For whatever reason, aerial combat hasn’t ever been that exciting to me. I know some guys who are really into the stuff - - who worship at the shrine of TOP GUN and knock back one X-WING novel after another - - but I’ve never found it as interesting as, well, basically any other type of sci-fi action. Mecha battles. Cyborg brawls. Outerspace gunfights. That’s what spins my wheels. A bunch of spaceships flying around and dogfighting? Well, I’ve got to work myself up to enjoy that.
So, as you can imagine… this was another case of me kind of just humoring a show and respecting its context.
=
It is definitely interesting, at the least, to watch this knowing that it was one of the earlier cases of an anime really crossing over in America. The name “ROBOTECH” carries a lot of enduring cred for older comics fans and I can totally see how this would’ve totally blown their minds in the 80’s. The animation alone holds up so well, today - - how mind-blowing must it have been back then? There’s also a certain level of quaintness, seeing an anime from the earlier days of dubbing, when translation teams took more license with the task of localization.
Those are all matters of appraisal, though - - not enjoyment, necessarily - - and I’m not going to lie about how I needed to “power through” this single episode. Maybe it simple came down to fighter planes just not being my thing, but I was less appreciative of the all-too-familiar rookie hotshot and frazzled superior relationship between the ace pilots here. I did think it was fun gimmick to have the aliens leaving one colossal booby trap in the planet-sized debris they discarded (and I suspect that was there due to dub team’s creative license) - - but that’s really it.
At least I’ve gotten another, more favorable, piece to the MACROSS puzzle to counterbalance the horror that was MACROSS II: THE MOVIE, right?
Watch this episode, "Boobytrap” here and decide for yourself.
Tom Pinchuk’s a writer and personality with a large number of comics, videos and features like this to his credit. Visit his website - - tompinchuk.com - - and follow his Twitter: @tompinchuk








