The Anime Backlog

Macross Plus

While in New York last month, I had the opportunity to attend the Macross Plus movie screening with special guest Shōji Kawamori. I had not seen the film in its entirety before, although I'm somewhat sure I'd seen the climax on some satellite channel when I was about 12. I'm fairly confident this is my only experience with Macross at all, and I'll admit that I wish I had watched it under somewhat better conditions.

I made the horrible mistake of not eating much before entering the theater. The Japan Society is a historic building, and I'd plum-forgotten that I could not eat or drink inside the theater for the next two hours. If it's dark and my tummy is empty, I'm prone to dozing off. It took sheer mental power to prevent me from doing so, and by the time I was out of the showing, I was hangry.

Don't do what I did, folks. Eat a nice meal before going to the theater.

Note: This column will routinely include spoilers. Reader discretion is advised.

Macross Plus gathers some of anime's luminaries into one tightly-paced (and honestly, prescient) sci-fi film starring a misanthropic virtual idol. The movie brings together Cowboy Bebop's Shinichiro Watanabe, Keiko Nobumoto, and Yoko Kanno, GAINAX regulars Shinji Higuchi, Masayuki, and Kazutaka Miyatake and Ichirō "Itano Circus" Itano. It also utilizes early CGI effects that, surprisingly, still hold up well upon modern viewing. Kawamori shared with the audience that they had wanted to integrate more CGI into the film, but it was frankly too time-consuming, given the technology at the time.

Beyond its pedigree, Macross Plus is a sequel to the original series, although it can fully stand on its own without any prior experience with previous franchise entries. The story's main plot line—an AI that becomes sentient and hostile to humans—feels more apt now, almost 30 years after the film's premiere.

As a complete Macross newbie, I can't talk about Plus in the context of the franchise at large, but I can write a persuasive treatise on why you should watch the film. First, for those of us wanting more anime focusing on adult characters with adult problems, Macross Plus is a godsend. The OAV and film primarily focus on a love triangle between Myung Fang Lone, Isamu Dyson, and Guld Bowman. The latter two men (one human, one half-human, half-Zentraedi) are pilots competing to allocate funding from the in-universe's equivalent of the UN for their respective aircraft manufacturers. Meanwhile, Myung, formerly a gifted singer, is now the "producer" of Sharon Apple, an AI pop idol who has amassed worldwide popularity. What most don't know is that Sharon Apple's personality is deeply connected to Myung's own mental state and distraught emotions centering on Isamu and Guld start to inform Apple's own choices as she attempts to attain full sentience.

Macross Plus' music and flight sequences are worth the price of admission alone. This is Yoko Kanno doing some of her best work, and it's enough to have me deeply debating picking up the vinyl soundtrack release. "Idol Talk" and "Information High" are certified bangers.

Itano absolutely brings his A-game in the action sequences, creating a sense of chaos and urgency to Guld and Dyson's sortie with Sharon. The entire animation team has multiple standout moments, from Sharon's concert scenes to a high-octane chase through a city's skyline full of skyscrapers.

The film's narrative, the beating heart between the action and science fiction, is more mixed. These are three adults in a messy relationship where both men kind of suck. Dyson is frustrating, to say the least, while Guld is carrying some heavy guilt that he's failing to confront. Only when all the pieces were put together did I realize (and deeply empathize with) Myung. I wish the film had centered her feelings more in the end. Much of the conflict boils down to neither man giving a shit about Myung's emotional needs, and it wraps up with Dyson and Guld settling their score over their perceived slights toward one another and repairing their relationship. The conclusion fails to center the actual victim of the whole conflict in the end. It feels like a pretty egregious narrative shortcoming, but it wasn't enough to sour me on the entire film.

Absolutely watch it! Diving into these shorter-length anime has given me a new appreciation for one-and-done films or viewing experiences that I can finish in an afternoon. Also, if you need the tl;dr version: watch it for the amazing animation spectacle and fantastic music. You won't be disappointed.

Final Verdict: Watch it. I am once again so pissed off at cancer.