マクロスF Episode 12
Macross F Ep. 12
Macross Frontier Anime

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Sheryl’s liner and Alto’s fighter arrive at Gallia 4, where trouble is brewing among the Zentradi troops stationed there. When Sheryl collapses while debarking her space liner, the leader of a rebellious faction of Zentradi who believe they are born to fight uses this as an excuse to launch an insurrection. Thus, Zentradi battle Zentradi over control of the 33rd Marine Corps base with its commander, Major Ogotai, forced to make some hard choices.

Back on Macross Frontier, Ranka returns to school for a day to be with her friends. Ranka’s critter friend is discovered by Nana, who reminds Ranka that keeping such a critter is a violation of the Ecosystem Protection Act, but she agrees to be Ranka’s accomplice. The news of the rebellion on Gallia 4 reaches Macross Frontier with Ranka, Luca, Micheal, and Nana also hearing it. Ranka wants Micheal to help Alto, but with the seven-day fold distortion, there’s no way that they could get a rescue in time. However, Luca has a way, thanks to his ties to LAI. It is a new fold engine that will overcome the fold distortion effect.

Thus equipped, Michael takes Ranka to Gallia 4 on his fighter. Their arrival is none to soon as the rebels have taken control of most of the base and have captured the heavy weapons of the Zentradi. Hearing Ranka singing through the atmosphere, the rebels and loyal Zentradi alike stop fighting, many happy that they would get to hear and see the hot new rising star “Ranka-chan” in person before her official debut. The leader of the rebels is not happy with this turn of events and decides to kill her in his armored suit. However, Alto has made it back to his fighter and insures that Ranka, now on a make-shift stage, is saved by defeating and killing the rebel leader. Hearing Ranka sing and the rebel leader having been slain, the Zentradi rebellion is over.

Alto lands his craft and comes to Ranka, chastising her a bit for her reckless behavior. The weight of it all hits Ranka, who collapses but manages to wish Alto a happy birthday. Micheal has Alto fly Ranka back to Macross Frontier so that she can make it in time for her concert there (Alto will pick up Micheal’s new fold engine that is currently in orbit of the planet). With Ranka properly suited up, they take off, both enjoying the moment of flying in a real sky. Before they can enter orbit to dock with the fold engine, Alto’s fighter experiences total power failure and he struggles to make a safe crash landing. Emerging from the fighter, Alto and Ranka are amazed to see in the valley below, what appears to be the ruins of SDF-1 Macross in its mecha form.

Thoughts/Review: OK, I know the franchise has always been about singing and the power of song to tame the savage heart, but this is still silliness to the extreme as I see it with Ranka-chan’s arrival and singing. While the ability of fighters to fly and shift into Gerwalk modes or Battroid modes is not credible, I can suspend my disbelief because in this Macross universe, the alien technology explains that away. Ranka’s singing with an opened cockpit just hits the wall, no matter how nice her songs are (and this episode was a Ranka-chan song fest, so get out and buy the album, y’all).

While on the subject of Ranka, she gets to one-up Sheryl in the end. Yes, Alto gets to experience flying in a real sky, which was Sheryl’s gift, but Ranka got to share in that experience while Sheryl recuperated. Ranka also gets to wish Alto a happy birthday, which was her wish all along. Still, while I prefer a Ranka-Alto pairing, I can’t help but feel sorry for Sheryl this time.

I’m guessing the rebel Zentradi is working with Leon and subsequently Grace. So what the smeg is the plan here? How does all of this tie in with the Vajra? I can’t imagine that Luca’s getting this new fold drive was part of the plan though. Everything in the plan seemed tied to the fact that it would take a week before help could arrive on the planet.

As to the shot of the SDF-1 Macross at the end, I’m not sure I buy that at all. It is possible the writers may come up with a way for this to be the original Macross. My initial thought was that it is a Supervision Army ship that crashed on Gallia 4 long ago (that would be a cool development) or it is SDF-2 Megaroad-01 (Megalord as some call it), which had mysteriously vanished with Misa, Hikaru, and Lynn all on board (from the original series). However, not having seen Macross 7, I was unaware that Megaroad-01 was not given the ability to transform into a mecha mode. So that rules out having the mystery of what happened to the Megaroad-01 solved. So that leaves a Supervision Army ship or somehow, SDF-1 Macross ends up on an alien planet.

However the writers play it, this was one massive plot twist that I didn’t expect. So kudos to the writers for the unexpected. Whether those kudos continue will depend on where things go.

So, there are a lot of unanswered questions like what Leon is up to, what is happening to Sheryl, and why is a craft looking like the transformed SDF-1 Macross on Gallia 4?