Hai, Kawamori-san
Since I seem to have never been the popular voice on Macross F—although I believe I have been the more rational one—there is no reason to break the tradition now:
This episode was stupid, a ruin to what was a great show up until ep. 25.
Because coexisting is not in our human nature.
Listening to the exchange between Brera and Klan on who is the aggressor is very telling.
“No, we’re only defending ourselves.”
“Bullshit, you attacked us first.”
And then you have the brainwashing of the Frontier army: “We must eliminate them for us to survive.” “May the divine providence of the universe smile upon us.”
The thinnest bear is awakened in the winter
by the sleep-laughter of locusts,
by the dream-blustering of bees,
by the honeyed scent of desert sands
that the wind carries in her womb
into the distant hills, into the houses of Cedar.
Hottest villain in recent anime
Grace really has a lot going for her hotness: the glasses, the slender body, high heels, evil smile, the sophisticated hairdo, and the hooter top underneath the lab coat; and if you’re a bit more kinky, the implants that intrude her body and the tentacle arm that can intrude yours should be more than sufficient to tickle all your fantasies.
But if you’re a bit more demanding in your woman and require some deeper substance, then you’ll be happy to know that in addition to her being a brainiac scientist she is also aspiring to change the world! OK, so she needs to massacre an entire species and experiments on a few children, but hey, it’s all for the advancement of mankind, right?
Virgin Ranka won't approve what Sheryl and Alto did.
I don’t know why the writers want to lead us to think, through Ozma’s my balls haven’t dropped but so what I’m still a man speech, which quite frankly, makes completely no sense to me; that Alto has been and still is a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. He has never seemed to me to be such. The dude had resisted the blunt advances of two first-tier Divas but instead chose to fly in limitless sky; defied his father, abandoned his family tradition, his innate skill, but instead sought to become a pilot, which quite frankly is still at best second rate despite what Ozma has said; and over and over again, bumped heads with Brera who kicked his butts rolling and tumbling, but yet had never shunned from the Cyborg once. If he had gone with the flow, he would’ve been seeing Sheryl on odd days and Ranka on even’s. Oh wait, he did sort of do that. High five, Alto!
If they made it, what color would their offspring's hair be?
First of all, I will say that I applaud Ranka for finally leaving behind everything that has entangled her for so long on Frontier and boldly searching for the truth herself at where must have been the most dangerous place she knows to be.
Poignantly performed
It is frightening how sometimes the course of history could’ve been tipped over one way or the other by one simple act of a few individuals at one crucial moment. Had Ranka not ran into Sheryl falling into Alto’s arms on that fateful day when the Vajra swarm happened to hatch, she might’ve remained in her little bubble of genki-ness, on top of the world, still charged with rabu rabu feelings, embraced as heroine. Perhaps then when the Vajra swarm showed up, Ranka would’ve been able to sing her heart out in pure bliss, and the whole universe would see that the Vajra, too, were a peaceful species, just as the Zentradi had become not too long ago, capable of celebrating along side with both humans and Zentradi the art of music, just as Ai-kun had, waving his little antennas, standing behind some fans at Ranka’s concert one episode ago.
If only for that one brief moment, things may have been so very different.
You. deserve. it. *sob*
I’m too much of a coward.
You can never tell when people are going to die.
Especially because we’re pilots.
My only matches are those I don’t really care about.
Getting serious is too frightening.
—Michel, episode 19.
how original
As the remaining quarter of the show ushers in, so is the remaining quarter of Ranka’s blood at the verge of entering center stage. But for someone who seems to have everything already, something catastrophic needs to happen to force her to turn to the monstrosity hidden in her.
So, what did the writers use for this plot device?
moment that defines a person
Sheryl
I remember when I was just a kid my mother taught me a life lesson when she brought home some silkworms, which at first did nothing beside nibbling incessantly on some jagged-edge leaves for days until they wrapped themselves round and round in their white silk cocoons. A few days passed in absolute stillness. Then on one morning, one of the cocoon started to shake ever so slightly, which I caught the sight of and tried to help the struggling moth by peeling the cocoon that was entrapping it. Immediately, my mom reprimanded me, explaining that unless this moth was given the chance to break through the cocoon under its own strength, as its first act of commitment to life, it will not triumph over life’s many challenges ahead.
In similar ways, it is times like these that will give Sheryl the chance to reach deeper and realize strength that will surprise even herself. If you think her I am Sheryl Nome was ostentatious, wait til she breaks through this cocoon and spread her wings.
Spike...
I am going to play the Devil’s Advocate here and say something negative about this episode. You have been warned.
There’s an old saying in Chinese that a good horse does not graze the same pasture twice. I suppose, then, the writers of Macross F must be trying to tell us something about themselves. While I have no problem with them trying to find greener pasture, I do question at what cost have they inflicted to the overall story.
First, allow me to express how I feel about this episode:
"Ranka!" is the new "Jesus Christ!"
Yes, seriously.
"Sugei" sounded better.
My face certainly has deculture written all over it.
You know you want to believe!
If I was that evil, I'd snigger like that too.
Affirmative: This was one kick-ass episode.
One is a failed project—to be replaced by the other.
The opera that is Macross F has entered into an intermission or otherwise known as recap episode. But before you cry, “filler crap!” this was one captivating, refreshing recap. OK, “refreshing recap” may sound like an oxymoron, but the writers made it worked by revisiting old scenes from a new revelatory perspective of Grace, which confirmed many old hunches as well as raised new questions.
The true face of the Vajra?
Let’s make a conjecture on how Ranka is 1/4 Zentradi. Her father was probably half human, half Zentradi; her mom, on the other hand, given her absence in the photo at the lab and the revelation from this episode, was probably neither human nor Zentradi but instead a pure Vajra—perhaps the very creature that Alto had just destroyed. How that union could’ve taken place, I’ll leave to the fanfiction artists, but from this, we see that
Ranka = 1/4 human + 1/4 Zentradi + 1/2 Vajra.
Potentially Ranka’s true form
Queen of the Hive
This episode gives plenty of evidence that Ranka has more than just Zentrali blood flowing in her. Already in the prior episodes, that baby Vajra was somehow instinctively drawn to her as if an infant to their mother. Now in this episode, her stomach glows just as mother Vajra’s abdominal is ruptured, and the timing of her need to lay something in the forest could not have been totally unaligned to the mother Vajra’s own timing to lay its eggs either.
Chu Song from Four Sides (四面楚歌)
Can you believe it? What Ranka did in Macross F 12 wasn’t so farfetched after all. There has been a case in history where songs had virtually disintegrated an entire army and eventually ended a long-drawn war.
The only blood drawn in the entire episode.
Ranka turned out to be the only deadly weapon in this little revolt. Her one little twinkle of the eye and all the men dropped all their guns with one of them even exploded into an eruption of nosebleed—the only blood drawn despite countless of shots fired.
When you wish upon a star…
A definite character-building episode for our hero Alto. It’s his birthday, and he’s presented with three birthday presents. His choice will reveal what his heart desires. Let’s first review his choices:
Finally, the light of dawn shines for Ranka.
I’ve never liked Ranka—and I still don’t, because I still think she’s way overrated, too old to be a loli, too young to be a vixen—but it’s still quite satisfying to see someone who’s been consistently overlooked by everyone, overshadowed by peers, yet having the resilience to wipe their tears off their face and strive on, doing absolutely mediocre tasks in order to walk down a path that can’t be seen beyond the next step; to suddenly, see a glimp of hope. *tears*
Of course, this is fiction and Ranka is the main character, so we all know she will succeed; but the prior episodes have done such a great job on exposing her lingering pain and despair insidiously admist the larger plot of the battle with the Vajra, that I have unknowingly developed sentiments for Ranka. I do give a damn after all!
I knew it!
There are only two things you need to know about this episode:
And maybe one more:
Everything else—including the return of the kickass fight sequence—is just for show since Macross Frontier is really first a love drama then second a space mecha show.
Don’t switch channel. This really is a post on Macross Frontier.
How we made the transition from a life & death space battle to a pantsu pokemon chase in high school is beyond me. As much fun as watching a panty-less Sheryl running around recklessly and hoping she would land crotch first on the face of some nose-bleeding four eyes were, I couldn’t help but feel that this episode has totally deflated the excitement from the last episode. I’m not saying the writers should’ve tried to top it—if that can be done at all—but they should’ve at least tried to ride on it instead of giving us this totally disconnected, third rated comedy filler.
NONSTOP ACTION
Holy C**P! That was nearly a non-stop episode. Usually, I take screenshots as I watch along, but the actions did not yield much moment of pause and I was just constantly mesmerized by all those relentless CG. Who would’ve think that Sheryl’s little striptease concert performance would be the “low” point of the episode. And that was how awesome Macross Frontier 7 was.
Galactic Song Goddess
I cannot recall when, since over two anime seasons ago, I replayed an episode over and over again, but Sheryl Nome’s concert scene was that good. In fact, after the nth times, I even rewound it so far back to when Ranka was running toward the concert with the ticket in her hand—so as to pretend I myself was holding my ticket running toward the concert to catch the Galactic Song Goddess Sheryl Nome sing. I kept doing that until it dawned on me that someone must’ve already uploaded that clip on youtube. And so, I present to you—Sheryl!
Macross gone porn
Disclaimer: For Alto-kun in the Macross Frontier’s universe, it works wonders. For anyone else, your mileage may vary.
Start Early
Why wait when you can do it from the start? Especially when you have the Mega-Vibrating Cellphone 2000 that can rock through your pant. Put it in your pants pocket, shove her into a tight locker, and gently nudge your knee upward. Wait for the hot breath to caress on your neck and reciprocate… Oh wait, this is not my porn blog. 
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Ranka and Altoh take the first step to falling in love. They both deny it but it’s obvious in how concern they are in each other’s affair.
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Altoh takes a step of no return into the SMS team. Ranka decides to bare her flesh in the Miss Macross Contest. And Sheryl gives her a lesson how to do it properly, with Altoh as the audience.
After two action packed episodes, the story slows down to give us reasons why our hero and heroine will do what they will do: Altoh will pilot the VF-25 and Ranka will sing in the Miss Macross Contest.
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This episode picks up immediately from last episode. Altoh keeps shooting at the alien, but it really just annoys it more than hurts it since bullets don’t seem to make a dent on this thing. The rest is nothing groundbreaking: Monster attacks girl, girl screams her lungs out (almost literally), guy miraculously knows how to pilot a state-of-the-art prototype, top-secret machine and saves girl. Hmm… I’ve logged many hours in Microsoft Flight Simulator; so I wonder if I’m ready to pilot a F-22 Raptor.
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That’s the million dollar question set forth in Macross Frontier. Yes, there’re spaceships, there’re mecha’s, there’re even Insecticons; but the main question that will drive the main plot is what the opening theme song starts with: kimi wa dare to kisu wo suru.
Or who will Alto kiss?
