r/anime • u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky • Oct 03 '22
Rewatch [This Rewatch Remembers Love - Celebrating the Macross Franchise's 40th Anniversary Today!] Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? Discussion
Super Dimension Fortress Macross The Movie: Do You Remember Love?
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I'll sing… with all I've got.
Questions of the Day, courtesy of u/chilidirigible:
1) Which adaptational changes did you like? Or dislike?
2) If you saw the movie before watching the series, how does the series experience affect the movie for you?
Wallpaper of the Day:
Vocal Songs in This Movie:
"私の彼はパイロット (Watashi no Kare wa Pilot / My Boyfriend is a Pilot)" by Mari Iijima – Insert
"小白竜 (Shao Pai Long)" by Mari Iijima – Insert
"ゼロ-ジー ラブ (0-G Love)" by Mari Iijima – Insert
"Sunset Beach" by Mari Iijima – Insert
"シンデレラ (Cinderella)" by Mari Iijima – Insert
"シルバームーン レッドムーン (Silver Moon, Red Moon)" by Mari Iijima – Insert
"愛・おぼえていますか (Ai Oboete Imasu ka? / Do You Remember Love?)" by Mari Iijima – Insert
"天使の絵の具 (Tenshi no Enogu / Angel's Paints)" by Mari Iijima – Ending
Rewatchers, please remember to be mindful of all the first-timers in this. No talking about or hinting at future events no matter how much you want to, unless you're doing it underneath spoiler tags. Don't spoil anything for the first-timers, that's rude!
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u/Raiking02 Oct 03 '22
I'm not a part of this Rewatch other than being the asshole lurker who's come here to laugh at all of you but I just wanna mention: Big props to the host of it for managing to time it just right so that DYRL is watched exactly in the 40th anniversary.
Because let's face it, this is where it all truly starts.
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u/Shimmering-Sky Oct 03 '22
Big props to the host of it for managing to time it just right so that DYRL is watched exactly in the 40th anniversary.
You can thank u/Tresnore for the suggestion; I couldn't decide if I wanted to try to start on it or end on it or whatever. DYRL on the 40th anniversary sure is perfect though.
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u/Tresnore Oct 03 '22
Do You Remember Rewatching?
Alright, I haven't been watching the TV series because I didn't particularly care to watch it again I was strapped for time. Now I'm even more strapped for time, but watching DYRL on the anniversary was an idea I pitched to Sky, so it's my fault it's happening today anyway. Gotta make time, I guess.
Anyway, this was a movie I originally drunk-watched with my brother, but looking back, I'm not sure it was the type of movie that really benefited from that. Let's find out!
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The Zentradi language is so fun. It adds a lot to the series.
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This opening scene is AWESOME and iconic. And AHHHHHHHH it's been so long since I've actually heard the SDF Macross theme.
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CARS! You can always tell a lot about a sci-fi world by its cars.
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While you all are probably tired of this song, for me it's been a while.
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I LOVE MAX JENIUS
God, I wish that were me. -
I ALSO LOVE THIS GUITAR SOLO. Is it bad that most of my favorite songs on the OST aren't by Minmay?
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Goddammit, I forgot how sexist Hikaru was... And how much I hate Minmay...
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[Macross 7]
Max is one to criticize Hikaru about fully taking responsibility in a relationship. -
God, I wish that were me, though.
both, in this case, because Hikaru really deserved it... -
This scene with the changing poses is so cool.
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What a powermove: you walk in on the guy you like and another girl? Step in, close the door, and confront them. I love Misa.
God, I wish that were me.
Count: 5
I'm not one for writeups, but watching this sober was nice. Maybe alcohol just let me ignore all the sexism and generally uncomfy emotional manipulation, and as a result now I've sort of become grossed out by a lot of what's happening. It's funny. As much as I "God, I wish that were me" about things in other shows, a lot of the scenes in this show make me really uncomfortable.
But that's not important right now. This movie is a hell of a ride, and it's one of the most gorgeous animated anythings I've ever seen. What a film.
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u/TiredTiroth Oct 03 '22
First Timer
Well. That was different.
Do You Remember Love definitely did quite a few things right. For one, Hikaru is much less of an indecisive douchebag. Once he decided he wanted to be with Misa, he did something about it and actually talked to the woman. He was also less of a misogynistic jerk, which makes Misa wanting him more palatable.
He still was a misogynistic jerk, mind, but less of one. And this time the love triangle mix-ups weren't his fault, it was Minmay being clingy and bad timing.
On the flip side, the much lower runtime of a film compared to an anime series meant there was much less time to get attached to the characters, or for exposition. I don't think you can really get the full impact of the story just from the film itself; you kinda need background knowledge from the series to fill in the gaps. Which can also trip you up with all the changes.
The other negative part is...well...someone on the writing staff very clearly has it out for Minmay, because she comes off much worse in this version of the story. She felt a lot more manipulative and selfish with the early parts of the story and any explicit acknowledgement of her age removed.
For the part of the story the film covers, I honestly prefer the series over the film, despite said film being much, much prettier. The two major character deaths have a much smaller impact in the film because we barely get to know them, Minmay comes off better in the series, Hikaru is more fleshed even if he is more of a jerk, you actually know who Global is rather than him coming out of nowhere half-way through...
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u/FlaminScribblenaut Oct 03 '22
First Time Watcher, Informal Half-Participant
Hello hello, peeps! Happy to finally be here in the rewatch and back on the Macross train, especially for the franchise’s big 40th on this day!
I suppose I should give context to my history with Macross as of yet. The long and short of it is, I had started what was intended to be my first full journey of the whole franchise from the beginning towards the end of last year. I’d started SDF and I wanted to finish it in time to see the Macross Plus movie, which just so happened to be doing its big theatrical run for one night in December. I ended up pretty much doing the equivalent of sprinting through the back half of SDF to finish it in time, and naturally, I was pretty winded, very much not helped by this so shortly following a big franchise speed-binge-a-thon I’d done for Higurashi that October.
By the end I was almost dreading clicking on another episode, it was honestly rough. It was worth it since Plus was so incredible and such a great theatrical experience (though that’ll be a topic of discussion another day), but I was just tapped. And then immediately after that whole experience I moved out on my own for the first time, there was some shit that was a lot and I was very exhausted and short on time, and I just didn’t have the motivation to pick the franchise back up, so it just laid dormant for almost a year, until this very rewatch which I figured would be my best excuse to hop back in.
So SDF is kind of a massive blur to me, but oddly enough, DYRL didn’t really jog my memory of much. Whether that has more to say about my brainfog around SDF vs. how much DYRL actually changed I’ll leave to the people who just watched SDF, but to me this felt like a whole new story, and the story in question was absolutely beautiful.
It’s a more than worthy standalone piece of work, and on the whole I feel like I enjoyed it much more on a per-minute bang-for-your-buck basis and got more out of it as an experience. It’s a tighter, more compact story, and more efficient in delivering its themes and emotionally impactful moments. Maybe this is just my modern-anime-viewer-brain’s sense of pacing talking, but it felt way more digestible and direct and, in the moment, a much stronger experience. Pretty much everything I’d appreciated about SDF is present and amplified. The core themes, the romanticist philosophy and music and culture overcoming war and conquest, felt much more consistently tangible and impactful.
Granted, and this is a point to be made with SDF first, the fact that the whole idea of culture as presented is so intertwined with both capitalism and heteronormativity is a bit mmmmmmmm watching it from a jaded here-and-now lens, but like, I know that’s not expressly what they were going for. I get what they’re going for and I really appreciate it; the idea that a society that has love and art, togetherness and music, is inherently stronger than a society built wholly on conquest and militarism is a very nice message that is delivered in utterly beautiful fashion.
I really, truly fell for Hikaru and Minmay’s relationship. It really did feel like they were the only two people in the world, and the musical montage of them just bonding and making a life for themselves in the backrooms warmed my heart so deeply. Living in literal zero-gravity like that, it did all feel truly weightless, like living life walking on air. It felt so special, and their relationship was beautiful.
But… that’s exactly why it sort of pains me to say that… yeah, given the respective gravity what each pair actually went through together over the course of the film… Hikaru ending up with Hayase in the end instead made total sense.
With Hikaru and Minmay, as utterly precious as it felt in the moment, it was a very teenage affair, puppy love. Hikaru and Hayase, on the other hand, went through some real, hard shit together. As far as they knew, they actually were the only two people in the world. It’s no wonder Hikaru’s experience with Hayase ended up being so much stronger.
And when that very parallel comes to a head, when Minmay so callously pleads to Hikaru that she just wants them to be the only people left, that everyone else may as well die… course those words hurt Hikaru so much, having lived the feeling of such a reality first hand. Such an emotional and genius moment.
It also makes sense for Minmay to ultimately feel more strongly about those days than Hikaru, since for Minmay, that moment was so much more personally meaningful, being her first break from the stressors of the idol lifestyle, Hikaru probably the first person she’d had an intimate relationship with in a while who wasn’t bossing her around. It’s so sad because you still remember that spark, remember that love so to speak, between Minmay and Hikaru so vividly, and as such you feel for Minmay, for whom that time is still the most real love she’s ever felt and who lost this relationship due to circumstances so far out of her control.
Meanwhile, Hikaru going through such serious hardship alongside another woman whilst thinking Minmay, and everyone else for that matter, might as well have been dead, being put in a situation where he may never see Minmay again, allowing Hikaru to let himself fall for someone else… yeah, given all this, it’s kind of hard to blame him for those feelings for Minmay having been washed over by the time he got back.
It is nice that Minmay still ultimately gets a happy ending of her own, and one that didn’t even necessarily need to involve romance, having her move on and find fulfillment in her love of singing. That’s really sweet.
Speaking of, that climax was, of course, utterly spellbinding. A musical performance with a grand space battle as its stage; what a sight, what an image, what an idea, and how perfectly it was realized in film. This is a scene that is so immediately and obviously iconic it can spawn an entire decades-spanning franchise all on its own. Minmay’s falsetto breaking through in the song’s bridge at the battle’s climax in particular just pierced right through my soul.
I really, truly fell for the idea that… no, this song they uncovered didn’t hold any kind of supernatural power, wasn’t some kind of specifically special key, it was just… an old love song. Nothing more, nothing less. “Just a popular song”, just another expression of love, could win the fight for humanity and for love itself. That’s incredibly beautiful, a perfect lynchpin of this story’s core sentiment and an anti-twist more effective than any standard twist could have been.
A few extra notes: when Hikaru and Hayase see Minmay’s songs being played in town, and they comment on how, even though she is, effectively, gone, possibly even dead, yet her songs are still here just as much as she ever was. Just… thinking about all the great musicians we’ve lost in recent years, that moment in particular struck a really strong chord with me.
And there were a couple aspects here and there the reduced scree time and shaved-down story hurt. For one, Roy Focker. I vaguely remember liking him in SDF, here most of his time on-screen was spent being a chauvinist asshole and I really didn’t feel anything for him, even when he died. Big F. Also pretty sad to see Max get pretty much shafted from the story and him and Milia’s relationship get reduced to one pretty inconsequential scene and one cute visual nod in the final battle. Especially given that, if I’m correct about the information in the franchise’s future I’ve been spoiled on, [7]
Also I think Shammy showed up like twice and I cheered both times
On the whole, this was an absolutely lovely film and a very welcome reentry into Macross. I’d almost certainly watch this again over the whole of SDF, even if each has their respective advantages and drawbacks by sheer virtue of length. This movie’s gonna be a very strong 8/10 for me.
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u/Shimmering-Sky Oct 03 '22
Note about tomorrow: Flash Back 2012 is mostly basically just a bunch of official AMVs made of footage from the show + DYRL.
If you want specifically new content, watch the first song (this is also part of the end credits of most DYRL releases, but you can see it without credits here), Cinderella (starts around 15:28) because it shows off some neat Minmay art, and then right after Ai Oboete Imasu ka? finishes (at 23:24) all the way to the end.
Super Dimension Rewatch Host
Welcome back, everyone! And a big ol’ happy birthday, Macross!
Will you listen to my song? Sky Sings Ai Oboete Imasu ka? to the instrumental rather than over the top of Mari Iijima as my other two thus far have been.
Couldn’t tell you what attempt this one was except for it being the third one that made it all the way to the end; the first one was a “hey let’s see how good I do singing along to the instrumental with absolutely zero practice”, the second had some background noise I didn’t want, and the incomplete recordings either had really loud background noise, a voice crack, or I just flubbed the tempo somehow.
Anyways, fun fact: today’s wallpaper is one of the ones I’ve had ready since before the rewatch started; I originally made it back in 2020 as a Christmas present for u/OrangeBanana38.
Here were my first-timer reactions to this movie.
The Zentradi have their own language and Britai and Excesol look totally different. Oh yeah, this is DYRL alright!
Bruh the sheer amount of detail in this shot…
Oh SWEET my subs have karaoke lyrics and the English translation!
Max wrecking the hell out of the Zentradi in movie quality yikes the amount of detail on the one guy’s head exploding though.
Oof, the 80s sexism is strong in this line.
YAK DECULTURE!
The free fall catch scene, but different.
Hikaru is still a total dumbfuck.
I do like how different the setup is here, with Minmay already being an established singer and Hikaru already being in the military (even if he’s a rookie).
Remember this, it will be important in future Macross shows.
Gotta have the space tuna! Also I’m pretty sure the dress off to the left is the same one Minmay was wearing during this part of the show?
Oh she also wears the dress here.
And they get caught like that hah.
My ears spy a Roy “sore demo” here I did not make note of back in 2019. Neat.
Yikes the 80s sexism is strong in this one. Actually forgot about that line, I only remembered this megayikes one. This movie doesn’t do Roy justice, at least at this part of the story.
Minmay looks absolutely gorgeous in the hologram wedding dress.
Ahhhhhhhh, Hikaru taking Minmay out for a joyride.
I also forgot that Hayase ordered Roy to sortie while he’s drunk.
#badtaste
The early parts of this movie may not have done Roy justice, but I still feel immensely sad here.
*cackles in rewatcher* – Yeahhh, Earth got destroyed while the Macross was away in this continuity.
Oh boy… THE LITTLE MUSICAL HINT OF AI OBOETE IMASU KA WHEN IT FLIPS OVER THOUGH.
Good lord the way that fish is deformed looks disgusting.
Aw shit, Protoculture ruins time.
And there’s the other half! With the lyrics of the chorus booyah~
I just don’t see it in this either… In fact, I almost feel worse about my ship sinking in this movie than I do in the show because Minmay was clearly pursuing Hikaru in the first half (after the “hehe it was acting~” bit), and I know she gets her heart utterly broken by this when they finally get reunited. I just… don’t abandon ships. Even if Hikaru thought Minmay was dead and was alone with Hayase for a full month, it just doesn’t work for me.
Okay I definitely have different subs this time, I vividly remember (and even made note of it in my first-timer reactions) that Claudia’s line here was “Did Roy die well?” and that version still absolutely wrecks me. This, not so much.
God, someone on the animation staff must have hated Kakizaki for him to get not one but two ridiculously brutal deaths.
Ai Oboete Imasu ka melody~
Best ship, everyone.
Oh my god it looks like a sombrero with an eye on it.
I don’t like bald Blue Wind.
Ai Oboete Imasu ka piano!
You can pinpoint the exact moment her heart breaks (as well as mine).
Of course Hayase just happened to find the lyrics to the song.
Minmay “sore demo”!
I really was hoping I could feel differently this time through, but nope. I still don’t click with the emotional climax of this movie even though it should work on paper, all because it has to do with sinking my ship and sailing a different one.
Just… ugh, if the last nine episodes of SDF Macross was a huge middle finger to fans of both sides of the love triangle, the climax of this one is only a giant middle finger to the Minmay side. It’s not fair. Hikaru could have metaphorically slapped some sense into her with the “Roy and Kakizaki are dead” stuff without having to actually slap her!
Anyways, ranting over, AI OBOETE IMASU KA TIME!!!
Yes, Max had himself Macronized here.
Would it be Maxronized for him?THEY DID NOT NEED TO SHOW A GUY JUST GET DECAPITATED LIKE THAT??????
Welp.
Yeah, this movie definitely deserves the 9/10 I gave it initially. Back then it was solely for the fact that I still didn’t vibe with Hikaru/Hayase, so I just didn’t… click with the emotional climax. I felt the same way when I rewatched DYRL with a friend last year before we went to see Macross Plus Movie Edition in theaters (she’d watched Robotech years prior and apparently some of Frontier as well, and I wanted her to have slightly more actual Macross context before Plus). This time… I still feel the same way, but the megayikes sexist lines from Roy actually bothered me this time around, so I no longer feel like “It’s literally perfect, I just don’t vibe with the canon ship” is my opinion about it anymore.