Macross Delta 6 — Tight couplings
Makina and Reina continue to fascinate me in Macross Delta. They’re such a nice, well balanced couple I dread the day the series will make them into close friends or something similar. So far though Delta has been very good in showing, not telling how close they are, how comfortable they are with each other. They’re also the friendliest of the whole Walkure crew, not afraid to mingle with the support crew or in Makina’s case work on the Valkyries themselves, the ones most active in welcoming Hayate and Freyja to the team.
Meanwhile those two are so in synch the supporting cast is wondering whether they were separated at birth. Again, this is shown as much in their behaviour around each other as in dialogue. It has been that way since the very first episode but it’s still on that cusp between friendship and romance, where it could go either way. In general there seems to be much less drama in Delta‘s love triangles than in previous instalments, but their strong bond leaves the third member of the triangle somewhat out in the cold.
Mirage has been somewhat of a tsundere, slightly hostile to Hayate at first, not unjustified considering how they first met (not to mention him throwing up all over her after his first training flight). It was obvious that her somewhat stiff and by the book attitude was hiding some personal trauma –that’s always the cases with these characters– and we got a hint of it this episode. Last time she’d already mentioned her grandparents, arguably the most famous fighter pilot couple in the Galaxy and their legacy; it’s no surprise she feels the pressure. There were a fair few signs of a blossoming friendship between her and Hayate this episode, but no romance yet.
But perhaps we have been looking in the wrong direction for our love triangle. Perhaps it’s not so much Freyja x Hayate x Mirage as Hayate x Freyja x Mikumo? The latter certainly seems …interested in the new Walkure member more than mere friendship or camaraderie might justify. She’s also a bit more …hands-on with Freyja than with the other Walkure members. Mind, it’s all suggestion and nothing concrete so far, but wouldn’t it be fun if that was the official love triangle?
Your annual Hugo sabotage
IMPORTANT: cant go to hugos award so to thwart devil plans, true buckaroo ZOE QUINN (name of @unburtwitch) has agreed to accept award for me
— Chuck Tingle (@ChuckTingle) May 5, 2016
Well, that made me laugh in the midst of yet another puppy temper tantrum/Vox Day publicity stunt thrown at the expense of the Hugos. As you know Bob, “Chuck Tingle” is a cult writer of increasingly bizarre gay porn, usually about being pounded in the butt by metaphysical concepts. The pups thought it would be hi-larious to nominate his story “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” for Best Short Story, just because it sounded similar to Rachel Swirsky’s “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” which they still have an incredible hate-on for. And of course also because these are the kind of people who think calling somebody gay is both funny and an insult.
Of course the only real reason it’d bother anybody is because it means some more worthy story lost out because of this stupid stunt, not so much that a bit of gay porn with a sci-fi flavour got nominated in the first place. Tingle nominating Zoe Quinn to receive his award is a great piece of counter trolling. Zoe Quinn was Victim Zero of Gamergate, as her ex-boyfriend Eron Gjoni involved the shadier parts of the socalled gaming community to harass her. Puppies being who they are they’re of course on the harassing side, so having Quinn accoet is a giant fuck you in their direction by Tingle.
It helps soften the annoyance and pain of having to deal with their shit for another year.
The best reason to watch Another…
…is the dance scene from episode five. It makes sense in context. Another was a bit of a disappointment as a horror story, as so much of it just wasn’t scary despite trying very hard to be. The first three-four episodes were the best, as the protagonist slowly got to learn the details of what was goin on, but once he knew too much of the tension was gone. Too many of the deaths happened because the plot demanded it and the characters acted dumb, so it went all a bit narmy. Still fun enough to watch all the way through though, if only for the relationship between the two above.