They leaned way too much into the idolshit and forgot it was a mecha series about a space air force using veritech fighters first and foremost. With some drama thrown in and actual stakes.
I mean, you can tell which Macross series is worth a shit from the actual drama and stakes, and a lot of that has to do with who the main villain is, or what the overarching existential threats are.
SDF Macross had the Zentraedi,
Plus had malevolent AI, and
Zero had the anti-UN Forces (and Roy's old Flight Instructor). Hence why the conflict had a strong foundation for good drama and stakes, because the villains themselves were either threatening and compelling in a way that brought out the best from the protagonists and supporting cast.
Macross 7's villain were boring-ass vampires, and
Frontier's villain were boring, faceless, non-descript space bugs (oh, I'm sorry, don't forget Sheryl's secretary and her AI masters, who they introduce at the 11th hour and actually expect the audience to give a fuck about). And sure enough, the trend of those shows were also that they were music-heavy and idol-centric to each respective show's detriment--almost like way more time and effort was put into those things than the stakes or the villains.
This is why, for the record,
Delta was actually less of a chore to watch than those two above, because for whatever other flaws that show had (many of which can be attributed to its disastrous production cycle), the antagonist concept was really interesting. An alien nation declaring themselves as the genetic inheritors of the Protoculture, and forming a squadron of Red Baron-esque Aerial Knights is a very cool idea, and made for a faction that had a lot of potential--that was only rarely explored on-screen, unfortunately. But even in spite of that, I remember distinct confrontations involving the Aerial Knights, and characters like Bogue who were outright malicious and hateful towards members of their own race like Freyja who they saw as race traitors and accessories to the "tyrannical UN Spacy".
Again, never explored to its fullest potential, but still somewhat memorable and distinct in the rogues gallery across the Macross franchise. Whereas I neither can or care to muster a single recollection about the SHIT tier villains from
M7 or
Frontier.
If there's anything that the Sunrise series needs to fix, it's this.
Also Robotech will always be superior to Macross since its interpretation of protoculture is cooler and the sequels don't have loli Zentradi or aliens being sung to death.
Lol, but then you have to account for the fact that all Robotech got for sequels was trash like
The Sentinels and
Shadow Chronicles. If that poorly animated garbage is your acceptable trade-off for having the Protoculture--something never even seen on-screen---being "cooler", then you do you, I suppose.
I'll stick to
DYRL, Plus and
Zero, thanks. Those are worthy extensions/follow-ups to the original
Macross, and really, all the
Macross I'll ever need.
I'm extremely pissed off. Escaflowne is out of print. Okay I'm not like EXTREMELY pissed. But I'm kinda ticked.
Is it worth getting the Bandai version? I know it won't give the high def pristine that the bluray does. But I'm just curious about it.
If you have the ability to import, the UK region Blu-Ray release of
Escaflowne is still in print, thanks to AllTheAnime still holding onto the license in Britbong Land. I snagged a copy for like £18 earlier last year--and it has the OG Dub.
Having a region-free Blu-Ray player is an absolute must if you're into collecting older anime, because US Distributors like ViZ and Funimation don't hold onto licenses forever, and their stock diminishes very quickly. I learned that the hard way when I got into all things
Tenchi last year, only to realize that Funimation's License had expired ages ago, and the Blu-Rays for the OVAs now go for eye-watering prices....whereas MVM in the UK still has the license, and the Blu-Rays are not only still in print, but come in a box-set with an artbook and the Mihoshi Special on DVD.
It's kind of crazy how much cheaper certain anime licenses are in the UK compared to the US.
Nadesico, Gundam, Nadia, they're all way cheaper over there. And in the case of shows like
Gunbuster or
Magic Knight Rayearth, have far more lavish collector's editions than what the US has on offer.
