Anime Talk: Macross Frontier

Well, any content is good at this point and I've been thinking about writing about some other stuff here for a short while, so here is the first installment of Anime Talk. Perhaps some other genres will be made up, and I'm going to prod my fellow writer if he wants to rant about something, so stay tuned.

In the first installment of Anime Talk I'm going to talk a bit about an anime series I've started watching recently, that is MACROSS FRONTIER.

Macross Frontier is the most recent series part of the Macross franchise, and celebrates the 25th anniversary of the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series.

Prior to watching this series I had heard of Macross, but wasn't really interested as my mecha fandom only reached to Gundam series. But lately the visuals and idea behind Macross became more and more appealing so I've decided to give it a shot. And WHOW, I feel sad I haven't tried it sooner.

The first episode I watched left me shivering with anticipation and a whole puddle of drool in front of my chair. Yes, it's that good.

Visuals:
I now have 2 years of designer studies experience (one web, one graphical/gaming) and rarely have I seen a series where the design from technology, ships, mecha to culture, background (story and visuals) is so *good*, without appearing useless or over the top. The first time I saw a squadron of fighters sortie from the futuristic carrier I was amazed at the design of the carrier itself to holographic signs and visuals they used. Very stylish and at the same time functional.
Character designs seemed to be rather bland at first, but it gets better later on as see more and more. the costumes are not that original, but character visuals is not really what this anime is all about. World design and characters' stories is what it's all about.

Music:
the music is composed by Yoko Kanno, which was also a big attraction point for me, as I think she's one of the greatest modern day music composers. She made the music for Ghost in the Shell Series, for Ragnarok Online 2 (not that you people know it), for Wolf's Rain Anime, and so on. The music score for Macross F is a very poppy kind, somewhat unusual for Yoko in my opinion, but I still haven't heard a single song I don't absolutely love, 6 episodes so far in the series. I absolutely want the OST if I can find it here in Belgium. There are a lot of insert songs, which may or may not be a little disturbing for some people, but in my humble opinion it adds greatly to the aura and effect of the story, and frankly it gives me goosebumps. High score for this part too!

Story:
In the interest of not spoiling the entire story here, I'm going to be very vague about it, and just posting my general opinion here. The story is kind of a love triangle thing, set in a science fiction warfare time. The characters all have their respectful background stories and relationships to other characters and it adds greatly to the story. The background culture/world is very rich, which is probably also an effect given by the previous Macross series (this is a guess, as I haven't seen the previous series). The story contains an equal helping of drama, humour and romance and manages to balance these nicely, without the viewer getting the feeling of it being too much at any given time. It's really a 3 out of 3 with this!

So, here is my review/opinion about the Macross Frontier Series. Seeing as I am still new at this reviewing thing, I hope I haven't made too many mistakes. So there...!

Here are some relevant links!
A Gabriela Robin Site: News about Yoko Kanno, her (rumored) Alter Ego, and the music she makes (for Macross F ;)
Mendoi-Conclave (Menclave) Fansubs: The guys(/girls?) subbing this fantastic series! And other Anime, check em out!

See you next Deculture!!

--Warynn

Randomness breaking the silence

So, seeing as the school year is officially over, grades have been attained (or lost) and a flood of free time now bears down upon us students, I deem it more than due that I should post something here.

I realise I've been neglecting this blog up to the point that my fellow writer/blogger has come to me with the question "Is it still worth writing on your blog?". When I heard that I felt a quite sharp pang of regret and guilt that it should have come this far. True, I intended great things, and I have failed miserably due to my lazyness and fear of useful work, but still it came to me as a shock that he should feel it has come to this. So here I'm going to try to actually bring the interwebs some interesting content. Yay me... *sees some tomatoes flying, fists being raised, fingers being offered, ect...* okay....

I have been peeking in my old experience as a web developer/designer and have been reinstalling programs and tools needed to be more productive so my lazyness doesn't kick in immediatly, but my school/work related laptop has conveniently broken down and is now in for reparation. I don't know when to get it back, but for now, it's still same old same old. Hooray for back-up laptops. *little sigh*

So here is to a better blog, a less lazy person writing this blog, and more kicks in the asses by people.

--Warynn