About two years have passed since the end of the UN-Zentradi conflict and the survivors of its final battle have been rebuilding on Earth as best as they can. A few cities have been rebuilt, the survivors settled, and life goes on for the remnants of humanity and the Zentradi fleets. However not all is well both in the personal lives of some of the characters and in the wider human-Zentradi society. Chafing under the constraints of a peaceful life, several Zentradi lash out at the world around them, while others leave the settlements to either die or become bandits. Not only does this cause social friction and immediate destruction, it’s also leaving a substantial segment of the population disaffected and susceptible to being influenced by demagogues. War is the easy part, now the survivors have to create and manage the peace.
Hikaru patrols the wasteland with his flight, checking for survivors or signs of trouble.
The Zentradi bombardment pretty much sanitized Earth’s surface, but life has a way of hanging on.
Look who’s hiding out here. Durable little things, one survived the bombardment while another managed to survive a colony’s impact on the moon in Zeta Gundam.
The remnants of the war are scattered about all around the Earth.
After Hikaru takes some time looking around on the ground, he thinks back to what Roy told him about the job of being a pilot. For Roy it was about protecting the woman he loved, and Hikaru gets some pangs of guilt about not being into Minmay as much as he thinks he should be and flies off to the city where she is having a concert. Back in (New) Macross City, Misa is cleaning out Hikaru’s prefab house and comes across his photo album. It’s filled with old pictures of Minmay from around the start of the war, and she’s a little indignant about this seeming obsession with a failed love. So before leaving she turns the Minmay poster on his wall upside down! Misa, you’re my hero! Sitting at a café outside she sees Millia and Max with their child and for a second imagines herself and Hikaru in the same position. She leaves after a noisy pair of soldiers show up listening to Minmay on a boombox, but the gears in her head start turning.
Two of the new settlements are built around the largest capital ships that managed to make it to Earth roughly intact. A good idea since building materials are right there, but I’d be kind of afraid to live in Grante under that Zentradi battleship, it looks like it could fall over eventually.
Make him pay you with kisses.
Stop living in the past Hikaru. The future is bright and even cleans up your mess.
The Jenius family and their eventual ace-of-aces child makes Misa think about the future.
Over in Grante City Hikaru arrives looking for Minmay and comes upon her and Kaifun talking so he hangs back for the moment. Kaifun is drinking heavily like the pathetic scum that he is, complaining about the meager pay they’re getting for Minmay’s concerts. To which Minmay replies that they shouldn’t even need to be paid when everyone is just scraping by, much less demand more. That spine Minmay’s been starting to grow finally kicks in and she tells Kaifun that they shouldn’t see each other for awhile, and she walks off worried about her situation, Kaifun, and Hikaru. As this happens Hikaru gets an emergency call from Misa in the command center. Three Zentradi have stolen Regults and are attacking a civilian area. She chastises him heavily for going off to meet Minmay while on patrol, her anger at his irresponsibility heightened by the fact that it was Minmay he went to see. Hikaru’s current flight members aren’t the best pilots, but eventually Hikaru shows up and quickly deals with the Zentradi, disabling their Regults. The last image is that of the Zentradi in Hikaru’s gunsight running away from his VF-1S. I have to wonder if he shot them, pursued and apprehended them, or just let them go. I think the last one is unlikely.
Keep drinking Kaifun, maybe you’ll pass out and choke on your own vomit and then we can be rid of you.
You tell that punk ass lush!
Kaifun dumbstruck, though I’d rather he just be struck…by the backhand of a Valkyrie.
Rioting Zentradi began firing indiscriminately, though Hikaru’s flight managed to lure them away from the city.
Wondering why she hasn’t been promoted, she goes on to say she also has better looks than Vanessa. Oh Shammy, we love you but you’re just not the brightest bulb in the box.
Hikaru deals with the Regults Millia style by shooting off their legs. I liked how the fight was in the rain.
After returning to base Hikaru runs into Misa who asks about whether he got to see the person that he went to see. While she’s probably happy that he didn’t talk to Minmay, this is merely a ploy to put him off balance before her true love attack begins. She runs up from behind him and gives him a pink envelope and then walks off smiling. Inside are three ri-god-damn-diculously adorable photos of her to add to his photo album and increase the album’s win levels by over 9000%. There’s a reason why she’s in charge of the Valkyries instead of just in one, for her grasp of strategy and tactics is both broad and deep, in love and in war.
Oh Hikaru, stop your stalking and see the true love that is stalking you!
At first I thought this was one of those high school love letter things. Misa, forgive me for ever doubting that you would stoop to such immature levels. Your direct attack on Minmay’s place in Hikaru’s photo album is both bold and inspiring!
I wonder if it’s Shammy’s pet?
CUTE OVERLOAD!!!
And one serious one to round out the three.
While episode 28 deals primarily with the human characters and what they are doing after the war, episode 29 tells us a lot about the challenges of integrating the Zentradi and how they are trying to deal with living in peace. The opening scene is a skeletal Zentradi corpse propped up against a piece of wreckage. As the winds continue their constant howling its hand falls off, revealing that it was clutching a box with a Minmay doll in it. It’s an amazing sequence, telling you everything about the current Zentradi situation in just a few shots. The deaths from the war and of those who leave the cities, the desperation that comes through from the positioning of the skeleton, and the sad worship of and frustration with human culture seen in the way the soldier was clutching the doll; it’s pretty powerful. Elsewhere the singer who inspired such adoration is having troubles of her own, being unaccustomed to singing before a tiny audience in an exclusive club. Kaifun arranged this gig because the smaller crowd could pay more, but Minmay isn’t even sure what she’s singing for anymore.
Pictures worth thousands of words.
How do you get people who only know war to adjust to a peaceful life? Macross is dealing with some interesting DDR (disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration) issues.
It may be an exclusive club, but it has to be more than a little demoralizing for Minmay to perform before such a small crowd.
So Kaifun, so far you’ve got: Lust for your cousin, Envy of Hikaru, Pride for encouraging people who need it not to take military assistance, Gluttony for alcohol, and now Greed when trying to get even more out of people who have little. Just need some Sloth and Wrath and your damnation will be complete.
Minmay had enough of Kaifun’s douchebaggery and goes back to Nyan Nyan in Macross City to stay the night with her relatives. She’s glad to see them, but afterwards she goes into her room where the repaired walls remind her of Hikaru. She takes out the medal he gave her and for a moment thinks that he’s calling for her, only to find an empty street outside her window. The next day she runs into the Genshiken Team, who have now taken up jobs as laundry cleaners. They’re overjoyed to see her and this cheers her up a bit. Though shortly afterwards she sees Hikaru and Misa walking together and chatting. When he stops to tell Misa that he added the pictures of her to the album he turns just enough to make eye contact with Minmay, who breaks out in tears and runs away. Hikaru and Misa then chase after her, but she doesn’t stop.
At least some of the Zentradi have managed to make new lives for themselves.
Maybe it’s the way she’s dressing lately, but Minmay is certainly looking more like an adult lately.
While I’m not on Minmay’s side or anything, I think Noe would consider these to be True Tears. They are however, futile.
Minmay and the pursuing Misa and Hikaru then run right into another incident with Zentradi that are unable to adjust to life in peacetime. Two Zentradi have started smashing cars and are arguing with the mayor and his wife. Another Zentradi tries to calm them down, but he’s pushed to the street by one of the rioters. Hikaru tries to defuse the situation, just as four Destroids show up to enforce the peace. But despite getting flicked by the finger of one of the Zentradi, Hikaru calls for the Destroids to hold their fire. His act of bravery seems to get through to one of the Zentradi, but with something of a regretful look in his eyes he just says ‘so long’ to Hikaru and starts leaving town with his accomplice.
Amuro Rey Zentradi is not adjusting well to peace.
Why are the missile pods on opposite sides with these two? Cost cutting or actual reason?
Looking down the barrel of a gun, son of a gun.
Hikaru being GAR for peace.
It seems my fears about the Zentradi’s unrealistic expectations were right.
It is in this set of circumstances that two plans are being set in motion. Kamjin and Laplamiz meet in Kamjin’s command ship buried under snow near one of the poles. There, they discuss a plan to recruit all the disaffected Zentradi into a force and then probably make trouble for the rest of the humans and Terran Zentradi. Meanwhile in Macross City Archivist Exedol and Commander in Chief Global brief Hikaru, Misa, Millia, and Max on a plan to seize a Zentradi manufacturing satellite. The extent of the entire Zentradi force is unknown, and Earth will need the ability to build more ships should another Zentradi fleet arrive to try and determine what happened to the last one.
Always the hothead.
For shame Laplamiz. What would Millia think if she knew you were involved in this?
He couldn’t have picked a more able team.
The episode ends with the same corpse from the start. This problem isn’t going away any time soon.
Final Thoughts: – Having the show deal in such detail with the reconstruction and reintegration of both sides is very interesting and a welcome change from most anime series. It’s also personally interesting to me since so much of what I study is post-conflict situations.
- I’m wondering where Captain Britai is. Unless I missed something I don’t believe they showed his death during episode 27. I hope he’s still around, he needs to Brght-slap some sense into Laplamiz and the other malcontents.
- The threat of future Zentradi attacks hasn’t gone away, and I’m wondering what the rest of the Zentradi are thinking at this point.
- Minmay is redeeming herself and is something of a tragic figure. Hopefully things turn out well for her in the end…just not with Hikaru!
- I absolutely love time skips in series, such as the one in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, because it gives you a much more complete view of the world and the characters. However I was a little surprised that little progress seemed to be made on the love story aspect of Macross during the past years.
16 Comments
Vrlwthwai ( or Breetai or Britai, however you want to spell it ) will make an appearance soon enough again.
And as I said last week, it’s really nice to see how things turned out after the big WHAM! episode. I would have wished to see that with Frontier, too.
It is as I remember it. Awesome job Macross did with post-conflict conflicts. It certainly didn’t make light of Zentran integration while still focusing (with even more dramatic attention) on the love triangle.
GJ Misa
T_T Minmay
LOL Shammy
Everyone loves Hikaru
Who loves Kaifun?
Well, considering this is the first episode where Minmay is *18* (she was 15 in Ep 1 and like, 16 at best by the end of Ep 27, which is the largest reason why I’m really lenient of a lot of her behavior), it’s pretty understandable that she’s finally starting to actually look like a woman (rather than a girl).
These are also my favourite episodes of the series. I must admit though, I’m strongly favoured towards Minmay, heh.
you say cute overload.
i say hot pussy on pussy action.
Nah it was cute
also the whole poster flip down was cute and the photo album attack a nice move.
you say cute overload.
i say hot pussy on pussy action.
Nah it was cute
also the whole poster flip down was cute and the photo album attack a nice move.
Apparently Misa thinks she and Hikaru would produce a turquoise-haired child…does she plan to marry him but have an affair with Max in order to harvest his superior genes?
My recollection of the Robotech version of these episodes is slightly hazy since I only watched them once on rental, but I vaguely recall the Zentraedi skeleton. I think I assumed that it was one of the ones that died fighting for humanity, rather than a runaway who died in the wilderness.
Misa deals with her jealousy with class, she’s several order of magnitude better than Minmay, albeit a bit too shy in expressing her feelings, the ground for more drama.
It’s interesting to see how the Zentradi fare in a world in reconstruction, as we see, it’s hard for them to adjust from a absolute warlife to a peaceful life, like child soldiers, and some miss the “good old days” were everything was so “simple”.
As for the Zentradi forces, there’s still 1000-2000 fleet the size of bodolza’s fleet sailing across the galaxy (no wonder the Protoculture destroyed itself, with their hyper-militarism).
Putting that number in perspective, if each of those fleets has 4 million ships, that’s 4 billion-8 billion ships. Even if each ship had only 100 crew on average, that would still mean there are more Zentraedi than there are stars in the galaxy.
No need to assume that all the fleets date back to actual separate Protoculture-era formations. I would imagine that the Zentraedi as a race have fairly high centrifugal tendencies, and one or two Kamejin every other generation would result in a hell of a lot of mutually hostile fleets flying about. Did they ever explain what the hell a “Supervision Army” is, and why the Zentraedi were fighting it? I mean, in-story, not via post-series mook data dump.
It comes up in one of the sequel series – Macross 7, I think.
@ Magnus
Good to know Britai will be back soon. And I second the post-Frontier idea, hopefully it will get covered eventually. Frontier gave me the impression of a lot of things from previous series finally being worked out, and seeing what happened then would have been interesting.
@ Ghostlightning
Glad I could make you late for tennis, haha.
@ ToastCrust
Hopefully Minmay will overcome the mistakes caused by youth that Char warned us of to become a better woman. Just, as I said, not as a threat to Misa
@ random passing dude
I had to cheer Misa on a bit after that poster flipping, it was so sudden and will be so obvious to Hikaru.
@ Keith
Depends. Hikaru probably has more command potential whereas Max is the superior pilot. I say it’s unlikely. Think of it this way: Max and Millia breed the perfect fighter pilot while Misa and Hikaru produce the ultimate commander via their experience in the field.
It’s hard to say which group the skeleton is from, it could equally be a human-allied Zentradi or someone who left the settlements and died. But in either case it’s still full of symbolism for the Zentradi’s current predicament.
@ Der Langrisser and Keith
Woah, that’s a LOT of ships. Crazy.
Have been extremely happy that you have been reviewing the first series I have ever watched!! Bring back alot of good memories.
Oh and to the question of why the missile pods are on opposite sides could it have been because the people behind Macross envisioned compartmentalized weapons systems? How cool would that be lol.
Kaifun’s got Wrath (at the military) and Sloth (mooching off his cousin) covered. He truly is the douchebag’s douchebag.
I never noticed the Haro before…good catch!
I have to say, while I like the postwar episodes a lot, I get really pissed off at Hikaru for still moping after Minmay. Now, according to one of the short stories in the book Macross Perfect Memory, (called “The Lost Two Years”), Hikaru spent most of the intervening time between episodes 27 and 28 on the Moon Base, while Misa (and of course Minmay) stayed on earth. It seems like an attempt to exonerate his cluelessness, but it doesn’t *quite* work for me. The boy’s really just not very observant.
By the way, skipping ahead to Frontier, it says in Frontier’s DVD liner notes that Ranka not singing at the funeral is an homage to Minmay not singing in episode 29. It’s nice that they threw in the homage, but I wish the Frontier scriptwriter had thought a little more about the context of the refusal…
@ Keith
And you have to take into account the Supervision Army Forces, too.
@Yot-chan
It’s always at this point of the story I want to throw rocks at Hikaru for his cluelessness.
Also, Misa’s new hairdo is much, much better than her older one.
Loved the recap, I don’t think i actually saw any of the eps post the big battle. My more recent memories are from “Do you remember love”, the movie version of the series. It’s significantly different and doesn’t have any of this post war stuff, so i’m really looking forward to your updates!
@Mitch H.
The Supervision Army is composed of both brainwashed Protoculture and Zentradi by the Protodevlin, the enemy in Macross 7. We never really see them in series or any sequel. It is assumed they are still out there fighting a war with the Zentradi Army.
Interestingly in Macross 7 episode 37 the Protoculture ruins reveal that the Protoculture was hoping one day that their child races would integrate. Hybrids like Komilia and her would be younger sisters are considered symbols of peace. (Yes Milia gives birth to seven girls but Shammy beats her as she has eleven kids. Not to mention a six year old Zentradi ace who Milia befriended er…I mean adopted in Macross M3 game.) Human-Zentradi integration would eventually include the Zolan race (Macross Dynamite 7) producing hybrid descendants such as Michael of Macross Frontier.