Macross User Reviews

Being just as successful in bringing about the "real robot" genre of mecha titles for anime like Mobile Suit Gundam, Macross offered up its own unique spin on the genre with pop idols, an intergalactic war with an alien race and a love triangle. Focusing on the clash of humans and Zentradi, Macross offers a good mix of plot developments and character depth to keep you hooked on the conflict. Characters among both factions are fleshed out as not all the Zentradi are portrayed to be shallowly evil and have their own justifications in understanding human culture considering their culture's upbringing. The series also takes its time with slowly unveiling connections that the Zentradi and humans have with one another as their conflict commences. Because of this fleshing out, I found the characterization of the series to be of a better quality than what I seen from Gundam.

The various romantic developments within the series, for the most part, do get a good amount of focus and development, in particular the love triangle with Minmay, Hikaru and Misa. The series takes its time exploring the developments between the three as Hikaru eventually finds himself having to choose between the two girls when they eventually become attracted to him. Some focus is also given to Roy and Claudia's relationship with much of a later episode focused on how the two eventually became a couple.

The pop idol element to the series, while seeming silly, has its relevance to the plotting of the show in making a number of the Zentradi come to accept human culture and being an effective weapon of psychological warfare against them towards later in the series. It also serves to further flesh out Minmay's character as she finds herself becoming distant from others as she becomes more popular, particularly with Hikaru and her jerk of a cousin, Kaifun.

The show is not without its faults. Other than the outdated animation that tends to get quite rough and ugly at points, I couldn't find myself drawn to Minmay's music as it eventually got repetitious hearing the same songs from her and they failed to hook me into the show's subpar soundtrack. My issues with the music are especially apparent during tense scenes between characters as a number of the show's musical tracks seemed like they were better suited for a soap opera. In addition, I couldn't find myself buying Max and Milia's marriage towards the later half of the series due to how rushed and poorly developed it came along.

While definitely showing its age in a number of areas, Macross still makes for a worthwhile anime to look into if you wish to familiarize yourself with older anime titles. With fleshed-out characters and an unusual twist for a space opera/ mecha title that works well in the form of its focus on pop idols, I can see why this is widely recognized one of the successful mecha anime franchises.