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Having just finished the Macross Frontier, I have to say that this one falls way short of its predecessors. Hiroyuki Yoshino (who is also responsible for the abominations that are Code Gaess and Guilty Crown) seems to think that throwing together everything from his previous shows and whatever’s popular in other successful shows will make a great show. As one blogger rightly commented, “It’s not the number of ingredients that make a delicious dish”.

Now before I get into the meat of what didn’t work here; I want to give credit where credit is due. The music by Yoko Kanno, as always, was top notch. Although ... the pop music was a bit Engrishy, that’s common to all J-Pop and they can’t really be faulted there. I loved the overall designs of Macross Frontier with its whole San Francisco vibe. The fleet shot was also interesting as it made it look like a group of turtles or insects as well as giving the impression of the large-scale of these ships. I enjoyed all the concert scenes and thought the use of holography in some of Sheryl’s early concerts was pretty inventive and shows a progression in technology from the Sharon Apple concerts in Macross Plus. But despite this base design, the series went horribly askew when Yoshino took the reins of series composition.

Characters

The characters, although well-designed, were poorly developed. I couldn’t consider any of these characters endearing or lovable, and in a year’s time I will have probably forgotten all about them. They were shallow puppets that were used as tools to achieve the creator’s ends, without ever taking on a life of their own. While Ozama and Catherine’s relationship seems realistic and mature, but the vast majority of relationships were the typical high school romance crap. But they go above-and-beyond the call of duty here; not only are these relationships implausible, but they come out of nowhere and are resolved so poorly.

The cast, though well-designed, has obvious analogs in Super Dimension Fortress Macross or later incarnations in the series. The Captain resembles Global. You have the standard chatty girls on the bridge. The enemy, like Gepellnich (in Macross 7) is shrouded in mystery and you don’t get a good look at his/her face 'til the final few episodes. Ranka’s aesthetic is largely influenced by the design for Mao Nome from Macross Zero. Ozama Lee’s role takes on a lot of characteristics of Roy Focker from SDF Macross and Catherine Glass is a clone of Lt. Hayasse.

Finally, the villains are utterly worthless. Their plans are at times transparently obvious and at other times so vague that you could never be expected to understand what they’re talking about. The Vajira themselves, unlike the Zentradi or the Protodevilins of the previous series, are not sentient and react like worker bees to some queen. Even though these hive-mind creatures don’t really think for themselves (except for the pet), they seem to react to Ranka’s songs. Sounds stupid huh? Well, their explanation is equally stupid. I wont spoil it.

Plot

The plot was scattered and lazy. Political intrigue was full of plot holes and unrealistic to both the way other Macross ships are governed and the way governments function in reality (though this seems to be a consistent problem with Hiroyuki Yoshino). As stated before, they went out of their way to have lots of screen-time with villains saying a lot while remaining so vague that you could never decipher what they were saying.

In every previous incarnation, Macross ships have had a civilian leader (a mayor or president) and a military leader. In Frontier, part of the military is contracted out to SMS, some sort of private security firm; there doesn’t seem to be any reason for this arrangement. Most of the series only shows SMS getting involved in the conflicts, but toward the end, they start showing another full-sized military force operating out of the Frontier. Yoshino, having no political savvy whatsoever, portrays the President having absolute authority over the military; this goes against all precedent and seems to undermine the notion of separation of power clearly portrayed in Macross 7 and in the original SDF Macross. Though one might mistake the Captain of SMS as the equivalent of Max Genius, he is clearly not a military captain and in fact no one seems to fit this role. The military leaders outside SMS are a bunch of sniveling sycophants who do nothing but react to what’s going on outside the ship (almost as if Yoshino was trying to tell the audience how to react).

The foreshadowing flashbacks were poorly used and basically showed the same things over and over, trying to make the same obvious point. These flashbacks continue throughout through the end of the series, even though the message is already clear by Episode 10. The ending was particularly incoherent, and it really answered none of the questions. Relationships are abruptly resolved, if resolved at all, many other threads were just left dangling.

Conclusions

All in all, the plot was a sloppy mess. It wasn’t fun to watch and wasn’t engaging either emotionally or intellectually. There was never really a moment where I didn’t know where this was heading – no surprises. I don’t feel that this series did anything to expand the Macross universe or the underlying mysteries of the franchise; and despite lots of cameos we really learn nothing of the fate of characters from previous series (with a couple exceptions).

The worst part though, is while letting this man work on Macross series was possibly a good financial decision, it has ruined what was otherwise an original and authentic saga. Yoshino didn’t seem to care about what came before, except that there was material there to exploit. He merely saw fans of the franchise as potential viewers, then he roped in pop music fans, mecha fans, high school anime fans, and a dozen other tropes in order to maximize his viewership. The man has no integrity as an artist and no respect for a classic property that’s been going since 1982. It had been ten years since Macross 7, so I hope in 2017 (or hopefully sooner) when they get around to making another series, that the original creators don’t let this jackass anywhere near it.