May 29th, 2016 
AstroNerdBoy Macross Delta 08
Macross Δ 08
マクロスΔ 08
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Mirage, Hayate, and Freyja are captured by the White Knights, resulting in Mirage and Hayate getting a beating for attempting to defend Freyja and for attempting to escape. Roid stops Bogue from killing Freyja as Mikumo joins her fellow Walküre members and the now injured Messer, who then put on an impromptu concert from their location, allowing the other girls to magically sing while still performing a rescue mission. Keith encounters Messer and once he realizes whom his opponent is, decides to finish Messer off in the sky. A rescue team from Aether arrives, along with fighters for Hayate and Messer.
On Windermere, Heinz starts singing, causing the Protoculture ruins on Voldor to react. Walküre put on another concert as Messer starts succumbing to Var Syndrome. The girls hear Heinz’s song, but Kaname detects that the ruins are reacting to them now. Hayate is forced to battle Captain Alberto Larrazába. Freyja decides to sing her heart out to turn the captain as Hayate defends her. Freyja heals the captain as Kaname detects that Hayate is resonating with Freyja, who has returned to the sky to battle Bogue. Hayate wins, so with their objectives achieved, Delta Squad and Walküre return to Aether. On the ship, Mikumo seems to accept Freyja and her reason for singing.
Thoughts/Review:
Man, after piquing my interest, this episode had me cringing like mad.
I’ll start with some elements that I liked (which weren’t many), starting with the fact that Mirage and Hayate weren’t able to get away with Freyja. After they’d been captured and beaten to a degree, Mirage reveals she has a flash grenade. I thought for sure they’d get away and start the chase, which would then lead them to the other magical idol girls. So I was pleasantly surprised when all that resulted from Mirage’s actions was Bogue getting stunned, but Mirage and Hayate getting a beating.
Although it wasn’t surprising to me, I liked seeing Messer briefly get afflicted by the Var Syndrome. Just for his own character development, I’d like to see this explored further in the show, though I doubt it will have time with all of the magical idol concerts that have to happen. (And don’t forget, BUY THE MUSIC CDs!)
Hayate defending Freyja is not unexpected and yeah, he does that a lot. But there’s a difference between doing that from the relative safety of a mecha-fighter and standing there to protect Freyja when you know you are going to get a vicious beating. So even though I hate Hayate (and I wish that his injuries were worse than it appeared), I’ll give the character marks for his act of chivalry.
On the other hand, I was annoyed by Hayate’s decision to not kill anyone else. It was fine when he just damaged Alberto’s plane because the man is a possessed ally. However, when he had a chance to kill Bogue, he lets him go. It is a shame that Hayate likely won’t pay a price for this because he’s the MC. However, in war, you kill the enemy; you don’t try to be clever by half and allow them to live another day to possibly take your life or the life of one of your comrades.
I will admit to being mildly amused by Freyja being upset over her countrymen using apples as an act of war.
Because I’ve been calling the members of Walküre “magic girls,” I laughed out loud at the fact that they now have some magical (yeah, I know — it is technology, but it is used in a magic girl fashion) attacks. Their holograms can be weaponized, depending on the situation. They can be used as stun fields or to take out incoming missiles. Magic idol girls are doing it for themselves!
Of course the real laugher here is that while their songs MUST be live to have any affect, we are constantly shown how the Walküre magical idol girls aren’t singing, but the singing is still going. Even while they discuss Heinz singing (while their own song is still bleating on), the Protoculture ruin is actively reacting to their singing, which they aren’t doing, even though their song is still playing. Heck, the singing continues even when they stop singing because of massive explosions in the area.
While on the topic of singing and music, the hideous, pretentious, impromptu idol concerts anywhere, anytime, battlefields be damned, makes me cringe. I can’t stand it and I end up muting the sound. It is laughably bad and clearly just another, “BUY THIS MUSIC CD!” advertisement. Not that any of the folks who might get mad reading this are going to buy jack, especially a music CD (or rather CDs) from Japan that costs an arm and a leg to buy, then the other arm and leg to get shipped out of Japan.
Look, there’s a difference between playing music of any kind during action scenes and the stupidity of trying to capitalize on the idol craze by trotting these girls out for impromptu concerts in the middle of what should be a bloody battlefield. If Walküre were just using their tech to help Delta Squad and their music was blatting in the background, I’d probably just roll my eyes. But the fact that they change to their idol getup and do their idol thing while supposedly singing live (ha!ha!) is just extreme stupidity.
Finally, I guess Mikumo is shifting from bitch mode to oneechan mode when it comes to her dealing with Freyja. Whatever. Go be with Hayate, Mikumo, even though the story is setting up the Freyja x Hayate element with their resonance.
In the end, this episode is another one where everything is structured for trying to get otaku to make purchases, mostly of music, and the plot be damned.
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Seems that you finally did catch up to the current chapter…. and we have similar views of this show, but I have to add something: The music that they are selling isn’t even good. The only song that I really liked was the one first used on the climax of the first chapter… It looked that they used those final minutes to present the series to the possible investors, as everything else on all the other chapters is halfhearted, just to make the timeline and present the products.
Frontier at least had some good music.
PD: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MerchandiseDriven
I haven’t cared for any of the music, but the cringe factor makes it even less likable.
What do you think of Frejya music in climax of ep 8. It gives me in tears of joy.
By the way you are wrong on music sales. Its OP song rank3rd in entire japan. y the way in Macross 7, the singer fly s VF to sing
Next ep we going to see Messer and Kaname past, so once again you are wrong
What was I wrong about? I didn’t speculate on sales in Japan.
About what?
About this episode is another one where everything is structured for trying to get otaku to make purchases, mostly of music, and the plot be damned
But that’s how the episode is structured. And the chyron that streams below a couple of times per episode, advertising the music and such is further proof. Another music CD single for the series is being released now (or in the very near future). Remember, anime productions today are mostly advertisements. Most of the time, it is for a light novel or manga series that the anime is being adapted from. In the case of an original series like Macross Delta, the advertisement is for the music, then the toys. Because Macross Delta is an original series (and thus they don’t have to worry too much about angering fans of source material), the writers can structure things as they wish, which as I see it, they are structuring things to push sales of music CDs. 🙂
The way you says Macross Delta is Shitty anime which I says ITS NOT as its so far has BEST dogfight scene in entire macros franchise and I always prefer Frejya than Ranka
Then you should watch ep 9 as its plot on Messer and Kaname. By the way Mikumo is not bitch. as most of her point are correct and she just use harsh training method and her advice and word ALWAYS ended up helping Frejya in character development
Which you prefer, Ranka or Frejya?
Having good visuals doesn’t make for a good story though.
The original Macross series has very dated art and animation and some of it looks quite bad by today’s standards. However, the original Macross story, even with its flaws, is far superior to me than any other Macross title that has come out since.
Hopefully, I’ll get to do that soon. 🙂
I see the characters in a similar light. That’s not unsurprising since it appears that the writers of Macross Delta have made Freyja be similar to Ranka. So I can’t say that I like one above the other.
Frankly this has been one of the least appealing of the Macross series I’ve ever watched.
I understand these shows aren’t made for good graces of animation companies to purely entertain. They do need to make profit of selling it to television stations or other forms of broadcasters.
Whoever concocted this specific resurrection of Macross should have been removed. This just plain terrible.
I’ve never been fan of Macross 7 mentality, but music being soul punching reason for show be out there. To sell music, goes show the sad state of affairs of anime industry, ever mind music one.
I rather have toy company backing this thing up, least you’d get more action less stupidness of song to save universe in every battle. I enjoyed Macross Frontier, least it was balanced in the way story was told and music was being marketed.
Delta superior than frontier in all aspect as in world building, better dog fight, Better VF and better idol namely Frejya better than Ranka
Do you think their trying to channel Macross Plus into this. I kind found it strange that everyone seems to be doing flying with their hand thing.
Yeah, this hasn’t rocked my boat either. But it apparently does jazz a lot of folks. I’m probably just too old. 😛
You must watch ep 10. That was best Delta episode ever
I just watched episode 9. I’ll get to that soon. 🙂