マクロス７ / Macross 7

The power of music!

When people think Star Wars, the first thing that comes to mind is that the key concept holding George Lucas' universe, is the invisible, yet ever present force. The force brings balance, the force created the Jedi order and the not so beloved Sith lords. The force gives life to every episode in the galaxy far, far away.

When people think about Macross, the casual fans, think about transforming robots, while the seasoned fans immediately think about music, and how its power is the string that holds together the entire saga throughout its many different versions.

マクロス７, AKA, Macross 7 is the direct sequel to the original 1982 SDF Macross Animé that started it all. While most of the characters are new, the series holds up close similarities to the original series. There's a love triangle, there's a raging war between mankind and an alien race, and of course, there is music, which just like in the original Animé, ends up becoming the core element in ending the war. 

The only returning original characters are Maximilian Jenius, Mylia Fallyna Jenius & Excedol. However, as the series advances, there's talks about Lynn Minmay, fairs displaying old VFs, and several cleverly placed nods to the original series.

Dysfunctional heroes unite for a cause.

Evil vampires from outer space.

Background

35 years after the events of the original The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, a spacecraft called Macross 7 leads the 37th colonial fleet on a colonization mission into deep space. The story focuses on the fleet's encounters with an alien force called the Protodeviln, and especially events surrounding a rock and roll band called Fire Bomber, consisting of Basara Nekki (lead singer, guitar hero and ace pilot), Mylene Flare Jenius (seventh daughter of Max and Milia), Ray Lovelock (keyboard player and former pilot) , and full blooded Zentradi Veffidas Feaze (24/7 drummer). 

The fleet's flagship is the Macross 7, which is actually composed of two parts: Battle 7 and City 7. Battle 7 is the fore section of the ship. It is a fully transformable battle carrier that is able to separate itself from City 7 during battle. Battle 7 is captained by original series regular Maximilian Jenius, who is also the commander of the entire fleet. The much larger back section of the two part ship is known as City 7 and is the main civilian population center of the fleet, containing a population in excess of one million people. The mayor of City 7 is the estranged wife of Maximilian Jenius, Milia Fallyna Jenius. City 7 features a "shell" that can close in order to protect the civilian population during battle. 

Basara Nekki, rockstar ace pilot.

Fire Bomber in action.

In the seventh year of their mission the Macross 7 fleet encounters an unknown alien enemy. This new mysterious enemy is composed of heavily modified Valkyries led by a man named Gigile. In the first encounter, the Macross 7 engages the enemy with squadrons of their own Valkyries. This conventional warfare does little to stop the attack however. The enemy's tactics are different from the average rogue, or 'uncultured', Zentradi that are encountered in space travel. In the first battle with the Macross 7 fleet, the new enemy's main tactic is to extract an energy form called 'Spiritia' from the Valkyrie pilots, leaving them in a vegetative state. 

Civilian musician Basara Nekki has a modified red state of the art VF-19 "Fire" Valkyrie of his own, and goes out to engage the enemy of his own accord. His VF-19 has an unusual control scheme that mimics a guitar, and he does not attack the enemy with weapons, choosing instead to fire speaker pods into enemy mecha, and playing his songs to the enemy. In the first few encounters, Basara's music does little to drive the enemy away, and the Macross 7 fleet's ace pilot, Gamlin Kizaki is bewildered and annoyed by Basara's endeavor, claiming that it interferes with the other pilots during combat. 

It is eventually revealed that Basara Nekki was given the Valkyrie by his friend and bandmate Ray Lovelock, who is a former UN Spacy Valkyrie pilot, and part of secret project inspired by the effectiveness of Lynn Minmay's singing in the original war with the Zentradi. Eventually project head, Dr. Chiba, discovers that Spiritia deprived vegetative pilots can be revived. By playing them Fire Bomber's music the patients eventually wake up and return to normal...

Max & Millia are back.

And so is the VF-1J.

The review

In a nutshell, the story of Macross 7 is about a J-rock band trying to find its way in the world (or Galaxy) with its songs, and here is where seasoned Macross fans separate from casual Macross fans. On the one hand, Macross 7 is the ultimate realization music does affect the enemy, thus turning the tide in decisive moments of battle. Old school fans saw this happen twice. First, in the original 1982 series, and then in the 1984 Do You Remember Love? movie. Moreover, Macross Plus & Macross II also have a lot to say in the same department. So, the fact that music plays such an important role in the world of Macross is nothing but yesterday's news. Macross has never been about robots and battles in space alone. Macross has romance, action, character development and music! 

While the original series ran for 35 episodes, plus a couple of movies, Macross 7 ran for 49 episodes, plus 3 encore episodes, a couple of movies, and a  4 episode OVA, meaning you require approximately 1560 minutes of your life to fully embrace what this series is about. 

Lynn Minmay is science!

The most resilient fan.

Macross 7 has a rather memorable set of characters. They may not be especially deep, but everyone from the main cast to the smallest side character are each built around a unique quirk which allows them to play off each other pretty well. From Gamlin's relative squareness to Miriya's hot hotheadedness to unnamed Flower Girl's unending quest to present flowers to Basara, each of them helps breathe life into Macross 7's environ giving it a rather organic feel. The only real problem for most is the main character, Basara, who like so many things about the show, you either like or not. A lot of people are turned off by his seemingly pig-headed and abrasive personality, he does not go out of the way to make himself likable. But for me personally, I find that is what makes him rather interesting in the way he effects change in those around him. A welcome change to the standard type of main protagonists we've been seeing in other shows in the same genre.

As expected, Music is very integral to Macross 7's story. The soundtrack mainly consists of Japanese Rock so if that's not your cup of tea, well then steel yourself for 49 episodes plus plus worth of it. Even then, early on, it does not show much diversity with Basara repeating the same two songs over and over again for the first few episodes until you are sick of them (afterwards he then repeats them so many times you end up liking them again) However this actually makes sense within the context of the show as Basara is still trying to find his voice early on and eventually as the story progresses, each time he achieves some self realization, he gets newer and better songs to play with.

And let's not forget the classic line "Listen to my song!"...

Spiritia will be mine!

Anima Spiritia!

As for the animation, there's nothing wrong with it. The 90's style of animation is present in every scene, and that is a good thing. Characters, mecha and background designs are superb in my book. However, there is a noticeable lack of big dogfight sequences that characterize other Macross shows, so if you are a fan who is in it for the Itano circuses, you might end up disappointed. Moreover, the use of recycled cels is evident in several episodes, meaning you end up seeing the same Valkyrie being blown up every other episode even till the later end of the show, so that may suggest the production either had a limited budget, or were just too lazy to animate new stuff for every episode.

As I said, Macross 7 is a show that you need to watch in its entirety to give proper judgment on it as the early episodes do not do it justice. Even I admit that the first time I watched I had a hard time trying to move past the first few episodes, but after setting my mind into it, I found myself rewarded with a rather enjoyable and surprisingly engaging ride by the end. Its 49 episode count may seem rather daunting, but I do encourage you to not give up so easily and try to endure it to the end. It is a show you either steer clear or watch all the way to the end. It is Macross at its silliest, and the show knows it. If you acknowledge this, Macross 7 might end up surprising you with a rather fun, and atypical Macross experience.  

Your robots are no match for me Micronians!

Music & robots will be your final match bitch!

Pros

1. Music. While obviously a matter of taste, I find most of Fire Bomber's songs quite enjoyable. They're one of the few anime soundtracks I will listen to on their own merits.

2. Fun factor. Basara is genuinely entertaining to watch.

3. Nostalgia. There are numerous ties to the original series, and it's interesting to see how things developed. Most notably, it's great to see Max and Milia again. Also, it continues the concept of the colony fleets introduced in Macross Flashback 2012.

4. Focus on characters. While ostensibly a mecha series, the focus of the story is on the characters. Fire Bomber's road to stardom, Basara's quest to move people's hearts with his music, Mylene growing up and understanding her own feelings for Basara and Gamlin, reconciling Max and Milia's relationship, etc. If you avoid mecha shows because they have too much technobabble and focus on the robots more than characters, this is not a problem here.

Tits!

More tits!

Cons

1. Music. Some people hate it. If you don't like pop/rock, especially of a Japanese variety, you will be assaulted by it for the duration of the series.

2. Use of stock footage. Especially early on, there is an extreme use of stock battle footage of VF-11's and Elgarzorenes fighting.

3. Lack of focus on mecha. Fans expecting to have lots of cool animation of all the new Valkyrie models introduced here will be sorely disappointed. I recommend you pick up the VF-X games for the Playstation instead to get that fix. Moreover, the show separates from the science/technology oriented approach most Macross series have to the classic super robot genre not many like anymore.

4. The story develops very slowly. Out of the 49 episodes, some of them are completely unnecessary to understand the main story arch, and feel like an "enemy of the day" type of episode. 
 

Rocking and saving the world is a stressing job.

Guvava wastes no time.

Trivia 

• The plot and characters for Macross 7 appeared in the game Super Robot Wars Destiny, then in Alpha 3, and again in Z2: Saisei-hen, with Dynamite 7 debuting in the same game.
• No Export for You: Ignoring the usual licensing issues surrounding Macross, no anime translation company could afford the music for Macross 7, which is held under a separate license from the series that is more expensive than the series itself; Fire Bomber has let out 13 albums so far, and the record company has them under an "all-or-nothing" usage deal.

• The exorbitant music licensing fees are also a problem domestically: they are the reason why Super Robot Wars wasn't able to get full-voiced versions of Fire Bomber's songs in Alpha 3, even though the director really wanted to.
• Back when ADV Films was still around (and thus the anime dubbing industry was still at the top of its game), one of their reps was asked at a Fan Convention how much it would cost to license Macross 7. The rep took a minute to think and, to paraphrase him, "Maybe if every licensing group in the US pooled their money together, we'd be about a third of the way to bring over M7 with all of its songs intact."

 

Of course I can!

Pew Pew!

• Non-Singing Voice: As mentioned in the main section, Fire Bomber's songs were performed by the real-life J-Rock band, Humming Bird. A great choice at the time, but it later turned M7 into a general licensing nightmare.
• The Other Darrin: Tomo Sakurai retired from voice acting and singing permanently in 2016, so Aya Hirano now voices Mylene as of Uta Macross.
• Real-Life Relative: Max's voice actor, Show Hayami, is married to Zomd's voice actress, Rei Igarashi.
• What Could Have Been: As unlikely as it sounds, at some time in the past there was an effort to get a Western release for M7; Steve Perry, former singer of Journey was even approached to play Basara.

 

Because leaves are so tasty!

Guvava can't sleep while Mylene plays the guitar.

Macross fans should give the series a chance, and don't give up on it too soon. This is certainly one of those anime deserving of the time honored line & it gets better later. Just be aware of what kind of show this is you're getting into. Macross 7's greatest flaw is simply that it isn't what people expected of a continuation of Macross. I for one, think this is the best sequel the original series could ever had. Basically, because human music holds a special power that is unique to the universe, and I seriously would like to believe it  is like that in real life.

Here's the opening in stunning HD:

Here's the 1st ending:

Here's the 2nd ending:

Planet Dance:



My Soul For You:



Holy Lonely Night:


 

Electric Fire 2007, Basara & Mylene tribute live concert:



Some lucky guy unboxing "The Complete Fire", the Macross 7 Blu ray box, which I also own: