Prequels. It is a concept that the past few years has been introduced in novels, movies, and tv series. The question I have always asked myself is what is precisely the point of a prequel ? Sure it is nice to find out some backstory about certain characters, or some kind of clarification about events that were not fully explained in whatever the prequel is based on. But because a prequel can ofcourse not change the events of the established story, I always find that it lacks excitement. You know the story of what comes after, and ofcourse which characters will be in the original so they can’t be killed off in the prequel. If done well however, it can occasionally be fun to find out what led up to certain events happening in the original story. Honestly though, I am not a big fan of prequels. I do watch them,especially for franchises that I really enjoy like for instance the anime series Macross. Just like Gundam Wing it has now had so many different shows, that it is hard to keep track of it all. I might do a post for the entire Macross saga in the future. For now, all you need to know for this one, is that Macross Zero is a prequel to the series that started it all.
It is the year 1999 and a gigantic alien spacecraft crashlands on Earth. At the time the world is engulfed in a global war, but with the realisation that mankind is not alone, an uneasy peace is established. Nine years later, a lot of new technology has been realised with the help of what is found within the bowels of the alien ship. Most notably the transformable Valkyrie fighters. Even though the war has pretty much died down, there are still a lot of skirmishes between the new U.N.Spacy and Anti-Un forces. During one of these fights, we meet up with the young pilot Shin Kudo, who gets shot down by a strange alien craft. Crashlanding on a Mayan island he manages to survive. When he meets up with the inhabitants of the island, he soon realises that they have a secret that ties them to the alien ship. Deep under the ocean there resides an alien weapon that has been buried for over 10.000 years. A weapon that may result in the end of mankind when released……
One thing that Macross has always been good at, is showcasing transformable fighter planes that beat the crap out of each other. And in that regard Macross Zero certainly does not disappoint. This 5 part series showcases some of the coolest Mecha fight sequences in this franchise to date. This being a prequel it was nice to see a lot of the old craft from the original series returning, most notably the Skull One. But there were also some new Mecha that we did not yet see in any of the other series. These fights were definitely the highlight of the show.
Another thing that has always been a trademark for this series is the love triangle arc. This time it is between the hero of the story Shin, and two sisters from the island on which he crashlands, Sara and Mao Nome. The characters in this franchise are usually one of the strong points, but in this prequel I found them to be rather dull. I did not establish any kind of attachment to them whatsoever, and that usually is a bad thing. What I did like was the return of the tragic hero from the original series Roy Focker. Even though he played he a small part in the events for this series, it was an important one. As Roy has always been a fan favorite character, many will enjoy seeing his return.
The story for this prequel was rather confusing. It contained a lot of mythical mumbo jumbo, that I at times could not make heads nor tails of. This being a prequel it does ofcourse contain some interesting ties to the original series, and I guess that makes it somewhat worth it. Has it changed my view on prequels though? Nope, I can honestly say that it did not. Macross Zero is worth the watch for the incredible Mecha fights that are contained within these five episodes, but ultimately I found it to be a rather disappointing entry into the Macross mythology. If you like Macross though, this is one you at least want to watch once, if only to see a few classic things make a reappearance. If you have yet to discover Macross, I would recommend starting with the original tv series from 1982, which is still every bit as groundbreaking as when it was first shown on television.
I give Macross Zero a 6 out of 10 score.
Spacecrafts and cool mecha fight sequences? I’m sold. I haven’t heard of Macross, and am excited to check out the original series after reading this. I’m not at all familiar with anime titles, so I’m always grateful for your fantastic recommendations! 🙂
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Macross is one of the Animeseries that pretty much started the whole Mecha genre. I plan on doing a post for the entire franchise sometime in the near future. As I mentioned there are now a lot of different series in total, so it is getting hard to keep track. The original is still one of the best though 😊 Hope you will enjoy it, and ofcourse thank you for the kind words and your comment: appreciate it 😊
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That’s real cool! Looking forward to your post on the franchise. 😊 You should do a feature on your favourite mecha movies sometime too, if you haven’t already!
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That is not a bad idea actually. Hmmm have to think about this one. Thanks for the suggestion. 😀
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Macross and Gundam are both on my list but holy hell, I have no idea when I’ll get around to it or where to start when I do.
I admit that the mention of love triangles has got me a bit wary. Are they Twilight levels of cringe or more tolerable?
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Haha lol😂😂 Yes…expect Twilght levels of cringe. No luckily nowhere near as bad 😊😊 Macross is seriously cool, and the awesome mechabatlles are definitely the focus for the series…not the love triangles. I hope to be doing a post on Macross somewhere in the coming two weeks, so you might find out more about the show then: but as always: time is a factor 😅😅😅
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Hah, Micronians Prequels! Not nearly enough Zaentradi in them! Actually, to be fair I only saw a bit of the first episode of zero and didn’t fancy it. I don’t have anything against prequels as such as sometimes the story is the journey, no the destination but I genuinely didn’t care. I did like Robotech, which I think was the english Dub of the originnal. I loved that, and being a lifelong transformers fan, transforming planes were just awesome
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Haha, I have to agree. I did not really like this prequel, and am not a big fan of prequels in general. That said, the mecha scenes were pretty cool. As for Robotech…you are part right 😀 Robotech is actually a blend of three different totally unrelated animeseries (except for the fact that they were all made by the same company). The storyline, was them completely rewritten to make the 3 series work together. The first 36 episodes of Robotech, was the Macross saga. Though quite a few elements of the original remained the same, a lot of things were also changed. Robotech was very cool, and one of my alltime favorite animated series. I plan on doing a Macross post somewhere in the coming two weeks (if I can find the time for it….which is pretty much always a factor 😂😂)
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I think I only watched the first 36, with the SD1 and aircraft carriers in space. And giant aliens and singing
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I wouldn’t mind watching this, as I loved Robotech back in the day. I think when Harmony Gold lose the Macross rights in 2021 we will get a flood of Macross stuff coming to the west.
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I did not even know that Harmony Gold is going to lose those rights, but that really is interesting news 😊😊 Hopefully that will happen, because it’a certain;y one of my alltime favorite Animeseries. This one certainly isn’t the best, but had some interesting moments 😊
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