In the February of 2011 I've moved to my very own home. During a winter holiday I went to Turku to see my family. I stayed there with my eldest sister's place and on there I was rather bored, so I started to go through her movie collection which basically consisted from bunch of cartoons, horror movies, genre flicks and animes mostly OVAs. As I was going through her collection I found Macross II. I've saw the cover of the VHS and I knew one thing: I was going to see it!
Now before I go any further I have to say that I'm fully aware that Bennett the Sage already covered Macross II in he's Anime Abandon series, but for my great surprise in US the Macross II was full length movie cut from 6 episode OVA series and that's exactly the one my sister has.
Now I would like to give some information about the series, but Macross II really is a standalone series in the Macross franchise so I'm not going to talk about it. Ok so here is a quick rundown:
Macross II takes place 80 years after Macross: Do you remember love, which is an non-canon sequel to the original Macross while the Macross II is a canon sequel to an non-canon sequel of the original Macross, but then Macross II became non-canon.
Now I haven't seen the Macross: Do you remember love? and I've only seen the first 15 episodes of the original Macross by now, so yeah - that's the problem! I really don't know if I should tell you that much about the series that I barely know the basics or should I just expect that you've all seen the original Macross.
Nah, screw it I'm just gonna tell you about Macross II
In the beginning we are introduced to our main hero an annoying reporter called Hibeki who became a reporter because ten years ago when the Zentradis last attacked he used to watch SNN's war reports and figured out that's what he wants to do, show people what happens. Every time I hear this I just roll my eyes, seriously a kid sees war reports from the News and decides that he is going become a reporter so he can one day report the possibly attack, not a fighter pilot mind you, just a reporter.
And I'm not even kidding you when I say that this is theme of the OVA series: freedom of speech.
So what else happens?
Well after ten years of silence the Zentradi's attack and the Earth - or UN Spacy - fights it off like it any other attack from the Zentradi: using J-pop. You see back in a days of the original Macross Japan was undergoing a renaissancance of music so they decided to use it in they're show and personally I think it's brilliant! And also it's one of those show where one can hear music through a vacuum that or it's symbolism and it's also here where we meet the Faerie squadron which is completely meaningless in this show aside from Silvie Gena who is annoyed by Hibeki, how I understand her.
Anyways Hibeki get's to pilot a Valkyrie fighter and during that he meets a Marduk woman named Ishtar but none of it's members. Just kidding Ishtar is just a woman. Hibeki then decides to bring her back to Earth and decides to tell her story to the world which leads to the E.T phase, during which we also meet Hibeki's friend: Mash who I'm only mentioning here because he - she - öööh... thing? Or whatever you call transsexuals. Who hangs around with a group of women? Does that make Mash a lesbian? Or what about those women? Wait! Those women, are they - transsexuals too? One might ask now why do I care, but I like to ask you that why would you put a transsexual in Macross II? That's like if in Star Trek Next Generation there was a gay person, wait - why is there no gay people in Star Trek?
Anyways moving on! So that was pretty much the first episode which was a decent first episode, now I'm not going to talk about the last five episodes simply because that would take too much time.
My verdict on this show is that it's stupid. For instance: In the Macross II the reason why Mardukes want to destroy all life on the Earth simply because they think that the culture is the root of all evil. Now if I was Linkara I would now go for a 30 minute rant over the stupidity of this, but since I'm not Linkara I'm only going to tell you what I learned from Open University's basic course of Cultural History: Culture at it's very purest means everything that mankind has ever done in order to survive. Yeah. Now that really isn't an insult because well let's face it the original Macross was stupid too, now once again I haven't seen the entire show but the first 15 or so episodes which we're not anything too special.
And about the theme. It's not handled very well, it's just annoyingly in you're face all the time. Now I know that the original Macross had it's deeper moments every now and then, but the original Macross was at the core just a dumb space adventure. Key word being dumb. But it was still enjoyable and watchable, so I would say that having a theme as deep as the "Freedom of speech" is bit too heavy for Macross, I just want to see some space battles dammit! With good story, characters etc, etc, etc.
Also just because a show is stupid doesn't mean that it's bad. To be perfectly honest Macross II is decent if you just take it for what it's worth. But it's still unworthy successor for the original Macross. Once again only seen the first 15 or so episodes.
Also something I find incredibly odd is that they are showing Thunderbirds in Macross II. Only to have it destroyed in a matter of seconds by Mardukes. As a man who grew up watching Thunderbirds, I will have to ask why? Is it symbolic? Is it a joke? If it's a joke then it's not funny.
All in all Macross II is a dumb but enjoyable and well animated 6 episode OVA-series, just take it for what it's worth and don't think too hard about it. Next time we'll continue in space - with Cowboys.
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