Shameful Otaku Secret!

Return of the Pizza Hut Revolution

While I’m not pooping my pants, aka Macross Excitement Level over this, I’m glad to see Pretty Boy LeDouche come back to attempt to liberate helpless Japan from the wrath of the honkies in the name of siscon once again.

Like a bitch!

Story

Lelouch is still in school in the Tokyo settlement, but things seem a little off. He has a younger brother Rollo, his gym teacher looks a lot like Villetta (and her name’s… Villetta?), and he doesn’t seem to have a Geass Eye anymore. Plus, he’s back to gambling on chess games.

Something is... off.

Most of the Black Knights are in prison, including Colonel Toudou. The remaining ones have fallen under the temporary lead of C.C., who makes it her mission to recover Lelouch. Her scheme to lure him into a chess game and have undercover bunny girl (yar?) Kallen grab him doesn’t go quite as planned, but in the end it’s a successful recovery after a good bit of chase stuff.

Yes, with chest! Er, chess...

With a bit of a smooch, C.C. restores Lelouch’s memory, and it’s bye bye Brittanian soldiers.

This time, its a SEXvolution! yeeeah.

It seems that the Emperor/King himself has now employed Suzaku, and possibly V.V. is on his side as well, so I’m guessing this season will be a little more of a personal fight staged over the backdrop of the revolution.

Thoughts

This episode very cleverly paralleled Geass’s first one, with the re-awakening of Lelouch’s powers happening in a similar scene to the initial bestowing of them. But Zero’s introduction, complete with gothy poses and Mikuru Stare, was played for far more of a Fuck Yeah Factor than anything previously in Geass.

Dance with me! We shall go to the Goth club and smoke clove cigarettes and do that taffy-pulling dance while they spin Sisters of Mercy records! FOR NIPPON!

We still didn’t get a real answer to the cliffhanger of the first series. It seems that Suzaku and Lelouch did indeed come to a truce in order to rescue Nunally, but what happened after is anyone’s guess. How would they be a match for V.V.? Lelouch already used the Geass on himself, so how was his past wiped so effectively? Perhaps C.C. did it to hide him. And speaking of all that, where is Nunally?

Kill whitey! Wait did I really capture a tooltip in my screenshot? Where is QC in here?

Overall, the animation quality is still up to par, not to mention HD now — say what you will about Sunrise (aka Studio Gundam) but they have the cash to keep things consistent. I think Geass is one of the more stylish things they’ve ever done, in spite of the somewhat Gundam-esque mechs. Scoring is still epic and dark, theme songs (both by Orange Range of Bleach fame) still unimpressive. I think the only one I really liked was the first ED by Ali Project, and even then, you heard one of their songs and you’ve heard ‘em all.

But let’s hope they keep track of what made Geass so cool to begin with: It’s an action-packed robot fight, a dramatic collection of emotional cruelties and deadly secrets, all wrapped in a Death Note-style rumination on what happens to people when they gain unspeakable power. Oh — and a Pizza Hut commercial.

MACROSS. MAAA-KUUU-ROOSS!

New Macross.

The words alone brought chills to me. However, I didn’t see the last Macross. I heard it sucked. It looked like it sucked. So I didn’t watch. But the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross is not just a classic because someone said so — it’s classic because it’s awesome. In spite of its vintage, and its sometimes-weak battle scenes, the original anime space opera holds up very well. There are some episodes that I can always go back and watch. I believe it’s #27, the giant against-all-odds battle juxtaposed with Lynn Minmei singing, as the earth is pretty much wiped out — I’m not sure the impact of that has ever been equaled.

And Macross Plus was a lesser but still significant landmark, not just for its story but for its pioneering use of computers.

Anyway. I’m so excited, I just can’t hide it.

Story

40-some years after the events of SDF Macross, the humans have expanded further into space, leaving their mostly-wasted planet pretty far behind. The giant spacecraft have come a long way from the Macross itself, with oceans, natural environments, and blue atmospheres making human life much more pleasant.

The galactic idol Sheryl is visiting the idyllic-looking Macross Frontier station for a concert, and cute young Lanka or Ranka (who works in a Chinese restaurant, hmmm) is stoked to be going.

For visual entertainment, Sheryl employs some young chaps with snap-on flying suits called X-Gear (sort of a mecha lite thing), including the overly-ambitious Alto.

Alto is not incredibly pleased to be doing this kind of work, and no matter what he does, he can only fly as high as Macross F’s ceiling, though he longs for more. He’s also incredibly effeminate, which to me means that he was probably dimensionally warped to manly Macross World from the Gundam universe.

When Lanka gets lost in the huge concert crowd and has a mishap with a sprinkler, she and Alto share a little meaningful moment, but all isn’t well. Crazy scary aliens attack during Sheryl’s concert, eventually piercing the outer layer of Macross F’s protection. The crowd scatters to shelters, again leaving the smallish (not quite loli-like) Lanka stranded and hurt. When a Valkyrie pilot is brutally crushed to death by one of the enemy robots, Alto is the only one around to jump in the variable fighter and try to save her.

Computers!

While the storyline is a more direct successor to the original SDF Macross, the legacy of Plus is apparent in Macross Frontier’s digital-heavy animation style. In fact, the computers are so prominent that it’s sometimes a bit much for me, but it’s hard to deny that the battle scenes and Valkyrie transformations are light-years away from SDF’s choppy and repetitive dogfights. Even the well-blended cel portions are smooth and bright, and the backgrounds evoke a beautiful future far removed from the dark and low-tech original, which took place very near present day.

In short, this is visually fucking impressive.

Animation production is by Satelight, whose list of work isn’t really familiar to me (although they did cleverly work their name into the episode), but the credits in the ED show a billion names, including Xebec and JC Staff. It doesn’t surprise me at all to find out that a lot of hands are in the pot to make this work.

Music

The incidentals and the OP are composed by the ever-impressive Yoko Kanno (who did Plus as well), but the OP isn’t her best work. The rest of the music, which varies between symphonic and rock-ish, never sounds cheap and, along with the animation, elevates the feel of Macross F to a cinematic level. You probably won’t hear better music this season.

Acting

It’s all pretty damn good. Kikuko Inoue, best known as Ah! My Goddess’s Belldandy but also recently as Sanae in Clannad, seems somewhat wasted as Sheryl’s assitant Grace. Yuuichi Nakamura, our hero Okazaki in same, plays Alto. Sheryl is handled capably by Aya Endo (Miyuki in Lucky Star, Kinue Crossroad in Gundam 00). Most surprising is how great newcomer Megumi Nakajima is as Lanka. She’s a natural fit.

First Impressions

Everything about Macross F screams big budget, big battles, big awesome, a movie-like experience on your TV. I hope they didn’t dump everything into this one episode, though.

The connection with the Macross legacy is firm — there are two versions of this episode, and the original special broadcast features a concert intercut with a battle that reminds me of that amazing episode of SDF I mentioned. Then Alto attempting to save Lanka in the Valkyrie closely parallels Hikaru and Minmei’s meeting.

Bottom line, of anything I’ve seen thus far this season, this is the episode 2 that I absolutely can’t wait for. Seriously, if you could see my pants now. CRAPPED ‘EM!

And because I DO remember love, here’s the original Macross opener, which plays mercilessly through my head every time I so much as hear the word Macross.

Something for the ladies?

Along with Fox Girl Panty Shot High and Tenchi Muyo Rides Again (a.k.a. Kanokon and To Love-Ru, but I like my names better), something redeeming appears this season. Well, possibly. It just covers the opposing end of the spectrum, aka anime for shoujo. Of course that means romance, because girls are biologically precluded from liking robots.

Story and Characters

If Visual Novel adaptations for boys feature early light-hearted scenes devolving into tragic horror (see Kanon), then do manga adaptations for girls start with tragic horror and slowly get better? I don’t know, but Itazura Na Kiss’s Aihara Kotoko sure gets things piled on in the first episode. After two years of pining after boy genius Irie Naoki, she writes a confessional love letter only to have him reject her. His reason?

Fucking ouch.

On the upside, her friends are all greasers or ’80s-John-Cusack lookalikes.

Her father has built a lovely new house, but when the central pillar is eaten by termites immediately, a measly level 2.0 earthquake tears the whole thing down. Now she’s forced to lodge at her father’s friend’s gigundic mansion. Her father’s friend is named… Irie. And now you see the premise.

Seems from the preview that Kotoko’s goal for the season is to do better in school, to the point of topping Naoki, just to show his cocky ass what’s what. I assume that somewhere along the way, he’ll learn the error of his ways and learn to love her. Or something. Who knows, the manga never ended because the author accidentally killed herself while cleaning the house she’d just moved into. Bizarre.

Animation, Music, Acting

Neither acting nor music are particularly impressive, but I suppose that’s not what we’re here for. The only really appealing characters visually are Kotoko and Naoki, which seems appropriate considering they’re the main character and the “love” interest. Voices are not horrible for the most part, but that main pair are great: Daisuke Hirakawa (the immortal Makoto of School Days) as Naoiki, so you know he’s okay to hate the character, and Nana Mizuki, recovering her dignity after a season of Rosario To Vampire.

Thoughts

Nothing really struck me so far, and there are a lot of shows waiting. But I sort of feel like if I really am going to blog either Kanokon or To Love-Ru (still undecided which, they both suck pretty bad), I must atone in some way. Will that atonement take the form of Itazura Na Kiss? Not sure.