Macross Frontier 22
September 7th, 2008 by Shirukii
Implied secks ftw
A relatively boring episode compared to the previous two weeks, not much was learned in terms of character and plot that we didn’t already know or that we couldn’t have inferred from recent events. The SMS’s rebellion was the only significant event of the episode, along with alliance pledging, Alto and Luca deciding to abandon Ranka and the SMS and stay on Frontier with Rossiu Leon.
Usurpation of the throne, campaign based on fear mongering and preservation of way of life and ugly as sin? Rossiu 2.0
Leon’s a really weird character, he’s meant to be the penultimate bad guy of the series, the Vajra supposedly being at the top of the chain, however, he just isn’t doing a good job. While everything he does seems to be out of pure malice, he’s just isn’t a very threatening force. Perhaps it’s because he’s made his objectives known, his motivations are so typical of villains that I no longer find them the least bit intimidating, you have to get a little more creative than money and power these days. Than again, maybe it’s just his RIDICULOUS hair that’s making it impossible to take him seriously.
I have to admit though, he’s smart enough to cover all his bases with this coup d’etat, going as far as taking out Grace…or at least trying to.
This scene would have been a lot more menacing had she not started to fondle herself
But regardless, FUCK YEAH, GRACE!
Grace remains my favourite and the most interesting character in Macross Frontier, unlike Leon, who has pretty much laid his cards out on the table for us to see, Grace remains lurking in the shadows, inching out ever so slowly, revealing her motives bit by bit. Her reasons for being so damn evil continue to remain in the dark, mostly. This episode we learned that her goal all along was to have Ranka lead her back to the Vajra home planet, but what she plans on doing with this information is up to interpretation.
Will Grace manipulate Ranka’s fold waves, tame the Vajra and use them as her personal army to take over the universe? Does she also want to harvest Fold Quartz for some reason beyond monopolizing the transportation and communication markets? Is she looking for a new homeworld for her and her mysterious voice only friends? Or is she really a good guy and plans on eradicating the Vajra to ensure the survival of Frontier? While unlikely, the last of those would make me rage uncontrollably and relegate Macross Frontier to my “complete waste of time” pile.
As for our little Vajra queen, I’m still wildly confused over her choice to up and leave Frontier to search for the Vajra homeworld. I understand that the pressure of being the Songstress of Hope got to her and that she no longer wanted to be used as a tool for warfare, especially since it blew up in her face and ended up causing the very invasion she was supposed to prevent. However, you’d think that the massacre of Frontier and the deaths/injuries of several people close to her would make her despise the Vajra, not defect to them.
There had to have been some other trigger for her “betrayal”, Ai-kun may have been a good pet and all, but for Ranka to not have a backlash when he turned out to be a Vajra and furthermore run to the Vajra’s aid suggests she knows something no one else does. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe the Vajra aren’t bad guys at all, a la first generation Space Monsters in Diebuster. I guess we’ll find out in the coming episodes, probably via expositional flashback to Ranka’s past.
As for Sheryl, I found it hilariously out of character that she, who had lived such a pampered life prior to her fall from grace, would be content doing underground (well, by Frontier standards) charity shows. However, I suppose it is somewhat fitting with her new found motivation to sing for the sake of the people, not to mention that after hitting rock bottom, she probably isn’t being too picky these days.
With regards to Sheryl becoming the new Songstress of Hope, I’m a little torn, on one hand I find the mere fact that she succeeded Ranka’s title far too convenient and more of a plot pushing move than a situation you could honestly believe would happen. However, the plot does need to move forward and this just so happens to be a necessity, that being said, I like the way they handled it. Sheryl gaining fold wave powers like Ranka could have easily been attributed to her new attitude and genuine emotion in her recent singing, that would have been horribly cliche, instead they opted to tie it into her illness, making her situation bittersweet, which is almost always preferred as it leads to better drama and conflict.
The relationship between her and Alto is also progressing at a believable rate, the only gripe I have being the speed at which Alto has all but forgotten about Ranka, especially given that she hit the guy with a parting confession. By all rights, this should have torn him in two, but it didn’t seem to phase him much. I guess his deep seeded hate for the Vajra overwhelms his feelings for Ranka, which is odd since much of the hate he harbors towards the Vajra is because they were responsible for her traumatic childhood.
Alto’s behaviour since Ranka’s departure raises some questions about how attached he was to her in the first place. As I just mentioned, his hate for the Vajra stemmed largely from what they did to her, to see that outweigh the determination he had to protect her is odd, to say the least. At the beginning of the episode it looked like Alto had turned off the emotional receptors in his brain and turned to full combat mode, relentlessly ordering rookies around and pouring all his concentration into some good ol’ fashioned Vajra ass whooping. But then he turns around and has an extremely emotionally driven moment with Sheryl, arguably the beginnings of him actually falling in love with her, especially when you consider Klein’s pep talk. I wonder if I’m the only one who thinks that Alto-hime and the Galactic Fairy may have comforted each other in more than one way that night…
Lastly, Macross Quarter’s rebellion, which, in hindsight, was inevitable. Leon was eliminating all threats to his newly acquired power, and an independently contracted military trained group with weaponry that outstrips NUNS, not to mention their highly individualistic ideals, certainly qualifies as a threat. Alto and Luca choosing to side with the government was a bit surprising, but I suppose it makes sense, given that both Nanase and Sheryl aren’t in any condition or position to become fugitives.
I can’t believe they dug up the whole “Why do you fly?” thing with Alto again though, I thought that was a dead horse. On that note, for someone who was so deathly opposed to going back to the Saotome mansion the first time, Alto didn’t show much aversion to waltzing in this time around. By the same logic, it’s weird that the rest of the household hasn’t tied the bastard up and waterboarded him in an attempt to get him to act again, since they were so gung ho about it before.
I’m not sure if it’s just me not looking deeply enough into these things, but Macross Frontier seems to have a lot of continuity issues when it comes to how characters act. It seems like certain characters will act in certain ways only when it’s convenient or necessary to do so, but will later on contradict their actions in order to bend the plot in a certain direction. A perfect anime is one that bonds character and plot development together seamlessly, whereas Macross Frontier seems to be keeping them in separate rooms divided by a concrete wall with a peephole in the middle.
Obligatory Klein ;_;
~ Shirukii ~
16 Responses to “Macross Frontier 22”
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Considering how Frontier is in shambles and every one is trying to deal with the slaughter I don’t think getting Hime to act again is in the cards for either Yasaburo or Ranzo.
Alto-hime may have fought the Vajra for Ranka, but once they killed Mikhail right before his eyes it was just eh point of no return. Mikhail’s death hasn’t been wasted in that regard. Mikhail was a friend and wingmate to both Luca and Alto after seeing him skewered by a bug I understand how their hate overwhelmed them. If some one fragged on of my buddies it be the same story. You killed my friend now watch me…
I can see why Alto has no more problems going home the world is collapsing all around him and now that every day might be his last going back home is somewhat more preferable now. There is no reason left to hold onto to pride when things are this bad. Hime cared about Sheryl she had no place else to go, so I give Alto more credit for discarding pride at time when everything that one holds dear i s liable to be gone the next day forever.
I think Sheryl has come along way from being the haughty pampered idol that she was at least now she is doing what Minmei could not, sing for the people and not for the money or the fame or the recognition. Besides all the big venues are trashed if she wants to sing so long as she has a mic then she will. Besides you are you to complain when Mina, Monica, Ram, and Elmo approve of this new Sheryl. Sheryl sang in a bomb shelter so a small club ain’t that bad.
I think the reason why they dug up the whole why do you fly schtick was because Alto-hime had no reason left to continue flying, Ranka is gone, so his initial reason left with her and Brera. Mikhail and Ozma fly in order to protect some one, but Alto isn’t protecting Sheryl or Ranka by flaying. Least of all Sheryl since no mater what hime does she is going to die regardless of how many bugs he kills. Alto might have become and adult but since he can’t protect the person he promised to protect, that being Sheryl right now, then how much of a man is he when all he can do is be there while Sheryl slowly dies with every song she sings?
Grace was just fantastic this time around, one of the best villains of the year in my book. Leon just looks harmless next to Grace because she is that evil. besides I liked how Grace was embracing her despair and nightmares in that scene.
I wonder what the mega-queen is going to look like, considering we have seen normal Vajra queens already. Do the Vajra have cities? Will Ai-kun be accepted by the other Vajra?
I’m glad they showed Ranka floating around in space with Ai-kun, cause I was wondering if she’d have to go to the bathroom inside the VF-27.
One other thing to note - Grace pulled Sheryl out of a slum where she was picking at garbage cans to eat, infected her with Vajra AIDS, and then made her into a star. Sheryl may have been a bitch to start with, seeing that she knew she was a star and that she was a professional… but when push came to shove, she was always rather supportive of others; she encouraged Ranka to sing, tried to help her career along in little ways, and generally listened to people once they got past her diva mask. Sheryl undoubtedly was old enough to remember what it was like to grow up without hope, without a mother, and without anything to look forward to… so when the situation got as bad as it did, she’s taken her hopes and dreams, covered them up in a jumpsuit, and then sang her heart out in order to try to give the people of Frontier some relief from despair.
Alto and Luca sided with Leon because they don’t care about what’s ‘right’ - they only know they want to kill Vajra, and Leon’ll let them do it. That alone is enough to sustain them, especially Luca who seems to have a massive hate-on for anyone who would not go along with Leon’s professed plans of eliminating them (when he wants to harvest them for their crystals, so he can rule the galaxy due to the ability to move troops and send messages faster and farther than anyone else). Alto’s initial reason to fly is gone; he can’t protect Ranka anymore and he doesn’t really WANT to after she sided with the Vajra who killed Mikhail. He can’t really protect Sheryl - she’s dying before his eyes, and there’s no cure availlable. So why IS he fighting? That’s the question he’ll have to ask himself - will he fly just to kill Vajra, to prove to his family that he’s not an actor by blood and thus wishes to run away from the family tradition, or because he was born to pilot and wants to show it to the world?
As for Ranka… she really doesn’t think ahead very much, which is how she got into this situation. She didn’t think about what a career would mean, or what singing to fight Vajra would mean… and after complaining she knew nothing about Alto didn’t bother asking him much in the way of questions even while they were alone together in Episode 12 and 13.
But Grace? She wants galactic domination: the ability to move farther and faster is critical with regards to administrating empires - the reason the Roman Empire was so fearful was because it had lots of trained soldiers AND the ability to move them and their supplies around Europe quickly and efficiently to deal with insurrections or attacks (Roman roads still stand intact today). Between the ability to move through areas nobody else can (fold faults) as well as the ability to communicate in real-time at long distances (allowing warnings to travel to those who need them, or reinforcements to be summoned in time for them to be useful), the corporations in the Macross Galaxy fleet would have at their hands the ability to completely dominate human space. That’s also what Leon wanted, which is why he tried to have Grace (and probably SMS, had they not rebelled) offed.
And as Crusader noted, things have gone to hell and performances aren’t likely at the top of anyone’s list of things to do with the world literally falling apart around them - I don’t think Alto’s going to get much flak for not acting, and is unlikely to care given that he’s out there in a fighter trying to stop Frontier from being blown up by the Vajra. They can always talk about the acting later, after things have settled down. Plus, with Sheryl there, he’s not going to quibble about whether he should return home after his vow or not. She’s more important than that vow is at the moment, and Yasaburo and his father be damned.
I really feel like this series could really benefit from being longer than 25 episodes. More time to work on the plot and characters. For this series I could be patient enough.
>>”Grace remains my favourite and the most interesting character in Macross Frontier, unlike Leon, who has pretty much laid his cards out on the table for us to see, Grace remains lurking in the shadows, inching out ever so slowly, revealing her motives bit by bit.”
Did Leon even has any card to play with from the beginning? When I saw him had an impression on just a small thing happened, since then I already know he is nothing more than just a pawn. Unlike Grace, who is doing thing without any direction or to say that we have no idea of who she is or what she is up to.
>>”This scene would have been a lot more menacing had she not started to fondle herself”
That scene made me want to know what will she do next as a women :D
@ Crusader: >I liked how Grace was embracing her despair and nightmares in that scene
She was embracing more than that :3
@ Kabitzin: Ai-kun’s reception into the Vajra homeworld will depend on how Ranka herself is received there, so I’d assume.
@ Haesslich: I wonder if Grace is really aiming for Universal (Galactic seems too small a scale for such an evil villain) domination though. She must know that even if she were to mobilize the force to conquer the universe, it wouldn’t stay conquered for very long. Just as the sizes of the empires of the past were largely at fault for their downfall, so too would be the bane of trying to maintain a Universal dictatorship.
@ Kari: While I agree that the series would benefit from another cour or two, I don’t know if I could stand it for that long.
@ Siva: Oh Grace is probably doing much more than that to her perfectly toned android body, if you know what I mean.
“Alto’s behaviour since Ranka’s departure raises some questions about how attached he was to her in the first place. As I just mentioned, his hate for the Vajra stemmed largely from what they did to her, to see that outweigh the determination he had to protect her is odd, to say the least.”
Suspicious, ne? Listen to his cry at the end, there’s no way Hime’s forgotten about Ranka. S’why I think his frustration regarding Ranka’s departure will haunt him till the last episode.
Sheryl and Alto’s relationship will crumble. Kawamori doesn’t want his Ranka puppy heartbroken. Heed my words haha!
Shirukii: Size causes problems with time and distance crossed for moving messages and armies. What the fold crystals promise for Grace’s cartel is the ability to bypass ALL of those limits; effectively instantaneous communications and transit between all points in the Galaxy. Bilrer sees this as a way to unite the galactic civilization as one large family/community that can share its love of music and life with each other; Grace’s cartel sees fast travel and communications as key to controlling resources on a galactic scale since they could move armies faster and farther than anyone could without worrying about fold faults or the energy required to cross large distances.
That’s why she wants their home planet - this material provides her with both power (transport, communications, plus the MDE’s) as well as the opportunity to gain everything since there may be more technology waiting to be exploited there as well.
Griezu: He’s crying because he’s had all his reasons to pilot taken away - and given how he was crushing that drink container when Luca mentioned Ranka, Alto seems to be quite upset and angry at her. Plus, Kawamori’s ’screwed’ the sweet character over often enough - look at the DYRL Minmei, Zero’s Mao Nome, and Mylene chose nobody in Macross 7 to start with.
quote:
There had to have been some other trigger for her “betrayal”, Ai-kun may have been a good pet and all, but for Ranka to not have a backlash when he turned out to be a Vajra and furthermore run to the Vajra’s aid suggests she knows something no one else does. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe the Vajra aren’t bad guys at all, a la first generation Space Monsters in Diebuster. I guess we’ll find out in the coming episodes, probably via expositional flashback to Ranka’s past.
All I have to say about this that if you’re just catching onto this ‘mysterious plot twist’, you should seriously considering not broadcasting your thoughts onto a blog for the world to see.
Seriously, buddy. You’re just now getting that? They’ve been rubbing our faces in it ever since we saw the first one in the test tube. What, did the whole Ranka sympathy pains thing not tip you off that we are, for some reason, supposed to go ‘hey wait a minute!’
Also I love how when Shery’s character undergoes changes or development it’s called ‘acting out of character’ and when Ranka does something really weird (like, you know, side with the Vajra which have actually killed someone she claims was a friend, even though she has some weird repressed issue with them where they also killed her parents) it’s because there’s a deeper sub-plot and because Ranka must be a richly layered character.
I mean, come on, Sheryl isn’t exactly the deepest character in the universe (here’s the hint since you seem to be struggling to connect the dots: She started with nothing, got everything, and got it taken away, and is determined to start from nothing again by herself ) but implying that the way she’s being handled is more ham-handed than Ranka or indeed ANY of the characters in Frontier is ridiculous.
For the record, I really don’t care who he ends up with, largely because I feel like Alto has all the personality of a piece of wood.
@ Greizu: Oh I have no doubt that Alto and Ranka will end up together after all’s said and done. I’m just calling what I saw based on the single episode.
@ Haesslich: That’s true, fold quartz would eliminate mobilization and transport issues, I was just considering the vast scale of possible simultaneous uprisings that the universe allows for, I still find it hard to believe it can be ruled by any single empire.
@ Eldrani: I didn’t catch on as far back as the test tube scene, but I’ve been thinking that ever since Ai-kun showed up. The thing is, I’ve never been overly concerned with the plot of Macross Frontier, check back to my previous posts and you’ll find that almost every single one was more focused on the Sheryl vs Ranka fancamp shitstorm.
> However, I suppose it is somewhat fitting with her new found motivation to sing for the sake of the people, not to mention that after hitting rock bottom, she probably isn’t being too picky these days.
I did address that…
> For the record, I really don’t care who he ends up with, largely because I feel like Alto has all the personality of a piece of wood.
Thank you. Fucking agreed.
@Shirukii
Not even 36 eps? ^-^ It would have been enough for smoother transitions, more time for character development and more time to explore plot points that I feel will remain unexplored. Plus more shipping wars! :3
Ah well. As much as I enjoy the ride already, I can’t wait for this series to end, it’s been on my mind for a while. I suppose that’s a good thing, it’s something to look forward to. Personally I would like to see Ranka come back blossomed, Sheryl somehow surviving, a duet with both songstresses, an awesome final battle with lots of death and doom and Alto ending up with no one. ^-^
Shirukii: One more thing to consider - Ranka and Sheryl were used as experiments with regards to controlling Vajra… and Ranka is the successful one. Combine fold quartz + massive army of bugs that can become immune to almost anything and which can fold on their own to any point in the galaxy. You control the spice (and the bugs), and rule the galaxy - especially given how quickly they breed compared to VF pilots. It takes 15-18 years to get a VF pilot together, but only weeks for a Vajra to be ready to fight.
Communications is the key to control; if you can talk to any point in space at any time or monitor it, it’s almost impossible for a successful rebellion to occur as you can move resources in to crush anything before it really gets going.
Now I’m just wondering how Ranka’ll handle things when the Grace Cylon Collective comes a’callin.
@Haesslich
Either way Brera will be pwned, at least that I can look forward to. If Grace demolishes Ranka then there will be little hope for her, it would be sad if Grace held Ranka hostage until the last episode, for Ranka at least. If Grace deftly destroys the last of Ranka’s self esteem and will power while killing off Brera and Ai-kun, well Grace will probably go down as one of the greatest villains ever in a Macross series for the simple reason that Grace is just so mean.
Ranka better be ready when Grace comes…there will be no mercy and Grace knows Ranka more about Ranka that Ranka knows about Ranka.
Grace is deliciously evil, and she can be subtle (unlike Leon), which makes me able to forgive almost any act she does because it’s entertaining to watch her work. Plus, there aren’t many good villains out there, so having her go about trashing things is… well, I must say I look forward to her landing on her Treasure Island.
Is a Grace ending is out of the question? I mean, Alto is clearly in love with her.
Roy Mustang: It’d be more likely to be a Bobby Ending than a Grace Ending at the moment. Although I’d settle for a Klein ending - they do hang out a lot, and they ‘look good together’.