After what seems like a thousand years, I’m back with a new post. This time to cover the promised Robotech/Macross post. It’s not really a versus match, it’s just more of a side by side comparison. Macross is a Japanese anime released a while back (early 80s, I think), and Robotech is the American adaptation of that anime. The problem is how they adapted it, and that’s what we’re going to discuss here.

I originally got into Robotech some time last year, and it was a love-hate with me. I loved the idea of the mecha, but there was something that I really didn’t like (but that I couldn’t put my finger on at the time). I basically gave up on the anime due to those reasons (but I really enjoyed the PS2 game). Now I realize that it was a collection of many things. Mostly, it’s the dubbing. When are we going to be able to get a good dub in English? I loved Char’s Counterattack, so why can’t we have something of that quality? Second, I watched it right after watching Gundam Wing. I now know that Wing isn’t even the best Gundam, but I loved it back then. And after watching all that action, seeing the drama in Robotech really turned me off.

So here we are about a year later, and I’m absolutely loving SDF Macross. It’s a little gooey in the love parts/dialogs, but the action, and the story lines are just excellent. it’s almost reminiscent of First Gundam, in a way. So why the big change? I’m not really sure, but I know part of it is me maturing in my Anime taste. I no longer have to have constant action (although watching a Wing every once in a while is nice :)), as story is what really gets me going now.

But Robotech isn’t just SDF Macross, oh no. It’s also two other totally unrelated anime series stuck together. Well, at least unrelated in story (there are some commonalities in the production, I believe). So how did they do it? They heavily edited it. And, if you didn’t know, I loathe editing in anime. Just bring the whole thing over, or don’t bring it at all, is my saying. Don’t take the blood out of Naruto just to be able to put it on Fox Kids, or whatever: It’s not a kid’s show!! Don’t screw around with three perfectly good shows just to be able to say I have a long enough show to put on syndicated tv! Leave ‘em be!

Well, so much for the rant part. To sum it all up, Macross is an excellent series, and a lot better than the butchered Robotech. Actually, now that I’ve studied it a little, I really want to see the other series that make up the Robotech show… The original series, of course.