Macross II: Lovers Again

One of my fav macross serie´s for years on end, Though the storyline os on an alternative macross timeline, it shows that , well it was trying to be quite special from the ´macross saga´ and did a nice job to it, but still from many fans it has received mixed reviews, the Minmay attack specially was becoming discarted along with some of the mecha/designs wich i liked , you see big space shipbattles and other known macross related stuff, colorful animation , nice and bright personality , buit some stuff could be done better

Story

A.D. 2089 - 80 years after Space War I, human and Zentraedi are living in ignorant bliss and peace on Earth when a new alien race called the "Marduk" appear within the Solar System. Annoying SNN rookie reporter Hibiki Kanzaki discovers Ishtar, an "Emulator" that enhances the Marduk's combat abilities through singing, while reporting on the first contact with the Marduk. Hibiki smuggles her to Earth to teach her the values of life and culture. Together with ace Valkyrie pilot Silvie Gena, can they find a way to save Earth from total destruction at the hands of the Marduk leader Ingues?

The plot was rather simplistic ... and had the potential to go Orwellian - state vs. individual, censorship and the public's need ... no right to know things! Sadly this was never taken to any kind of satisfying conclusion so while it had great promise it never lived up to its potential. The part that was done well was Ishtar's discovery of earth culture. Overall, the story was Mediocre at best.

Character

Hibiki started off as a totally unsympathetic character, very papparazi-like, but he learned some life lessons from an older war correspondent who changes his view of life. Ishtar is a very well conceived character and because of that the end sequence for her made me cry.

They are surrounded by a largely forgettable cast of support charcters, chief of which are Silvie and Max, the resident ace pilots with little to no character development. In fact the zentradi who is always protecting Ishtar was more memorable than either of them ..

Art/Animation

Dated animation but very little frame reuse. The animation as a whole was decent at the best, besides Hibiki and Ishtar (who has faboulous outfits), the rest are kind of stereotyped and not very exciting to look at. Fight scenes were rendered "ok" not great either.

Sound

Sound was the highlight of this anime. Great songs, some taken from other series (Macross 7 etc.) and some new songs. This was the best thing about this anime.

Enjoyment

Overall this is only something you'd watch for the music and the sake of saying you watched it to finish the series. I might go look for the music CD but I doubt I'd buy the series DVD.

I got almost NOTHING out of watching this. It's got some nice music, some of the character designs are quite nice, and I think that Ishtar is an endearing character in and of herself, but none of that can save a production that I just felt apathetic towards. The characters are paper thin, the plot is paper thin, this isn't long enough to justify itself. I wondered why this was declared non-canon until I watched it (as I like giving most things the benefit of the doubt) but if this were my first venture into Macross I probably wouldn't have become a fan of the ... series. It's by and large harmless, but I can't say I enjoyed a lot about this production. It'll probably end up having aesthetic screenshots taken by nostalgic teenagers for their blog, but that's about the only staying power this production has outside of its admittedly banging opening theme.