Released by Nue animation in 1982 Super Dimension Fortress Macross is a lynchpin entry in the saga of 80βs mecha anime. A cultural touchstone, Macross would go on to spawn itβs own sequels, as well as being the basis of the popular Robotech franchise. Letβs take a look at the first entry in the storied history of the Macross universe, Super Dimension Fortress Macross.
β THIS VIDEO CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILER FOR MACROSS β
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Robotech part one and Macross are almost the same
My familiarity with Macross was from Robotech Battlecry the game. When I watched the series though it was a lot different than my childhood favorite mech game
I also have the Japanese versions of Macross, Southern Cross and Moseda, the 3anime that made up Robotech. Watching Robotech as a kid it was a shock to see a black woman dating a white man on TV, even if it was a cartoon. Society hadn't gotten that relaxed yet but that was very much ahead of its time. You should think about doing the other shows.
Man, Robotech was one of the shows responsible for introducing gen x to anime, along with Star Blazers (space cruiser yamato) in the early 80βs, kind of like the toonami shows for millennials. Yeah harmony gold and Carl Macek made some shit decisions over the years in regards to Macross and distribution but I canβt help but feel all the nostalgic feels when it comes to Robotech.
Seeing Royβs death on an after school cartoon back in like 84 or whatever was kind of a real change after years of GI Joe where no one ever even gets hurt.
If anyones gonna marry my cousin; itβs gonna be ME!!! Lol
One of my favorites!!! Thank you for making this video!
Your videos just keep getting better and better, my dude. I can't wait to see what you think of Gundam Seed. Keep up the excellent work man!
Not gonna lie, The Bodozle watching TV and getting interrupted by a head on ad made me spit my drink. Happy you covered the series that got me into Mecha.
I got to disagree with the belief that when the Macross transformed more than once it kept destroying the city inside of the main ship. From what I remember, from both the American dubbed version Robotech and Macross. It was right after the first battle with the Zentradi in space when the ships were all combined into the Macross aka the SDF-1, that the rebuilt city was destroyed. But it took them about a few weeks while Hikaru/Rick was trapped after a battle with the Zentradi and his aerial acrobat plane was stuck in a portion of the SDF-1 with Min-Mei/Minmay whom he saved. While they were trapped together, they went through some stuff and grew closer romantically speaking until they were eventually rescued. By the time they got back out, the city had already been rebuilt it and done so in a way that would protect the citizens from further transformations and possible exposure to vacuum with blast door shutters during a battle until they could figure out how to activate the shield system. And that's when they created the pinpoint barriers using those rolling computer mouse things to quickly move the tiny every shields around to block incoming missiles. Although I have to say one of the biggest issues I have with these shows isn't so much just the fact that humanities often up against the wall. A lot of sci-fi series do that. One of the big problems was that the main good guy/the protagonist was usually a bad fighter. Not a bad pilot but a bad physical fighter. And there's always some other person who can generally kick their ass easily in 1 on 1 outside of the cockpit. And in this series that would be Min-may's (distant) cousin (or she just called him her βcousinβ as a nickname since they grew up in the same neighborhood, A lot of people do that). I mostly remember that he played that Kung Fu fighter Shao Pai Long – that Min-May actually sang song for as she became the new diva for the Earth forces – The primary songstress that everybody focused on for a long time. While I don't remember his name I do recall that he pretty much becoming a modern day Bruce Lee/Jet Li/Jackie Chan kind of character for them But then also became drunken and verbally abusive to Minmay in their relationship before it finally hit rock bottom and he split. And whenever Rick/Hikaru and him got into an argument, the dude straight laid the boy out like 4 or 5 times. And that's not counting when he got bodied by the bad guy – Kamjen who eventually became a friend/ally in his mecha, Because it was his fleet that was mainly chasing after the Macross/SDF-1 for like 2 years through space after the initial Space Fold incident which standard these (I'm guessing like 30,000 remaining) citizens and soldiers. Which really makes me wonder how good Rick/Hikaru really is since Roy Folker, who was like a big brother to him really wanted him to join their military. At best I would say he was a good balanced pilot, but not one of their best by far. Especially when his co-pilot/subordinate Max was so good he actually attracted the eye of the zentradi Ace pilot from the segregated female fleet (since male and female Zentradi were bio-enginerred for war, and often fought and killed each other when together) and fell in love with her. Even marrying and having a child with her before he became the Captain/Admiral of the 7th fleet that left Earth to go explore and/or colonized the galaxy after the 2nd Human and Zentradi war when a lot of their people living on Earth amongst humans couldn't hack it living peacefully. (Back to my point) Max being such a good pilot and marrying the ace pilot of the enemy at the time, gave Humanity two incredible pilots that could probably take on half a fleet of like 1000 (or more like 750) vs maybe 500 or so ships on humanity's side along with the allied Zentradi by themselves. The guy who became the secondary antagonist later on though, did in fact destroy both the SDF-2 and SDF-3 I think, right when the later was out of mothballs and barely functional. I think they said in a series that Rick/Hikaru, when he became the Supreme Commander of Earth's forces (in Macross I think they're called UN Spacey) he was secretly working on the SDF-4 by the time everything was over and by the time he died. I don't know if they ever confirmed if he married Minmay or Lisa/Misa though, Because over time he became a lot closer with the ladder due to Minmay kind of becoming a forgotten songstress by the time they were all in there like early 30s to mid-30s. And one of the main things that really brought me into the series was actually the music as well as the sci-fi action, the transforming robots and the drama. Even though my favorite one was actually the short-lived sequel Macross 2: Lovers Again. And I kind of liked it but I simultaneously hated that other series of Robotech Southern Cross – where the characters we're from my an 90s or late 80s looking generation and flew in ships designed to resemble helicopters and some tanks. And Sentinels – which was mostly humans and power armor fighting aliens that were largely comprised of energy that put themselves in like insectoid robot forms. Another one of the things that I'll never really forget the series for but it did ultimately kind of push certain developments forward, was the death of Roy Folker. Just going to his girlfriend's house and bleeding out on her couch while she makes dinner when he could have gone to the hospital. He could have just retired and become a captain or something. But no instead they killed him off and the weirdest most subtly overdramatic way way. Also from the fact that along with a lot of anime Claudia Grant/Claudia LaSalle, was probably one of the few Black characters back then. Also from the fact that they couldn't confirm if Captain Gloval was White with a weird reddish coloring or East Indian/Asian. I personally think that he was East Indian. Which is not bad if he was or wasn't, I just wanted to know for sure. And between the earlier parts of the series and when the first initial Robotech/Macross series ended most of the people on earth died and were struggling to put things back together. So it was incredibly surprising to me that they decided to assemble like 10,000 fleets of ships (each one with probably like 2000 frigates in about 10,000 fighters each, Most of whom were cannon fodder for the bad guys to blow up until the music starts playing and the more prominent figures come in to save the day somehow. Like Basara and his band Fire Bomber, Sheryl Nome and Ranka Ran Lee from Macross Frontier, and the group WalkurΓ© from Macross Delta) and send them offer to the wide galaxy to get into God knows what else kinds of trouble especially when encountering technology and information related to the βRobotech Mastersβ or whomever else created the Zentradi, originally designed the SDF-1 and visited Earth like millions of years ago. With the common denominator is that they all or the one culture used music/rhythmic based sounds and energy patterns to communicate, like that weird alien structure from Macross Zero that the local island people built their little society based on just as the 3rd World War was ending, and that series too had a very ambiguous conclusion. Of which to control their own regiments of Zentradi groups like the Marduk Empire also used music through their Emulators like (the not so cleverly/uncleverly named) Ishtar. My one problem with that series too is that they never explained if the Alus that Ishtar heard of actually existed. I still love the music from the short series though, and the fact that the main protagonist wasn't even a fighter, he was a pilot for sure. But he was a reporter, And now that I think about it they probably should have given his ship that he was flying a lot of flares and some sort of smoke screen to get out of the battlefield quickly since it was essentially just a transforming jetplane mixed with a camera. Also from the fact that they gave a lot of attention to government suppression as well as propaganda style news reporting. On one side it was the government struggling to fight an enemy that they were unfamiliar with and to keep the public calm. While on the other side it was a young and somewhat ignorant bit growing reporter whom went from Just chasing a big story to wanting to report the truth no matter what happened afterwards even if it caused a panic and made friends with the enemy since Ishtar was saved by the old war reporter/camera man – Denis).
Congrats on the 10k!
Retcon is my favorite alternate reality Matt Bragg
Just starting, and as a Battletech fan, FUCK HARMONY GOLD FOREVER THOSE BASTARDS
Macross is the Best and the Greatestπππππππ
Who thebfuck makes a general into a captain?
How dare you insult the Zentrqdi Officer Pod. (The normal pods are lame, but the officer pod is amazing and the orriginal art for one of the BATTLETECH icons
God I hated Kai Foon and Laplamaz
Insurance DOESN'T want there to be claims, repair shops on the other hand..
Wasn't FDR in a first cousin marriage? Or was it second? It's creepy nonsense and sadly not just a "non western " thing
Fun thing about SEED being connected to Macross is that Sleggar inspired Fokker who inspired Mwu La Flaga.
i really recomend for u to go watch the first ova that came out!! its not that good quality but u will really love its ending; your ship finally sails!!
Good coverage of a great series, Macross doesn't get enough recognition. That being said I can't recommend enough watching the movie Macross: Do You Remember Love, the art and animation are nearly on par with Akira and is the basis all the future Macross are based off of.
Max is the best Chad in all of mecha.
He even gets that Zussy
Hell's yes now do code Geass next
SDF Macross is a show I need to watch, be it in the uncut state or as Robotech season 1. The core themes of "Mechs and Love songs" sounds bizarrely endearing, and the fact that it also introduced many to Japanese animation when it was aired AS Robotech season 1 in the US just makes it a must for me.
Also, To R_404: I'm actually someone who doesn't mind dubbed animation, as actors are voicing over a drawn picture rather than an actual person who is emoting physically. If it's good, I'd happily watch a show with an English audio track, ditto if the Japanese audio track is all I have and/or the EN track stinks. So I'd like to share the funny piece of trivia with you:
There are actually TWO English localisations of SDF Macross! One being Robotech, the other being a more faithful translation starring Vic Mignogna as Hikaru and Mari Ijima reprising her role as Lynn in a rare case of pulling double duty. It also starred a pre-insanity Monica Rial, but Rial's downfall is a story that's best left to someone more qualified. It will probably be the latter localisation I watch, especially considering that the Harmony Gold lawsuits are over (thank god), but I WILL still watch the Robotech version down the road.
I hated this movie. For one very simple reason: my favorite character is Captain Global and he was reduced to only have 10 speaking lines. I counted.
Please do Mospeada too.
Man never have I felt old getting hit with "doing into Macross blind" in this day and age lol. Great video
Congrats on 10K!! Very much deserved your videos are the best
Love your History Rehash on Macross here. Just keeps reaffirming why I love this show. However, wow, I can't stop hearing you mispronounce "HIKARU" every time you say the name. LOL. HICKAROO??? Should sound like HICKAHROO. With an "AHhhhhh" nestled beautifully in the middle there, like the smooth vocals from the 7-Up guy…oops, that may be too old a reference LOL, ack, LOL. Regardless still, love all your stuff! Love to hit play as I build Gunpla…thanks so much for what you do!
The dadelous is a 'semi-submersible assault ship'. Not quite a sub….like our USS San Antonio…
Also the Prometheus and the dadelous were built from over tech which was compatible with the macross. Originally the ARMD ships are suppose to be in their place like in the movie
The movie "Do you remember love" heavily fixes Hikaru's behavior in the love triangle
Awesome review. I discovered Robotech when I was 8 years old and loved it. My introduction to Macross was the film Do You Remember Love when I was 15 and I loved the Japanese precurser even more. This show opened my eyes to anime as more than just a cartoon. I've been playing with giant robots for 40 years now thanks to this show!
Oh and if you wan to review a LONG and COMPLEX anime?? Legend of Galactic Heroes. I loved the original and watched about half of the remastered version with all new animation. Massed fleet battles with thousands of ships per side. Truly an epic show.