I do not think I can add much to what has already been said by the others at this point ( damn you, need to sleep! :p ).

Without going into her not having a talk with him, but only talking to him, Ranka needed to follow up on the developments of Gallia IV, but did not. At the end of episode 15 it looked for one moment as if she would fight for Alto, but nothing came of it and two episodes later Alto and her had one of the most asexual meetings ( in her own bedroom, no less ) I have seen for what was to be a romantic relationship. After that the relationship never recovered.

I think the relationship is there in ep 23...if not, then ep 25 at the very very least..anyway, no need to respond to this post, coz I see it will go on a full circle again..so go on without me plz :heh:

Episode 23 is a matter of interpretation. The scene was ambiguous enough to raise hopes in the pro-Ranka camp, and the different translations did not help.

Episode 25... nothing much happened to move the relationship forward again. "You are both my wings" can be taken in any which way and that declaration of competition does not mean a thing if Sheryl and Alto are already living together.

Nothing really, she just fine. It was Alto who keeps running towards her, flying to her rescue, giving her a warmth smile, screaming her name whenever she’s in danger. In episode 25 he said this time I will save her!!!!! Now, I’m just wondering why Alto really wants to save Ranka? Any idea anyone??

Well at the very least you could see the joy between ranka and Alto in ep 25, and that is a big improvement when comparing to the somewhat sad scene in that departure

And I think Alto and Sheryl are living together purely because of the sickness from Sheryl...I doubt they will continue living together now that Sheryl has been healed (assumption of course)

@gentlewater
Oh oh, I can answer it!!! (raise hand) Because Alto loves Ranka!!!

Because she's his friend? Sheryl is not in love with Ranka, and she wanted her to be safe too.

Right...you could take it as anything. But this isn't the romance discussion theread. We can continue that kind of discussion there. The ending is ambigious of the anime or the very least cloudy. I have to say it was a bittersweet ending for both fans. For Ranka fans because there was still hope Alto would choose her(in contrast with her gaving up in ep 21 it's seriously big). And for Sheryl fans because SHeryl survives and cured, but we didn't get a certain resolution.

She's the one who actually brings the topic up (Ranka's safety), in episode 24, isn't she?

Yeah, She is. Alto wanted to kill her if necessary.

Funny how that almost never gets mentioned, right?

This is a great post that encompasses a lot of what I've felt about this subject for a very long time. I've never paid much attention to shipping wars into shipping wars because the one who "wins" doesn't really win. Instead, he/she is just the character who the love interest cared the most for. And so in that context, a lot of the arguments about who should end up with who lost a lot of their power.

In terms of anime, I came to look at relationships this way starting with the love triangle in Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. There, it was entirely a matter of who Bakayuki invested more in, and who he could afford to lose the least; and not a matter of who needed him the most. In a twist of ironies, what work is it that first awakened this idea in me? It was none other than SDF Macross (no bonuses for guessing which love triangle :heh:).


Oh, and I know I'm being anal, but please pretend that there are people reading this thread who know nothing about the other Macross shows, and have never come across the endings and story points in them. This thread is for Macross Frontier, so no spoiler tags are need for that show, but I'd appreciate them for everything else Macross (unless they are points that were specifically brought up in Frontier's run).

Didn't Alto promise Ozma that he'd protect Ranka? Also if I followed your logic then everytime a firefighter or police man or even a good Samaritan saves a person they know its because they love them, and not because you know they're friends or its their duty:eyespin:

Alto also seemed to forget this when he decided that he would kill her didn't he :heh:

:twitch:

This is a bit like keeping spoiler tabs for Return of the Jedi, especially in this particular forum. :heh:

Alto also seemed to forget what he said (he would kill Ranka) when he gets the slightest hint that Ranka is being controlled :heh:

@Foreshadow Below
I mean in the ep 25 when Alto knows Ranka is in danger and being controlled, he turns back to his old self and saves her immediately

@Foreshadow's second quote
I don't think that's the case, but lol I don't think this discussion is going to anywhere..and besides I don't wanna bump up the old Alto thread :heh:

Not even that she was controlled, He Figured she Defected.

EDIT: Second Quote

It seems like he gives up the notion to kill her after Sheryl tells him to save her.

But let's save that for the Alto thread.

Yeah, I know. But that's the spoiler rule:
Whatever we Macross veterans might think, SDF Macross is still a different show than Macross Frontier, so any details about it should still be inside spoiler tags. If you wanted to discuss it without tags, it can be done so in any of the non-Frontier (and -7 and -Plus and so on) threads - although using them still not a bad idea at times. Here, any discussion of the Frontier TV show can be done without tags, but spoilers about the movies should still use them until the movie comes out (this would mostly just be rumors, magazine articles, etc.).

IMO, this post and the one 4tran quotes are the best I've read in these forums. I couldn't agree more. I enjoyed watching all of the characters in the show although I found it hard to really like any of them, if that makes any sense. But I did find Ranka's naivete entertaining. I didn't care if she ended up with Alto or not so I don't see it as a failure for the character if she remains single. I won't go on a feminist rant (since I'm not one) but I hope in any future incarnations she becomes a heroic character based on her deeds not on whether she wins the guy or not :P

Amusingly, I sort of feel the same way. I can't really say I'm a fan of any of the characters, though I did like them to a point. I just can't really say whom my favorites are. They're just sort of there. It's sort of true of Frontier itself. It's awesome when I watch it, and the cosplay and forums keep it going, but outside of the Macross connection, I have little enthusiasm for it. It's a weird show for me.:confused:

The shipping wars never helped much, and I agree that it was partly due to how it unfolded. It always felt largely platonic to me on Alto's part. Concern, not so much love. I agree that the character's worth shouldn't be measured strictly in relation to it.

I'd say that even more important than what she does is the matter of how the character grows and what she ends up being.

While I can't agree with the sentiment, I do understand where it comes from. At any given time, I'm only a fan of a few anime characters. While I can like a number of other characters to a degree, this degree is usually fairly limited, and I tend to like female anime characters more than male ones.

Frontier is a bit of an unusual case in that I do like all three of our leads quite a bit. SDF Macross would be an even bigger exception as I really like some half dozen (or more) characters.