Review of Robotech: Macross Saga Complete Box Set

Introduction

Hold onto your hats, anime fans - you`re about to receive a history lesson.

In the mid-eighties, Harmony Gold and producer Carl Macek had plans to bring the popular `Super Dimension Fortress Macross` mecha anime series from Japan to America, re-named `Robotech`, dubbed and rejigged a little, and marketed as a worthy tea-time toon for US audiences. The problem was, syndication rules (syndication being the practice of production companies selling mass packages of episodes to individual stations as opposed or after network broadcast) of the time dictated that a syndication package must be no less that 65 episodes. `Super Dimensional Fortress` Macross was 36 episodes long. Oh no!

How do you solve a problem like Macross? Well, like most problems, wallets were opened and the problems went away. In this case, Harmony Gold bought the rights to two completely unrelated mecha shows, `Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross` and `Genesis Climber Mospeada`. Because they were similar in style and content, with some crafty re-writing, editing, and dubbing, these series were turned into the second and third generations of the story that started with Macross, and Harmony Gold had an 85 part "space saga" on their hands. Get it yet? No? Right, well, to elaborate (and not to mention exercise a little imagination), if the shoe was on the other foot and a Japanese TV company bought `Buffy The Vampire Slayer`, `Charmed` and `Firefly`, once the shows were re-written and dubbed into a multi-generational saga for the Japanese, the Charmed sisters could be the kids of Anya and Xander, and Mal Reynolds could be Buffy`s great, great, great, grandson, running away from vampires (what were once reavers) in space. See? Of course if you don`t watch cult TV shows, the scenario is probably lost on you, along with several sentences of crafty reviewer logic. Pah!

Anyway, what we have here is the first 36 episodes of the `Robotech` story, titled `The Macross Saga`. Originally broadcast in 1985, this first-third of a giant space-opera begins when an alien battle fortress crashes through Earth`s atmosphere and into a Pacific island of Macross. Mankind unites, sets aside their differences and combine their efforts to use the technology on this ship to advance the human race (awwww). Thanks to the advanced Robotechnology, after several years humanity has mastered the use of giant mecha. But this new gadgetry is put to use straight away, along with the now repaired SDF-1, in defending the planet from the invading Zentraedi, a race of aliens who want the technology on board the fortress, as well as other secrets the vessel is hiding, for themselves.

Originally released as three individual volumes, the entire "Remastered Extended Edition" of `Robotech: The Macross Saga` is out now as a modestly-priced box-set from Manga Entertainment.

Video

Robotech is decidedly old-skool anime, unsurprisingly reflected in the art style. The character design and environments are simplistic and under-detailed compared to modern anime fare, but the 1.33:1 transfer holds up rather well thanks to a digital remastering process that`s brought out a colour and vibrancy that probably wasn`t there to begin with many moons ago when the original show was created. The animation can become sluggish when they slip in a badly disguised edit, and it suffers a bit from film noise/grain, but considering its age, it`s easy enough on the eye, and puts a few DVDs of other animation shows from the era to shame.

Audio

An upmixed Dolby Digital 5.1 English track. The mix makes a good job of equalising the dialogue, with drop-out a rarity and little drowning under the well implemented directional effects. Just in case you didn`t figure it out, the English track is the native audio for this show. No Japanese - for that you want the original Macross series.

Features

While the only extras are identical Manga Entertainment propaganda reels, the series on DVD does feature extra footage that was originally spliced away from the broadcast version.

Conclusion

While it`s hard to make a direct comparison between `Robotech: The Marcross Saga` and `Super Dimension Fortress Macross` without having seen a whole lot of material from the latter, `Robotech: The Macross Saga` is a fun space opera, a notch or two above similar material from the era and producer Macek`s love for the medium is clearly characterised by a valuable integrity to the spirit of Japanese anime of the day. Although it`s fairly benign, something the hardcore crowd who bless themselves with the term `Otaku` may object to, the show has an aura of grandness that makes it easy to appreciate this was a landmark show for young Western audiences, who`d never seen anything like it on television. Action-packed and fluid, the show`s greatest asset is the epic vision it creates within a mere few episodes.

The show begins in fine fashion with the first volume, and although it slips a little during volume 2, with several middling (ha!) episodes that fall victim to a tired repetition, the third volume finishes things of appropriately and sets up the next part of the saga - `Robotech: The Masters`. Judged as a complete entity, most of the narrative mis-steps can be forgiven as the show is quick to find its feet again when it flails. It`s also worth mentioning that buying into this first part of the saga doesn`t mean you can`t give the next batch of the saga a miss; there`s enough here for it to stand purely on its own.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about `Robotech: The Macross Saga` is that as a show aimed at kids, it features a lot of adult themes - particularly love and death, and the reverberations of both. The epic, overarcing narrative of the series is much more involving and astute than you`d expect, clearly intended to give youngsters a little food for thought amongst the arial dogfights and robot mayhem. That being said, while it falls under the banner of anime thanks to its Eastern genesis, the show is just as susceptible to typical animation weaknesses as Western cartoons; poor characterisation, trite dialogue and all manner of adult alienating flaws that still to this day present themselves in child-friendly Western animation, but have been successfully ironed out from much of anime by a salacious appetite from a grown-up audience for the medium.

As with shows like `Ulysses 31`, `Robotech: The Macross Saga` offers enough in terms of enjoyment if you`re coming fresh to the franchise, but those who`re going to get the most of it will be viewing through rose-coloured spectacles, and will undoubtedly absolve it of all its sins through pure nostalgia alone - perhaps not for the show itself, but for those of its ilk. Open-minded anime fans who can appreciate this was a genuine attempt to bring anime to the western shores before `Akira` created a fanbase en-masse, or anyone looking to wallow in the halcyon days when `toons could tell a story without getting over-complicated could do worse than give this one a whirl, especially with the reduced price it`s been afforded (ha!) at various on-line stores. [See Jitendar Canth`s individual volume reviews]