krpalmer | The Macross Gates Creak Open (Reply)

A sudden flurry of “Macross Blu-Rays over here before long!” announcements from the big Anime Expo convention grabbed my attention on the weekend. Special theatrical screenings of some of the “movie versions” had been something in the months since the staggering announcement the rights to the franchise had been sliced up at last, but I had kept thinking “discs would be something more tangible, more lasting.” I guess I still don’t know know much these discs will actually cost, but with several established companies said to be releasing different titles I can at least hope things won’t be that different from their established patterns. The big winner out of them does seem to be Right Stuf’s production arm Nozomi, and with just about all of Gundam now released through them it does seem like a good time for them to be starting on something new. Regardless of the differing judgments of conventional wisdom on the different titles in the franchise, there is the nudge of “obligation” in having seen most of them through underhanded means in past years. (The problem there might be how I never quite got around to the latest series, Macross Delta, until the conventional wisdom had turned negative on it.) For all that Macross 7 wasn’t announced at the same time as all the other titles only to surprise people a day later, though, the announcement that would seem to “get everything else started off right” didn’t happen. Harmony Gold only provided platitudes rather than the very original series, and that of course let fans respond with contempt and conspiracy theories. Some things haven’t changed even now.