Robotech – Part 1: The Macross Saga Review

In the mid-80s, eventually-controversial company Harmony Gold gained the rights to dub Super Dimension Fortress Macross which had a bit more of a serious tone compared to other friendlier shows that had been turned into American cartoons like Mach GoGoGo (renamed Speed Racer) or Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (renamed Battle of the Planets) and oddly they decided to keep some of the drama of the show intact. Sadly, they also decided to throw in two other completely unrelated anime shows in Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA in order to make it to enough episodes for syndication. This led to the series having three arcs “set many years apart” and much of the later shows having to be altered so they could follow on from each other, with some characters renamed to have the same surname as characters from Macross so people think they’re descendants of the other characters. Now that doesn’t impact this first set much, though in the final few episodes some footage from Cavalry Southern Cross appears to set up the transition between the two “arcs”, but it is the most interesting part about Robotech, an anime that at the same time is exclusive to English-speaking markets as the story gets increasingly more and more original to try and tie the three franchises together.

This set, as the title suggests, just contains the first “arc” of the series, the Macross Saga, at 36 episodes, which is funny because the original Macross was only scheduled to be 24 episodes long but due to its popularity in Japan it was extended to 36, leaving the writers to stretch the storyline up to 27 episodes and then make a whole new story set after their big ending to fill in the last nine episodes. Thanks to this, even the Macross Saga of Robotech feels disjointed, and that’s before they edit in scenes from another show! Now from here on out I’ll just be talking about the dubbed Robotech version of Macross as this is all the release contains, though to be fair, the two series do share most of the same plot and character names.

The set-up is interesting enough: the Earth is in turmoil after a massive alien ship crash-lands and causes devastation, but as the years go by, Earth eventually unites in peace as they build a city around the spaceship, dubbed “Macross”, and retro-engineer the technology. In the futuristic space year of 2009 they manage to restart the ship’s power and plan on taking her for a ride alongside their new air force, all of whom are flying new jets that can transform into robots, thanks to the technology from Macross that they dub “Robotech”. As they activate Macross, it randomly fires a large laser blast into space that takes out some ships from an invading alien threat that has arrived to take the technology for themselves: the Zentraedi. The story has a lot of similar beats to Leiji Matsumoto’s Space Battleship Yamato series, and certainly the human and alien character designs match that feeling.

Our hero and main protagonist is Rick Hunter, a pilot who never became a soldier due to the whole not wanting to kill people thing, who looks down on his “older brother” Roy Fokker for doing so, though the two still share a close bond. As you’d imagine, Rick ends up piloting various craft and fighting against the Zentraedi as the war between the two races erupts. He has two love interests as the series progresses: Lin Minmei, a singer who quickly becomes something of a pop idol (despite only singing one song all bloody series) and Lisa Hayes, the first officer on board the Macross. It’s said that a lot of the feeling of the show was based on the success of the first Mobile Suit Gundam series, and I can see that. Rick may already be a pilot as the series begins but he still fits the bill of the Gundam protagonist: being thrust into war and become uncomfortably good at it. Other characters include the tough but fair Captain Gloval, who eventually tries to sue for peace between Earth and the Zentraedi despite the United Earth Government wanting nothing short of genocide; Max Sterling, an ace pilot who eventually serves under Rick and becomes a key player in the war later on in a way you probably won’t expect; and Breetai, one of the Zentraedi who ends up falling in love with Earth culture and even heading down to planet and trying to blend in by using shrinking tech (the Zentraedi being giant-sized compared to humans, for the record.)

As the series progresses, the war takes several turns, main human characters die, Rick undergoes some pretty nasty hardships and one heck of an unexpected twist about halfway in the show that I won’t spoil, but it’s all stuff that you didn’t really see in 80s cartoons so I’m not surprised the show took off in the States. There’s no doubt that the last nine episodes could’ve been trimmed retrospectively, but there you go. In case you’re wondering, the characters from Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross that appear at the end are rewritten to be Robotech Masters, the people who created the Macross ship and who then discover Earth is a haven for “Protoculture”, a power source discovered by humans during the course of the show in order to run the retro-fitted Robotechnology. This presumably leads to them invading Earth to claim it in the next “saga” of the show…

As for this Blu-ray release? Well, the picture quality is a serious issue, the film grain is absolutely insane! I’m all for keeping the average amount you get with old film when it’s then worked around as the picture is restored but this seems like they some upped the grain while restoring the picture, making any improvements hard to see underneath all the fuzz. It’s not even an age issue as the original Gundam series is older but looks far cleaner (while still keeping the grain) in its Blu-ray release. It’s clearly an issue with whatever remastering process they used. Sound is good and clear at least, though just to reiterate this is only the original 80s Robotech dub, there is no other language track. The extras are an extended version of the pilot episode, a whole bunch of photo galleries and, oddly, not only the clean opening and ending to Robotech but the clean openings and endings to the original Japanese Macross show and even the clean opening and endings to the original Japanese versions of Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA, which you’d think would’ve been saved as extras for the next two releases, really…

While I enjoyed my time with Robotech: The Macross Saga I will say that it’s not something you can particularly binge, mostly because of the low picture quality. With no nostalgia for the series, it’s a lot of cheesy voice acting over 80s anime, and while some of the plot twists and big moments were really entertaining by the end I admit it had gotten old, mostly because the main storyline had clearly ended and now I was seeing something hastily written by a Japanese team who suddenly found themselves with more episodes interspliced with shots from a completely different show setting up the next storyline in this extended Robotech universe. Very odd indeed. Worth a shot if you like vintage anime but don’t mind the inaccuracy of the adaptation or cheesy English voice work…