Macross Frontier

For the record, any 'animu' post that also has the 'review' tag can be expected to have spoilers. You have been warned.

Tonight I finished up watching Macross Frontier. I finished it up faster than I intended to, but I think it was worth it. Like I said before, I started watching it because I had a mecha itch that I needed to scratch. I figured, "Hey, Macross is hailed as a mecha series", so I gave it a chance.

Silly me for thinking that it was just blowing stuff up.

Of course, that's how most of these things start out, but MF places an even greater emphasis on it's characters and their relationships than some other series. *COUGH GUNDAM POWER CREEP* Sorry, I'm getting over the sniffles. Power creep and technology races aren't always a bad thing, mind you, I just enjoyed MF keeping their level of technology consistent. One thing that kinda irked me though, and it's a problem with Macross in general, is GERWALK mode. I understand it's purpose is to grant the fighter greater altitude control, but it looks silly. It's one thing I still can't get over.

Back to why I actually liked the series though: Sheryl. Okay, not just her, but the relationship triangle between her, Alto, and Ranka. On one hand, I enjoyed watching the train-wreck plot. On the other, I kept hoping that Ranka would like, sacrifice herself or something so Sheryl could be happy. Of course, in the interest of keeping more fans they opted not only for two viable options for Alto, but they kept the question hanging in the air at the very end. That kinda bugged me.

I'm going to go a little further into Sheryl.

No, not like that. >_>

I enjoy her character very much. Explaining why I enjoy the character would require referencing to a similar train-wreck-love plot, Toradora. Sheryl is a lot like Ami, (note: I initially typed that out as 'my Ami' heh), who was my favorite character from that series as well. Both of them are strong-willed and go after what they want. Sadly, the two characters are also similar in such a way how they get shafted. In the case of Sheryl though, she gets 'saved' of her fatal disease in the end which is great but also made for a somewhat weaker story. Is it weird that I long for tragic endings? *cough Mai-Hime*

An engaging storyline and nice mecha eye-candy make for a good watch. I'll give it an 8/10. The story bugged me in some respects, but I can still appreciate it for what it is and understand that I can't hate something just because I can't change it.