Quote:
Originally Posted by Darthtabby
On the other hand however I really feel that if something is that important it should be made clear in the main material itself, not left for other sources to bring to light.
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Hm...to be absolutely honest, by the time I got to relevant parts in the second volume about a month or two ago, I had already come around to the characterisation that's in the novel. The episode 10 commentary was what got me thinking about what to make of Alto, so I went looking (in the forum and on RC) to see what others thought at the time, and came across some interesting posts by
Swampstorm and
musouka. One thing to note though, is that they didn't spelled everything out, at least at first, but instead gave hints and places to start analysis from.
Based on some of their 'flagposts', one thing that became clear to me during the rewatch is that the characterisation
IS there in the series, but it's not obvious, and most people ignore it because they're more interested in certain aspects of the show (e.g. the love triangle, or perhaps the mecha/battles. I know I've gone nuts about valkyries since I saw the "All that VF" clips a couple of months back...
).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darthtabby
All that being said, would you be willing to provide some details about what the book said about what this meant for Alto? Or did it actually say anything about the effects it had on him? Are we left to form our own conclusions completely or did it spell some things out?
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Oh it spells things out alright, though it's not as bad as some of you might think. But, as I've indicated above, a lot of was actually picked out
from the series when it was airing/just after it finished. I don't want to go into any of it now (not to mention I'd have to go find the novel pages again...) though I might in another month's time or maybe when I've actually finished the novels in say...6 months time. On the other hand, I might also decide that I don't want to post stuff that might influence people too much, although figuring out 'what's up with Alto' has made me appreciate
Frontier a lot more than I did the first time I saw it.
But if you want to try reconsidering the series, the following comment by Swampstorm is a good starting point:
Spoiler for in case there are ppl who don't want to see it, and besides, this is the novel thread, not the series thread:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Swampstorm
2) The biggest mistake that shippers of both factions make is that they focus too much on how Alto relates to the triangle, rather than studying his personal motivations outside of romance. The best hint that I can offer is to start with episode twenty-three and work your way backwards. There are certain "key phrases" that keep coming up again and again whenever Alto is concerned; if you understand what each one of them means, you'll have a solid grasp of Alto's story. It's unfortunate that his character was revealed so late in the story; he's easily one of the most underrated characters in the series.
Everything else, including the triangle, builds off of that.
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I'm not sure if I'd recommend going to look for the thread that came from, because subsequent posts spell some of the analysis out, though there were a few other useful pointers as well (e.g. what some of the "key phrases" are).
If I might say one last thing, I was pretty ambivalent about Alto until about 2-3 months ago. Now that his character actually makes sense to me, he's overtaken Michel as my fav male character in Macross F. Pity I can't change my selections in the character poll...