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I feel like mecha shows are pitched weirdly in general online. Everything I've watched so far has had deeply personal and sentimental moments. A common theme is "struggling with getting sucked into the war machine and having to reshape your identity around being a fighter" like in Gundam, but there it's definitely handled compellingly, like seeing Amuro's breakdown in the desert and subsequent dogged obedience. Especially with Newtypes coming into the picture in the final episodes, proposing this alternate ideology that's deeply hopeful for peace between humans through empathy and evolution (of course, it just leads to Lalah's death and more wars with Newtypes down the line, but...) I get the feeling that a lot of people project the simplicity of early children's super robot shows onto subsequent mecha series, though I also haven't watched enough mecha to totally refute the notion of all these soulless shows.

On that note, Macross is good! It was my first real mecha show so I probably overvalue it, but imo it held up to its reputation as a classic. And now that I've seen both, it's apparent to me just how much of it is following in the footsteps of 0079. A lot of the earlier episodes have a similar vibe, with the ship alone behind enemy lines desperately trying to make it back to safety, and both have one or two episodes with legendary production issues. If a typical Gundam episode is 30 percent downtime and 70 percent combat, then Macross is 70 percent downtime and 30 percent combat. The military characters are frequently off-duty, and we get to see the civilians stuck on board try to reconstruct their society. The music stuff is introduced pretty gradually, and is more a part of the human-alien culture war than the songs themselves having innate powers (though in later Macross series it may as well be magic). Alongside the then-novel romance elements it's most compelling as a contact narrative, and has a great cast of characters even if some of them are almost designed to be hated. Funnily enough, the idol music is pretty dated and can be grating, but the rest of the soundtrack is some of my favorite in the genre! The jazzy orchestra combat music and rich baritone singing in the OP are leagues better than 0079, at least.

What I will say about Adolescence of Utena is that it's a similar curveball of a movie as CCA - it hammers in certain themes so hard that you couldn't avoid them if you tried, while also being layered and obtuse and beautifully animated. It's got some strange narrative priorities if you go in expecting it to be like the show it's inspired by. The kind of thing that especially rewards rewatches and interpretive frameworks. There's a really interesting interview between Utena director Kunihiko Ikuhara and Hideaki Anno where they agree that CCA is the zenith of a specific approach to anime and that something completely different needs to be done now. In that way, the Utena anime and Eva are respectively their attempts.

Thanks for reaching out! I really liked 0079 - I understand why people recommend the show over the recap movies even if the middle episodes can be a bit inconsequential or half-baked. Having a grounded and drawn-out plot and then everything suddenly exploding into newtypes and trippy colors right at the end is the kind of thing that's gonna stick with me. And knowing that there weren't any serious mecha shows like it beforehand makes me all the more impressed with how severe and morally vague it gets for what was ostensibly a children's show.

Now that I've watched it I'm starting to see MSG's DNA everywhere - even in Utena, since Anthy's original designs were directly inspired by Lalah Sune (I hope you like Utena by the way! it unfolds in very interesting ways over time.)

I watched CCA with my partner who got into Gundam a bit before me, with her filling in the gaps as we watched. After seeing that, I assumed the rivalry between Char and Amuro in the show would be immediately personal, so I didn't expect 0079 to mostly be *Amuro* obsessed with Char and Char not even knowing his name! That actually it's Lalah that spurs their mutual obsession, not being aces on each side of the war.

To me, CCA was a fascinating mess, and I'd probably get more out of it by treating it as a romance/character study rather than a coherent military conflict. I understand the emotions flying between Char and Amuro a bit better now, and I plan to keep revisiting it in my thoughts as I go through the early UC stuff. Char's last line is still insane, but after seeing all of Amuro's mommy issues in 0079, I'm starting get an understanding of what's going on in Tomino's head. He's weird about women in fascinating ways, and I've heard Zeta has plenty more of that for better or for worse.

As for Birdie Wing, now that we all but know that Bandai-Namco meddled with G-Witch's production to rush it along and make it less gay, I've gotten downright conspiratorial about the same thing happening to Birdie Wing's second season. The timing matches up, at least. Why else would you go through the work of writing a messy soap opera incest fakeout plot only for your two main characters to never have any on-screen chemistry again??? Still a fun time though.

Thank you! :)

Happy Birthday ^^

Happy Birthday! :)

Acchon burike!
That's so nice of you to say

Thank you 👌