Taste Triangle 4: Macross Delta / Jumping into the deep end

For my Taste Triangle reviews I've been focused on films so far, big budget American live action films. That's only a small segment of my media interests though, and it's time I branch out. Eventually I will want to cover tv shows, videogames and basically anything else that can reasonably be squashed into my triangle.

My History / Mara & Anime 101

My experience with anime started on the Toonami segment of Cartoon Network. Meaning I didn't get to pick my first anime, and I started out on Dragon Ball Z and Mobile Suit Gundam Wing. It was enough to at least pique my interest, and shortly afterwards I ordered various first parts of anime series on DVD (Escaflowne, Trigun, Boogiepop Phantom, Hellsing, Serial Experiments Lain and the first Ghost in the Shell film spring to recollection right now. Of course not all at once).

With the groundwork firmly established my interest in the medium slumbered for over a decade (poking up briefly to catch the series adaptation of Ghost in the Shell called Stand Alone Complex. Expect a Triangle on that at a later date), until a sudden resurgence where I basically tried to watch (the start of) as many interesting looking shows as I could.

Macross Δ is just that, a show that looked interesting. Despite the first Macross series airing in 1982 (the mouthful that is The Super Dimension Fortress Macross) I hadn't had any prior experience with it.

Plot summary / Idols vs. Zombies

In a sci-fi universe full of humans (from regular-Earth, unlike in Star Wars) and basically-human aliens of various shapes and sizes live together in relative harmony. You know, if you ignore all the conflicts and calamities from the earlier Macross series.

Something strange is happening in a far corner of the galaxy though, people are randomly going berserk, indiscriminately attacking anything and anybody around them. This is known as the Vár Syndrome. Eventually it is discovered that hearing a live performance of the paramilitary tactical sound unit Walküre soothes and cures those infected by Vár using biological fold waves.

That's pseudo-science nonsense for "It's an idol group". Yeah, it's one of those anime.

So the idols fly into battle and sing a song to cure the Vár-infected. Covering them is a squadron of jet fighters that also transform into robots (yay, anime!), which is a good thing because the royal Aerial Knights of the neighbouring planet of Windermere is taking a special interest in the Vár infection sites and want them to rage unchecked.

Corner 1: Adventure 8/10 / "The enemy flagship is approaching the underwater ruins."

We don't just follow the Idol group, there are two clear protagonists. A boy (with a mysterious pendant. Tropetastic!) that joins the defence squadron and a Windermerean girl that joins the Idol group after running away from home.

• 🚀 The group faces setbacks and challenges, moves to (a few) different planets and discovers what's going on.
• 🚀 The two protagonists find their place within the group after some struggles.
• 📋  Adventure and saving the world never quite fall by the wayside in favour of interpersonal drama or idol stuff, but it gets close a few times.

Corner 2: Smart 6/10 / "Let's end this before the reaction bomb goes off."

This isn't necessarily the smartest of shows, but it's put enough thought into the character relations and underlying mythology for it all to come together nicely.

• 💡 The race the villains and female protagonist belong to are short-lived compared to humans, living only until ~30. It's basically an inversion of the High Fantasy elves and it's great.
• 💡 Everything is set up well and flows well from reveal to reveal, even if the idea of a forerunner proto-culture is a bit of a catch-all Deus Ex Machina.
• 💤The attempts at rationalising the Vár and later music-based effects are silly, but forgivable.
• 💤I'm pretty sure the robots are larger than the jet fighters, so the transformation doesn't make sense. Granted, any Transformers is pretty guilty of this as well, but that doesn't mean we should look away.

Corner 3: Heart 9/10 / "Soundwaves detected! It's Walküre!"

And here is where this series shines. Of the 26 episodes there were perhaps one or two that didn't entirely cheer me up and make me feel happy.

• 💖 Everything is clearly colour-coded. Bright and colourful for the heroes, gloomy for the villains.
• 💖 Saving the day with the power of song!
• 💖 And they're good songs!
• 💖 There's a love triangle, but it's not obnoxious.
• 💔 The heroes' ship design and command structure could have been less militaristic.

And another one in the bag! Let's see how it did, probably quite well.

Wow, that turned out large. Let's see how the score does...

75.34

That's so very close to my Star Wars score, but it's not entirely there yet. Interesting.

I really liked this foray into a new medium (and will probably return to anime before long), let's see if I can do a videogame next!