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

SPOILER Summary:

At the Miboshi Academy High School, Alto (a bishounen teen with long, feminine hair style), takes off in his winged jet suit and flies around the inside of the giant colony ship. However, he soon approaches 2000 feet, which is as far up as he can fly off the “ground” before hitting the dome roof and this frustrates him.

Elsewhere, the female singer known as Sheryl arrives on the ship for her concert. She’s tired but is going to do the press conference just the same. In preparation for this concert, Alto and his fellow high school flying members, led by the flirtatious Mikhail, are waiting with their gear inside the building where the concert will be held. Sheryl passes them with a smile along her manager, security, and a female from the Macross fleet. Once out of sight, she’s angry that fans have been aloud in. Once she’s told they are part of the flying act, the focus of her anger shifts to not wanting to do things with amateurs.

Near the concert building, Ranka, who’s “oniichan” has scored her tickets to the concert, attempts to make her way through the crowds. She’s not very successful, so she decides to take a short cut through the nearby woods. In those woods, Alto’s comrades are suiting up for the concert. As they finish, they begin leaving with the moody Alto being last to finally suit up. Meanwhile Ranka gets soaked from an automatic sprinkler system and seeing Alto changing from behind, she thinks he’s a she, which annoys him somewhat. He dries her clothing with his jets and then leads her through to were the concert building is. As a reward, she tells him to stop by the Chinese restaurant she works at where she’ll hook him up with something good.

The team flies in and the concert starts. Alto decides to do his corkscrew maneuver which goes awry and send Sheryl off the holographic meteor she was on. Alto saves her and being quick witted, Sheryl sternly tells Alto to keep flying and makes this seem like part of the concert by picking up the next verse and even being flirty during the song with Alto. The crowd loves it and soon the squad are up in the rafters, using their suit cameras to help provide coverage. Alto sees and zooms in on Ranka in the crowd, which is broadcast on TV.

While all this has been going on, an alien force approaches the fleet. They take out the first wave of interceptor fighters and when the heavy fighters show up, the aliens start taking them out as well. The president of the Macross fleet orders an evacuation which means the concert is over. Sheryl is reluctant to leave but is forced to do so. Seeing that they are going to flee to safety, Alto confronts them outside the building as they board a limo. He’s angry that they are getting to safety when so many people are still trying to leave the building. Sheryl tells him it is a job for pros, not amateurs.

Despite the “wall” of incoming fire from the fleet, the alien things (mecha suits?) have no trouble penetrating the defenses and one gets through the colony ship that held the Sheryl concert. 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. One of the heavy fighters follows it and orders Alto out of the area. The enemy unit gets on top of his fighter and forces him to eject where he’s in a mecha suit of his own. The fighter pilot 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:

I’m not sure what the deal is with the Deculture release of the first episode and the normal TV release. There were differences, but I’m just not clear on the reasons behind it (beyond the obvious thought that the Japanese believe they could make more money this way).

That said, I didn’t go back to watch the first version to discover all the differences. I did like that there was less time spent at the school for Alto angst. Because the episode shifts to have a scene with the high school flying squad suddenly in the facility so Sheryl could see them and be a snob, it didn’t make sense for them to suddenly haul all their gear outside to change. Why not change inside? Don’t get me wrong, I know that it was decided to reuse the outside footage from the first version, but its just one of those things that stand out to me.

The change in the concert…meh. I really am not much on the music but showing more of the flying act makes more sense seeing as how they are supposed to be part of the concert. That made the concert seem longer in some ways and there was more fanservice as Sheryl clothing “shifted” into something more revealing. The battle between the aliens and the Macross fighters was shorter in that the buildup was removed (the probes) and the scene of the alien burning its way through the dome of the colony ship was removed.

Ultimately, the changes are a mixed bag but that’s OK. We’ll see what’s in store next episode.