Way back in the year 1985 I encountered my first Anime show. Ofcourse at the time I was too young to even know it was called Anime, but I do remember the impact it had on my nine year old mind. The series showed a scene of the Earth being surrounded by an armada of 4 million spaceships, that all started firing at once. When the viewpoint shifts from space to the surface of the planet a soldier talking to a young child were just obliterated by the weapons firing. I was in shock, having never seen anything like that before. The name of that show was Robotech. Though technically not an Anime series, it was the American version of the Japanese series called Macross (and two other unrelated shows). To date Macross has spawned numerous sequels, and the latest version is called Macross Delta.

Macross Delta takes place eight years after the events of the previous Macross series Macross Frontier (I highly recommend that last one by the way). A big part of the galaxy is being engulfed by a mysterious disease called Var Syndrome, which turns people completely berserk. The only thing that seems to calm those infected down is a group of talented idols, Walküre, who use songs to help combat the infection. Walküre is supported by Delta Squadron, a group of extremely skilled Valkyrie fighter pilots. When a young girl called Freya wants to audition for Walküre she soon encounters the young man Hayate, who goes through jobs at an alarming rate. Hayate decides to help Freya get to her audition but soon the both of them get caught up in a conflict that threatens to destroy the entire galaxy….

Macross has always been a favorite of mine, and I have pretty much seen almost every series of it to date. This one however took me pretty long to get into. The first episode of Macross Delta did not really help with that, as we are introduced to about 25 different characters in the space of 10 minutes. I kid you not. As such the show is very hard to follow in the beginning. If this would have been anything else but Macross, I might have stopped watching altogether. I am glad I stuck with it though, because the series definitely got better after a few episodes. As is common in Macross we have another love triangle, this time between Hayate, Freya and my favorite character of the show the vulnerable but strongwilled Valkyrie pilot Mirage. The cast of Delta is huge, and I dare say it is a bit too big. Where Macross Delta shines is in it’s depiction of the Mecha battles. If you love transformable robot fighter planes beating the crap out of each other, you are in for a treat here. The Mecha themselves look absolutely stunning, especially the fighter plane of Mirage (see picture below).

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Another thing that is always present in Macross is the music, and this time we have the all female idol group Walküre, who takes care of that. They are a bit like the Spice Girls on acid to make a comparison. The songs are nice to listen to, and offer something for everyone. Macross Delta was an okay show, but it definitely is not as good as the previous series Macross Frontier. Where Frontier had very interesting and loveable characters, this show’s cast is just so big that some of them just get too little screentime to let you care about them. The story was being dragged out too long, and as such some of the episodes were way too slow. Still, if you are a Macross fan, or love shows featuring cool Mecha battles, there is still enough to enjoy about it. Give it some time to heat things up though….

I give Macross Delta a 7 out of 10 score.