マクロスF Episode 01 (Deculture Edition)
Macross F Ep. 01 (Deculture Edition)

SPOILER Summary: The year is 2059 and pop singer Sheryl Nome is on her way to the Sagittarius Spiral Arm, specifically to the Macross Frontier. This is a large fleet of warships (the 25th Emigration Fleet) which protect a giant colony ship (which I believe is specifically named “Macross Frontier”) and Sheryl is to perform on the large colony ship. Meanwhile at Miboshi Academy High School (within the main colony ship), a group of boys are in winged, mecha body-suits, who tease Alto Saotome because of his feminine looks. But the other guys are looking forward to working at Sheryl’s concert. Elsewhere, a girl named Ranka Lee, finds out her “oniichan” has scored her tickets to Sheryl’s concert.

Ranka gets out of work and makes her way to where the concert is being held. However, the massive throng of people are blocking her way, so she heads to the woods to take a shortcut and gets lost. She ends up getting soaked by the sprinkler system and so when she stumbles upon Alto, who’s group had moved to the woods, he aids her even though she had thought he was a woman because of his looks. He uses his jet pack to dry her clothing, then escorts her to a location near the concert location. As a means of thanks, she tells him to come by the restaurant where she works where she will hook him up.

As the concert starts, outside at the fleet’s first line of defense, a squadron of unmanned fighters are destroyed. A group of manned fighters are dispatched but they too are trounced by this mysterious, new enemy. The President of the Frontier issues an evacuation order to the fleet. This brings the concert to an immediate halt and the emergency is announced all over. People within the colony ship are not sure if this is just another military drill or not and Ranka is disappointed by the shortened concert while in the rafters, Alto, who was part of the show, wonders what is going on.

The SMS Skull Squadron is dispatched, lead by Ozama Lee, who orders the regular fighter units to retreat so that he and his people can fight. While they are better prepared to fight this enemy force, they too find they are not enough as the enemy breaks through to the fleet. The warships in the fleet open up with everything they have, but amazingly, the enemy glides through the mass amount of incoming fire to destroy several of the escorts. The main colony ship raises its shields but the enemy units break through the shields and penetrate the dome that surrounds the city underneath.

The enemy unit begins destroying buildings, but is engaged by army tank units. It quickly destroys them to then continue its rampage. It spots Alto in his winged mecha suit and attacks him, shooting him out of the sky but not injuring him. Ozama Hiiro (Ozama’s wingman) follows it and orders Alto out of the area. The enemy unit (or creature) gets on top of his fighter and forces him to eject where he’s in a mecha suit of his own. Ozama Hiiro starts firing on the enemy and is grabbed and crushed, all of which is seen by Alto and the frightened Ranka. Leaving the damanged fighter, the enemy moves on Ranka while Alto gets into the fighter and activates it. He’s able to get it into the “winged-leg” mode where he can use the fighter’s main weapons but be standing on its mecha legs (half-transformation if you will). As such, he begins blasting away at the enemy, forcing it to turn its attention from Ranka to him.

Thoughts: After only watching a little bit of the first episode for Macross 7, I realized that actually getting myself to watch that series was going to be difficult at best (I still plan to someday but we’ll see). But I have seen the original Macross and though Macross F is a sequel to Macross 7, I figured I’d give it a try.

Visually, the episode looked pretty good. It was slow to start but once the action got going, it moved pretty quickly (even if predictably) and ending on a cliff-hanger ensured that I’d be back for a 2nd episode. But I have a note to people like Alto — if you don’t want to be thought of as a woman, maybe ditching the long hair and female hairstyle would be best, eh? However, if you are so attached to a hairstyle that makes you look like a woman, then you really can’t complain when your comrades tease you about it and call you “princess” can you?