So, I got to thinking about Macross Frontier, and aside from the nostalgic wistfulness I usually get when thinking about this great series, which brought us here together, I also had some thoughts about Kawamori's usual continuity, where he takes elements from all published works and then mixes them into a (hopefully) tasty stew.
I think nobody will be surprised if I say that I vastly prefer the TV series to the movies. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't want to some of the better elements of the movies to be taken forward as established continuity in the next series where Sheryl and Alto may feature at least as mentions or cameos.
So, what parts of the movies would I like to be adopted? And which parts would I absolutely NOT want to be adopted?
WANT:
- Sheryl and Alto meeting as children and Sheryls challenge to Alto. I mean, obviously. My heart grew three sizes during that scene.
- Ranka being noticeably a better character and having befriended Alto already at the start of the series. It makes her romantic feelings more enduring than just being a crush and reaction to him being pretty and rescueing her all the time.
- Some of the songs. Rankas music got improved dramatically, while I still think Sheryls songs from the series were way better than the movie ones.
- Michael surviving, because d'oh. His death was really unnecessary in the series and did not have real consequences, aside from making Klan-Klan quite morose during the rest of the series.
- Alto deciding in a very obvious way that he wants to be with Sheryl. Without him being whisked away to the other side of the galaxy, of course and Sheryl ending up in a coma.
NOT WANT:
- Most noticeably, the whole "Sheryl is an agent of Galaxy and came to Frontier to harvest Rankas organs to save herself from the V-Virus" angle was dumb as fuck and offensive to Sheryl fans. I mean, WTF? That's not a motivation you come back from easily (the organ harvesting thing), even if she thought better of it when she became to know Ranka.
- Alto's dilemma being an identity crisis due to him doubting his masculinity was a much inferior story for him than his identity crisis due to a lack of direction after fleeing from the oppressive environment of his family tradition and then, after finding his direction, being harangued by his family to abandon his true dream of flying.
- Grace being redeemed didn't sit right by me, because she was just such a good villain. I much prefer her TV version.
- Banana dying didn't have to happen, either. The TV solution was much superior.
- Despite Ranka being a much better version overall in the movies, I still prefer her failself versions character arc in the TV series, because it was such a great deconstruction of the "moe girl pratfalls her way into saving the galaxy" BS trope. Difficult to reconcile that storyline with her movie version, so I guess overall I'd prefer to keep her failtard TV series, as a warning to all hapless moe girls in the galaxy.
Any thoughts?
