Macross: Do You Remember Love?

After warping light-years away from Earth, the spacecraft Macross carries a city of civilians and soldiers back home. They continuously fight off the threat of the Zentradi and Meltrandi, giant alien races with whom humanity wages war.

During a battle, the Macross transforms into a mecha operated by fighter pilot Hikaru Ichijou. Thrust into a number of hardships, Hikaru grows close to the city's idol Minmay Lynn. As their relationship develops, however, it is viewed unfavorably by others due to Minmay's status and popularity.

With war raging on and the state of Earth unknown, Hikaru and his fellow soldiers fight on against their mysterious enemies. Throughout the bloodshed, Hikaru and Minmay attempt to keep hold of their feelings for one another. Minmay pours her heart into her music, which may just turn out to be the key to finding peace.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hayase, Misa Main

Doi, Mika Japanese

Lynn, Minmay Main

Iijima, Mari Japanese

Ichijou, Hikaru Main

Hase, Arihiro Japanese

Focker, Roy Supporting

Kamiya, Akira Japanese

Jenius, Maximilian Supporting

Hayami, Show Japanese

Fallyna, Milia Supporting

Takeda, Eri Japanese

Global, Bruno J. Supporting

Hazama, Michio Japanese

Milliome, Shammy Supporting

Miyuki, Sanae Japanese

La Salle, Claudia Supporting

Ohara, Noriko Japanese

Kravshera, Quamzin Supporting

Meguro, Kousuke Japanese

Kawamori, Shouji Director, Series Composition, Mechanical Design

Ishiguro, Noboru Director

Akiyama, Katsuhito Episode Director

Itano, Ichirou Storyboard, Key Animation, In-Between Animation, Animation Director

Reviews

Jun 22, 2008

TriumShockwave

Recommended

When it was initially released, Macross: Do You Remember Love? was a benchmark by which other anime films would be judged. Its beautiful, detailed animation holds up even today, over 20 years later. This is in no small part due to the always gorgeous work of character designer Mikimoto Haruhiko, and now-legendary mechanical designer Kawamori Shoji.

In comparison to the TV series, Do You Remember Love? solves a lot of the problems people have with it. The animation holds up much better. There are no shortcuts or sudden drops in quality due to budget constraints. In addition, the movie format cuts a lot of the slower ... parts of the story that put off some fans. The pace is much more consistent, and downtime is minimal.

On the downside, the shorter format sends any development of minor characters out the window. Roy and Claudia's relationship, Max and Milia's relationship, all personality of Kanzaki, the bridge bunnies, and all of the Zentradi... these aspects are all greatly cut back if not gone altogether. This is a typical consequence of converting TV series to feature film format, so it's not something one can hold against Do You Remember Love. However, you will feel a better connection to these characters if you've seen the TV series first.

The music utilizes many of Minmay's songs from the TV series, with the addition of the title track "Do You Remember Love?" The song itself becomes a major plot point, and at about 9 minutes in length plays over the whole climactic battle sequence. Iijima Mari was also propelled into pop stardom in her own right due to the mainstream popularity of the single.

I definitely recommend Do You Remember Love? to anyone interested in the Macross franchise, as well as anyone interested in the best of 80's anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Mar 1, 2016

You

Mixed Feelings

Macross is a classic mecha series that's surprisingly suits well with the musical dramas settings on it.

PLOT:
In the fictional modern world of 2009, Humans were engaged in war with a giant male aliens in which was called Zentraedi and their female counterpart Meltrandi. These two types of aliens were also warring each other. At one time when a singer called Lynn Minmay doing her concert, the Zentraedi began their invasion to humans, and she almost die during the incident but being saved by a young mecha pilot called Hikaru Ichijo, in which he unintentionally saw her struggling when he retreated to the Macross, humans mothership. ... They soon get trapped somewhere at the mothership and was founded later. After then, Hikaru begins his romantic journey as well as his war to defeat the giant aliens. The premise was pretty good, combining musical romance with mechs fighting. The pacing, considering this is a movie reboot of a 36 episodes series which will probably be rushed, is acceptable. And the ending was also pretty well done, although not as good as my expectations. So overall, it was pretty good one.

CHARACTERS:
This movie have so many characters introduced considering the duration so well, most of them aren't well developed, only the protagonist seems to be quite three dimensional (or maybe between two and three dimensional.) The characters are somewhat relatable for me. I'd say overall the characterization was slightly better than average.

SOUNDS AND VISUALS:
This is probably the best part of this movie. The art was very fluid, the action was drawn good, and it surprisingly also has a great atmosphere, but keep in mind that I also consider the year of it's release too, it's brilliant for a 80-s film. As for the sound, what can you expect more for musical film? Lynn song was beautiful IMO, and the sound effects during the actions are also very good.

ENJOYMENT:
This is probably the worst part of my review. Not that I didn't enjoy old shows, but rather like I'm not very interested in mechas, NTR scenes, and high dose of sexism, even more than nowadays ecchis or harems (I didn't really like the idea of overly sexist or feminist story tbh since I'm an egalitarian.) But other than all that thing that turning me off I pretty enjoy the other aspects. The fact that I haven't watched the 36 episodes of the series may be also take account to some of my discontent to this show, so I'm going to say sorry for you guys Macross fans. If you're a mecha fan and okay with old shows and sexism, I pretty recommend this show to be watched tbh.

Okay guys I think that's all of my review, thank you for spending your time reading this, I hope you enjoyed this!

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Nov 13, 2017

ImRingo

Not Recommended

***There will be spoilers in this review.***

For an upcoming project it was necessary for me to see this film. I had not seen anything Macross related before seeing this film but the promotional artwork for the film got me really excited. However after sitting through the two hour runtime, I am frustrated.

The beginning of this film was somewhere between great and amazing. The opening thirty or so minutes really pulled me. The opening concert, the fight outside the space ship, the rescue of the singer, the short bonding between the main characters, all of these moments were done exquisitely.

Another element of the film ... that is on full display from the get-go is the gorgeous art. The character models, the architecture of the buildings, and the subtle flourishes around the main animation are honestly stunning. Even with the grainy look of the keyframes and the parts where things jump slightly (due to the drawings not completely staying in the same spot between frames) this film is absolutely a testament to amazing animation and art for its time and it looks timeless.

The “robots” however I was not ready for. The combination of robots and planes are, in my opinion, laughable. I ended up talking to multiple people after watching this film to get some other views on the series. Apparently a lot of the other series that took place around this time borrowed from each other heavily and that the whole “robot that is also an airplane” is supposed to be an accepted thing. It unfortunately seemed pretty silly to me and honestly made me laugh quite a bit throughout the film. It's a shame too because there are a lot of really great action shots in the film.

Along with the funny looking robots, there is a serious issue with the scaling of things. Are the green bad guys giants? They peer down on the main cast (when they are captured) like they are ants. Are the green henchmen also giants? They look normal size later on in the film when there are peace negotiations. Are the bad guy lady people giants? I was so fucking confused.

Lets get back to the plot; just before the half way point the main cast are abducted by the green bad guys. It's at this point where we learn something really fucking stupid; the green bad guy giants are afraid of affection. Hugs, kisses, all of that is their weakness. For what seemed like a serious feeling universe suddenly got really childish. It's this concept that really started to ruin the film for me. Anyways more stuff happens and two of them escape (the main male character and his boss lady) by, yes you guessed it, kissing each other to make their pursuers wither in fear. Oh also around this time it is shown that there are also bad guy girls. They kind of show up conveniently while the main characters are being observed. With all of this commotion the male MC and his boss are able to escape however the female lead from the beginning of the film and her brother remain captured.

So the two escapees are transported to Earth because space science. We are then supposed to believe that 20 minutes of footage is supposed to encompass an entire month on Earth. Not only that but the male MC just says fuck it and moves onto his boss lady. We see a beautifully shot and framed kiss scene that means nothing to me. They are then rescued by Macross (at this point I found out that it is the name of the Main human ship). Almost immediately we are thrown back into a fight but this time with the giant lady bad guys. Shit happens then the fight is over. Now the green bad guys who may or may not be giants want peace with the humans. This conveniently allows the main female singer lead to be reunited with her love except, as you already know, he has moved onto boss lady. So now we have a love triangle. Fuck this film.

At this point I seriously thought to myself “fuck this film”. It had captivated me with such a mysterious and loving intro. It had me interested in the main characters by not telling me why to like them but by showing me. Now almost an hour and a half later I hate them. Any feelings I had towards them is gone. “Oh here is a love triangle. Oh wait music is the weapon to use against the bad guys! Wait some of the bad guys want to join up with the humans.” WTF IS GOING ON.

“Wtf is going on” is how I felt about the ending. Never have I been so flustered with the ending to a film. The pacing of the beginning of the film is simple and day to day. Then we skip a month, introduce horrid plot devices, then have a grandiose (and beautiful looking) final fight. Then the film ends. Where in the hell is the brother of the main female lead? Where in the fuck did the bad guy girls go?

I...I'm so frustrated. The art, animation, music, and beginning part of this film are all astounding. Truly a work of art. However the asinine remaining parts/elements of the film has a direct invitation to be forgotten by my brain. Please see yourself out love triangle, mechonised airplanes with arms/legs, and singing weapon of mass destruction.

Enjoyment: 4.3/10

Overall: 3.7/10

Thanks for reading my review! If you liked my writing style, would like to see some other reviews, or just want to talk, please stop by my page!

Sincerely,
Awesome Drummer

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Macross: Do You Remember Love? Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Trojun - May 16, 2008	82 replies	by satyrelfheim »» Jul 7, 9:16 PM
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	Series Connection? MrShepherd - Jul 1, 2010	8 replies	by HeirofZor »» Apr 29, 2020 5:40 AM
	This is the greatest and most beautiful anime movie ever made. Kleferi - Feb 27, 2010	7 replies	by Xstasy »» Feb 5, 2020 2:21 PM
	is it a remake? IshigamiSenku17 - Mar 27, 2016	0 replies	by IshigamiSenku17 »» Mar 27, 2016 5:44 AM

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