Though Gundam was the first to utilize mechs as a military weapon, Macross uses the same concept but with a completely different approach. Rather than just huge robots, transforming fighter jets known as the Valkyries are introduced. In comparison to Gundam, I thought of the story driving the characters, but with Macross, it’s the characters that drive the story. I’m not saying either one is good or bad, but they each successfully approach this in their own respective rights. I’ll use an easy example. There is romance in both series. The romance is the Gundam series’ tends to be very secondary as well as the characters and the action tends to be more primary, while with Macross it’s the opposite. It’s more about the emotional situations and the action comes across as more secondary. I’d like to explain more but it’ll take time. Like I said, I’m not saying either one is good or bad. But I think it’s overall a good thing so it helps the series stay distinct able from each other.
The art and animation is pretty cool thanks to the creator Shojo Kawamori. This guy is just the man and a well respectable name in the world of robot anime. I wouldn’t say the animation was years ahead of its time, but it still stood out. The design of the Macross is very deep and complex and captivating. It had a great sense of size and the way they showed camera angles of it made you wonder how big it was and it was amazing that it was supposed to be the size of a city. When it turns into a mech, it looks really menacing and find it really interesting that something that is supposed to house civilians!!!
The Valkryie’s are pretty sweet themselves. I already explained that they transform. They can be fighter jets and they can transform into robots for hand to hand combat. Thanks to special customization, they are also used in space. The engineering of the transformation doesn’t look complex and I figure it makes an easy toy to transform. The battles are also pretty intense and fun. In comparison to Gundam where it has lazers and beam saber fights, the fights in Macross are also more “realistic.” The series limits itself to using more reality based weapons such as bullets and missles and out maneuvering your opponent with agility.
The bad guys, the Zentradi, have an interesting gimmick to them being giants. They tend to have really menacing and intimidating looks with the leaders having bald heads. Just makes them look like evil nazi guards or something.
The characters are good and have distinctiveness to their design. Minmei of course is stuck with the unrealistic purple color hair, but yet she is so cute. Misa has a more mature look to her that reflects on her plain personality. The captain Global looks like an old war house. Ichijo has a wild youth look to him but still has an innocent face. Max doesn’t really look intimidating and he looks nerdy but he can still kick ass and get the girl.
So even though it’s an oldie, you still got a goodie.
The Japanese version is pretty well casted. It has veteran seiyuu Akira Kamiya playing Roy Fokker. His dark voice gives a mature sounding to it since he is a role model to not only Hikaru, but to his men, but yet still has some lightness to it to reflect his laid back personality. Hikaru’s seiyuu Hase Arihiro, gave a very teenage sound to it and he captivated qualities where he’s trying to grow up and understand the world around him, and yet he has to fight in a war. Sho Hayami who plays Max brings unique traits to the character by being serious and yet having a mellow personality at the same time, while in comparison to his other roles like Burn from Dunbine and Zarbon from DBZ tend to be more serious. Mari Iijima who plays Minmei in both the Japanese and the newer dub is just excellent.
This anime helped jump-started her music career as well. She brought a high pitch sound to the voice that not only brings out a teenage girl, but brings a Chinese authenticity to her voice the same way Shampoo’s voice in the Japanese version also had where it was high pitched to indicate some sort of accent. Plus, her singing is just excellent and addicting with such songs like Xiao Bai Lo which was her biggest hit on the show. But outside of Min Mei’s songs which I will also talk about when I get around to reviewing the movie, Do You Remember Love, the opening and ending themes of Macross are excellent pieces of music themselves.
Like the opening theme simply also titled Macross is amazing in its own right. The singer sounds pretty old school with the tone of his voice and the opening trumpets sound something you’d hear in a military march and goes with to the aerial imagery when transitioned to all the fighting with faster paced music and singing. And the song Runner has a pretty mellow feel to it. And the background music in general tends to use a lot of trumpets in general and gives a military feel to it overall whenever in the midst of battle.
In comparison to Gundam, this anime brings a different kind of twist to the military centered mech genre. Like in Gundam, the series tended to be more about humans fighting each other, while in Macross it is more about aliens but there is more elaboration to that in relation to the origin of the Zentradi which would be a spoiler if I got around to that. The series is more light hearted and more drama based with the love triangles but a different kind of coming of age story in its own right. Not just for Hikaru, but for Minmei as well. The main cast all have their roles in the story and develop in their respective rights. Despite some changes when it became Robotech as an early gateway anime over 20 years ago, Golden Harmony still managed to keep its main themes in faith, but this overall great anime with a wonderful story with interesting art and excellent action with terrific acting and music.
