Hello everyone,
Let's go ahead with another review of a rather recent anime with very high production value. We're talking about one anime using as trademark one of the most famous anime of all times (Superdimensional Fortress Macross) and is named Macross Frontier! (The project has been created to commemorate the 25th anniversary from the creation of the first series with the name Macross)
Let's start with a synopsis :
Macross Frontier marks the 25th anniversary of the Macross anime franchise. It is a direct sequel to the first Macross series and Macross 7 and follows the lives of Alto Saotome, Ranka Lee and a pop idol named Sheryl Nome on board the Macross Frontier colonization fleet. After the war against the Zentradi aliens, Humankind has spread across the universe in order to ensure its survival. The Macross Frontier fleet is part of a effort to spread and maintain the culture of humanity.
Yes, this is a series involving mechas, battles, sci-fi, but more than this songs like all the Macross stories after all!
The songs and the romance that flows around them is the main focus of the series with the battles and the drama being just a plot device to advance these.
The quality of the story and of the direction is wonderful especially if you know already the setting of this series (but it is anyway not necessary to appreciate the series)
The only lame part about the story is maybe the ending that like many of these series with a triangle relationship ends up open ended with no real choice by our main character.
The main characters are three (Ranka, Sheryl and Alto) and you'll find yourself loving each one of them as there is given enough time for their backstory to develop fully.
I found myself laughing more than one time at Alto's backstory related to the acting and his obvious hating the situation!!!
My favourite character is by far the cute and simple Ranka Lee even if sometimes she gets a little too much emo over little things.
The visual quality is top notch (one of the best of the last years) and the animation is pretty consistent in the whole series with little or no screw up.
The sound quality is also top notch and very prolific. We have tons of songs inside this series and all of them really beautiful! My favourite is most likely "Anata no Oto" sung by Ranka Lee (aka Megumi Nakajima)
The seiyuus of the main characters while not the most famous have done a nice job portraying the characters internal conflicts and emotions.
The seiyuus of the minor characters instead were all top notch with artist like Jun Fukuyama (Luca Angeloni), Aya Hirano (Mena Roshan), Kikuko Inoue (Grace O'Connor), etc...
Concluding this is an anime series I suggest to anyone out there due to the high production value and rather well done story. (It could have been the masterpiece of all times with a better produced ending)
It is also a nice pick to let someone start watching animes due the low fanservice and nice/simple plot!
See you soon,
feal87