Macross Delta - Anime General Discussion Thread

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

It migh be better series, but it wouldn't be Macross. Romance is it's gimmick from times SDFM. Put it away and you get just gundam with better mechas, story and characters.

I'm not saying remove the romance, heck that's one of the main appeal to me for the series and why I prefer it over Gundam. I'm just saying if you don't want to resolve the romance in a tv series, don't focus so much on it.

You really think that Frontier wouldn't have been a better series if they had spent 10% of the time focused on the triangle on other subplots and character development for minor cast members instead? They teased the fuck out of shippers and didn't deliver, I don't think I've even bothered to heavily ship anything since. You expect a non romance ending for something like R2 Code Geass (probably the other series airing in that period that had crazy lunatics shipping, but at least it wasn't a main focus in that show), but Frontier by all rights should've gone one way or the other.

They made things right in the movie but the non ending of the series just weakened it as a whole and smelled like a cash grab to make people watch the movies.

[Tenzen12]

Actualy I don't. I was disapointed that romance wasn't resolved obviously, but I didn't have slightest problem with developments of other characters, quite opposite. And for movie I watched it mainly for resolution show lacked, which I got ( I do agree with your evalution of it btw).

[magnuskn]

I always thought that the side characters all got pretty well developed. They didn't get as much screentime as they could have, but I really cared about them at then end of the show. That's way better than most shows manage.

[Tak]

Originally Posted by Westlo

They made things right in the movie but the non ending of the series just weakened it as a whole and smelled like a cash grab to make people watch the movies.

Westlo, its simple... marketing

By having the triangle unresolved, we get fans yearning for more.

But otherwise, Macross for me is almost always about big fleet battles. Episode 24 & 25 of the Frontier TV series pretty much topped anything before and as of right now, anything after. The only thing to ever remotely match that scale and sheer epic-ness in recent memory is the last stand from Trailblazer.

- Tak

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by Tak

Westlo, its simple... marketing

By having the triangle unresolved, we get fans yearning for more.

I question this strategy. Instead of leaving the fans with the feeling of having watched a complete series with a definite resolution, you leave them with the feeling of having watched something incomplete. This may be a ploy to sell more stuff, but in the end it transforms a series which could have been a classic on every level into something which people still feel a lot of rancor about, i.e. overall you lowered the quality of your series.

Like Mass Effect 3 showed us, doing intentionally obtuse endings can backfire horribly. I hope Kawamori & Co. learned their lesson this time.

[Tak]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

Like Mass Effect 3 showed us, doing intentionally obtuse endings can backfire horribly. I hope Kawamori & Co. learned their lesson this time.

It might have left a taste of unsatisfaction, but from a marketing standpoint, it was also widely successful.

And instead of backfiring like ME3, it became a memetic mutation. From a popularity & economics standpoint, thats... hilariously good stuff

- Tak

[Frontier]

Just don't mention it to Yuichi Nakamura .

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by Tak

It might have left a taste of unsatisfaction, but from a marketing standpoint, it was also widely successful.

And instead of backfiring like ME3, it became a memetic mutation. From a popularity & economics standpoint, thats... hilariously good stuff

- Tak

No, it's not. I know at least twenty people who were loyal BioWare fans who will never trust the company again. They'll never pre-order their titles again, they will view everything the company does with suspicion forever. And that's just in the tiny sub-group of fans I sometimes hang out with. The overall mood on the forums was and is "fuck BioWare and their fucking arrogance". They killed all the goodwill they built up over decades. Not all things you make end up making you popular, sometimes you fuck up so much that it destroys you.

And in case that you are talking about Macross Frontier, I repeat: Sometimes marketing should take a back-seat to telling a good story and building trust with your audience. Inconclusive endings for reasons for money-grubbing is just greed-head bullshit. I still would prefer to hope that Kawamori is not so much at the beck and call of his marketing department to let them dictate the story outcome for him.

Not that the ending we got would be much better if it came from his preference for a non-resolution, but at least I could respect that more than just greed.

[Lenneth4]

Originally Posted by Westlo

I'm not saying remove the romance, heck that's one of the main appeal to me for the series and why I prefer it over Gundam. I'm just saying if you don't want to resolve the romance in a tv series, don't focus so much on it.

You really think that Frontier wouldn't have been a better series if they had spent 10% of the time focused on the triangle on other subplots and character development for minor cast members instead? They teased the fuck out of shippers and didn't deliver, I don't think I've even bothered to heavily ship anything since. You expect a non romance ending for something like R2 Code Geass (probably the other series airing in that period that had crazy lunatics shipping, but at least it wasn't a main focus in that show), but Frontier by all rights should've gone one way or the other.

They made things right in the movie but the non ending of the series just weakened it as a whole and smelled like a cash grab to make people watch the movies.

well , the hero choose his "queen" in the end
We were laughing about it , it was a funny good ending in fact

Because choosing between Lanka and sheryl would have divided fans by two XD
And that ending allowed the movies from a scenario point view , this route was interesting and good to me.

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by Lenneth4

well , the hero choose his "queen" in the end
We were laughing about it , it was a funny good ending in fact

Because choosing between Lanka and sheryl would have divided fans by two XD
And that ending allowed the movies from a scenario point view , this route was interesting and good to me.

I still find this attitude really bewildering. There are like a billion gajillion romance series out there with definite resolutions, do the fans of the other girls/boys riot and threaten violence when things don't go their way in Japan? Do they burn their copies of their DVD's or something? How can a definite resolution be anything but normal?

[justavisitor]

Definite resolution....we don't even know if Alto is alive (TV series) or currently MIA or even KIA (movie)

I understand macross movie is always different than the tv series, but it's a bit extreme for the main character to have a completely opposite ending XD

Well, maybe the new series will give us a hint of the real fate of Alto Saotome

[Tak]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

I still find this attitude really bewildering. There are like a billion gajillion romance series out there with definite resolutions, do the fans of the other girls/boys riot and threaten violence when things don't go their way in Japan? Do they burn their copies of their DVD's or something? How can a definite resolution be anything but normal?

I know for a fact that there is a well-publicized photo of the first Frontier BD release where Ranka was mercilessly stabbed then cut from the rest of the disc.

Originally Posted by justavisitor

Well, maybe the new series will give us a hint of the real fate of Alto Saotome

Drinking with Setsuna after Trailblazer, of course.

- Tak

[wisteria233]

I'm happy about the idea of a new MF series, and while MF is one of the favorite anime of all time. I think that my only real problem with MF tv series which was solved in the movies and I sincerly hope that this new Macross series doesn't copy is the filler. The tv series just had way too much padding, that added nothing of value to the story. There are episodes that could have either been cut down or cut out entirely.

episodes, 8, 10, and I'm looking at you. The problem with MF tv series is that it got too fixated on an side story that while important didn't need much screen time, for a character who was simple, and whose contribution to the plot was ultimately easy to figure out. This ultimately resulted shafting one of the main characters and the main villains, who were way more complicated than said character, because there simply wasn't enough time to explore their characters or motivations. Basically it wasted a lot of time.

The movies were a great improvement over the tv series because it simply didn't waste too much time. I really do hope that the new MF series takes after the movies in that regard.

[BetoJR]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

No, it's not. I know at least twenty people who were loyal BioWare fans who will never trust the company again.

God, talk about being burned. I'm happily waiting for the next Dragon Age, myself. It looks so dreamy...

[Tak]

Originally Posted by wisteria233

The movies were a great improvement over the tv series because it simply didn't waste too much time. I really do hope that the new MF series takes after the movies in that regard.

Macross Zero and PLUS were pretty direct and to the point. I like that aspect of storytelling.

A TV series with 25 episodes should really have as little filler as possible. This is not shonen, this is Macross

- Tak

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by justavisitor

Definite resolution....we don't even know if Alto is alive (TV series)

Eh? Unless he fantasize that he managed to crash his EX-Gear when he was making that pass towards Sheryl and Ranka, I don't see where that idea would come from.

Originally Posted by wisteria233

I'm happy about the idea of a new MF series, and while MF is one of the favorite anime of all time. I think that my only real problem with MF tv series which was solved in the movies and I sincerly hope that this new Macross series doesn't copy is the filler. The tv series just had way too much padding, that added nothing of value to the story. There are episodes that could have either been cut down or cut out entirely.

episodes, 8, 10, and I'm looking at you. The problem with MF tv series is that it got too fixated on an side story that while important didn't need much screen time, for a character who was simple, and whose contribution to the plot was ultimately easy to figure out. This ultimately resulted shafting one of the main characters and the main villains, who were way more complicated than said character, because there simply wasn't enough time to explore their characters or motivations. Basically it wasted a lot of time.

The movies were a great improvement over the tv series because it simply didn't waste too much time. I really do hope that the new MF series takes after the movies in that regard.

Those are two episodes out of twenty-five. And while episode eight was really 80% unnecessary, I thought 10 contained a ton of important characterization and set up Rankas arc (or at least it would have, if her arc had not suddenly collapsed around episodes 15-18 and replaced with her downfall).

[wisteria233]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

Those are two episodes out of twenty-five. And while episode eight was really 80% unnecessary, I thought 10 contained a ton of important characterization and set up Rankas arc (or at least it would have, if her arc had not suddenly collapsed around episodes 15-18 and replaced with her downfall).

Make no mistake of this there are more, its just that those two episodes in particular stand out to me as the most useless in the grand scheme of things. The problem with episode 10 is the fact that Ranka's arc is very straightforward, too straightforward, to receive that much attention especially when there are more important things for the story to expound on. It also made Ranka's character frustrating because she doesn't grow and change all that much as a character and the fact that her arc is so simple makes even more frustrating.

Even if you want to keep in episode 10 it didn't need to be the whole episode, the movie could have just taken half of it, you don't really need to episode to do anything but show Ranka's career growth, that Sheryl likes Alto (which was already shown in episode 6) and that Ranka also likes Alto which was established from episode 1, then there is also Brera's introduction which already happened in episode 7, and really could have been moved to episode 13, or even introduced him earlier than that like the movie did. All that leaves is the homage which again could have been done in half the time, the whole episode wasn't needed. Besides Sheryl herself is the homage to MZero so in that sense it really isn't necessary.

A lot of the Ranka rising to the star, and having a crush on Alto, should have been kept in supplemental material because it tends to drag the story, and takes away time for the story to expound on the things that really need to be expounded upon. In fact Ranka's rise to fame should have been treated like Minmei's was, important, but not overtaking the story.

[Lenneth4]

Originally Posted by Tak

I know for a fact that there is a well-publicized photo of the first Frontier BD release where Ranka was mercilessly stabbed then cut from the rest of the disc.



Drinking with Setsuna after Trailblazer, of course.

- Tak

Setsuna : "Hahah you bitch , you choose the giant queen thing instead Sheryl Haa! "
Alto :" fuck you little afghanistan brat or i swear and sheryl is too old for ya, by the way you choose your fuckin gundam instead the Lady ; What a sexual Deviant you MAKE !! "
Setsuna : " Shut up Girl , everyone is looking weird at us ; By the way your movie sucks hard , Awakening of the trailblazer is the superior one hahaha ! "
Alto : " Ohh you "

Setsuna ran away from the drinking chased by a crazy girl with a man's voice...

Originally Posted by magnuskn

I still find this attitude really bewildering. There are like a billion gajillion romance series out there with definite resolutions, do the fans of the other girls/boys riot and threaten violence when things don't go their way in Japan? Do they burn their copies of their DVD's or something? How can a definite resolution be anything but normal?

Well , Anno would not say that some fans are quiet peaceful XD
I think Tomino received some death threat too

ANyway Are we sure the new tv show is related to Frontier ?

[Tak]

Originally Posted by Lenneth4

Well , Anno would not say that some fans are quiet peaceful XD
I think Tomino received some death threat too

ANyway Are we sure the new tv show is related to Frontier ?

If Maggy was an Evangelion fan, I don't think he'd like the ending to the manga.

That being said, its interesting to note that Tomino and Kawamori dealt with their depression quite differently. Tomino succumbed to his depression for a very long time until the end to the 90s (and this is reflected in many of his works), whereas Kawamori is a self-proclaimed optimist that sometimes boarders on euphoria.

That being said, every new Macross gig have something to do with each other. The references may be suble in order to attract new fans, but enough to reward older fans with AHA! moments.

- Tak

[karice67]

Originally Posted by Frontier

Just don't mention it to Yuichi Nakamura .

Too true!

Originally Posted by magnuskn

I still find this attitude really bewildering. There are like a billion gajillion romance series out there with definite resolutions, do the fans of the other girls/boys riot and threaten violence when things don't go their way in Japan? Do they burn their copies of their DVD's or something? How can a definite resolution be anything but normal?

Actually, there have been quite a few reports about such incidents over the years...

But I'm fairly certain that's not why they did it...