Articles with the Tag Macross

Episode nine and it’s time to talk about Var Syndrome as the extended metaphor for male sexuality/aggression it is, as lieutenant Messer is revealed to be a long suffering victim of it. It’s almost too obvious a metaphor: most (if not all) victims shown are male, once the syndrome is active their breathing becomes heavy, veins start bulging and popping, aggression ramps up, all self control is lost and the only way to be calmed down is through the music of a young, attractive group of idols…

In Messer’s case, it’s one particular idol that can always calm him down: Kaname Buccaneer, Walkure’s leader. Leader and team mum of Walkure, it isn’t much of a surprise that she would be the one to share a history with Messer. Mikumo is too aloof and strange, Makina and Reina are already a couple while Freyja is too new and with entirely the wrong personality to calm anybody down, but Kaname’s soothing, pleasant personality is perfect. There is something a bit old fashioned about having the aggressive straight laced man being soothed by the calm, more mature woman though.

Now I have been grumbling for weeks that Mirage had been getting short shift, which was finally remedied a bit this episode as she and Hayate confronted Messer with his illness and kept worrying about him. It’s an interesting role reversal to see the super serious, stick in the mud by the book officer being the one begging his hot blooded junior to overlook his handicap. Throughout the series he’s been judgemental of Hayate, worried about him being a liability to the squadron while he himself could at any moment been taken over by Var Syndrome and kill his team mates. No wonder Mirage and Hayate worry, especially the former, with her own sharply defined sense of duty. Being the only ones who kow his secret, or so they think, it’s only natural that they find secluded spots to talk it over. Something that’s ripe for misinterpretation…

And misinterpret Freyja does, leading to some truly hilarious reaction shots. There hasn’t been any explicit romance yet in the series (other than Best Couple) but Freyja and Hayate have been close from the start and have only grown closer over the course of the past eight episodes. Last epsiode we saw them synchronising their fold waves in battle, which brought them even closer; this episode it was explained that Hayate has the same natural immunity to Vars syndrome as the Walkure members. No wonder Freyja is confused and worried when Hayate starts hanging around with Mirage rather than herself. It’ll be interesting to see if this will finally jumpstart the usual Macross love triangle.

So in this episode Walkure and the Windermere Aerial Knights meet for the first time and it’s not a happy meeting, especially for the main trio. Hayate and Mirage get beaten up, Freyja almost is executed on the spot and worse they have to listen to Bogue –the red haired short tempered one– monologuing. Whether or not Windermere is justified in its actions, it’s clear that he at least has swallowed the justificatiosn hook, line and sinker. One does wonder about liberation needing biological warfare and permanent mind control though.

Certainly Freyja isn’t convinced. Anybody who can abuse her precious apples to wage war is by definition wrong. She got a lot of abuse these past three episodes from the Windermerians for her supposed treason but in the end none of it stuck. And why should it? She hasn’t done anything wrong, she just wanted to sing and help rid the galaxy from a dreadful disease. A disease that turned out to be engineered by her own people in order to subjugate other planets. To be honest, so far Windermere hasn’t really managed to give any convincing explanation as to why they shouldn’t be seen as pure villains, the individual nobility of some of the Knights notwithstanding — I hope they get at least a little bit more real justification later on.

This was once again a Freyja/Hayate centered episode, with Mirage reduced to a bystander for most of it, though she did get her one moment to shine early on. She’d managed to hang on to a flash bang grenade as they’d been disarmed by the red haired idiot and as Hayate deliberately taunts him to get him to overreact, she quickly throws it but as they attempt to escape they’re as quickly beaten down by the other Aerial Knights. It’s a remarkable effective scene for showing how far Hayate and Mirage have come to understand and trust each other. Rather unfortunate that like so much else Mirage tries, it doesn’t work.

Best couple is not surprised to see Hayate synchronise with Freyja during the end of the episode fight against the Aerial Knights as she sings to free a brain washed pilot from his enslavement and he duels with Bogue — poor old Mirage again reduced to bystander. Hayate and Freyja fit together well because their philsophy is so similar: she sings to save people and he is careful to shoot enemy Valkyries in the legs rather than kill them. Macross in general has always been wary of seeking military solutions in conflict and this fits in well with that philosophy of looking for alternate ways to resolve conflicts.

Finally, spare a thought for the hardworking people who bring you fansubs and how difficult it is to translate songs being sung on a battlefield — even if much of the first new song was in English. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy Macross Delta at all as the licensing rights are still fscked up thanks to the whole Robotech fiasco. However, the Japanese Bluerays come with English subs so if you want the option to directly support the series, it’ll be there.

So we open the infiltration mission with a pre-opening song gay hacking scene featuring the series’ best couple, Reina and Makina. I know I’ve been hammering a lot on this, but I can’t help but like how the show portrays their relationship through little scenes like this. Reina’s first hacking attempt on the defence network fails, so Makina leans in and offers a hand before the two make the Walkure sign together, flipping off the viewer in the process. It shows how much they trust and like each other without you needing to be told this directly.

The planet Voldor is populated with cat people, so that means dressing up with cat ears and lots and lost of nyanderful puns. Of course it would be Mirage who wants to spoil everybody’s fun, but it’s impawssible. You do have to wonder why the Walkure team would be sent in to infiltrate this supposedly not very strategic planet, but if it was logical it wouldn’t be Macross. And anyway, who cares when Best Couple is cosplaying cat girls?

We got a bit of their back story this time as well as to how their relationship got started. Guess what? It didn’t start out well, with them fighting to the point that Walkure had to cancel shows because of it. The picture says it all. There’s Kaname, Walkure’s leader, explaining how the two used to be oil and water, while the sexual tension comes through in the song lyrics even as they stand facing away from each other, arms crossed but one eye still on the other. You can feel their story from that one brief cut — and I do hope we’ll at least get an OVA out of the beginnings of Walkure at some point.

Plotwise not much else is of importance. The main characters are fairly useless throughout, Best Couple gets to showcase their gay hacking skills twice, while singing two different new songs and Freyja still has the best reaction faces in all of Macross. So much so that it’s difficult to choose just one to show. A setup episode if there ever was one. One thing that has been constantly missing so far has been Mirage taking the spotlight, so I hope that will change next episode, when the main three are left on their own.