Like the first movie, we start this movie with a voiceover while looking at a purple star field. This time though, we quickly move to a new Sheryl Nome production of the song “Forbidden Elixir.” Last time, Sheryl played the parts of white and black bunnies in her big opening number. This time, she plays both wife and husband! At the end of all the amazing, over the top special effects, Sheryl collapses on stage… and it isn’t part of the show.
The recap that follows the concert does a pretty good job of summing up the first movie and brings us to the aftermath of Sheryl’s collapse. She is playing it off as nothing big and even goes so far to tell Ranka that she is fine. It is amusing to see Alto roped into playing the role of her escort. I like here how Alto and Ranka get along and are able to share little secrets like the friends (best friends?) that they’ve been set up to be by the first movie. It’s also amusing that Sheryl is still at least partially funding the SMS!
The next scene with Grace in her virtual space talking to her co-conspirators makes it pretty clear that the Galaxy’s plot to rule the universe is very much alive and well. This time, they are even talking about some sort of operation or transplant to combine Sheryl and Ranka’s powers, but some of the intelligences are unsure about it because the procedure might kill both Sheryl and Ranka. That’s a pretty big change from the series where Grace basically only wanted Ranka and all but left Sheryl to die cold and alone. The end goal still seems to be to using singing and perhaps fold quartz to analyze the Vajra’s control protocol, however. This time, we get a clearer indication that Leon is aware of the Galaxy’s plot as he is listening in on their conversation.
Next up we have… huh… a beach episode! Seems about time. Macross 7 had a tropical ship of a different shape but similar interior to this one in the Frontier fleet. Macross Zero was one long beach episode, sorta, I guess. (It was set on a tropical island, at least.) Macross Plus never went down to a beach but there was a scenic overlook. Macross Delta is largely set on a tropical planet and there are scenes of beaches. Probably SDF: Macross and Do You Remember Love? are the only shows in Macross’ long history to not have anything resembling a beach episode. That said, despite the volleyball, and surfing, and scuba diving, and sun reflecting off the ocean, this part of the movie actually has a good bit of foreshadowing and importance. The question of whether the Vajra can feel is a part of that, but there’s also smaller hints at some fun thing to come.
In the next scene, partially overlapping with the beach episode scenes, we see that Sheryl really is sick. She is dying perhaps even more obviously than in the series where she mainly just fainted. It seems one option for Sheryl is to become a full body cyborg like Grace. But this would apparently put an end to her singing career, though we’re not told exactly how. Here, for the first time, Grace brings up the “kill Ranka and transplant her organs” option. The translation I have talks about transplanting Ranka’s blood, but every other mention fully implies that Ranka will not be alive at the end of the procedure. Even what Grace says in the car trip to Ranka’s concert had that implication.
Ranka’s opening number, “Rainbow Colored Bear” is amazingly well done, but Sheryl looks so sad during most of it. Is it because she knows that the plan is to kill Ranka soon afterwards?
Out ahead of the Frontier fleet, SMS is conducting an operation to clear out a Vajra nest. Ranka’s thoughts about the Vajra having emotions return to Alto as he is trying to find a way to kill the queen controlling the local swarm. Alto is badly injured when the queen stabs through the center of his Valkyrie, but before he ejects he notices that the Vajra are helping their wounded out of harms way. Note that in this version, Alto does manage to grab Sheryl’s earring before ejecting.
Later, Sheryl races to Alto’s bedside on the news that he was wounded only to find him well on the road to recovery. As Sheryl and Alto are having moment, both indoors and later outdoors, Grace is carrying out her plot to take over Frontier. Apparently the refugees that SMS rescued, the one that Sheryl personally paid at least 150 million credits to save, were in actuality cyborgs from the Galaxy fleet whose job it is to infiltrate and kill their way into control of the Frontier fleet!
The moment with Sheryl and Alto is interesting, because while Sheryl knew about Alto’s past like in the series, this time around she pleads with him to go back to acting and stop risking his life as a pilot. Unfortunately, Ranka finds the two of them together, though the moment doesn’t seem quite as dramatic or spirit breaking for Ranka as it was in the series.
What happens next, though, is very different. Grace’s plans that had been going so smoothly are suddenly and violently ended as Frontier’s covert forces under Leon’s command kill most of the Galaxy infiltrators. They even open fire on Grace herself as she tries to surrender! Leon shows up personally to apprehend Sheryl, and calls her out specifically for using her fold quartz earrings to lure the Vajra to Frontier! And, by the way Sheryl turns her head in shame when Alto declares that it isn’t true, Leon may even be right about that! Sheryl is immediately booked into prison and, according to wartime law, she is to be executed without even a trial.
Alto takes Sheryl’s acts as something of a betrayal. He nearly throws away her earring, but for some reason can’t do it. Ranka, however, heads to the island prison, the one we’ve seen in the distance in several shots even in the first movie, to learn more about Sheryl’s true feelings. In the end, Sheryl admits that she loves Alto at least as much as Ranka does.
Later, when Luca complains about Sheryl’s treatment, Leon threatens him and his sister, a sister that never existed in the TV series that we know of, and later has one of his men cut Luca’s lifeline during a spacewalk and shove him to his doom. Fortunately, Luca’s actions were backed by the SMS and he is quickly rescued. We also get a brief moment between Ranka and Brera where Brera reveals Leon’s plot to take over the Vajra. And that he is Ranka’s brother. That fact felt a bit shoved in this time around. There’s also a great scene between Alto and Ozma where Ozma explains how everyone, not just Alto, is always playing roles.
With all these little pieces coming together, SMS goes rogue similar to how it did in the series, and they start by enacting a crazy plan to rescue Sheryl. A plan that involves several SMS members dressing up as a knockoff band called the Lovely Bombers that looks an awful lot like the band Fire Bomber from the Macross 7 anime series. While Ranka and the Lovely Bombers distract the guards and inmates, Luca hacks the prison’s security systems and Alto, dressed up as a girl, goes to break Sheryl out of her jail cell.
Ranka, Alto, and Sheryl make their escape from the prison but are met by Brera who intends to continue with Galaxy’s plan to kill Ranka to empower Sheryl. A tense running battle ensues between Brera and Ozma, the latter who shows up at the last second to save the day. Then, when things look to be at their worst, a hit from the battle with the Vajra outside tears open a hole in the hull and threatens to suck most of the main characters out into space. In a great moment, Sheryl purposely sacrifices herself to push Ranka to safety!
Meanwhile, President Glass’ decision to go with Leon’s plan to take control of the Vajra appears to be successful. This time, instead of battling impossible odds, Leon’s forces reach the Vajra homeworld while in control of an increasingly sizable force of Vajra as brainwashed escorts. Or, the plan would have been successful for Leon’s forces if Brera had not single-handedly taken out everyone on Battle Frontier’s bridge. It seems that that masterminds behind the Galaxy’s infiltration of Frontier were just a bit more prepared than we were led to believe.
Alto, Ranka, and the other SMS survivors follow Island 1 and Battle Frontier to the Vajra homeward onboard the Macross Quarter. Ranka finally confesses her love to Alto. In this movie timeline, she plays Sheryl’s role from the series where she asks Alto not to respond because she is unsure she’d be able to sing if she knew his answer either way. Afterwards, Alto engages the Vajra in a terrific high speed, mostly bloodless dogfight set to Ranka’s new song “Houkago Overflow” (After School Overflow). The animation here is great, especially as Macross Quarter itself dives down into the atmosphere using a large chunk of Island 1’s damaged shell as first a heat shield and then a sky surf board! Remember Captain Wilder surfing during the beach episode segment? Alto finally realizes that the Vajra are being controlled through the implant missiles that Frontier’s forces hit them with, but his fighter takes a hard hit moments before he can tell the others.
Alto fades to black and in his place we see a memory that we first think is from Alto’s point of view but soon we learn that it is actually from Sheryl’s. Both she and Ozma survived their spacing thanks to a quick intervention by Ai-kun. What’s more, Grace somehow escaped too and comes to Sheryl’s rescue as best she can. Most notably, she retrieved the fold quartz earring that Leon had under research directly off to the side of her containment tank. With her earring back, Sheryl begins to sing and her song is able to revive Alto who mounts a rescue. For the first time, Alto recognizes that Sheryl is that same little girl as the one who was at one of his kabuki plays and who promised that she would someday shake the galaxy.
Alto is finally able to relay his report about the Vajra implants and SMS is able to start cutting or shooting the key bits off the mind-controlled Vajra, freeing them from Galaxy’s control. Thus begins a fantastic repeat of the Nyan Nyan service melody from the series (now called Nyan Nyan Final Attack) where many of the same things happen like where the freed Vajra gather to protect Island 1 and Macross Quarter from a blast fired by the enemy Vajra/Galaxy hybrid. Macross Quarter looks to be dead in the Vajra’s sights, but fortunately, SMS and NUNS received their distress call in time and sent a fleet to help stop the enslavement of the Vajra.
Sheryl and Ranka are reunited and begin the final battle song of the movie. Alto and Brera have a spectacular dogfight as Alto helps spread Sheryl and Ranka’s song to the Vajra and their captive queen. Between Ranka, Alto, and Sheryl, they are able to free Brera from his own implant. Afterwards, Brera makes the ultimate sacrifice to kill the grotesque bodies of the Galaxy plot’s masterminds. The Vajra queen catches Alto as friendly forces fire multiple Macross cannons in its direction. It should be the end of Alto and the queen, but the queen uses its immense fold distortion powers to allow Alto a final few seconds to say goodbye to Ranka and let him almost express his love for Sheryl before it folds him and itself safely out of harm’s way. The rest of the Vajra soon follow, leaving the planet to humanity.
Unfortunately, as the battle ends, Sheryl’s body finally succumbs to her V-Type infection and she collapses. In an aftermath recap, Ranka narrates the situation a month after the final battle. Alto is still missing. Sheryl looks to have had some surgery and a blood transfusion from Ranka, but is still in a coma. The survivors of the Frontier fleet are beginning their colonization of the Vajra homeworld.
Macross Frontier ends with several scenes from both the first movie and this one played alongside the credits. It seems to be a very somber ending, except for two things:
First, the final animated scene of the movie shows Sheryl singing in her sleep and in the final moments has her earring sparkle.
Second, Sheryl and Ranka share a fun, fast paced duet together as the credits come to an end. This song was confirmed to be set after Sheryl wakes up.
Whether this means Alto came back like Ranka was sure would happen has no solid confirmation, even as I write this closing in on ten years after the end of Macross Frontier. I like to think he did, though.
Specific Scenes I Loved:
Ranka’s singing of Aimo on the beach. The whole scene was very pretty and had some great camera angles that made it feel larger / movie sized.
Rainbow Colored Bear, Ranka’s bright, oversaturated opening song is one of my favorite songs / visuals in all of Macross. It is more cartoonish than most of my other favorites, but the visuals are extremely well animated and the lyrics fit those visuals so perfectly! Plus, there are so many cute things going on you almost need to go back and watch it frame by frame to see the little transformation generated by Ranka’s magics. Whereas many of Sheryl’s songs are about lost love, it’s nice to have a contrast by Ranka that is all about perseverance and obtaining one’s dreams.
Sheryl’s explanation of what it means to her to sing. It’s interesting that Alto has at least some fond memory of his time on stage, as well. Or, at least, he understands exactly what Sheryl means because of his own experiences.
Ranka and Sheryl in prison. Sheryl’s outburst about being a normal person and not the Galactic Fairy that everyone makes her out to be was a neat touch.
Sheryl’s ultimate sacrifice. I did not expect this at all, and I love how much emotion they conveyed between Sheryl and Alto with just a look and a tear drop.
That *squish* that the hook makes when Grace causes it to hit that poor researcher’s face.
The scene where Alto is grieving for Sheryl and Ozma but also knows that there is nothing wrong with being sad and using that sadness to save others.
Movie Impressions
To me, this movie feels like the most correct version of Macross Frontier’s story. I never really liked the Vajra being the unstoppable, unlimitedly adaptable enemy they were in the series, so just having them as a powerful enemy that could ultimately be hijacked for nefarious purposes felt better to me.
The Galaxy fleet’s plot felt better too. In the series, we never really learned the fate of the Macross Galaxy fleet. I guess it was destroyed when Grace and company hijacked Battle Galaxy and left the civilians to die? In this version, the destruction of the Galaxy fleet is far more confirmed. But, more than that, Grace even used the SMS rescue mission to further her plans by making sure her people were among those being rescued.
Ultimately, if you combine Grace’s actions with what Leon says in this movie, it seems that both the Galaxy and Frontier fleets started to realize the power of fold quartz at the same time and made overt and covert moves against each other until one of them beat the other to the prize. It’s a pretty interesting backdrop and a pretty big change from the series where it mostly appeared that Grace went crazy when the Vajra attacked the 117th research fleet, and she got a few members of the Galaxy fleet to go along with her crazy plans.
Of course, we still had that research fleet destroyed. It’s interesting how this time the research fleet’s demise was due to Mao Nome overreaching in her efforts to use songs to communicate with the Vajra. From Sheryl’s description in this movie and in the previous one, it sounded like Mao was trying to adapt the Mayan “song of the wind” to reach the Vajra. But, instead of communicating with humanity, they attacked in an effort to save Ranka from being held captive by humans. In some ways, it’s still a sad fate for Mao Nome, but I also kind of like it because it give the Macross universe this sort of feeling that maybe sometimes the heroes of one show won’t always be the heroes of the next one. Sometimes they get wiped out instead!
I think one of the most interesting things this movie did was make Sheryl Nome one of the bad guys. Ok… it didn’t really do that, but it kinda did. Sheryl knew about the search for Ranka even in the first movie. She knew that her home fleet was actively in competition with the Frontier fleet. In this movie, specifically, she very nearly agreed with or at least reluctantly went along with killing Ranka to preserve her own life. And, when it finally came down to it, she accepted and confirmed the accusations made against her. Accusations that included knowingly leading the Vajra to attack the Frontier fleet which must have resulted in tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of deaths. Sheryl was ready to die for her crimes and she even sacrificed herself to save Ranka. The only reason Sheryl was not really considered a villain by Alto and the SMS was that both Grace and the Galaxy as well as Leon and the Frontier were far worse. Both wanted to at least enslave another sentient species and were willing to spend many, many lives to reach their goals. Realistically, Sheryl is the one thing that has lived on well after the end of Macross Frontier, so there was no way they’d let her be seen as evil.
One questions I’ve always struggled with is whether these two movies are a good substitute to watching the Macross Frontier tv series. In many ways, the movies have better plots. They better define many of the characters and certainly do a better job at making the Galaxy fleet’s intentions and wrongs known to the audience. Ranka also gets a good bit better treatment in the movies than she did in the tv show. Instead of running away and abandoning a fleet of millions of people, she helped save both humanity and the Vajra from the Galaxy fleet’s evil plots! The songs are bigger. The animation is more consistent. The movies have a more definite end than the series which kinda reset to zero, especially as far as the love triangle was concerned.
On the other hand, the movies cut out a lot of the callbacks and references to past Macross works that made the Macross Frontier Series kinda special. We also got a good few less cool dogfights. No Alto vs Pixie Squadron. No Klan vs Brera. No Alto vs that Zentradi commander at Gallia 4. And, some of the scenes that were changed, like Ranka meeting Sheryl for the first time, or Ranka’s shock at seeing Alto and Sheryl together after her big performance just weren’t as impactful as they were in the series.
Ultimately, I think the movies are strong enough to stand on their own, but, I would tell anyone skipping to the movies that they will be missing some great moment, especially if they are fans of past Macross works.
Normally, I use this spot to note key things that first time viewers might not have picked up on that would come back up in the future… but there is no future. This is the end of Macross Frontier. Except for two things. If you are looking for just a little bit more Frontier, I’d suggest the following:
1. Track down the music clip show. It tends to be listed as something like “Macross F Music Clip Collection”. It’s about 30 minutes of new and updated animation for around seven of Frontier’s main songs. There’s also fun little Q&A segments with Sheryl and Ranka that are very short but pretty well done in terms of character and content. There’s no real plot, but if you liked Frontier’s music and its songstresses, you’ll like this.
2. Go find Macross FB7. This one is a bit more out there, because FB7 is actually a strange movie-length retelling of the Macross 7 tv series, but with little Macross Frontier segments in between. Basically, Ozma finds a VHS tape of Macross 7 and he and several of the other characters from Frontier gather in his apartment to watch the older series as if they were watching long lost historical footage or something. I don’t really like Macross 7 as a show, but if you had to watch it, condensed down into movie form with frequent breaks with Frontier’s characters is about the best way to watch it. There’s also a great musical number with Sheryl and Ranka at the end where they play tributes to a series of Fire Bomber songs. That part is pretty cool and I believe it is the last substantial bit of Macross Frontier animation ever produced.
Moment to Moment Notes:
0:45 – That cross Sheryl is praying at looks remarkably like a Mayan Island bird human totem as seen in Macross Zero.
3:16 – See the MBS building in the background? That stands for Macross Broadcasting System and is a reference to the tv transmission system the civilians aboard the original Macross set up in the middle part of SDF: Macross.
3:34 – In this movie, Sheryl’s voice already has the power to generate fold waves.
4:30 – At first, I was not sure if Sheryl’s collapse was part of the production or not.
7:57 – In the upper right holoscreen is an advertisement for Ranka’s model of cellphone! Later those screens show some very old Astro Boy clips… not all of which are child friendly…
10:32 – I like how Ranka and Alto are friends in this version of the story. I think maybe it adds a little something that was missing from the original story. It gives Ranka a better reason to be hanging around with the rest of the cast, at the very least.
11:18 – Keep the word “transplant” in mind for later scenes. I believe the Galaxy group’s intentions may be slightly mistranslated later to things like “transfusion” where the idea of a full on organ transplant is what the plot and original language intend to convey.
11:41 – Again, I think this version of the story is slightly improved by the Galaxy refuge fleet having more of a point than it did in the tv show.
13:53 – Sheryl has two different voice actresses, one for normal talking and one for singing. Ranka, however, was voiced by one novice actress who was chosen for Frontier from a Japan-wide search. It is likely that she had / was personally experiencing all the hardships of being a singer and actress that she talks about in this voice over.
14:47 – Beautiful.
15:56 – I always appreciate a good scene where one character talks over and cuts off the other. The voice work / editing was done really well here.
18:09 – Sheryl’s illness gets a better arc as well in the movie.
18:53 – So, at least according to Grace, her group from the galaxy is just looking for Code Q1 (Ranka) who can fight the Vajra with her singing.
20:49 – I’m not sure how correct the translation here is. Sheryl is much to sad/conflicted about this plan for it to simply be a blood transfusion. Given everything else that is said, I think the plan is to kill Ranka and then harvest her for the blood/organs necessary to save Sheryl. Sheryl seems to say this exact thing in a later scene…
21:48 – A Boddole Zer Mobile Fortress is at the heart of any of the thousands of warlike Zentradi fleets that roam the galaxy. Humanity fought one of these in “Do You Remember Love?”. This appears to be another example of one.
24:14 – I love the use of holography to transform members of the audience!
26:26 – There’s that interceptor graphic whose like we first saw back in the “Do You Remember Love?” movie.
38:49 – The performance of Diamond Crevasse that is playing in the videos is actually a complete music video that was produced alongside a few others for a special 30+ minute musical clip show. The full version is very beautiful and touches on Sheryl’s time as an orphan on the Galaxy.
40:48 – See what they did there? With the triangle. On the ground. And in the relationship. :p
41:51 – So I guess Grace was going under a different name when interacting with the Galaxy and she really is Grace O’Connor of the 117th research fleet… Seems like maybe she should have changed her first name as well?
42:20 – Sheryl’s resigned look says that it’s true. That she really did lure the Vajra in! That’s a pretty shocking change for the character!
47:47 – So they introduced a sister for Luca and seemingly placed her somewhat in Cathy’s old role as a romantic interest of Leon’s…
50:54 – “What happened to your van again?” “Uh… some cyborg from the Galaxy fleet jumped on top of it while fleeing flying cloaked jetpack troopers…”
52:24 – It’s nice to see someone tell Alto to get over himself…
56:53 – So… that means the SMS maxed out Sheryl’s credit card?
58:23 – Note the water tower, “Ranka & Lovely Bomber”. This is a pretty direct reference to the Macross 7 band Fire Bomber and, in fact, the members of Ranka’ support team are dressed up and playing the roles of Fire Bomber members. Michael is dressed as Basara Nekki (stupid pointy hair and all!), Klan is dressed as Mylene Jenius and matches that character’s stature and clothing pretty closely. SMS’s medic Canaria Berstein is playing the drums dressed as Veffidas Feaze. Fire Bomber’s 4th member, Ray Lovelock, who was previously a tough looking fighter pilot, is not represented here. Mina Roshan, seems to be playing keyboard, but she is not dressed anything like Ray. Alto is dressed… as a random goth girl?? I guess Alto wasn’t muscle-y to pull off Ray so they didn’t try.
1:04:56 – Alto actually got the gas jet clusters to work!
1:08:14 – Remember, Sheryl’s grandmother is Mao Nome from Macross Zero. This was true in the original series as well, but I like how they tied in the Mayan Island song and Protoculture here. The missing sister is, of course, Sara.
1:10:01 – There. That’s pretty straight up about the Galaxy’s intentions for Ranka. It still seems like Sheryl might have reluctantly gone along with it before she was arrested!
1:10:55 – I want to know what was powering that little tram to have it explode from a gunshot!
1:13:39 – Looking at everything Sheryl did in this timeline, I think it makes a lot of sense for her to sacrifice herself. She is at least indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Frontier citizens.
1:17:04 – It’s nice that Leon didn’t risk the entire Frontier fleet this time… just its main city ship…
1:17:57 – It is such a Macross thing to have pilots readying for battle while also having singers doing the same thing in their own way.
1:19:46 – Yeah. He had that coming.
1:22:59 – The lighting here is pretty great.
1:23:16 – Bigger Macross nerds than I get all excited when new planes are used. The YF-29 Durandal, here, is one of the most advanced planes in all of Macross so far. It is far faster than the VF-25’s SMS has been combat testing while mounting far more firepower with its pop-out beam cannons. The VF-25 Messiahs can be hooked up to Fast/Armor/Tornado packs to sport similar firepower but are left with added weight and bulk that hampers combat maneuverability. Only the VF-31 Siegfrieds in Macross Delta some eight years later can match this prototype plane in speed + firepower.
1:25:31 – Big Wednesday is a reference to a 1978 surfing movie and is a hint at what the Macross Quarter is about to do.
1:29:40 – Oh. I guess they didn’t actually kill off the one character who managed to stay in Newtype magazine’s top 10 character polls for years after her tv series had ended. Imagine that. They actually did a pretty good job faking it though. There were zero hints that Sheryl was alive until this scene. (She was actually voted 3rd in 2010 two plus years after Frontier had ended…)
1:31:40 – Sheryl starts with a very slow version of the normally much more upbeat Northern Cross.
1:34:17 – Now we move into a variant of the tv show’s final melody. This version is called: Nyan Nyan Final Attack
1:36:59 – This random fighter appears to be the YF-19 from Macross Plus. The voice heard over the radio is the voice of Isamu Dyson, the hotheaded test pilot who was assigned to test the YF-19 in that miniseries. External sources confirm that this was Isamu who came to help rescue the Macross Quarter.
1:37:00 – In this continuity, the Macross Galaxy fleet was completely destroyed other than the few ships SMS rescued in the first movie. There is no Battle Galaxy in this movie, only a Battle Frontier controlled by the Galaxy’s evil leaders.
1:39:17 – This song is Sayonara no Tsubasa and is about a Norse Valkyrie coming for a dying warrior. Obviously, it’s a play on words with regards to Macross Valkyrie fighter jets.
1:39:52 – This dogfight is especially well animated and conforms to the styles of fighting we saw most clearly in Macross Zero. The fight here holds up very well even if you go frame by frame.
1:46:14 – We know from an interview with Alto’s voice actor that he said the full “I love you” to Sheryl and it was up to the director and sound teams to cut off his words where they wanted to.
1:51:18 – Sheryl singing along in her coma is very similar to Basara singing along after he had his life-force drained to the point of death in Macross 7. It is a very strong sign that Sheryl is recovering.
1:51:35 – This final song between Ranka and Sheryl is said by the director to be at some point in the future. He gave this answer in response to an interview question about why the ending of the movie was so depressing. He pointed out that it wasn’t a downer at all since we end by hearing Sheryl and Ranka singing in front of a happy and cheerful crowd. I’d like to think that Alto returns as well as per Ranka’s prediction… but I don’t believe that can be confirmed unless you jump into the wacky, all over the place video game timelines. This song was actually animated using computer animation for a special rerelease of Wings of Farewell.
Ranka discovers a possible way to recontact the long missing Alto and reawaken the long slumbering Sheryl.