With her music proving effective against the Vajra, Ranka
finds herself on an even higher pedestal as she’s hailed the next Lynn
Minmei. Meanwhile, Alto deals with the
revelation of the importance of the Vajra to the fleet while Sheryl receives ominous
news from someone she thought she could trust.
While it looks like the Frontier Fleet could be in the clear, theyre
anything but as a ship wide conspiracy prepares its own endgame, just as the
Vajra close in for a final confrontation.
This weeks penultimate set of Macross Frontier episodes
breezed along at a nice, steady pace but did hit some turbulence here and there
and some of that involves problems I’ve had with a couple of things up until
this point.
Luckily, when it comes to
the action and the core trio of the show, the show is as reliable as ever and
man did Alto, Sheryl and Ranka get put through an emotional ringer, putting
them all in prime, important positions for the finale.
Let’s get into what worked and what didn’t work
about arguably the most important chapter of Macross Frontier thus far.
I think I’m gonna break it down by our big three this
week, starting with Ranka.
With her star
on the rise and her songs power to inhibit the Vajra proven, it was only a
matter of time before the military decided to weaponize her song, or use it to
their advantage in some way.
Ranka
juggled the notions of “This is for the greater good of the fleet” and how
messed up it is that her dream is being used this way.
Unlike, “You Guys don’t get it” Basara, Ranka’s
actually gone through a character arc and it was good to weigh the prose and
cons of this approach.
When she wasn’t debating
this, she was enjoying an all time high in popularity while also coming to
understand her true feelings for Alto, culminating in an amazing concert…and
the inevitable heartbreak that followed.
I’ve said before that Ranka and Sheryl are both good romantic options
and seeing them both hurt hurts me too.
That said, they’ve been pushing Alto and Sheryl a bit harder than Alto
and Ranka in a certain way, so this was inevitable but my goodness, if I could
give Ranka a hug I would.
On the popularity scale, Sheryl found herself on the
opposite side.
Her being out of
commission so long has all but tanked her demand, especially with the impact
Ranka is having.
I did actually feel
something when I saw Sheryl’s discs in a half price bin, that weirdly hurt.
There’s also the added wrinkle of her
supposed imminent demise, according to Grace at least (more on her later).
Between her idol status bottoming out and her
worsening health, it’s a miracle Sheryl bounced back the way she did thanks to
Alto’s words of encouragement and, to a degree, Ranka’s song too.
While I do have some problems with Frontier
leaning to heavily on exact repeats of past Macross hits (more on that later
too), seeing Sheryl take the Misa role of slapping some sense into Ranka when
she couldn’t sing, followed by a supporting hug, did show that Sheryl isn’t a
100% jealous girl.
And now with Ranka’s
song supposedly faltering, Sheryl got to tap into her music once more to give
some people hope during despair.
These
two really do compliment each other, even if not directly.
Last, Alto.
Probably the biggest moment for him in this set came from the supposed choice
made in his love triangle with Ranka and Sheryl.
Here’s the thing.
Alto clearly cares very dearly about Ranka
but I don’t think it’s in a romantic way.
If anything he’s a good friend and reliable protector, borderline brother
figure really.
Alto’s shown equal
support for both songstresses but it’s always seemed more of a spark was
between Alto and Sheryl.
He did brave
going back to his Dads place after his brother took Sheryl in (although the
jerk didn’t have to use Sheryl as bait to do so).
Like I said, a supposed choice has been made
but not 100% yet.
Oh and there was also
him being asked to meet the Zentradi head of the SMS and he’s got a thing for
trains too…maybe unhealthily so.
He did
drop that something within the Vajra allows for father jumps across space,
which plays into other things but…you know what let’s just jump into all of
that.
So there’s been some kind of behind the scenes conspiracy
happening involving Leon and Grace but I’m not quite sure what the overall endgame
is.
For Leon it feels like a grab for
power cause his character design screams skeezy, distrustful jerk.
For Grace it’s…idk proving something right about
the Vajra and one uping her mentor (who turns out to be Mao from Macross Zero
btw).
They are dropping a lot of bodies
left, right and center just to attain their plans but their end goal either hasn’t
been revealed yet or I’m just not keeping up, or it feels like one of the
weaker aspects of the series compared to the rest of the pretty well done character
drama.
Yeah these two aren’t the most
compelling of villains when their reasons for doing what they do boil down to
vanity and pettiness.
Remember when I mentioned Sheryl reenacting that famous
slap scene to get Ranka to focus a little?
Well Macross Frontier delved into the Greatest Hits bin for another big
franchise moment and this one…just irked me.
The fake out death of Ozuma felt dumb, right down to the return of a Pineapple
themed recipe from his super hot ex girlfriend, Cathy (who I haven’t talked about
much but mostly because she doesn’t serve much of a purpose outside being Ozuma’s
ex and a would be Misa type…she is hot but that’s about all the praise I can
give).
It just made me groan that they’d
play with such a pivotal moment like Roy Fockers death in this way.
What helps redeem Macross F a bit here is the
actual character loss we suffered with Michel.
Switching the Roy type for Max type in the big character death department
was a good shake up and I loved how Michel went out: like a bad ass protecting
his friends and the woman he’s always loved but has been too afraid to commit
to.
Also, considering Michel was a pivotal
part of not just Alto and Klan’s lives but also Ranka and Sheryl, his death
arguably has a greater significance than if they shamelessly killed off Ozuma.
One last thing I wanna touch on involves me returning to noting
Macross F’s superiority over Macross 7.
One
of Macross 7’s many, many problems was that the action rarely had consequences
for the fleet.
They seemed capable of
replenishing fighters with no issue and the city’s population was kept in the
dark about the Protodevlin so much that they were totally oblivious when the
threat was right on top of them.
By
comparison, Macross Frontier dealt with the fallout of last weeks big showdown
with the Vajra much, much better.
Resources took a hit and had to be rationed.
An entire section of the fleet had to be
disengaged.
Energy had to be conserved
for their big jump.
The people running
the government might not be any better than Millia or Max but at least theyre acting
as if this isnt a Problem of the Week situation a la Macross 7.
They were quick to use Ranka’s singing to
help quell the populace’s worries, just like Basara…but Ranka songs are better
and again, she has actual character unlike Basara, ok rant done.
So to recap: Alto just lost his best friend; Ranka’s
heart and spirit have both been broken; Sheryl might be dying; and the fleet’s
about to enjoy a nice helping of Coup d’etat in addition to a massive Vajra
invasion.
Things don’t look good for
just about anyone but most of the important pieces are in place for the final
showdown.
Let’s just hope that Macross
Frontier can deliver (unlike Macross 7, ok, ok done this time, promise).
It’s do or die time Next Monday as we look at
the Series Finale of Macross Frontier right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.
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