[user112168]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

It's "Kabuki". And while Macross certainly is about music breaching the distance between different people, it is also about people interacting with each other, bridging their distance in the normal manner as we normal humans do. What defined the relationship between Sheryl and Alto and Ranka was almost in its entirety how they interacted with each other, not that they go on extravaganzas on a higher plane of music.

Macross 7?
I'm still betting on things staying as they are at series end (my prediction for the movie) Sheryl will want Alto to keep the earring. They all gain this way.

I don't exactly follow how the "Since then" ( no "ever" in my translation ) implies romantic love for Ranka. Brotherly love? Sure, and that's not something I would try to dispute. There's a reason why his voice audibly breaks when he says he'd even kill Ranka.

Looking at Alto's "since then" line was just establishing the time period he was discussing, from meeting Ranka to her departure, where he felt either protective or romantic love, depending on opinion.

Exactly how again does showing Sheryl in that particular say that he ignored her for loving Ranka? A reading of "I ignored Sheryl to not hurt Rankas feelings, which I noticed long ago but also ignored, because I am not interested in her in that way" would make make much more sense.

Actually I now think "pretending not to notice" relates to both girls like you said, hence all Michel's comments (I'm paraphrasing here) "you dense man, our what?" related to Ranka or Sheryl.
Basically, he at least knew each of them liked him, but didn't want to hurt either's feelings, that scenario became irrelevant after Ranka left.

Your scenario works, so I guess it's down to opinion on how much Alto loved Ranka here. I'm reading a bit more into Alto's initial attraction to Ranka than you are I think.

And in the whole context of his speech, going rah-rah over protecting everyone on Frontier, it could also very well mean that he ignored his love for Frontier until now, only seeing it as a barrier to his desire to fly freely. Not every single scene needs to be about the romantic triangle. Sheryl appearing at just that point could in that case simply be attributed to it being the perfect time for her to misunderstand what Alto was going on about.

...which would make it a love-triangle scene anyway
Protecting Frontier could explain the "running away" line, he was always after a sky, with the fragile environment comment related to the bad state of the ship after the attack.

Got any scenes that back up another interpretation of the "pretending not to notice" idea other than that it was referring Sheryl and Ranka? We have all the scenes where Alto acts dense to the girls' interests, Michel's comments on the matter, and seeing the girl who is about to receive the benefits of his new-found attention (sheryl) appearing as he says this line.

Uh, no? He developed the worldview of us vs. them, which btw was one of his less admirable traits, after hearing the last words of the Kwamzin clone ( Temzin? ). While in the end it carried over to the much more admirable goal of wanting to protect everybody in his home, this adversarial view of "only one can survive" was nurtured over many incidents since episode fourteen and came into full blossom when Ranka turned up at Griffith Park with the evolved Ai-kun ( I still facepalm at that incredibly inconsiderate and stupid behaviour of hers. ).

Yep, but that's Ranka's departure your talking about, hence the flash point was still Ranka's departure, even though the build up took many episodes.

Yeah, after Ranka left and didn't need to be protected anymore, he had the liberty to re-focus himself towards Sheryl and Frontier as a whole. So in that sense you are right. But in the sense that he only noticed Macross vulnerability and the need for decisive action, including killing Ranka if necessary, because of Rankas departure is patently wrong.

He definitely wouldn't have mentioned anything about killing Ranka if she hadn't left, so it think this line at least is 100% dependent on her having left
The only person mentioned by name in the conversation is Ranka. Alto goes from their meeting, his vow to protect her, and now, the need to kill her. So, even if Alto has been developing the trait of protectiveness towards MacF over may episodes, this conversation would never have happened at all if she hadn't left like she did.

That actually would work, if there wasn't a whole ton of evidence that he did, in fact, not love Ranka romantically.[...]

No need to open up that line of inquiry, we'd be here form weeks. though what Alto was thinking in his head (especially with his claim of being deliberately obtuse) will always be a subject of debate.