I finally got a chance to watch this episode, and I'm quite pleased by what I saw. I don't think that it's quite as good as the Deculture version since so much cool stuff was skipped; there was simply too much material to pack in a 25-minute episode and we can tell that the creators were even making 10 second cuts just to make everything fit. However, the good aspect of it was that they were consciously sacrificing cool scenes in favour of character development. I see this as a bit of a rarity in anime where the flash is often favoured over substance.
My feelings are largely a reiteration of what I originally said about the Deculture version:
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-The opening narration was just awesome - I especially loved the diaspora pattern with the date in the background. That five second sequence is one of the best pieces of exposition I've ever come across.
- Sheryl is shaping up to be a very interesting character. I tend to dislike Alto's archetype, but I like what I see so far. It's still to early to determine what to make of Ranka so far.
- The scene with the pilots practicing their routines is an homage to Macross Plus, but it's also based on how real pilots and other athletes visualize their
- I like Ranka's cellphone. It shows a sense of visual style on the part of the creative staff, and it's fun. On a similar note, I like the fine attention to detail placed on mundane stuff like the way the cleaner robots get rid of soft drink cans. These, and the other bits of animation go a long way in making the setting come to life.
- The intermix of music, sound effect, and silence with the visuals is another very nice touch. Kanno Yoko is doing a great job so far.
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There's a couple of comments I'd like to add: the technological design of the show is one of the very best I've seen in anime - everything has a lived-in feel that blends older technologies where it makes sense and adds nifty little bits of new, unusual, or quirky technologies where things can be improved upon. While much of this can be attributed to the Macross franchise in general, Macross Frontier has done a great job of capturing that feel and of making the setting come alive.
The second is that I really like what they did with the characters, Sheryl in particular. She seems to be both a consummate professional and a complete egoist at the same time. I feel that her very character gives proof to the feeling that anime in general would do well to explore more kinds of personalities (particularly in terms of the protagonists) rather dwelling on the same archetypes over and over again. Alto also fares very well compared to other lead characters in mecha shows, and perhaps in anime in general. We need to see more from him, but he's extremely promising so far.