... (there's a series I'd like to see remade - and it could be done so in a way that the new version be part of Macross continuity, easily)
Comments, theories, etc.?
"Fastest Delivery" about made me ill. It was the Frontier equivalent of "The Fleet of the Strongest Women", which itself was an episode so campy that it didn't even get aired as part of Macross 7!
It was nice seeing some of the homages to original Macross - especially since the Zentraedi all seemed to be clones from the same genetic seeds as Breetai's fleet (including an obvious Kravshera as a bad guy). But, it is pushing it that the young EW expert managed to not only get all that LAI equipment that apparently even the NUNS doesn't know about from his family, but got to send Michel & Ranka (especially the latter) to the planet with it. On top of that, Ranka's performance (even with her getting chewed out by Saotome for not wearing the protective gear) was blatantly using Chiba/Lovelock-derived equipment to influence the Zentradi - after all, the fleet HAD been living alongside (but self-segregated) humans for almost 50 years, and some of them even commented that they had been upset they would have missed her first live (and what about the almost magical-girl identification of her - geesh). It would have taken sound-force-style equipment to have gotten the reaction they did from rebels.
We swing from there, to "Memory of Global", which is causing heads to spin in Macross fandom for the exact opposite reason. We find a link to Ranka's past, a link to the Vajra, more confirmation that Brera is Ranka's brother, affirmation that Grace IS the immediate boss of Brera, and the death of all those Zentradi we saw the episode before - some of which I was actually hoping to see more of. We see the Macross Q4 Global, a ship of Ranka's family's fleet - and left wondering what kind of Macross it is. Is it a human-built version of the original class, the standard version of the Quarter (hence the Q designation - we know that the Frontier's Quarter is heavily modified) or what? Grace's body appears to be entirely some sort of cyber, and the fact that she said she'd contact Brera later would indicate it is NOT her only body, since she was at GROUND ZERO of the D-bomb (interestingly enough, made by LAI, and already placed on the planet). Of course, whatever foul plans she and her organization have are about to be screwed up by Michel getting into the Vajra's fold envelope, and arriving back at Frontier with tomorrow's (tonight in Japan - it's already Thursday there) episode.
I'm beginning to think that the writing staff of Frontier is insane, or they have two creative teams, with one of them only having experience writing shoujo romance comedies... The constant swings in mood are distracting, to say the least.
And, it's interesting to consider one thing - it IS 2059, and the use of a fold/Dimensional bomb brings up interesting possibilities for the NEXT Super Dimension series. Orguss does start in the early 2060s, after all... (there's a series I'd like to see remade - and it could be done so in a way that the new version be part of Macross continuity, easily)
Comments, theories, etc.?
