Macross - Super Dimension Fortress
and Do You Remember Love?

The Super Dimensional ROSSMAN

Zoom zoom! Zoom zoom!! Ah yes, the voice of an angel. The voice that saved the Earth. And quite literally, the voice of Mari Iijima. It is also the voice of Macross.

Macross... The revolutionary show that aired in the early 80s in Japan and made both Lynn Minmay and transformable mecha household words. It's the story of a large space opera set amidst an interstellar war between the giant Zentradi and mankind. Love triangles and hectogons abound as stars are born and entire planets are decimated. Defections and betrayals make up the rest of the story as "culture" factors in and forges believers out of horny grey-skinned middle-aged mammoth men who just want some mini teeny-bopper action of their very own.

What makes Macross even more unique among its animated peers (on top of its great storytelling and outstanding devices) is that fact that it was told twice, and that the creators actually did an even more impressive job on it the second time around.

See, when a Japanese animated show gets popular, people get greedy and want to make more money off of it. They usually do this by "remaking" it in a theatrical format, but their greed most often blinds them to plot and characterizations and the re-done (or continued) story is customarily crap. See the Escaflowne movie and all of the Slayers movies as prime examples.

But Macross was different. When Super Dimension Fortress Macross (the television series) first aired, it was quickly expanded from a 23 into a 36 episode series. But even when that ended people wanted more. They wanted more Hikaru. They wanted more Minmay. And most importantly they wanted more Roy (da man) Focker.

But instead of simply continuing the storyline from where it left off (and raising the dead to bring back some loved ones for cameos), the writers decided to remake their narrative for the big screen. Macross: Do You Remember Love? was the result. And it was good. DYRL? took only the best parts of SDF and made them better. Por ejemplo, Hikaru isn't as much of a hick and he has more backbone from the beginning (and when he makes a decision he sticks to it). Minmay is not annoying in the least and actually generates compassion from the audience. Misa's a bit cooler too and her relationship with people is a lot more believable. And most importantly Roy Focker dies a bigger and much more heroic death. God bless his voice actor, Akira Kamiya!

All that's not to say that the television show was crap. Far from it. SDF Macross is one of the greatest Sci-Fi stories ever told. A bit too "bubble-gummy" for some, but they can go fuck themselves. I'm just saying that as good as SDF is, DYRL? is even better. The animation is spectacularly smooth and the space battle scenes will piss your pants for you!

So go out right now and buy Macross on DVD (as of right now you might still be able to get it from Animeigo, the company that's releasing it Stateside), and stay the hell away from the Macross saga in Robotech. I will not be responsible for the vomiting that may occur when you bear witness to that horrid dub and you actually realize that you paid good money for it.

What did I think of Macross? The television show gets a good 34.56 Points of Freedom out of 36.23, and the movie gets a full on 12 out of 10 Stars of Spangled Justice. Now go and pray that DYRL? gets a release in America sometime in our lifetimes so's we can all remember the love!

Do You Remember -
the SKIPPER?

Arrrrrrrrrr! The Macross. What a fine ship she be. And what a plan! Who would have ever thought to bring an entire city along with ya on a voyage? There be times when I'm out on the open sea and I think to me-self how grand it would be to be able to just walk on down to the red-light district in the cargo hold and get me some fine Bangkok tail for a night! Arrrrrr! Then I could get me some illegal Cuban stogies from the black market before the crew be any the wiser. Then after that I could have me some fun and put on a shadow-theater show for all the civilians using nothing but a monkey puppet, a ball of yarn and me own little Davey Jones. I can hear the applause in me mind already.

Unfortunately me real sea-faring existence be not so glorious. Most of me time on the Butch Mermaid is spent makin' sure me chastity belt is still locked in place. That one time when I thought it would be a good thing to swallow the key was the worst week of me life. I had totally forgotten that the entire point of the belt was to keep me poop-chute locked up from unwanted visitors. It also had the unfortunate side effect of locking me poop inside the chute... What a mess it was before I could make land and get me a locksmith who didn't automatically pass out at the evil smell. Arrrrrrrr.....

I give Macross a sea-man's salute of grittiness. That be a good thing. But the bad thing is I still have to replace all of my pants from that horrible horrible failed experiment. But in all, it still be the ocean's life for this here Skipper!

KUNI the Meltrandi

Fucking shit yes!! Macross is the shit! The super shit!! I want to hug Minmay with my penis. Minmay would sing her praises for my penis too! Literally! She would sing a special Minmay song about it!

"My Kuni mega penis now, mega penis, wow!"

This Minmay song would goon to be more insanely popular than N'Sync! I would be a big star and Misa would then love the penis song, and then it would make the giant guy say "OH! That Kuni shamed me! I am a giant with penis but not one that's Kuni sized!!" Then the bad giants would blow up the other space bad giant things, and my penis song would save the world!!!.... Even if the giants killed my world first, I wouldn't cry. I will kill Hikaru and instead give Minmay the happiness that he never did give her.

Kuni wins the Macross sex match!!!

One, two, three thumbs for the Kuni.

Uhhhh, the Rossman here... I'm not sure that Kuni actually understood that he wasn't in Macross. It sounds like he's pulled a John Nash and fell into a fucked up fantasy world again. But I guess in the end all that matters is that he liked it.