Macross Zero

(Originally 11 November 2006)

Another recommendation from a friend. I didn't find the lead characters very likeable, and the others were mainly there to fight each other, and there was plenty of fighting to go around. The choreography for the aerial battles looked fairly complex. Of the combat scenes, hats off to the final, the jet engagement in the first episode, and the first variable fighter engagement in the second episode.

They dress up the island dwellers as ignorant, which they might very well be, but it's not something that I have an easy time watching. Sora, their leader, says the most inane coupled with the most profound things, usually within a few moments of the other. Likewise, the scientist character is stubborn in her naive beliefs, which is marginally more acceptable because it's science, after all. Overt idealism apparently runs in a lot of Shoji Kawamori's work, the environment being a big theme (Arjuna, apparently).

The story itself is fairly straightforward. Find pieces of a large artifact (or creature) and put it together to attain real ultimate power. While hunting around and being cocky to the island dwellers who don't know anything, fend off attacks from the enemy who wants real ultimate power as well. I found the head scientist character to be rather snooty. Like I said, the natives say equally inane and profound things, and she believes none of it, not so much because of scientific skepticism, but because she has her own theory of how things should be, which serves as a convenient ground for dismissal of everything else. I found it fairly frustrating all the same, in no small part because I as a viewer just know that Bad Things (TM) are going to happen, and that they happen due to the black-and-white stances of the characters cheapens the feel.

Animation, background, visuals were all detailed and realistic. I can't really comment or elaborate beyond that.