After the battle, the mourning. We open on Messer’s homecoming as his team mates and Walkure crew salute his coffin. It sets the tone for the rest of this episode. Walkure and Delta Squadron have been dealt a heavy blow. Apart from the loss of a comrade and friend, there’s the simple fact that their best pilot was brought down with a single shot through the heart. Despite their conquests Windermere until now hadn’t yet directly attacked Walkure, but rather skirmished with them. This was the first time they could bring their full power to bear and they managed to not only kill their enemy’s ace pilot but also to overpower Walkure itself through the song of the Wind Singer. It’s no wonder we see Windermere plot further attacks, while everybody in Walkure & the Delta squadron wonders what they could’ve done to prevent Messer’s death.
Much of the emotion in this episode is understated, controlled, but not the grief that waitress from episode four feels. It’s interesting that she’s the only one grieving openingly when his old flame Kaname remains stoic, though perhaps only on the outside. But of course Kaname is military as well as an idol, not a civilian like our waitress. She still has a job to do. And as the occassional cutaways to Windermere show, that job is only to get harder from here on.
What I like about this series of Macross is how it has attempted to give Ragnar a distinct culture, as also seen in the previous episode’s jellyfish festival. Floating people out to sea for their final voyage is an old tradition among many seafaring peoples so it makes sense that the Ragnarians have something like it as well. Though here it’s symbolic, as the Nyannyan kids created a model of Messer’s Valkyrie to float out. It’s an emotional scene as the entire crew of Walkure and Delta Squadron, as well as the Nyannyan staff say their farewells.
And of course it’s only right and proper to have the fallen warrior be sent off by Walkures singing a final song to him
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