(Note: For various reasons, I watched just one movie this week, so I'm delaying the movie post by a week. Also, credit for the above image goes to ExecutiveOtaku at THAT Anime Blog.)
It is 2045, 35 years after the events of SDF Macross. Basara Nekki, Mylene Flare Jenius (the daughter of Maximilian Jenius and Milia Fallyna from the original series), Ray Lovelock and the Zentradi Veffidas Feaze form the band Fire Bomber and quickly rise in popular on the spacecraft Macross 7. But fame isn’t what Basara desires; no, he wants to sing to anyone who will listen, and bring peace with the power of his song. And he gets the chance to do that as dangerous creatures referred to as the Protodevlin suck the life out of the inhabitants of Macross 7 and can only be combated via the power of music.
Do not rub your eyes; do not adjust your screen. You did indeed read that correctly: The enemies in Macross 7 are space vampires that are defeated by rock music. Well, except they’re not really harmed at all by Basara’s music for half the series, and he just rushes out into the middle of battles like an idiot most of the time, but you know. Baby steps. That is, the steps of a baby that rams its head into the corner of a table for hours at a time.
What gets me about this is that Macross 7 is so damn literal about it. Music helps stop the Zentradi in SDF Macross, yes, but it’s more highlighting the fact that the Zentradi lack culture rather than acting as an actual physical force that can be used as attack. (In fact, Lynn Minmay’s singing mostly throws the Zentradi off guard so that the U.N. forces can blast them to pieces.) Macross 7 is like the fucking Power Rangers swooping in and playing guitars and shooting musical note beams to defeat pig creatures and eyeball monsters and shit.
This is a typical episode of Macross 7:
[Open episode. Fire Bomber is jamming in their apartment.]
Basara: *sings some bullshit song that’s used 10 trillion times during the series*
Mylene: Hey, Basara, we’re going to get a record deal and become more popular! More people will hear our music!
Basara: FUCK THAT NOBODY UNDERSTANDS ME OR MY MUSIC *storms out*
[Later. The U.N. Army is fighting stupid alien space monsters.]
Basara: *rushes into battle despite the fact that he endangers the lives of every soldier* LISTEN TO MY SONG *plays*
[Nothing happens, and the aliens leaving before Basara finishes his dumbass song.]
Basara: DAMN IT THEY NEVER STAY UNTIL THE END
[The end.]
Seriously, that is pretty much every episode in the first half. It’s so mind numbing and dull. Yuck.
I was told that the series gets enjoyable after a while because it’s so damn goofy and doesn’t really take itself seriously at all, and is kind of a goof on Super Robot series ... and I could actually roll with that for a while. There are some episodes that are just so ridiculously, hilariously dumb that I don’t know how anyone could be capable of taking them seriously for even a moment, so I quickly lost any inclination to take Macross 7 even remotely seriously. So eventually I was like, “Well, if I can’t enjoy the show, I may as well laugh at it.”
And then it gets serious.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat the HELL, man? You can’t just let me enjoy a shitty series for being hilariously shitty, can you? No, it has to try and be serious and show how MUSIC CAN CHANGE THE WORLD IF PEOPLE WILL JUST LISTEN except it’s dumb and the ending blows and every serious moment made me want to hang myself. But other than that, it’s great!
The characters blow for the most part. Basara is an irritating, selfish nitwit. The Protodevlin are like what Rita Repulsa leaves in the toilet first thing in the morning. All of them are stupid. Ray and Veffidas are pretty static, but at least they aren’t too annoying. Mylene vacillates between annoying/whiny and cool. The U.N. ace, Gamlin Kizaki, is OK, but mostly because he is kind of a dork. Max and Milia are both awesome, but they’re from the first series, so they don’t really count. Everyone else is kind of worthless.
Watching this series right after Macross Plus was depressing, both in terms of content and animation. Macross Plus is one of the most beautifully animated anime ever; Macross 7 looks like someone stripped Gundam Wing of all its budget and then whizzed on the film stock. The battles are laughably animated, footage is reused all over the place, the weaponry is god awful, and on and on and on. TV anime is not the place to look for high-quality animation, since most shows have pittance for budgets, and Macross 7 is god awful even by those standards. It’s pure eye cancer.
As for the music ... well, the songs are catchy, and some of them are good, but they’re only tolerable if you like Japanese hair metal. Even if you don’t, though, they’re hilariously cheesy, so you can at least laugh at that. POWER TO THE DREAM, POWER TO THE MUSIC, etc.
Bottom line, Macross 7 is a terrible series and doesn’t even let you have the fun of enjoying how bad it is. What a mean-spirited show. I watched it only because I wanted to complete the Macross canon and I am also an idiot.
If you like this, then watch ... : ... yourself in front of a mirror, standing on top of a chair with a noose around your neck. Then kick the chair away.
