Taking place about 35 years after the events of the original, in 2045 a colony spacecraft and its’ fleet sets off into space for colonization. During said journey, the fleet encounters an alien race that sucks the spirit out of life, but the anime tends to focus more on a rock band called Fire Bomber. In the band are the main characters of Nekki Basara, Mylene Jenius, Ray Lovelock, and Veffidas Feaze. Why focus on the band and not the military? Well, Macross 7 is all about Nekki Basara and his journey to get everyone to listen to his music and in turn, music will stop war.
For characters, Nekki Basara is Macross 7. He is short temptered, knows what he wants, and singing for others is what he lives for, a good character overall. Mylene Jenius (daughter of Max and Millia; captain and mayor of Macross 7) is also a good character with decent development for a 14 year old, while the rest of the characters in the show are in their 20s to 50s (technically). The portrayal of age is pretty hard to judge and other needed character developments are left alone for the sake of more music.
Issues with Macross 7 begin and end with re-hashing animation. Very quickly Macross 7 continues re-hashing fight scenes, lines between characters, and even the good music becomes repetitive. There are two scenes (notable) where the music hit perfectly setting the stage and really gets the heart pumping, but overall, the good music of Fire Bomber was there as background. Where there could have been a deeper plot, or even on the same level as the original Macross, Macross 7 falls just short of a fantastic show making it only a good anime.
