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One sentence to describe the series: <<A show that had promise but was ruined by bad planning.>>

As someone who got genuinely hooked by the original Macross TV show and have watched all of its successors, this is the stance I would take as I write this review.
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1. Story: 4.5/10
The best way to describe the story of Delta is fictional ISIS vs fictional UN. On the drawing board, it certainly looks like an enticing concept where great stories can unfold, right and wrong muddle together in the gray area, emotions are faced with hard cold reality. Unfortunately, in Delta, the staff tried to chew more than ... they can. What resulted of this was an unfocused show, many subplots unresolved, characters remained to their shell-like personalities until the end, opportunities to explore the lore of Macross in a deeper level have been squandered due to mismanaged storyboards and screen time, pacing issues,some main characters are even pushed to the side to give even more time to the under delivered couple that this anime features and finally, characters are killed for the sake of creating drama and not steering the cast into a resolve. Added to this is the many recalls to older series’ moments and songs which makes some of the old fans laugh in sadness and contemplate what show this has become to use this move to keep their attention. The laid back and comedic atmosphere of the beginning didn’t help for the latter since it couldn’t bring the viewer to realize how dreadful the situation have become at the end of the show. The ending was rushed with the only closure being the result of the love triangle. All of this complies into a boring and unpolished show which at the end of a 8 years long wait, is not the masterpiece that many fans of the series have hoped for.
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2.Characters: 4/10
We always had a colorful cast in a Macross series and Delta is no exception. Hayate, the blue hair human protagonist, has a nonchalant attitude towards most things but have a unyielding desire to fly. Freyja, the energetic Winderemere girl who loves to sing and wants to be in the ranks of Walkure. For the Delta squadron, we have the captain Arad, second-in-command Messer, the joyful Chuck and at last, Mirage, who’s from a family of legendary ace pilots. For the idol group Walkure, we have the mysterious lead singer, Mikumo, the caring group leader Kaname, the friendly Makina and the cool but expert hacker, Reina. We also have the fleet captain, Ernest, in the mix.
For the Windermere side, we got Heinz, the prince and his father, the king Gramia, the Aerial Knights which ace pilot is named Keith or White Knight. There’s also Roid who help the king and the prince with battle tactics and politics.
With all this said, the characters remained much to their cliché-like personalities until the end. There’s little to no development on their part. They are like blank sheet of paper and as the story progresses, only few of them get some gribble on it while some of them get thrown in a fire pit while they are potential platform to create meaningful relationships between them or get their back story explored. For the lack of better words, the staffs wasted the materials on their hands. As for the viewers, there’s little to relate to these characters due to their bland, unrealistic and uninteresting personalities.
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3.Love Triangle 5/10
As for the love triangle we come to expect from this series, it is very much a linear line with a firmly marked line between Hayate and Freyja and a line composed little uncanny dots between Mirage and Hayate, closed with sometimes tense and loose line between Mirage and Freyja. Yet, the reason for weak link for Mirage to the two other characters is not because her character ,itself, is unable to express her feelings until the end. It is the consequence of her badly written and little-to-none development that everyone of them suffers but out of all of them, she’s the one who suffer the most because all she ever gets is one-liners and barely enough screen time to prove her relevance compared to the other two mains.
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4.Character Art 7/10
I won’t spend much time on this since it is not my area of expertise but the characters do have a lot of popping colors. You’re kinda looking at a candy show to be honest. Sometimes, it even detracts the viewer and break the show immersion when they bring in the serious moments since the characters looks so funky. Costume designs are ok. The main gripe I have and that is personal ,is the doodling on their nails when they are in some of their costumes aka nailpolish. Since those colors are meant to pop and to catch your attention. Closeface shot of their hand with their face on camera inevitably draws your attention to their nails instead of their intended focus of their faces. This may cause you to wonder if the artists have too much freetime on their hands and doodle them on the characters.
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5.Mecha design 3/10
For this series, we got the VF-31 Siegfield, which is, the mass production model of the experimental YF-30 Chronos from the PS3 Macross 30 video game. The VF-31 is essentialy it’s predecessor, with a forward swept wing design, the ability to deploy drones for Walkure use, a beam cannon and a wireless recharger for the drones on its foldable backpack system instead of the missile pods in the backpack(called multipurpose container), a pin point barrier system for shielding, a combat knife in the forearm and a fresh coat of paint. It has only one pack, the super pack, which give it additional missile pods. It also incorporate the fold crystals which where present since the YF-29 Durandal. Fairly disappointed for the lack of innovation in this domain and the lack of packs since we were so spoiled by Frontier with its multiple packs.

For the Windermere side, we have the Sv-262 Draken III which is a new design, with a delta wing design, have 2 drones on each wing tips that acts as secondary boosters and can be deployed for combat. It is also equipped with a gunpod and 2 small gunpods located in the nose of the plane.

Then we have Macross Elysion... Just imagine Macross quarter and twice its size. That’s it. Move along....
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6. 3D animation + battle choreography: 3/10
The 3D animation + models we’ve gotten have not been improved since Frontier. In some ways, it is even a step back. In all the battles, it seems like the animators have too much fun with the shading and made all the colors too dull and lifeless + a white filter that tries to bring the dull colors back to life and the result is a unattractive product that has uneven blend of gray and dull colors that make you question the effort put into it. The 3D models do not mesh with its surrounding. Beam effects and explosions are underwhelming at best and terrible at worst. There’s no sense power or magnitude coming from them. It seems dumb down. No soul. No spirit in these works. Well, at least the particle effects after the VF-31 look ok. That is the only effect that I deemed original.

As for the battle choreography, there’s none of that fluid 3 mode Valkyrie battles we come to expect. In Delta, what you have the majority of time is a watered down version of the dogfights from Top Gun. Gerwalk mode and Battleroid mode are barely featured in the entirety of the series. When there are of it, the sequences are incredibly short. Valkyrie battle choreography is one of the fundamentals of the Macross franchise. In this case, it is not taken seriously and the end result shows it.
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7.Sound and songs: 6.5/10
For the sound effects in this series, it is perhaps the most forgettable thing of them all. Why you may ask? They reused the sfx from Frontier or slightly modify it it and call it a day. To make it worse, they even forget to add sfx for the moving Valkyries. Normally, when mechanical parts move, you have piston sfx for the hydraulics. When you go into boost mode in your plane, you should hear the engine roaring. If you break the sound barrier, there should be a sonic boom. Yet, in Delta, they completely forgo the use of that because the songs played in the background are way more important than adding realism. The sound balancing was an issue during the first court of the anime. It was either too quiet or too loud or inconsistent at all.

This finally leads me to the songs. They are based on the popular idol group trend. Therefore, they are going for those catchy lyrics. As music is based on personal taste and experience, this will be my opinion. Due to the fact that previous Macross series had legendary songwriters/composers ( The recent one being Yoko Kanno who composed for Macross Frontier), Delta music feels underwhelming in comparison to its predecessors , though few of its songs are quite ok like “Hametsu no Junjou”, “Giraffes Blues” and “Ore no Senjou”. Yet, you gotta ask yourself: “Is it alright to ruin a song because you want it to follow a certain trend?” Because, Delta songs have a bad habit of doing this. The prime example is “Ichido dake no Koi nara” which started with a beautiful transition of voices, building up to the refrain with a dramatic fashion and it gonna be ecstatic to listen but the listener is greeted with some generic cute idol trick that ruins the momentum of the song and that’s repeated throughout it. “Ikenai Borderline” suffers greatly as a whole for the cute idol group singing style. How disappointing for the few decent songs the series have to offer, they get covered up by more of the mediocre idol group trend songs. Plus, a lot of these songs cannot convey the emotions they carried since the singers themselves are young, ranging from twenties-something to the youngest, 15. They do not have the the singing experience nor the life experience to pass the emotions in these soulful songs. But, I would say they do a decent job for an Idol group and considering the numerous blank music time have to be fill in with dances and stage choreography. As for the song that the prince sings, it is quite impressive, compared to Walkure songs, but it gets spammed to non stop and gets quite annoying by the end of the series.
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8.Verdict/ Enjoyment
Unfortunately, after 8 years of waiting, this may be the worst entry of this franchise but it is by no mean an awful anime in and out of itself. The show was planned to be a 13 episode anime + a movie but they decided to be a 2 court anime by the middle of it. Therefore, it is why I presented my thesis quote in the beginning of this review : << A show that had promise but was ruined by bad planning.>> They simply didn’t have enough time to plan the second court and it was kinda made on the fly, At the end, if not for its “ok” music and the few good moments it has, it would landed itself in the very bad category. But, with the flaws it present and the lack of novelty it brings to the franchise as a whole, I give it a 5 out of 10. It will be awhile again for the next Macross series... *sigh*
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Suggestion for those who wants to watch more Macross:
If you want story, I would suggest the original Macross TV show. It has, overall, better story, character developments and what establish the reasons older fans have fell in love with the franchise. When you finish it, take a look at the movie “Do you remember love”. It has some of the best tracks of the franchise.

For laidback and some fun like Delta, try the sorta sequel to the original, Macross 7. It has its quirks + rock and roll music in contrast of the more pop music. It should be a fun ride.

For dogfights and epic airplane maneuvers, Macross Zero and Plus are what it’s all about. Ace vs ace aerial combat.

If you’re more into recent pop music or wants some breathtaking 3 mode fluid Valkyrie battles, I would suggest Macross Frontier and its movies.

That’s it for me. Hope y’all got a good read. If you want to discuss about Delta, you can find folks in the forum. Who knows, I might even join in.

YK out.