Including Macross Plus: The Movie Version
Directors: Shoji Kawamori and
Shinichiro Watanabe
Screenplay: Keiko Nobumoto
Voice Cast: Rica Fukami/Riva
Spier as Myung Fang Lone; Takumi Yamazaki/Bryan Cranston as Isamu Alva Dyson; Unshō
Ishizuka/Richard Epcar as Guld Goa Bowman; Mako Hyoudou/Melora Harte as Sharon
Apple; Banjou Ginga/Bob Papenbrook as Raymond Marley; Kenji Utsumi/Beau
Billingslea as Col. Millard Johnson; Kōichi Kitamura/Richard Barnes as General
Gomez; Megumi Hayashibara/Bambi Darro as Lucy Macmillan; Sho Hayami/Steven Blum
as Marge Gueldoa; Tomohiro Nishimura/Dan Woren as Yang Neumann
Viewed in English Dub (OVA) and in Japanese with English Subtitles
(Movie Version)
One of anime's biggest franchises, one that is not based on a pre-existing source thus adding a greater weight to its longevity, is the Macross series, started in 1982 as a TV series Super Dimension Fortress Macross where, in a sci-fi future, humankind fought a war-like alien race, the power of music becoming a key aspect to the franchise onwards. Tragically, it is a franchise that is not easily available to see in the West, as it will continue to into in the 2020s, all entirely due to the muddy history of its licensing by an American company named Harmony Gold USA.
Harmony Gold USA, whilst also becoming involved in real estate, bought the rights to the original series and, even if using other shows in the sequel series, created from it the Robotech franchise, an Americanised version which became an eighties pop culture item of peoples' childhoods. Enough for one film, Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles (2006) to be made in the 2000s, but yet to follow the route of Transformers and successfully adapt to live action or another series, though a live action theatrical film is clearly the end goal desired. The problem stems that they acquired said rights, and gained them back again in 2019 from Tatsunoko, the legendary Japanese company who co-produced the original franchise, and they can hypothetically prevent anyone realising any part of the original series into the West without their backing, worse depending if they presume Robotech is still a commodity of greater value than Macross. What definitely had not helped, before the requirement of the franchise, was that Harmony Gold USA and Tatsunoko and Studio Nue and Big West, the latter two involved in the creation of the original series, was a series of lawsuits over the years including Harmony Gold USA instigating that they owned the international rights to the entire franchise1, a tangle web of cease-and-desist letters, issues of who actually owned what, and law cases that helped prevent any Macross titles being available in the West. It entirely depends on whether they would deliberately prevent anyone from ever realising Super Dimension Fortress Macross or the numerous follow on work which have continued into the modern day now that Harmony Gold USA managed to reacquire the license; whatever the case, whilst the franchise in Japan is now an institution, little of this successful franchise has been made available in the West.
Exceptions snuck through. Macross: Do You Remember Love? (1984), the bombastic theatrical conclusion to the original series, had an English language release called Clash of the Bionoids, a drastically edited version by by Celebrity Home Entertainment's "Just for Kids" label in the late 1980s. Two exceptions which were bigger, and were released in Britain too, also snuck through. One is Super Dimensional Fortress Macross II: Lovers Again (1992), which is not very well regarded; Macross throughout its history is intertwined with Shōji Kawamori, its creator, whilst this was a sequel title for the OVA market which he and others were not involved in, a sequel project created anyway regardless of that fact. The other, which he had involvement with and has a greater legacy, is Macross Plus, an OVA story which Manga Entertainment distributed and kept the rights too well into the middle of the 2000s in the DVD era, and is held as one of Macross' best moments completely.
It is a release that Manga Entertainment could be proud of, from their period where they were notorious for work like Urotsukidôji, because both a) it is a story that can be sold without any other context of the franchise, and b) has such importance too that its both considered a major part of the franchise, and that it includes a couple of big names early in their careers, thus having a historical importance. One is Yoko Kanno as the composer, a female singer and musician very early in her anime soundtrack scoring who would gain importance onwards. The other is that, whilst Kawamori is the chief director, he co-directed with Shinichiro Watanabe, who would go on to director Cowboy Bebop (1998) and become a huge figure himself.
Macross Plus itself is fascinating, as set in a sci-fi future world named Eden and going back to Earth for the finale, it is set three decades after the original Macross narrative but exists as its own tale, one that is essentially a romantic melodrama fused around a sci-fi action plot. It is a story about adults, surrounding a romantic triangle. It involves Myung Fang Lone, a girl in high school who was obsessed with singing, now an adult who abandoned the career and became the manager of Sharon Apple, an artificial musical idol she secretly acts as the voice and soul of. Her disillusionment is connected to the friction between her two childhood male friends, Isamu Alva Dyson and Guld Goa Bowman. Dyson is a hot headed pilot, who in the OVA version has been far too much a pain that he is shipped off to Eden to become a test pilot where Bowman already is. Bowman is half- Zentradi, the original war-like aliens from the first Macross series who eventually humankind could come to peace with. Bowman believed Dyson was the one who destroyed their relationship with Myung and is antagonistic as a result as they are rivals in test planes. Dyson's is a regular transforming plane, one of the series' trademarks being fighter planes which turn can turn into bipedal mecha, whilst Bowman's is powered by his mind. When Myung appears on Eden, returning home as part of Sharon Apple's intergalactic music tour, their emotions are brought to the surface.
What is amazing about Macross Plus is that it is still the best of sci-fi animation when scrutanised, as an OVA in the hand drawn era for the well held franchise created with a great deal of care, but is also focused on a drama which fascinates as a genre hybrid. At this point, it is worth now bringing up the OVA and the Movie version, the first still less than three hours, the later just two, compare as this was originally meant to be a feature film but was first the four part OVA series. When it comes to reinterpreting part four of the OVA series, the Movie is rewarding, but baring a couple of new scenes the Movie version's greatest flaw is that it has to condense the first three episodes over the first hour, losing a great amount of weight and characterisation. Written by Keiko Nobumoto, it is a drama in its heart, though the plot does take on the fact that, looking like the sister of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Sharon Apple is going to have an important part of the tale that has to be resolved with action. Even her plot, to malfunction at some point, is influenced by the drama as, alongside an illegal bio-chip allowing self consciousness, Myung's own regrets play an important part. Whilst a lot of anime mixes genres and adds a lot of drama to them, it is distinct how this title treats the material with a greater sense of weight.
As science fiction, the quality of the production is still a high quality. It is not a surprise that, after the first sequel was created despite him not being there, Shōji Kawamori was going to rectify this with what he would have felt was a proper sequel. Shōji Kawamori's reputation as an anime creator and producer, screenwriter, visual artist, and mecha designer is that he can demonstrate and build his own designs, including the transforming planes of this franchise, from Lego to show how his work is put together. The quality here is exceptional, back up by the fact that both the action scenes are incredibly rendered but the dramatic scenes have the necessary power to them. It reminds you too that whilst Ichiro Itano is notorious as a director, he who helmed the Evil Town episode of Violence Jack (1988) that put people like me off its uncut version, Itano as the Action Choreographer here is of such a high talent he earned the trademark, from Macross and such titles, of the "Itano Circus", as seen here in a painstaking animation touch of multiple missiles being fired at once being drawn going in their own trajectories.
In general, just under theatrical animation, the quality here is found everywhere including in the world building, the world of Eden a lavish one between the sprawling metropolis, where even a karaoke bar looks like a funhouse, and the natural landscape is full of wind farms and prehistoric dinosaur birds. Helping the drama considerably, including the little we see of Earth, this feels like a full fleshed out world without any further content of the Macross lore baring some references to the fact this is a while after the original series was resolved. Even, if it does show datedness in the additional material in the Movie version, the CGi sequences has aged considerably well as they was used with a distinctive touch, an aesthetic which is distinct rather than obsolete.
Ironically, some of the most vibrant animation in this action story comes from Sharon Apple, particularly the concert scenes of hers where, designed to literally (and dangerously) enter the audiences' minds, some of the most vivid imagery comes in. Hitting a prescient note of virtual idols, not to mention holograms of passed musicians on tour, the Apple music sequences, which take on ominous menace when she gains awareness and brainwashes whole masses with hallucinations, are still striking especially as they do play a huge part in the narrative, an added and intentional double edge sword of a figure whose music switches between sultry ballads and J-pop but can eventually hijack any technology with her form.
Speaking of this music, the Macross series holds its music as a huge part of its trademark. It could be silly or sweetly naive that Macross: Do You Believe in Love? is meant to end with a love song ending the intergalactic war, or that the follow -up to Macross Plus, the TV series Macross 7 (1994-5), had a fictional band Fire Bomber created and music literally used as a weapon, but here it makes a potentially awkward mix work perfectly. One of the key reasons is that the music was created by Yoko Kanno. Kanno, as mentioned, became a major figure in anime music for the quality of her music and here, helped by the by members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra for most of the score, the music is exceptional and also immensely varied. Voices, Myung's main song, has the dynamic nature it requires, and I like the English language version as much. After, in the Dark / Torch Song, the end credit song sadly lost in the Movie version when the OVA uses it as the last minute stinger before the credits, is evocative. Even the Movie version, in one of the best moments, has a distinct a cappella piece over a montage condensing the original plot, an insanely distinctive piece, and the orchestral pieces over the flight scenes are as good too. It is, without a doubt, one of the best soundtracks I have covered and Kanno's reputation means there are a lot of huge and iconic soundtracks she has created that will challenge this one, including her collaboration on Shinichiro Watanabe's Cowboy Bebop.
Even the dubbing is of note as, as someone who usually listens to the Japanese dub when possible, controversially I think I prefer the English dub. This has been complicated as the fourth and final episode was redubbed with different actors, but the English dub for the OVA series, with a few flaws, is still something to admire. It is helped that two of the leads for the original dub are great - for Bowman they had Richard Epcar, who would become a veteran in voice acting and directing voice dubs, whilst Dyson is played by an obscure American actor named Bryan Cranston, who worked in animation dubs in the mid nineties until I first discovered him, among his career in small film roles and television, in Malcolm in the Middle (2000-6) which I grew up with. Yes, that Bryan Cranston, who would then one day shave his head and lead Breaking Bad (2008-13), a huge American television, in an example of how some actors have to work for a long time before they find success; and Cranston's voice performance for me here is a bar few could touch in terms of a great anime English dub performance.
One of the best aspects of title, more so the OVA which is the superior version baring one detail, is the emotional depth to the material. I will argue that Macross Plus itself, without any other context, is still a unique title for how well it managed to get the genre juxtaposition right, especially as it manages, through its plot, to make its separate pieces make sense and have a sense of dramatic power as a result. These characters are actual adults, and the drama between the lead three leads which leads to the story is rich. It makes sense, in one of the most rewarding sequences, that after trying to shoot each other down, and even after a friendly fire sequence in an earlier episode with live ammo, that a dogfight between Dyson and Bowman first devolves into petty arguments from their youth and eventually reconciliation through laughter and floating in the clothes, all because the story writing was fleshed out fully.
Sadly, the Movie version condenses too much for this to work. Where it has some interest, and arguably the best version could be created, is that it reworks the final episode drastically, alongside a couple of new scenes for side characters especially Lucy Macmillan, a female crew member at the test flights who has a romance with Dyson. The biggest thing for me, which is more meaningful than even the more elaborate Sharon Apple scenes, is that of a huge tragedy which is elaborated on the Movie version. [Major Spoiler Alert] It is the death of Bowman, which re-animated and retold is given more sad weight alongside the fact that, much more explicit and horrifying to witness, his final conflict with a self piloted super plane could have been even more powerful if a cut of that final act was added to the first three episodes of the OVA. [Major spoilers end]. As it exists though, it says so much that the original OVA as it was, without the new material, still ends perfectly.
Macross Plus altogether is one of the best examples of the medium from the nineties, the last period before OVAs started to fade away in the 2000s. Sadly, whilst the license Manga Entertainment has is said to be untouched, Harmony Gold USA still having the license and wishing to keep Robotech alive into the 2020s is tragic unless they make the noble act to let that and the Macross franchise co-exist in the West onwards. I say this with mind that I am happy to explore the Robotech franchise, as it was arguably a key title as a gateway to anime, but Macross is such a huge franchise in the medium, leaving as a result that emotional that a potential handicap that prevents it from being seen easily is going to be a nightmare to negotiate. It sucks more as Macross Plus, even without that context and having found it into my early interest in anime, returning to it for this review after a long time, is still so good, better and more meaningful than pure nostalgia could ever be.
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1) https://kotaku.com/why-you-havent-seen-any-new-macross-in-the-west-for-nea-5990702
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