Rues of Roo

When I was young, I watched a show called Robotech. It was about pilots on earth in the year 2010 who flew planes that could turn into robots. How. Awesome. Is. That?

The thing about Robotech was that it was actually an American ‘bastardisation’ of three Japanese cartoons series called ‘Macross’, ‘Southern Cross’ and ‘Mospeada’. Strangely, though, this combination of three totally different cartoons worked out amazing well, and I was hooked.

The series actually began in 1984 and since then there have spawned a variety of other shows such as Macross II: Do You Remember Love, Macross 7, Macross Plus and Macross Zero, all revolving around the theme of big ass robots, aliens, and music that can kick those horrible aliens’ butts. Yes, there’s always some kind of love triangle, some gung-ho pilot genius flyboy and one, most probably two, hot chicks and a good friend who dies somewhere along the way.

It sounds remarkably clichéd and to be honest, it is, but it’s those HOT PLANES THAT TURN INTO ROBOTS! Damn.

But honestly, I think as with most anime, it’s the storyline and plot that really just get you most of the time, and personally, the youthful involvement that I had back in the 90s with the Robotech series that has brought me to love the Macross enterprise so endearingly. Which brings me to their latest endeavour; Macross Frontier.

Macross Frontier, to me, had a really poor start. Mainly because it just seemed to take all its ideas from the original Macross series, i.e. schoolboy who accidentally jumps into an aeroplane kills an alien and rescues a girl. That’s literally the entire first episode of the first Macross episode, duplicated. And yet, the entire series takes off on its own path from there, which I was relieved by. Sure, the whole series was meant to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Macross so in a way it paid tribute to its predecessors, but following such an unoriginal tangent wore a bit thin. But as I write this, episode 16 has just been released and seriously, I’m hooked on a plot that just forces you to ask for more.

The problem with modern day anime are the rather subversive sexual tones you find in them and unfortunately Macross Frontier is no different. There are some very weird jokes in them which make you wonder why you’re watching it, but generally speaking the jokes tone down and the usual serious global (universal) crisis plot takes over. To summarise without giving too much away, Macross Frontier is actually the name of a large colonized fleet; basically think of a dozen or so huge ass fish bowls complete with bridges, beaches, skyscrapers, sea, carrying humans through space. Naturally, there is an enemy in the darkness known as the Vajra who attack and only the best of the best can defeat them. Enter our protagonist, a pretty (seriously) boy who wants to fly and kill some aliens and along the way meets the most famous woman in the universe and also the adopted sister of his commanding officer. Throw in a couple of schoolmates who just happen to be gifted pilots (one is a sniper…coolness. Have you ever seen huge robots sniping with a huge ass sniper rifle??) and some pretty good songs (by Yoko Kanno, no less – from Cowboy Bebop and Vision of Escaflowne), and you have Macross Frontier!

You can figure out the rest. You can watch it at veoh.com or crunchyroll.com (for purely sampling purposes, you should buy it) and I highly recommend it.

Please note that even though I do like robots, I like the plot too, and it is good. I promise.