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The List - Six of the Best 1980s Anime Space Operas

I think you miss one show where is Gall Force?? after all from the 80s

I have a soft spot in my heart for Robotech, but I am NOT going to address the underlying assumption of this thread's title if for no other reason that I have absolutely no desire to become subsumed into the Robotech v. Macross/Southern Cross/Mosspaeda debate.....

Love him or hate him -- and damned few anime fans are neutral toward him -- one has to admit that Carl Macek made a huge and indelible impression on the anime market outside of Japan with this production of his from the mid-80s. I will discuss my reactions to it as teenager at the time.

Whenever I discuss my reactions to Robotech, I invariably bring up G.I. Joe; the reason that I do so is because it invites the most comparisons:

1. It was on at the same time; and
   
2. It was also about war/fighting in the near future.

So what, exactly, was it that blew me away?

1. The Graphics:
   G.I. Joe simply didn't compare. Period.
   
2. The Music:
   I'm not audiologically inclined, but I was impressed with Robotech's soundtrack. (I also loved the way the opening closed -- with a Veritech defending the SDF-1, which -- in turn -- was defending the Earth. A rather cool juxtaposition, I thought.)
   
3. The Plot/Character Development:
   This is what so completely blew me away and forced me to re-examine all of the anime that I had watched -- almost all of it being American -- in a new light. I had never before seen any series where the characters openly questioned the morality of war. I had never before seen any series where death was acknowledged -- much less any series where main characters WERE KILLED OFF!!!
   
   G.I. Joe had none of this. NONE.

By the way, I didn't find out until years later that Robotech was a Japanese anime, and not until even later that it was comprised of three unrelated series -- none of which had the concept of Protocuture. But I always regard Robotech as the series that opened my eyes to the shortcomings of G.I. Joe (and Superfriends, and The Flintstones, and Scooby-do, and He-Man, and Voltron, and Tom & Jerry, and the rest of the sad and sorry crop).

[...]
I'm more amazed at how censorship has advanced since this show came out in the 80s, I mean, 4Kids edited one of Buggy's crew members in One Piece just because he was black and also did the "poison suction cups" replacement (I can't even imagine what they would've done with Claudia and Roy at the time, I mean a black woman and a white man dating? Whuuuuu?!) And then of course there's always that one line I remember from Yugioh The Abridged Series "Yugi! You can't be dead! If you were dead, 4Kids would've censored it!" (and "I wanted to use the visible guns, but nooo, we had to use the invisible guns!").
I mean, I don't get it, when did they figure that kids can't deal with the permanent death of a character? And I mostly mean America, two French shows that I've seen, both made within the past five years, (Oban Star-Racers and Wakfu) have both had one, so looking back at Robotech today (which I say somewhat ironically seeing how it aired before I was born) merely makes me question wtf is wrong with America these days? And it makes me also wonder "why is everyone complaining about what happened to Robotech when so much worse things have happened with 4Kids a hell of a lot more recently?" I mean, Robotech left in death, it left in the questioning of war, it left in romance, and while they cut stuff out, I think what they left in is a lot more important in this case and they still made a really good show all things said (I know that they cut some shower scenes and some more violent scenes from the Masters arc, which I understand, but they also cut stuff from Zor's backstory as a result of changing his origins, the Masters arc being the only one I've also seen in original sub).
I really like Robotech but it didn't give me a burning desire to see the original series because I had felt like I'd seen a broken wreck of a mess, but rather because I had seen something really really good.

I have to agree with the prior 2 posters. Robotech IS the reason I am an anime fan. I watched (and enjoyed) SDF-M a lot, (and SDC-SC for that matter) but the memory of what I loved as a kid will outweigh the flaws. I also prefer the new music.

I'd actually rather not fight about it. I love both series. I wasn't alive yet when Robotech came out, but I got into it after being an anime fan, and own the series on DVD. At the same time, I've watched most of the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and recently (finally) found a copy of the Macross II manga. Robotech was dubbed in a different time, but it's really a timeless series. I rather found a lot of the science fiction aspect to share some qualities with series like Star Trek and Star Wars, and the musical setting actually fit the scenes quite well.

I think we could also remember that this forum has at least a tentative connection to Protoculture Addicts which, as the name suggests, started as a Robotech fanzine.

While I don't think it was a good idea to stitch three unrelated anime series together into a less-than-seemless whole, I would agree that the Macross Saga of Robotech is better than the original SDF Macross series. Mind you, I also liked the other two original series that made up Robotech (i.e. Mospeada and Southern Cross) better than SDF Macross. Sure, you are getting a completely different interpretation of what protoculture is, but the story is more or less intact with more appropriate music and more mature behavior from the characters than in the original. If you want to get the essence of what Macross is about, you are much better off watching Do You Remember Love?.

But I always regard Robotech as the series that opened my eyes to the shortcomings of G.I. Joe (and Superfriends, and The Flintstones, and Scooby-do, and He-Man, and Voltron, and Tom & Jerry, and the rest of the sad and sorry crop).

So Robotech could Macross for all the world to see but Voltron's Go Lion has to go? That's like saying Battle of the Planets is bad because it should be more like anime... more like Gatchaman.

Upon completing this set, my one reaction was an overwhelming desire to throttle the show and demand that it return the hours of my life that it had stolen from me.

Animegomaniac wrote:

So Robotech could Macross for all the world to see but Voltron's Go Lion has to go? That's like saying Battle of the Planets is bad because it should be more like anime... more like Gatchaman.

I guess that I should elaborate on my reasoning for including Voltron -- but someone else expressed it far better than I ever could:

Carl Kimlinger wrote:

Upon completing this set, my one reaction was an overwhelming desire to throttle the show and demand that it return the hours of my life that it had stolen from me.

Look, when I saw it on TV I liked the way it started out -- but then it sort of petered out into nothing..... And, quite frankly, I was never terribly impressed with Armored Fleet Dairugger XV.

Sometime back, there was a column posted that was written by most of ANN's writers. Because of my piss-poor search skills I cannot find it, so I have to rely on my memory -- which also isn't the greatest. Whatever. So Mike Toole in his own section of the column wrote about how he would reimagine Voltron. I especially liked how he managed to include Armored Fleet Dairugger XV in his hypothetical plot. If someone can find the column in question, then please post a link -- I would dearly love to re-read it. As far as Go Lion (Hyakujū Ō Golion) itself is concerned: Is it even possible to find the original Japanese version? It is my understanding that Voltron is a bastardized localization of that series.