Friday, October 10, 2008

MACROSS (1982)

Positive Experience/Entertaining? Definitely. While the music is dated, the over all "space opera" feel of the series is timeless. Great, classic (if not a little cheesy), storytelling.


Technically any good? The animation is at a standard level for animated TV series of the early 1980s. It's not perfect and compared to what we're used to today (even in the US) the animation's pretty unimpressive (don't get me wrong--it tells the story perfectly well). The voice acting is phenomenal and, really, a helluva lot better than the American (Canadian?) dub we Americans are more familiar with (under the title: Robotech). The story is solid--it weaves triumph and tragedy, comedy and romance pretty nicely throughout the twenty-six episode series. The music is dated, as I mentioned, but there's a fun cheese-factor to it that makes it enjoyable. Try not to roll your eyes too much while reading the subtitles for the song "Watashi no Kare wa Piloto".


How did it leave me feeling? Mostly satisfied. I think the production ran out of time before they could fill in all the answers to the questions this series was asking. Things felt rushed and even unexplained. Thankfully, some of this is dealt with in the movie version of the series which condensed, altered and manged to elaborate on the original story so well that it is often equally loved by fans in Japan. I'll review it next week. That said, the way the series leaves you somewhat hanging is proof of how good the rest of it is at making you care.


Final Rating? SIYL - See If You Like. This is THE animated series for anyone who enjoys a space opera with an artistic soul. There's a reason this series spawned two movies, two sequel series, and several more miniseries. If you're into anime, this is a must see as one of the biggest iconic series in Japanese animation. If you're some jock who hates girly stuff (romance) then you should probably stay away. ;P

Orignal From: MACROSS (1982)

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