Macross Frontier 25 (finale)
マクロスF Episode 25 (end)
Macross F Ep. 25 (final)
Macross Frontier Anime

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:  

Macross Quarter arrives to save what’s left of the Macross Frontier fleet with Captain Wilder (backed by Cathy) accusing Leon of assassinating the former president and stating that Grace had fooled them all. Leon is arrested as Alto is revealed to be alive and reports that the giant image of Ranka is not in fact Ranka. With that, Macross Quarter fires on the image, destroying it and revealing that Battle Frontier, the main warship from Galaxy Frontier, was not destroyed in the Vajra attack. Grace, joining her comrades (whomever they are), remark on the facade being revealed but it is no matter as they prepare to activate their new network.

Alto pleads with Sheryl to sing to wake Ranka up since Ranka wants to be saved. Using Sheryl’s earring and combining with Sheryl’s song, Alto does make contact with Ranka, causing the harmonica she wears to break. Grace activates the Vajra network, revealing that the Vajra predate the Protoculture and are a super-dimensional life form. Grace wants the universe to bow to her and with the Vajra at her command, she orders them to attack everywhere, including the Macross 11 fleet and Macross City on Earth.

With the Vajra united as never before, the Macross Frontier fleet loses a large number of ships. Ranka begins to sing a different song and Brera, who’d been injured and now is free from Grace’s control, encourages her to continue doing so. This causes the Vajra to stop their attacks. Ranka reaches out with her mind to Sheryl and the two begin singing, causing their own fold waves to counter Grace’s fold wave network. Alto is able to get inside the Battle Frontier through a breach in the hull and rescue Ranka in his fighter. Once outside the mecha-ship, they are joined by Ai-kun, which makes Ranka very happy.

Grace attempts to have Island 1 destroyed but thanks to Ranka’s song, the Vajra form a protective wall against Grace’s attack. Grace only now begins to understand the true power of Ranka’s song and she tells the humans that her form is the next stage of human evolution, thus they shouldn’t be fighting her. Klan passes Micheal’s mecha sniper rifle to Alto so that he can take the killing shot at Grace after the Vajra open a hole in her defense shield. He does and she’s destroyed as is the queen Vajra she’s connected to. The surviving Macross Frontier ships land on the planet (including Island 1) and look at their new home. As Alto soars the skies in his jet pack, Ranka and Sheryl promise each other they won’t lose in song or love.

Thoughts/Review:

{singing}

So this series’s finally done

And the battle’s truly won

How I managed to make it through

Until the very end

So you know I won’t pretend

That I thought this was a great series

Not that it was any great prediction or anything, but I was right about Sheryl and Ranka being the ultimate resolution to the series. Since Alto says both girls are his wings (and since he obviously didn’t die in the previous episode), that’s the ultimate resolution to the love-triangle and something Sheryl and Ranka cannot resolve. They can tell each other they won’t lose to the other, but let’s face it — they will be co-wives to Alto and there’s nothing you can do about it!

Klan can get micro in a hurry, can’t she? One moment she’s in her normal, Zentradi form and she’s rescued in her damaged fighter. The next thing you know, she’s in micron-form, in Micheal’s old fighter and using his sniper gun. Well, at least she and Nene survived. I would not have been happy if Klan had died. She was one of the few characters I cared about for some reason.

While on the topic of Zentradi, I remember reading somewhere that it was possible for Richard Bilrer to be old enough to have remembered Linn Minmei. I guess that is true since his locket had a picture of Minmei. However, his whole connection to Grace and Leon’s plot eludes me a bit. Maybe re-watching the series would make that clearer to me, but frankly, that is not going to happen.

Visually, the episode lived up to the previous episodes when it came to looking pretty. The battle scenes are well done and it made me think back to the original Macross. How times have changed, huh?

I don’t remember “pinpoint barriers” being discussed before this episode but they were a big part of the original series. Seeing Macross City was a nice final tribute. I’m not sure what Macross 11 is from though. I did some looking and it seems that the original plan for Macross F was that the fleet would not be called “Macross Frontier” but “Macross 11.” If that’s true, then this is a nod by the production team to that original idea, which is pretty nice.

There was the Macross Zero reference here with the Vajra being the original “birdmen” as it were which the Protoculture then imitated. Whatever.

Ultimately, I struggle trying to put together some thoughts about this episode but the only thing that goes through my head over and over is, “I’m so glad this is over.” Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a bad anime; it was merely average when it came to story but it was very pretty to look at (and the music was pretty good).