Shameful Otaku Secret!

Ask Sheryl

Diru Sheryru,
All my friends have breast implants and cybernetic vibro-tron vaginas. Then I see these monstrous Zentradi women with their blue hair and easy upskirt potential. How can I compete?
-Sadly My Assets a Little Liliputian, Tiny In the Torso

Dear Small Tits,
Don’t worry! I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but I’m alllll natural. In this day and age, especially on Galaxy, that’s really the exotic thing. By not sticking out, you’re standing out. By the way, have you heard the term “loli?”
♥Sheryl

Dear Sheryl,
I recently started dating a really sweet guy. He’s smart, a little bit of a bad boy, and he races cars! Problem is, I’m worried that he might be prettier than me. I’m no slouch, but his hair is just lustrous, and his skin is like soft porcelain.
-Worried, Hesitant About Trap

Dear What,
Oh, honey, if this is the least of your problems, then let it go! Don’t you know that men that pretty are all self-absorbed and wouldn’t dare be seen with a scrub? That must mean there’s at least something hot about you, even if it’s just your fashion sense. Take it as a compliment, but don’t let it go to your head. You’ll keep him around as arm candy a lot longer if you make him think he’s still the fanciest frog on the lily pad.
♥Sheryl

Oh Sherry,
I recently got dumped by my boyfriend. He was a pilot. You know, like the song? This is a little embarrassing to ask, but frankly I’ve been… frisky lately, and unable to shall we say vent the tension? I know you spend long periods of time on tour, and I thought maybe you might have some advice.
-Holding Out for Really Nice Yeoman

Dear Horny,
First, don’t invoke Steve Perry, you know those are old wounds! Second, do you have a cell phone?
♥Sheryl

Dear Sheryl,
How do you keep inspired? I’d like to become a singer too! I am small, but I have big dreams! I do have a muse, though. He’s very pretty.
-Hopeful Optimist On Frontier

Dear Hoof (?),
There seems to be a theme today. Well, at any rate, what you need to remember is that inspiration can strike you at any moment, so be prepared for it! I carry a pen and paper all the time in case I need to write lyrics, and if my stupid date has used all the paper to make paper airplanes, I’ll improvise if I have to. Also, rest assured: there will always be a backup band when you really need one.
♥Sheryl

Editor’s Note

Well, it’s a good Macross post if I spent entirely too much time on it. With Ranka’s surprised and disappointed glimpse at Alto and Sheryl on their “star date,” as the episode is titled, trace the exact moment that the Macross Triangle Effect began in earnest. The internet is ablaze this week with people absolutely loving Sheryl, in spite of the internet’s tendency toward rampant pedophilia (was that overly mean?), and I’m with them! Her Bitch Quotient is way down, but that might be because nothing’s standing in her way right now. She says (quite sexfully) that she likes Alto because he doesn’t treat her like a star, so what happens when the Kabuki Novelty is over?

Animation quality, on the other hand is sinking almost as fast as Leon’s rep. I hope they’re not running out of cash already. No bother, though — it’s still good, and hopefully they’re just saving for the next space battle. Either way, Macross is still my jam for this season. Also, have some ice cream.

Miss Macross

Holy cow, what a week! I originally wrote a bunch of excuses here, but hands up who wants to read that. I thought so.

Recap

I fucking called it, bitches! The silliest and most endlessly-repeated ditty in the original Macross’s lineup, “My Boyfriend Is A Pilot,” was Ranka’s Miss Macross song.

I actually was joking about that, but to find I was right actually got me a little nostalgic and even pumped up. Not to mention I also called that Alto would shoot down Mikhail in training by accident, be forced to trade in his pilot suit for a bikini and have to enter Miss Macross himself, only to find Ranka a jaded maneater, but I suppose that too was a joke. Right?

Revelations!

• My Boyfriend Is Indeed a Pilot! Congratulations, princess. We knew you could do it. If you couldn’t, this series would be really short and pointless. But the fact that he managed to pass his training mission by killing a real live Vajra with no guns is impressive. Also, he poses in the mirror.
• Leon and Catherine may be on the rocks! He wouldn’t by chance be sleeping with her because of her daddy, would he?
• Sheryl is seriously going to fuck up Ranka’s day! She may be feeding the kid inspirational words to her face, but she sure has an eye for Alto.
• The official Macross Bikini is millimeters away from buttcrack city!
  
• Princess and Pappy are not on good terms! Saotome-san the senior didn’t even acknowledge that he knew who his son was. Apparently quitting the Kabuki circuit is a big deal.
• The military is totally useless! Only Blackwater SMS can get the job done.
• Ranka is pretty damn cute! In fact, much too adorable to win a beauty pageant. Because “cute” doesn’t mean “prance around sexfully and wow the judges with your immense rack,” it means “try to bow but instead bang your noggin against the microphone.” Kawaii, motherfuckers!
• Certain aspects of anime make me really uncomfortable if I think too hard about them! Wait, that’s no revelation, that’s a fact of life I live with on a near-daily basis. What the hell is Crackhead Mike on about?

I’m pleased as punch that the Zentradi are back in my life, but the first full-fledged one we meet changes from a huge-breasted Amazon beast into a Loudmouthed Loli when she hits the Micloning machine.

This is a few kinds of wrong.

1. The loudmouthed loli archetype is already a means of veiling pedophiliac tendencies behind a thin wall of “comedy.” Naming a loudmouthed loli as your favorite character just means you think her “comedic” “antics” are trés hilarious!
2. The fact that Klan is, in her true form, a real woman with gigundic bouncing tits further legitimizes your attraction, you sick puppy.
3. Lolification is a real trend, whether you enjoy it or are indifferent to it, and now it’s in my Macross, which is worse than that time you got your chocolate in my peanut butter. Ranka was one thing, but it’s spreading.

Kilobytes upon kilobytes have been written on this subject, and I’m not trying to add fuel to that monotonous and endless fire. Or am I? I definitely don’t want to be associated with my more prudish countrymen at places like ANN, i.e.,  “I write vicious indictments of harmless TV series because secretly I’m fapping to this shit and I’m as culturally hypocritical as five Japanese people stacked together.” Just wanted to give my thoughts. I’m fresh off starting an ef review, and I was struck by the reverse situation (”my body is basically an ok place in some jurisdictions but I have the mind of a 12-year-old, fetishize me please”), so maybe I’m being overly sensitive right now. Also, I’m just a little touchy about Macross.

Final Thoughts: Take care of yourselves (and each other)

I’m probably sensitive because Macross F is thus far the closest parallel to the original that I’ve seen, and it’s so pants-shittingly exciting sometimes — even “My Boyfriend Is A Pirate” got me going — but I’m just waiting for it to go to pot. It hasn’t yet: this was my favorite episode — it had the singing, it had the fighting, it had hints of the drama revving up. And it was awesome! Bonus points: froggy cellphone, Valkyrie backpack, extreme jiggle factor (legitimately for lulz).

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.