| Macross Frontier (TV, 2008) |
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| Written by JC DuBois | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 05 October 2008 17:45 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Overview
So, Macross: Frontier. Where do I really start with one of the flagship series in the world of anime – one of the series that didn't just define a genre, but (in a horribly mutilated and misbegotten form) introduced a legion of unwitting kiddies to their first anime? I can still remember being parked in front of the TV in utter awe as I watched the really cool fighter jets that could turn into even cooler robots taking on the big mean ugly green men. RoboTech, Voltron, and Ronin Warriors... I was weaned on the holy trinity, folks. Of course, calling RoboTech anime is tantamount to high treason for a real anime devotee, but, hell, I was five years old; I'm allowed a certain amount of leeway. Let's face it, folks... when you started watching the SatAM anime on SciFi, it's because you saw the same quality to it that you remembered seeing in RoboTech, and even though you didn't know exactly what that quality was... you were drawn to it. Macross: Frontier is the 25th anniversary celebration of the original series, and... man... what a celebration...
Review
A short refresher course, for those of you that haven't seen so much as a single Valkyrie since the days of Lynn Minmay. Sometime in 1999, a massive ship, easily the size of a city, crash-landed on Earth. Humanity, in a burst of unity that would be nice to see in the real world, spent the next ten years rebuilding the craft, under the guidance of the U.N. Spacy. In the process, they discovered a great deal of incredible technology, including the capability to create 'variable fighters', and faster-than-light space travel in the form of the Fold Drive. The rebuilt ship is christened the Super Dimensional Fortress One – SDF-1, for short. Of course, you know that a major advance like that only means one thing, and the Zentradi, forty-foot tall giants, arrive one day looking for the lost ship. In a moment of confusion, the captain of the SDF-1 orders the main cannon fired, and the advance scouts of the Zentradi are wiped out... Well, you know things can't possibly end well here, so I'll skip the full history. Fast-forward sixty years. It's 2059; the long war with the Zentradi left Earth badly damaged, but alive; humans and Zentradi bonded thanks to the efforts of Lynn Minmay, and we've left the cradle in dozens of pioneering settlement fleets. These amount to titanic worlds in a bottle – they carry everything that they need to sustain colonists for extended periods of time – and I mean EVERYTHING, folks; the core ships of these fleets are quite literally worlds unto themselves, with a sky... more or less. The story of Macross: Frontier deals with one such fleet – the 25th Migration Fleet, aptly named 'Frontier'. Enter one Alto Saotome, a young (very Bishounen) man who is a student at the Mihoshi Academy, an elite school for... well, tell you the truth folks, I'm not exactly sure what the school was for. It's what some would call a free-form university – students are free to come and go at will, and to more or less take full responsibility for their own studies. What I do know is that they train exceptionally good pilots, which is why Alto is there. As the series opens, he and a few of his classmates are preparing for a performance by the Galactic Nymph, Sheryl Nome. They're going to be flying inside the stadium in EX-gears – what amount to cybernetic flight suits that actually can fly – as part of her performance. 
Sheryl Nome is the current songstress of the galaxy, and is from another migration fleet, the Macross Galaxy. If you don't know what it means to be the songstress of the galaxy in a Macross series, you might as well stop reading now... No, not really, I'll cover that in a moment. Anyway, due to a little prank by fellow pilot Michel, he's running a little behind, and as he's getting ready he meets a quarter-Zentradi girl named Ranka Lee. Yes, yes, I said in a moment. She's on her way to the concert too, but she's very lost. Alto helps her find her way, then heads in himself. A bit of hot-dogging and a little catch-the-falling-songstress-so-she-can-make-it-all-look-like-part-of-the-show (lucky bastard) later, and we see a scout fighter finding... something in an asteroid field. Shortly thereafter, the Frontier is attacked by the 'Vajra' – a creature that amounts to an organic weapon. A few New U.N. Spacy VF-171's are sent out, but prove to be woefully useless in the face of the ferocity of their attack. Enter the REAL fighter squadron of Macross: Frontier: The S.M.S's Skull squadron, lead by Major Ozma Lee – and populated by two of Alto's classmates... not to Alto's knowledge, of course. Ok, enough first-episode-summary. If you've ever seen, read, or so much as smelled a Macross series, you know three things. Number one – it's going to have some truly kickass space-fighter combat. Number two – the main character pilot is never the best pilot in the series. Number three – both one and two are dust in the wind compared to the quality and power of music. The Human-Zentradi war? Think a hot-shot pilot ended that one? Dropped a couple proton bombs into the unshielded exhaust port, killed the cosmic horror by pulling the trigger of the gun pointed at the head of the universe? Fuck no! The Zentradi were stopped cold by a pop singer that could give Tenchi Muyo's Mihoshi major competition for Bimbo of the Millennium – and probably win out right. That's right... it wasn't the kickass jets that could transform into mecha, it wasn't a last desperate struggle with a ray of hope in a pilot's cockpit, or the spaceship the size of New York that could transform into an even BIGGER mecha... The girl stood there and freaking SANG AT THEM. AND IT WORKED. 
So, given that, let's start with how this series held up in the vocals department. I'll kick it off with the fact that the music was written by Yoko Kanno, which automatically puts it up there in the 9's without a single note played. Now, let's also consider that there's not one, but TWO galaxy-level songstresses to be found in Frontier. Do I really need to say it? C'mon folks, it's Macross, you know the music is going to be freaking awesome. It's a law of the physical universe, right next to the one about what goes up must come down. How serious were they about it in this series? They actually had Mari Iijima, the voice actress of Minmay, come back to sing one of the (albeit brief) themes for the first episode. And of course, this being a Macross series, the op and end themes are particularly good. Lion especially, sung by May'n and Megumi Nakajima, really shows off what the two can do with a very uptempo beat and a ferocity that matches well with the struggle that the events in series have become. Of course, the music is only half the story, and there's never going to be a Macross that isn't pure, concentrated space opera. For the purposes of this series, we have our pilot, Alto. Like I said, he's a young, painfully bishounen man - how bish? His friendly nickname is 'Hime' – and for reasons that are gradually delved into, it's... remarkably appropriate. He wants nothing more than to be a pilot and fly in a sky without a ceiling – which is rather difficult, considering that the Frontier's dome barely qualifies as high enough to safely fly a Valk around inside. Then there's Mikhail, fellow classman, a bespectacled blonde pretty boy that's got more one-liners than an Evil Dead and Hellraiser marathon. Rounding out the trio of inordinately young pilots is Luca, the brain with a perpetual blush. And I've already mentioned the top pilot of the series, Major Ozma Lee. There's something you notice if you watch fighter jock shows long enough – the best pilots drive like they fly. Ozma Lee drives like his car is stuck at permanent max thrust. Oh yeah, he's also Ranka Lee's big brother... Speaking of whom, we have our two singers. Ranka Lee is one quarter Zentradi – don't ask me how you manage to get so much as a half-Zentradi, much less a quarter one... She's shy, good-natured, slight of frame, afflicted with massive white-knight syndrome, and she loves to sing – though she's far too shy to do it in front of others. She's a master at the art of shrink-fu – trying to shrink out of sight rather than being noticed. Oh yes, let us not forget the prehensile green hair. I'm not making this up. Heh, seriously folks, it's a character gag. She also has a hole in her memory bigger than Jeffery Sinclair's. 
On the other side of the coin is Sheryl Nome. Folks, have you ever heard the expression 'polar opposite'? You could look it up in the dictionary and see Ranka and Sheryl's faces below it. Sheryl isn't the best built character of the series – that honor falls squarely to Klan Klein's full size form – but she's by FAR the hottest. She's called the galactic nymph for a reason folks – and as she tells Alto point blank, she's all natural, too. She knows exactly where she's going in life, she's not afraid to step up and take hold of it with her own hands, and she wears outfits in her concerts that would make the DoA girls blush. Which she changes IN THE MIDDLE OF HER SONGS. But for all her head-strong, go-get-it, subtle-as-a-nuclear-bomb attitude toward living her life, she has a remarkably soft side to her. Aside from those. I'd say more, but I'd ruin a really well orchestrated introduction. One thing I was... not disappointed in, but more surprised at – unlike the vast majority of Macross idols, she was voiced by May'n for the songs, and Aya Endo for dialogue. They sound... reasonably alike, but it's still noticeable when they switch over. I dunno – I think they might have dropped the ball on this one a bit. Now, this being a Macross series, you have to know that there's a love triangle, right? I mean, for pity's sake, the name of the first opening theme is Triangler! It's Macross, the damn spaceships and fighters are practically powered by Love Triangle Radiation and Bridge Bunnies! Right, just checking... in any case, there's actually a much larger cast that I'm not going to go into for the simple fact that you'd need a thirty-page relationship chart to keep 'em all straight. It's a well-balanced crew, which is something that the writers of the Macross series have always been pretty good about, and there's plenty of plots, subplots, and Xanatos roulettes going on around the characters. 
Speaking of the afore mentioned plots, subplots, and Xanatos Roulettes... YEOWSA! I'm really not sure where to start, in this one. The core of Frontier, like any Macross series, is pretty simple and straightforward. Young man wants to be a pilot. Young man attracts two pretty girls – at least one of which is in line to be the next major singer. There's a horrible terrible big monster out to destroy us all out there, and young man finds himself in with the One True Pilot as events start to unfold. The magic of Macross is that, while that framework is consistent throughout, the externalities are allowed have such an incredible influence on how the actual story develops that each series is fresh and new. More importantly, for those of you that have never seen a Macross series before, you don't need to – Frontier is self-contained, with only mild references to the backstory that proceeds it, most of which are covered in the course of mentioning them. So, how about the animation? Let's break this up into two portions, mainline and combat, hmm? For the vast majority of the show the animation is pretty damn good. It's no Haruhi Suzumiya, but damned if it's not close – hell, in any episode featuring a concert, it's probably on par. The animation is as neat and clean as you could possibly ask for, crisp and smooth as can be. The character designs are great, especially the surprisingly – stunningly – elaborate outfits that Sheryl and Ranka use for their various performances. Remember folks, Sheryl literally changes clothing in the middle of her songs, thanks to a little digital magic, just to add a little extra oomph to the difficulty scale. Hell, I even want to take a moment to point out the Valkyries. It's something I'll touch on more below, but some awesome effort went into designing their mecha modes, resulting in something that's not been seen in other series thus far. Of course, the fighters are just Cool on Tap period. 
Now, as for the combat... ...Ever seen Future Weapons? Ever hear Mac giggle as he tests out some of the guns? Yeah, that giggle, the kind you'd expect to hear the Doom Guy make when he finds the chainsaw and the BFG. The sort of giggle that would guarantee you a lone seat on the bus. That was me every time they went into full-on combat. One of the things that Macross has always excelled at was space combat, but in Frontier they've skipped incredible and warped straight into Pure Fucking Awesome... which is topped every freaking time they do a new space combat. This IS Macross, folks... the series that gave us the million-missile-launch-for-one-enemy. The best way to screw up a Macross series is to not get the combat right... and MAN, did they EVER get it right.  As awesome as the fighter combat that you get exposed to immediately is though, you don't realize just how right they got it till the first time you see how impossibly smooth they made the fighters transition from fighter to gerwalk to battroid modes. It's always been the case that the Valks could smoothly switch at will – it's the series gimmick, and what made them so damn powerful. But in Frontier? It's gone to another level entirely. What's more, the Valks are SPECIALIZED to their roles in Frontier! Before now, all Valks have been overall the same – fighters with the ability to turn on a pinhead that can shift to mecha with all the ground mobility advantages that form can offer, and of course the in-between mode, the gerwalk, which allows for much of the speed of the fighter combined with much of the stability of the battroid, at the price of agility and becoming a freaking huge target. In Frontier, though, there are distinct variations between the four Valkyries of Skull Squadrion, each specialized to their pilot. Mikhail's the most obvious, with extensive modification to make his Valkyrie a sniper, but Ozma's fighter is clearly meant to be a heavy assault trooper while Alto's is a light assault. Don't even get me started on Luca's. 
Incidentally, the scary thing about how good Ozma is? Ozma, in full ultra-heavy armor with a full load of missiles can easily out maneuver Alto in a fighter specifically designed for speed and agility with a booster pack designed to enhance those capabilities. That goes back to just how unbelievable the combat action is, by the way. And, c'mon folks... I dare a single person to watch the scene were the monster comes out to play and not get chills. And THAT'S piloted by THE MEDIC. Are you getting a sense of just how hardcore this particular group of pilots are? Future Weapons giggles abounded. Overall
I hate to say it, but this series really sucked... yeah, right. And if you'll buy that, I've got some nice ocean-front property for you here in Minnesota. It never snows, not a damn flake. They did a fucking kickass job here, even considering a pre-disposal toward enjoying it out of sheer nostalgia-bomb sweetening. The vast majority of the story was excellent, and while there were one or two slightly sloppy wrap ups in the last couple episodes, they didn't even make the needle jitter on the rating scale. It's a complex plot though, with several Xanatos Roulettes going on, so you'll want to pay attention. The eye candy alone is awesome – the second opening featuring Sheryl poured into a low-cut corset is the stuff little boy's dreams are made of – but there's a hell of a lot of substance here, and very little filler. Seen Macross? Get it, watch it, be amazed. Never seen Macross? Get it, watch it, be absolutely FLOORED. This one is never, EVER going to come out here in the States, folks; there's way too many copyright issues, so it's time to fire up your favorite browser and head out to the torrent sites. And don't you DARE forget to listen to her song! |
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