Macross Frontier

[KrayZ33]

I liked this episode... even though it was extremely sad at the end I had to laugh at the last picture saying "See you Space *Play*boy" ^^
now that I think about it, the similarity is really astounding

very nice stuff we got to see this weak.. I just wonder what they are going to do now? the vajra now know where Frontier is.. seems like war they can not win.. if a few vajra larves can do reproduce themselves to this level, then I wonder if it is actually possible for them to ever win this war.

or at least live in peace

[Ryllharu]

I'm less happy about the Ranka/Sheryl x Alto situation. Now that Sheryl has rediscovered her joy of singing just for the hell of it (and her career may end on the rebound if anyone survives) I'm really hoping this won't turn into a Ranka ending. Because it looks really bad. Aside from her health issues, the scene in the bunker might be construed as a tie up for Sheryl's character development. She's returning with renewed vigor.

On the other hand, Ranka's signing doesn't work because she is upset.... T_T
Now if there is any chance that the Frontier can be saved, it means the reason she's upset and full of negative emotions needs to be reversed. Of course, what is she upset about? Possibly losing Alto to Sheryl. Ugh. That means that Alto will either have to make her realize that he loves Sheryl, and it's nothing to be upset about....or kiss her and say how much he likes her in order to make her happy.

So why would I be pissed about this? It's not because I like Sheryl more. It's because I really can't stand that Ranka gets to be utterly selfish just because it is the only way to keep the entire fleet from dying. Even if Alto is wishy-washy and the timing of this is all his fault for possibly not telling Ranka off sooner (if it is the case that he likes Sheryl more), Ranka gets the opportunity to be even more selfish than Minmay ever was.

[Kraco]

You must be carrying some really old and heavy grudge, Ryllharu. It's now established that Ranka's singing only affects positively when she's excited and full of hope. The effect is rather negative if she's feeling the opposite. That's a cold, "scientific" fact with no way around it. And it has nothing to do with how selfish Ranka is. It's highly unreasonable to say Ranka is evil because she's devastated after seeing, seemingly, Alto and Sheryl together in such a fashion. She had finally realised why she likes to sing so much and with so high spirits, and finally gathered the courage to tell Alto. And then she finds Sheryl in Alto's arms. How the heck was she supposed to react? If she had reacted any other way, her love for Alto wouldn't have been real in the first place.

While I could have taken either coupling, I still like Ranka more. Sheryl was so cold, proud and superstar (and bitch, I'd like to say) in the beginning that she lost my interest. She's been considerably better of late after she realised she loves Alto and is not just using him as a toy. But honestly it's utterly strange to call Ranka selfish when you have that kind of Sheryl next to her. Ranka was peeking at Alto from behind a corner while Sheryl was pushing him around as much as she could spare time from her more important businesses.

[animus]

Well atleast Sheryl didn't serenade him with love songs practically confessing to him in a concert.

[Ryllharu]

@Kraco:

That's not really what I was implying. What you said is all well and good, and mostly if not all true. The problem lies in what kind of position Ranka is now left in. If she was more like Sheryl acted in the beginning of the series, she could easily turn around now and say, "I don't know if I can save everyone, it hurts so much! [she did actually say this much.] Alto-kun, you'll have to show me how you truly feel [blackmailing Alto into leaning towards her.] or I just don't think I have it in me to sing happily!"

We all know that neither Ranka or Sheryl would actually do that in this sort of situation, but that is still the position Ranka is now in.

As for the whole Minmay-Ranka connection, it's mostly how stupidly naive Minmay was, without ever realizing or accepting the consequences of her own actions and how she dealt with the protagonist. Ranka at least carries that same stupid naivette, but she jumps to more conclusions. Sheryl on the other hand, is far more like Misa. Though Sheryl is a bitch and likes to play around with Alto (it is important that she is doing so intentionally rather than naively) when a serious situation arrives, Sheryl is far more mature and doesn't let her emotions get too much in the way.

Lastly, for the coupling, I'll always prefer the tsundere character to the moe character.

[shinta|hikari]

Amen, Amen, Amen on that last statement.

If Alto did not try to convince her, Ranka would not have started to sing in order to stop the Vajira. Granted it had the opposite effect, but that consequence was unknown at that time. If Alto just left her there and Sheryl did not slap some sense into her, she would have let hundreds of people die just because she is hurt and jealous. Wow, she isn't selfish at all.

[Kraco]

Ah, well, I have to admit that is true. No matter how emotionally distraught she was, that was certainly bad by any reckoning.

[Yukimura]

Lastly, for the coupling, I'll always prefer the tsundere character to the moe character.

I would agree in cases like Sheryl who is a strong character with a prickly exterior, but when the tsuntsun is just a defense/covering mechanism to hide a character who's simply a weak personality I find tsundere tiring (Louise Françoise).

In any case, while Ranka is certainly lame for flipping out, we can't forget that she's a traumatized teenaged girl with abandonment issues. I think we make this mistake a lot in anime, just because some 16 year olds can bear the fate of the world on their shoulders we shouldn't expect that to be the case with all of them. I wish she wasn't so weak, but I can't really hold it against her that she is given her age and background.

Michel went out in suitably badass fashion though so props to him. But what were the designers of that base thinking? The Micloning process seems to be somewhat delicate, yet they put the machine in a room that is adjacent to space...
If the ship was going down I hope they have Zentradi sized escape pods.

I can't wait to see rage-Klan though, should be awesome.

[shinta|hikari]

I will still hold it against Ranka, since she managed to sing just fine after being slapped. Being slapped and lectured is not exactly life changing, which means she could have sung all along, but chose not to because she feels "used" and hurt. It is not as if they are asking her to risk her life at that point. All she had to do was sing to save lives, not go into a robot and battle with monsters. And the reason for her being unable to sing is so lame. So what if she sees Alto embracing Sheryl? What does that even confirm? She simply let her insecurities take over instead of fighting for what she wants.

Yes, she is weak, but not normal teenager weak, but lame-ass weak. Shinji Ikari, who also had issues about abandonment (and younger), had a tougher time but people (and lots of them) held it against him and called him a crybaby and a wuss for being afraid of being torn apart and burned to death inside a gigantic human form (which btw almost happened several times). Ranka is obviously worse.

[Kraco]

And much good did it do to force her to sing. It only make the vajra angier. And that's a valid point if you hold what happened against Ranka. Had it been her choice, at least the attack wouldn't have escalated. So, her lame-ass weakness was actually protecting the place, and Alto and Sheryl were worsening the situation. Real heroes.

[David75]

I will still hold it against Ranka, since she managed to sing just fine after being slapped. Being slapped and lectured is not exactly life changing, which means she could have sung all along, but chose not to because she feels "used" and hurt. It is not as if they are asking her to risk her life at that point. All she had to do was sing to save lives, not go into a robot and battle with monsters. And the reason for her being unable to sing is so lame. So what if she sees Alto embracing Sheryl? What does that even confirm? She simply let her insecurities take over instead of fighting for what she wants.

Yes, she is weak, but not normal teenager weak, but lame-ass weak. Shinji Ikari, who also had issues about abandonment (and younger), had a tougher time but people (and lots of them) held it against him and called him a crybaby and a wuss for being afraid of being torn apart and burned to death inside a gigantic human form (which btw almost happened several times). Ranka is obviously worse.

Reasonning and feelings aren't the same.
Being able to take the right decisions and act accordingly is difficult enough for anyone... it becomes utterly difficult when under stress or feeling related state. For a teen it's double worse. It's not the same part of the brain that reacts.
Being able to make the best possible choice with a clear state of mind, while caught in a personnal love quagmire is impossible when it's your first time being in love...

[shinta|hikari]

She clearly said she was fed up. She wasn't confused, or unsure of what to do. She just didn't want to. Two choices, with one being the obvious winner. How hard could it be?

I also know that singing with emotion is difficult if you don't carry that emotion, but whether that will have an effect or not was unknown to Ranka and everyone in that scene, so it is a non-factor. As far as everyone knew, she just had to open her mouth and spout some Ai-mo stuff to have an effect on the vajira.

@Kraco - you are looking at it in retrospect. It doesn't matter what actually happened, since we are talking about Ranka's choice based from what she knows at that time.

[Kraco]

Perhaps, but I only said that after your post for a very specific reason. The thing is Ranka's initial choice was not to sing. Alto and Sheryl's choice was that she should sing. That's the basic setting. Then Alto and Sheryl forced Ranka to change her initial feeling of not singing to singing after all, and the result turned out bad. So, objectively thinking Ranka was correct in the beginning but Alto and Sheryl made her change the correct feeling of not wanting to sing into something worse.

Ranka being not any bright lass, in the end, she should have listened to what her gut feeling was telling her and not sing if she wasn't in the right mood for singing. But nah... Alto with the density of depleted uranium and Sheryl the bitch knew everything better.

[xtallography]

Shinta is right. Kraco, your reasoning would work if Ranka knew what the outcome/influence of the varja would be if she sang while being upset/distraught/however you want to put it. At that point, everyone just thinks that Ranka singing = varja cool down. So it's only natural that they want her to sing even if she didn't feel like it.

We (the audience) are fortunate because we get to see the cause and affect. Kathy and Osma have no idea that it's Ranka's singing that caused the escalation. They just got to see the varja get angrier. Whether everyone gets together to compare notes and figure out that negative emotion singing Ranka = angrier varja we'll have to wait and see.

[Kraco]

Kraco, your reasoning would work if Ranka knew what the outcome/influence of the varja would be if she sang while being upset/distraught/however you want to put it. At that point, everyone just thinks that Ranka singing = varja cool down. So it's only natural that they want her to sing even if she didn't feel like it.

Her reluctance to sing did know it will be no good. Not that such reasoning is worth much. Of course had I been there myself I'd have encouraged Ranka to sing (but I'd certainly have understood what went wrong as my density is only at the level of lead and not DU).

Well, in any case the reasoning here is like that of a commander who's explaining why an operation he commandeered against the will of his men went wrong.

[Ryllharu]

Wasn't Ranka just as surprised as Alto and Sheryl that her singing was having the opposite effect? The only problem on her end from her own mind was she didn't feel like singing because she was depressed. After Sheryl slapped her into action, Ranka thought it would work too.

[Kraco]

That's pretty much given. Her main interest in singing for battles probably was the idea it would help Alto in his fighting (and generally she would contribute to the defense like Alto). I doubt she was thinking much else even at that point, and all in all she's the kind of good girl who likely would do anything she's told to do (like wear idiotic costumes publicly). Even if she now thinks Alto and Sheryl are together, Alto meant so much to her that I doubt she wants him to start to hate her, so there was no other choice but to sing in the end.

[David75]

[gg] Macross Frontier - 21 [411028EB] mkv 380Mb @ mininova

Enjoy!

[Inazuma]

Meh, I'll respect the 24h spoiler ban even if I didn't enjoyed the ep that much.

[Kraco]

It was a stupid episode. But I suppose it was necessary for the bigger plot.