Macross Frontier was my first experience with the venerable Macross franchise, and I can see why the franchise is so popular. Macross Frontier started with a bang and there was a lot to like along the way, but towards the end Ranka really started to drag the series down. Although I was entertained, I can’t help feeling like the production team could have done a lot more with Macross Frontier’s story and budget.
Story
When I read it on paper, the story about the Vajra is engaging. It fits really well into the Macross universe, and presents an intriguing mystery. Unfortunately, the execution in the anime is not nearly as good. This may be due to the poor pacing, but until the final episode the mystery of the Vajra seemed silly and illogical.
The other major drag on the series is the half-hearted love triangle. I’m ok with the fact that Alto is way more in love with the sky than with Ranka or Sheryl, but the love triangle is pushed so hard and at every opportunity. By the end, I felt like a Vajra that had been jerked all over the galaxy by Aimo, only to find that there really was no hot Vajra love waiting for me at my destination. The mating song is a lie!
Characters
For the most part, the characters in Macross Frontier are very engaging. I enjoyed Sheryl’s rise and fall (and rise), and I really liked how Grace and Leon rose to power. Grace was a worthy antagonist, and I often had a hard time rooting against her. In terms of the main trio, I thought Sheryl’s character was well done. Sheryl’s past was a bit sketchy, but her diva archetype was given a great deal of depth and nuance by her fall from fame and her V-type infection. As for Ranka, the first thing that pops into my mind is this:
You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness.
Oh Ranka, you are so lucky that everyone bailed you out in the end. Up until her bout of jealousy, Ranka was a force of nature. While her character was rather shallow, the rise that culminated with the performance of Seikan Hikou on Gallia-4 was incredible. It seemed like nothing could stop Jesus-Ranka. Unfortunately, that’s when Ranka had a little misunderstanding, completely shattered under pressure, ditched all her friends, and left tons of people to die. We’re still supposed to like her at the end, but it’s hard to forgive and forget. By the end, I didn’t really care if Ranka ended up in a zero-heat relationship with bland-master Alto at all. Ranka, we can still be civil but we aren’t friends anymore.
Tilt
You can’t talk about Macross without talking about the music, and Macross Frontier has great music. I liked all the vocal songs, and the BGM was very good as well. The production values are decent, but the quality is uneven. The fantastic animation of the first two episodes is an outlier, and the animation never comes close to getting that good again. Character art is especially inconsistent and the dips are noticeable. Battle animation was consistently good, but the choreography was generally uninspired. There is a lot of old Macross fan-wanking, but most of the time I found it poorly done. The pineapple cake was too heavy-handed and the final locket with Lynn Minmay struck me as ridiculous.
Verdict
As the series was coming to a close, I was really wavering between giving MF either a 3/5 and a 4/5. The experience was similar to reading a mangled anime adaptation of an awesome manga series. The loose ends and the general Ranka emo left me with a bad taste in my mouth, but I thought the wrapup in the final episode was decent. What it came down to was that I did enjoy the majority of the episodes, and I looked forward to watching every episode that came out. For that reason, MF just barely manages to achieve above average marks.
Kabitzin’s Rating: 4/5
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Kabitzin – who has written 1935 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
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Ranka really dropped my love for the series also, but with all said and done, I think I can forgive that bitch… you know, cause shes a female with those puppy-dog-ear hair thing…
And what chu talkin’ bout Kabi? The choreography was FANTASTICALLY CHEESE-TASSTIC!!! I even learned all the dance moves from the instructional videos! It was very inspiring for me! =3 Its like da new Soulja Boy dawg!
Jesus159159159: “Daddy, whats that sticky white stuff all over the galaxy?”
Kabitzin: “Why, thats the Milky Way ma boy! I’ll take you there one day!”
Jesus159159159: “:3 LOL OKAYS!!!”
fixed =3
I definitely agree with you on a few counts, like the fan-wanking (it got old, even for this fan) and the Ranka business… and of course the horrific lack of consistency in the animation.
It really didn’t bring anything new to the table as far as Macross, but the franchise does often repeat itself (war sucks, the enemy really isn’t your enemy, minmay, yadda yadda).
I can’t quite put my finger on what I disliked the most, but something just didn’t seem solid. Maybe it was the pacing that did that, maybe it was just that the story wasn’t that well constructed.
I’d have to rate it pretty high(other than due to Ranka) because it’s my first Macross title to date, which turned out to be more than just about big robots seeing as how music is such an integral part of the story and all.
The more I think about it, the more it bothers me that Aimo was a mating song. How can you rewatch the any of the battles without feeling bad for the Vajra?
Damn you Ozma! You stole Leon’s fiance and then you sorta-cockblocked a whole bunch of Vajra.
You bring up another thing that could have improved the series as a whole: more Ozma knifing things.
Ozma is GAR! He defeated pineapple salad! He was marked with a big X from the beginning but he defied it!
I was impressed Ozma survived. He’s like Lunamaria in that you keep thinking he’s going to die but he pulls through in the end.
I’m going to take the opposite view from most here. I really enjoyed Ranka, although I felt the development of her “power” and the secrets associated with her were left too late in the series. I enjoyed the triangle, except for shipper wars zzzzzzzz, and think they kept us guessing, even at the end. I wish that more minor characters had been a bit more developed, like Ozuma, Brera, Nanase, etc. That was an element missing from this series, that is present in others like SDF Macross and Mac 7. The finale was brilliant. Loved all the action and the music. Good way to end the series.
My rating was 8/10 too, for pretty much the same reasons as yours. It was a very, very enjoyable show but there were things that could have been done better, and it spent too much time looking back on the franchise rather than looking ahead and pushing the ideas forward. I found it to be better than Zero, but not up to the standard of Plus.
Almost as much fun as watching the series was reading the posts over here and at T.H.A.T., purely for the comedy of Kabitzin and Crusader, and the one-liners that popped up in the comment threads. It’s times like this when I felt the ‘community spirit’, for want of a better phrase. It’s been fun guys, so thanks for the lulz and insight! ^_^
I gave Macross Frontier a bit higher rating because I did not like Sheryl at the start, but over time Kawamori and his team got me to like her a lot more. Given how they were capable of building a character like Sheryl I suspect that Ranka got the shaft in the end not because they couldn’t make her a good character, but rather she was slated to be the poster child of all that is wrong with moe characters.
Given how Kawamori and his team were heavily favoring the old Macross Vet demographic I was thoroughly pleased, though I can see how the homage and the implicit confirmation of Alto-hime’s love for Sheryl would have been lost.
Still as cheesy and hamfisted as some of the Ranka moments of episode 25 were, I still like how Kawamori delivered some of the best mecha action I have had all year. Grace was a new kind of villain for Kawamori, but I cannot argue about the inspired use of Kikuko Inoue as the most evil cylon of the year. Grace was great.
I share Martin’s sentiments it was fun to have you as Macross comrade, along with many others who made this seem more like a community thing.
man, now i feel sorry for the Vajra, instead of sweet loving, they get blow up…
Too much fricking PURPLE. Too much recycled Ranka dancing footage. The space fights left me very unimpressed every single time. It might be more difficult against the black darkness of space but the firework-like effects were neither beautiful nor impressive and looked like afterthought. Older Macross like Plus and Zero had extremely impressive and smooth fight scenes. Watching the first minutes of Macross Zero with the right music (not anything Macross-related) is an awesome ride. If anything comes close in Macross F, it was the scene in which Alto catches Ranka in mid-flight but also notice how much better that scene looks in all regards i.e., colours, shading, consistency and fluidity. I found it rather odd how often they used dance scenes when most of them were anything but fluid and not even matching the music well, except for that over-recycled piece of Ranka dancing and gesturing. In general the use of colour was very poor in Macross F most of the time, except in some scenes. It’s not the number of ingredients that make a delicious dish. Just look how beautiful the last final minutes look when we get to see natural colors and only a few basic colours instead of a dissonant rainbow. In space the mecha looked like big plastic toys with too many colours and unnecessary details in the wrong places.
About the last third of Macross F left me completely unexcited and cold. For what it’s worth, I recently rewatched Sousei no Aquarion and it was much more enjoyable than this in all regards that is characters, story/plot, animation, mecha designs and even music.
You know, this brings up the question:
Do the Vajra have a mating dance? If so, what does it look like?
There’s actually some footage of the vajira mating dance.
CURSE YOU YOU TOTALI TRICKED ME WITH MY OWN TRICK!
I still go ga-ga over that quote! :love:… AND DID SOMEBODY SAY TOTALI!?!?! :love: x159
I’ve taken to using that quote all the time in real life when referring to brown bread =3.
Why, I apply that quote to myself ALL THE TIME! =3 *ba dum psh* … wish I had a black friend who watches anime so I can apply that quote to him…
/racism
I’m absolutely disappointed in the ending, when the love triangle hadn’t even made a closure yet. Seriously though, I have my grudges against the characters to a limit, all but Burera, and it didn’t even bring out anything that gives it that little push to the originality. I felt like I was reading or watching something over again: it was too predictable (all but the Vajra being the non-enemy in the end), and this is my first Macross thing or whatever. But really, if your gunna make a movie about something involving love, at least add on more detail, enough that won’t leave us too lost in space. I’m seriously completely lost out in the galaxy right now…
Also, I’m very confused at this, but is this Macross series a whole series, with different other seasons, or is it just one and its finished? Because, well this is a hear-say, but there are people who say that I’m getting out of order in the “series” which I don’t even know about, more likely not even explained to. It would be gladly appreciated.
Wow i never saw a forum filled with so many haters. To all the Ranka haters F@#% you!!! Macross Frontier deserves 10/10 if not 12/10. Everything from the animation, character development, were all across the board ( yeah Ranka was classic moe , but this is a anime, wtf do you expect?) Maybe its just cuz i watched all the macross series from the original movie and robotech american spinoff, to macross 7 and zero. This is one of the BEST anime’s I’ve seen, so much care was put into the detail, especially of macross frontier cities. It reminds me so much of my hometown San Francisco, so I found it especially pleasant, cuz well that’s what they were modeling it after. So in short let the haters hate, even if you’ve never seen one macross show, its still good if not great. My little brother thought it was good even though he’s never seen one macross.