Like, seriously, Kawamori. You’re spending all this time talking about the ability of Ranka’s song to transcend spacetime and traverse through foldspace and resonate with the Vajira and you haven’t even talked about Chiba Song Units at all. At least you have Ozma and his love for Fire Bomber.
I’m actually going to try to keep this shorter than usual, since I’m trying to get to bed at a decent hour and have a decent amount of sleep tonight, but here goes:
The opening for episode 17 was amazing. The opening for episode 18 was even more amazing and I think it simply reinforces what I think is going to wind up happening in the end of Macross Frontier: Ranka and Sheryl, rather than being rivals and one always overshadowing the other (or one being discarded when the other is more valuable), will simply have to work together (much more so than Misa and Minmei had to work together in SDF, and more so than Basara and Gamlin had to in 7). The glue that binds the two together is, of course, Alto, who genuinely cares for both of them. I don’t think that the “triangler” of the series is actually a love triangle–at least, in Alto’s eyes. Alto cares for both Ranka and Sheryl almost equally, and he’s demonstrated this time and again. I’m not even sure if he’s going to actually resolve the arbitrary love triangle of the series in any way at all, really. This triangle seems to be less about a dividing wedge between people so much as a a cooperative effort: the “Triangler”, therefore, isn’t about “who gets whom”, but how the three can work together to form a geometric shape that obeys the Pythagorean Theorem and will give headaches to geometry students the world over.
Or maybe I’m making all that up. At any rate, I thought 17 was amazing in and of itself, simply because they drug out Fire Bomber songs and used them as background music–My Soul For You and Try Again (twice! The second time they added in a more modern twist with a heavier guitar riff that I’m not sure I wholly like yet, but I’d have to hear the remixed version in full to decide that, but it certainly was impressive). It was like a Fire Bomber tribute episode, so, naturally, I was happy. Although I’m still wondering if Ozma is going to bite it–I expected him to die in 17, but, alas, he did not, although he seems to have been made even more useless than he already was.
And, seriously, what’s up with this? Does Ranka realize that she’s riding around in a ship that has a giant image of her, clad in a bikini, albeit a bikini that doesn’t seem to have a bottom to match the top? I mean, it’s like–she’s in the ship. Surely she’s seen it. Isn’t she embarrassed to be the bottomless Call Up Monster Girl? Does she secretly enjoy it?
Or is Kawamori just baiting all the otaku with official Ranka psuedo-erotica? Whatever it is, it’s pretty Macross to do this, considering that Mylene had the stalker photographers who sold lewd photos of her, and I’m pretty sure Minmei wound up in a similar situation, and at any rate I’m pretty sure half the appeal of Sharon Apple was that she was smokin’ hot.
KLAN KLAN WATCH!
Michael and Klan Klan need to go on dates more often. She totally wants him bad. Also, she acted like classic girl–sit around at the cafe for an hour or so before your date is scheduled to arrive and preen and primp your hair and then when your date arrives slightly late and apologizes simply act like you hadn’t been waiting desperately for him to show up and just say “Oh, I just got here two minutes ago, it’s okay” and then seethe inwardly with anger at him until his true objective is revealed in which case you get the above.
Labcoats are within the scope of my interests. We need more labcoats. And I think Klan Klan needs to borrow Alto’s trenchcoat for an episode or so.
Or, hell, just give her her own spin-off series. The Klan Klan and Michael Happy Fun Time Awkward Relationship Hour or something. I would watch it, buy the DVDs, and any related merch.
I am aware that Klan Klan has done nothing terribly useful except be (amazingly and mind-destroyingly) cute for the entire series, but that’s okay–she’s a side character, she can exist for that purpose, just like Straight Cougar existed for the sole reason of being amazingly and mind-destroyingly awesome. Just please don’t die like he did, okay?
Anime wa Bakuhatsu da! 