Saturday, December 10, 2011

Macross Frontier movie: Sayonara no Tsubasa thoughts


The proper conclusion of Macross Frontier

Initially when i watched both Movie, i am rather skeptical with the outcome of it since i consider it as another attempt by Bandai to milk the series. However after i finished the 2nd movie i would say that the movie did really well and gave Frontier something that the anime unable to do; a proper conclusion of the main character's love triangle.


Sayonara no Tsubasa or Wings of parting/farewell shortly continues after Itsuwari no Utahime. The 2nd movie begins with Sheryl holding another concert and suddenly fell unconscious. It turns out that Sheryl is infected with contagious virus from Vajra and she doesn't have much time left. Shortly afterwards, Macross Galaxy begin to infiltrate Frontier but shortly thwarted and both Sheryl and her Manager, Grace is captured. After finding Sheryl is captured, Alto along with Macross Quarter attempt to free her from captivity and during the whole process, the Macross Galaxy agent Brera managed to sabotage Frontier and thus taking control of the devices which are capable of controlling Vajra and Galaxy used them to control Vajra Queen. Thus the final showdown of Vajra with Human begins.


The 2nd movie did really well just like the first movie and definitely way better than animation series ever. What the movie did really well is balancing the love triangle of the main characters until the right time to conclude it while the anime version break the balance too early and in the end the love triangle goes unresolved(wonder if it is intentional?). This is really crucial as Frontier is the Macross series that focus on love triangle out of 3 main elements of Macross series. Just like the first movie, the 2nd movie plows through the main plot of the series with no break and the fanservices are appropriately given on right time. The characters in the Movie are given the right role especially Grace who was the main villain back in anime is now more sympathetic to Sheryl and not the main villain anymore while other character like Mishima and Brera are given fitting end for them.

The battle in the 2nd movie definitely have more fireworks compared to the first movie and my favorite part is the Dogfight between Alto in YF-29 and Brera near the end of the movie. However i find the battle is less stellar compared to DYRL while the Dogfight is yet to surpass the one between YF-19 and YF-21 in Macross Plus. There are plenty of homages in the movie as well which one of them is the reappearance of Isamu with his YF-19 which i wish to be longer.


After i watched both Macross Frontier movies, i definitely find this series great and probably have the current greatest production value of all Macross series. I would recommend to watch the Movie directly instead of the Anime series since you will not lose nothing much from it. The ending is quite open which probably allow some continuation in a form or possibly connect this series with other Macross series for instance the SDF Macross where Alto could possibly warped to the space where Hikaru lead his lost fleets.

2 comments:

  1. Don't forget that Shin from Macross Zero also disappear at the end of the OVA, so maybe all three of them will meet in a new series ?

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  2. Well that's a good possibity as well considering Macross Zero plot mix well with Frontier just as seen in ACE:R. However it is up to Mr Kawamori for the decision as he probably have something in mind for 30th anniversary of Macross.

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