Modem failure makes loli Ranka cry ;_;

One final time, sorry for the lack of presence in the aniblogosphere as of late, quite the eventful summer this one turned out to be. I haven’t gotten around to watching any of the new summer shows, but I figure I should at least keep up with our old favorites, so here goes.

Aside: Would it have killed you guys to mention the meaningless endeavor that was my summary section just a tad earlier ;_;?

Because I know how much everyone LOVES to talk about this, let’s start off with the shipping war, which conveniently has a quantifiable measure in the form of a poll now, Ranka ftw!

It pains me to say this, but Ranka’s character has remained largely stagnant for the past few episodes (and by extension, the series as a whole). While she does exhibit what may be interpreted as a heightened sense of self and along with it a rise in motivation, she hasn’t come a long way from the person she was at the beginning of the series. Admittedly, there have been isolated cases where she acted of her own accord to achieve something she wanted to and came out of it a better person, like going to Gallia-4 to rescue Alto or standing up to Sheryl in the hospital duet. However, for the most part, Ranka’s actions have been predicated by others and in the end boil down to “Just shut up and sing”. Going back as far as Sheryl telling Ranka to enter the Miss Macross Frontier contest, Ranka has been ushered along by those around her, most recently, Grace, whom Ranka clearly feels is an unnecessary escort, not only being more content with her previous management but also feeling as if she’s betraying Sheryl, yet she sits silently and obeys her orders anyway.

On the romance front, Ranka has made significant headway in terms of being able to admit to herself that she has thing for Alto, and will even act upon it when forced to step up by Sheryl. However, the little starlet just isn’t ready for a relationship with the guy yet, the dynamic between the two still reads siblings more than love interests and Ranka still shows signs of the dependency on Alto, which is no basis for any sort of romantic relationship.

Sheryl’s not doing much better herself, she continues to boast the haughty “holier than thou” attitude, and it’s gone past old, it’s just annoying. Her defiance of the rules and her semblance of heightened entitlement isn’t endearing, it’s stupid. When your friends, doctors and colleagues tell you to stay in bed and get some rest, stay in bed and get some rest ffs, not doing so is what’s causing the frequent collapsing, it’s not Alto’s girlish good looks. Sheryl is spiraling into despair as Ranka’s presence in both Alto’s heart and the galactic music scene threatens to overshadow hers, yet she refuses to sit still for a day so she can recover and launch a counter attack.

Blah blah, mixed messages, indecisive help/hurt game with Ranka, inability to come to terms with feelings, etc. etc. My stance on Sheryl’s approach to winning Alto’s heart isn’t even worth fully reiterating, as the lack of progress would only lead to a rehashing of trodden ground.

As for how the Ranka vs Sheryl issue with respect to fan reception, it continues to baffle and amaze me. The general trend I’m seeing is that most of the Ranka shippers, myself included, like Ranka almost solely because she’s cute, because truthfully there’s nothing much more to her character that goes beyond her “energetic green haired loli” archetype. Consequently, the people who hate Ranka, do so BECAUSE Ranka shippers like her on account of her cuteness.

Wat.

I can understand people liking Ranka because of her cuteness, furthermore I can understand people hating Ranka because of her cuteness. What I don’t agree with is people hating Ranka because of people liking her for her cuteness. By the same token, I can see why certain people like Sheryl because of her haughty attitude, the very reason I abhor her. However I dislike her because of the trait itself, not the fact that others like her for said trait.

tl;dr: Like or hate the character because of the character, not because of the fanbase of the character.

Aside: First to point out the hypocrisy of my liking of Ranka based solely on her cuteness while I bash series like Lucky Star and/or previous cases where I have picked on a character or series because of its idiotic fanbase gets my old modem shoved down their throat.

Far more interesting a character than either of our leading ladies is their backstabbing manager, Grace. This woman is, in my opinion, the most interesting character in Macross Frontier, her character and motives are shrouded in a slowly unraveling mystery which I was ready to chalk up to “she’s doing it for the money” until Leon came out and said that they’re above such things, leaving them to lesser minds like Bilrer. Leon, incidentally, should be standing next to Grace on the podium of most interesting character, however I maintain that he’s just Grace’s plaything in the grand scheme of things. Plus his hair is ugly as sin.

Moving on from characters to plot, quite a few things have happened over the course of the past few weeks. After Grace tore a chunk out of Gallia-4, we were treated to a conference call of her co-conspirators speaking cryptically of plans and operations, I tried cross referencing the voices of the conversation with existing characters in the series but came up blank, aside from Grace obviously, did anyone else do the same with better results?

Sheryl’s earrings come back and take centre stage, now revealed to be Fold Quartz, some rare gem that is produced internally within Vajra, allowing them to smooth out fold dislocations. The implications are instantaneous travel and communications technology, much like the booster pack that the LAI gave Mikhail on his Gallia-4 mission. Such technology would revolutionize the universe and a monopoly on said technology would mean a virtually infinite supply of money. My guess is that at the end of all this we’ll get some thinly veiled “some things aren’t meant to be controlled” moral, seeing as the origin of Fold Quartz is inside the bellies of mankind’s greatest threat.

Ranka’s significance in the show continues to skyrocket over Sheryl’s, in addition to being the hip new songstress on the block, her voice is a military grade weapon against the Vajra. Along with more Ranka screen time comes the unraveling of her past, a brief scene showing her moving in with Ozma, initially nothing more than a shell of a human being, but surprisingly quick to recover after some crappy pineapple cake.

Lastly, it’s more or less confirmed that Brera is Ranka’s supposedly late brother, or at the very least, his consciousness implanted into a cyborg body, a la Grace. It’s hilarious to see how overprotective he is of Ranka, especially when it comes to Alto, seizing every opportunity to humiliate or show him up, as any caring brother would do in lieu of their little sister falling for some strange guy.

As far as PEW PEW LAZORS action goes, the past few weeks sure have had an abundance of it, so much so that it was beginning to get a little boring after the SMS started to use reactive missiles to tip the scales. However, things are looking up now, the Vajra displaying that they’re not complete pushovers and have the ability to adapt evolutionarily to protect themselves against the attacks that are bringing them down. Hopefully this means that we’ll see more interesting and involved dogfights, perhaps with even *gasp* strategy and formation playing a role. Although, more likely is that this is just going to lead to a whoring out of Ranka’s hax ability to stop Vajra in their tracks.

Another thing that has been made blatantly clear, most poignantly in episode 17, Ozma’s a dead man. They’re just teasing us now, the fake death scene surely just to keep us on our toes as to when it will actually happen. But rest assured, it will, everything anime has taught us about lengthy battle speeches, continual promises -not- to die, reckless fighting, and loss of primary motivation for existence dictate that this guy is going to kick it.

Lastly, Grace is such a bitch, haha. The smug look on her face when Sheryl confronted her, awesome.

Oh, and if this guy’s unknown biological make up, and little tentacle arm thingies weren’t evidence enough, his propensity to swat at things with even the slightest semblance to aircraft is. This thing is a Vajra.

Obligatory Klein shot

~ Shirukii ~