Macross Frontier 08, QUALITY
May 26th, 2008 by Shirukii
I was expecting some sub-par animation to compensate for the money they blew on last week’s dogfight and penis cannon battle, but I wasn’t expecting it to have the episode nearly rendered unwatchable. Thankfully, nothing of importance happened in this episode with respect to the overlying plot. The Ranka-Sheryl-Alto love triangle got some development, with the girls transferring into Mihoshi Academy, but I suppose the love comedy aspect of Macross Frontier isn’t worthy of passable animation.
Starting small, Ranka’s career launches with some local jobs, drawing customers to a carrot stand in the Zentradi mall. But bigger things are on their way, Ranka’s manager manages to land her a guest spot on an upcoming TV variety show. What’s more, Ranka passes the qualification exam for Mihoshi Academy with ease and finds herself alongside Alto as a classmate as a part of the school’s entertainment program. Nanase, Luca and Mikhail are thrilled to have the green haired genki girl as a classmate and offer her a tour of the grounds, Alto, on the other hand, seems more annoyed than enthused.
The surprises keep pouring in as Sheryl is next to make a random appearance at Mihoshi, seeing that Ranka has just transferred, demands that her slave, Alto, allow her to join in on the tour. Onlookers make pithy attempts to capture Sheryl’s attention, but she’s fixated on Alto, however she does pick up on his local nickname “hime” and uses it to annoy him to no end. Seeing one of the performance flight suits that Alto and co. used at her concert fly by, Sheryl demands to try that out first, however, fails miserably at the minimum requirements to control the suit, a test which consists of having to gently cradle an egg without breaking it.
What we can only assume to be a plethora of failures later, Sheryl concedes defeat and heads to the showers with Ranka and Nanase to wash off. Sheryl tells Ranka about her upcoming TV appearance and offers Ranka a position on it as a guest, Nanase takes offense to Sheryl’s offering as insulting to Ranka and continues on to plead her to stop harassing Alto, which only gets thrown back in her face as a declaration of love for the princess. While drying themselves off, a little creature which has been following Ranka around for the day jumps out and snags onto Sheryl’s freshly worn underwear, bolting out of the changing room into a crowd of male students who go berserk when they realize what the little guy is holding on to.
Elsewhere, Ranka runs off to either a rehearsal or recording for the variety show she’s set to appear on, only to have her manager call with some bad news. Sheryl’s special, the one she offered Ranka a place on, pushed the program off the schedule, despite the producer being really impressed with Ranka, there’s not much he could do when faced with the pressure of the entourage of Sheryl, the galactic diva.
Meanwhile, back at Mihoshi, Sheryl continues her chase to retrieve her underwear, hopping into Luca’s flight suit with only basic movement knowledge at hand, oblivious to the fact she doesn’t know how to stop, and worse, forgetting to lock herself in. She eventually corners the critter on the roof, jumping after her panties as they soar off, only to get detached from the suit, leaving it to fall to it’s wreckage below, Sheryl being saved a similar fate by Alto, who swoops in to catch her at the last moment. Seizing the opportunity, Sheryl demands that Alto fly her around the city for a while as compensation for losing her earring when he had to abandon his valkyrie in the Vajra mothership.
After hearing she got bumped off by Sheryl, Ranka heads to her usual spot on the hills to sing her heart out, Sheryl’s pantsu thieving friend tagging along as well, and a more surprising guest, the mystery pilot Brera, who happens to know Ranka’s song.
The following day at Mihoshi has one final surprise in store, Sheryl transfers in, barely a day after Ranka, enrolling in the school’s piloting program alongside Alto-hime and the SMS.
Thoughts
Not much to say about this episode, all things considered it sucked pretty hard. Setting aside the animation issues, since that’s something that has and will most likely continue to plague Macross Frontier, the episode composition reeked of school comedy cliche. It was one thing for Ranka to transfer to Mihoshi, everyone should have seen that one coming, but for Sheryl to follow suit soon after? That’s like Seto no Hanayome’s San/Lunar gag multiplied by a galactic factor. Also, the whole pantsu chase thing was reminiscent of Code Geass’ zero mask cat chase scene, and we all know how much I enjoyed that one…
Again I have to call into question the writers’ inability to pick a focus and stick with it. Macross Frontier is a universe scale space dogfight anime with pseudo mecha elements, and it does well for itself as such. The love triangle is a welcome addition too, historically Macross has incorporated the “power of love” plot element in all its previous installments and its worked pretty well. However, try to mix in a school comedy into the foray and suddenly things get a little crowded, and at this point I’m beginning to wonder if the primary focus of the series is the character interactions of the PEW PEW LAZOR battling seizure robots, and that’s not something that a viewer should be confused about.
But that’s what I was given to work with and looks like I’ll just have make do for now.
Sheryl came off as high and mighty with her “holier than thou” “screw the rules, I have money” attitude, prancing into Mihoshi and stealing Ranka’s thunder away, as well as her prospective boyfriend. But I find it difficult to criticize Sheryl because I don’t even think she’s doing it on purpose. Her disregard for rules and situational hierarchy does make her come off as self centered, but she pulls it off with this weird naiveness that I find endearing, if not the slightest bit frustrating.
Ranka gets sympathy points from me this episode, because her angst wasn’t just a product of “Boo hoo, Alto-senpai isn’t paying attention to me even though I make no effort to assert myself towards him”, she just got owned by Sheryl, who at this point isn’t a force she can reckon with. Mirroring her inability to stand up to her as a romantic competitor for Alto-hime’s heart, Ranka’s career is taking some setbacks from Sheryl as well. The only difference is that in this case it’s unintentional on Sheryl’s part, ironically enough, she wants to help Ranka along, albeit that she recognizes her as a potential threat to her dominance over the Macross j-pop world.
A love triangle that’s developing in parallel to our high school love birds is the Cathy-Ozma-Leon one. Cathy is in a position that is forcing her to choose between the husband material Leon, who is rich, with a strong military backing, and Ozma, her badass ex-boyfriend pilot. Leon’s an ass and is clearly up to something behind the scene, so the latter looks to be the obvious choice at this point, which only further cements the inevitability of Ozma’s death.
Next episode looks like it’ll shed some light on Mikhail’s past, which is most likely horribly traumatic and involves Vajra attack, like everyone else in this damn universe. But hey, stupid flashbacks aside, looks like we’ll be getting some more Klein, which is always welcome, loli form no less!
HURR
Honestly, how did this episode make it past QC and onto broadcast.
~ Shirukii ~
Post Script: Anime North weekend was fun, but tiring as hell. I’ll try to get my Code Geass post out by tomorrow and a con report out the day after that, Kure-nai may be skipped this week depending on my mood, and I’m still waiting on Soul Eater subs, which are a week behind now. But for now, I think I’ll go take a nap.
20 Responses to “Macross Frontier 08, QUALITY”
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Yay! 1st post!
Yeah, the animation was kind of incosistent, and it was teeming with anime cliches, but I kind of enjoyed this episode on the whole, though I kind of feel sorry for Ranka. I think it would have been better if she accepted Sheryl’s offer.
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I don’t think that Sheryl conceded defeat in trying to pick up those eggs. Picking up the eggs was a prerequisite for learning how to pilot the suit, and Mikhail tells Alto a list of things that he taught her just after she steals Luca’s suit. Besides, it’s getting into late afternoon by the time she starts flying with Alto. She probably went through a whole lot of eggs, since that chase couldn’t have lasted all that long.
I dunno what Ranka really wants from Alto. She seemed a little less into him than even Nanase was when questioned about her interest in him. I think she just wants to be able to talk to him, moreso than being romantically interested.
Aside from losing the TV debut, part of Ranka’s problem is that she isn’t really trying as hard as she should. I know that the carrot job was silly, but she should still sing like she feels that its important, rather than moping around about how much it sucks. That’s slightly more rewarding than waiting around for a big break to fall from the sky.
Honestly, I’ll feel more sympathetic towards her once she becomes genki again. Needs more Ep1 Ranka, and less Ep5 Ranka.
Don’t forget, Leon had something to do with Ranka’s demployement. This wouldn’t be the first time he tried to hinder Ranka, it is also suggested that he killed her chances at winning Miss Macross.
( 24:09)
I catched up with the episode, and Noe gives me the same feeling Ranka does. Lulz D:
What do they have in common?
Loli and adorable?
I guess I like more mature, non jailbait characters! :D Go Sheryl.
I wonder what role Ranka will play, her singing lures in Vajra which is a big 180 turn from Menmei’s (sp?) abilities in the original macross apparently.
This series is win >w
I believe the eggs are the reason why Sheryl entered the piloting course (she could have enrolled into a different course like Ranka)
There’s something about her mentality that just doesn’t accept failure.
The Soul Eater subs for episode 7 have been out since Wednesday, maybe you just missed it if you were looking on TT.
Animation quality doesn’t bother me that much (I managed to watch the whole of H2O without much incedent, which actually had a good overall plotline, though not SOUL-ROCKINGLY good) and I always welcome school comedy since watching School Rumble. Whether thats because I’m partially blind or just an anime noob I’ll probably never Know.
Gotta love how one of the first things that Sheryl said was “Alto’s mah bitch”; there was even a Gurren Lagann-like “Who the hell do you think I am?!” thrown in for good measure XD.
So, you don’t have any thoughts about this “mysterious pilot” ?
OH, and how did you come to know his name is Brera by the way?
I actually really enjoyed this episode because I’ve never enjoyed the mecha stuff. I love the new guy too. It means Ranka might not be lonely after all ….
>Kure-nai may be skipped this week depending on my mood
OH NO YOU DON’T! ^^
What’s even sadder about the animation is that it was done by a Japanese studio this time. Hell, they didn’t even save money by outsourcing, what a waste.
And I agree with Vadigor, we cannot have you skipping out on how Show ▼
Who do you think pays for you to blog?
Since there are no awesome battles in this episode, nothing of value was lost.
Now that Mikhail’s past will be revealed in the upcoming episode, I wonder if Mikhail would go into despair mode (hint: the seiyuu’s previous work).
Oh how I love this blog.
First it was mindfuck that made me ROFL, and now penis cannon.
you are awesome Shirukii lol
I just realized this is the second time which (that I know of) Alto’s seiyuu’s character has problems with his father. o.O
Wasn’t he Okazaki Tomoya’s seiyuu?
@ Lala: She is trying to make it on her own though, I don’t know if accepting charity from Sheryl would have been in her best interest.
@ jacobian: Fair enough, Sheryl’s not one to give up either, I’ll give you that.
I still think that Ranka sees Alto in a romantic light, but she seems so discouraged by her competition that she’s ready to give up, or something along those lines.
@ Kaelyn: It’s a well established fact that I’m a lolicon ;_; I guess we find ourselves at odds once again. Although, I harbor no ill feelings towards Sheryl, so it can be a peaceful rivalry :3
@ T_I: Agreed. Plus she probably wouldn’t benefit much from the Entertainment Program
@ Randor: Oh God you’re right, how could I have missed that D= Oh well, Soul Eater is getting combo post’d then.
@ Redmist: His name was in the credits. Glad you like the penis cannon comment too, I just call it as I see =D
@ blissmo: But the mecha is the main part of Macross! I don’t really like mecha myself, but I love the dogfighting, so it balances out.
@ Vadigor/ItAintEazy: D= Damnit guys, fine. You’ll have your stupid Kure-nai post, tomorrow though, Code Geass R2 needs to be done today.
@ Hangmen: ZETSUBO DESHITA, and etc.
@ PyrrhusOnline: Yep, he’s Tomoya’s seiyuu as well. Guess he’s all about the characters with tragic pasts.
Hard work is necessary… but hard work and connections are critical to get star power these days, and Macross doesn’t look any different from the real world in that sense. Her current agent doesn’t have the connections, and even if she works hard and impresses people… if nobody ever sees her, then she’ll get nowhere, as many a singer can attest, while those who have little talent but good marketing skills and connections get all over the place (see boy bands, most current pop divas). Without exposure, it’s hard to build up a loyal fanbase that’ll root for you, and pay money to see you.
So, while Sheryl’s offer was rather clumsy… Ranka wouldn’t be whoring herself out if she pumped Sheryl for information or even introductions via Grace O’Conner. She might even get farther ahead despite Leon’s attempts to kill her career… since I suspect he wants to either use her to control Vajra or just kill her - and it’s easier to do this with a nobody schoolgirl than a pop idol with some fame and fortune.
hangmen: “Zetsubo shita! Siscon has left me in despair!”
quality check?
dude… do you watch anime? the majority of episodes for pretty much all anime series have bad animation/bad art.
there are a few really good episodes with good animation for each series… usually first and last episodes…
Look on the bright side at least this means that there will be no more introduction to school posts!
If Ranka is wise she will ask Alto-hime to help her in the entertainment class seeing as how they do kabuki…
Anyone remember ep 4 of Tengen toppa, that had some really poo animation, and this ep really reminded me of that episode.
In terms of the story it was filler more than anything else, so I wasn’t really interested ;/
Sheryl’s so win. Don’t accept failure! While Ranka doesn’t get any sympathy points from me, she should believe in herself a little more.
Gotta say the animation was just…-_- geh.
I’d be angrier if this episode looked good and the battle was all speed lines. So I can forgive the craptastic animation.
I actually felt bad for Ranka, because every time she made a cliche move to get attention, Sheryl outdid her. I bet Sheryl will even be happy for Ranka when Ranka does make it, so Ranka can’t even pump herself up with hatred.
People keep criticizing Ranka for having low self-esteem, but I think it’s fairly realistic for someone in her situation (tramatic past, sheltered upbringing with small social circle) to be as timid as she is. It doesn’t help that she’s constantly thrown in the company of the most famous idol in the galaxy who’s already got everything (in terms of recognition, physical appeal, etc.) that she’s just starting to reach for. Ranka’s character appeals to me precisely because she has so much potential for growth, and I hope the producers make the most of it.