My Cultural Diet

Produced for the Macross franchise’s 20th anniversary, Macross Zero is a prequel to the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series, and depicts the aftermath of the alien SDF-1 spaceship’s arrival on Earth. After headstrong fighter pilot Shin Kudō is shot down by an enemy aircraft with bizarre transforming capabilities, he crashes on idyllic Mayan Island, whose inhabitants live a primitive-yet-utopian existence defined by bizarre ancient myths — myths that have a striking connection to the modern conflict and the SDF-1. I was hyped while watching the first bit of Macross Zero back in 2003, and especially by the CGI-enhanced animation. Watching the entire series now, however, my reaction’s considerably more muted. The animation has moments of cool, but overall, has not aged well, with the CGI portions looking like badly rendered PS2 cutscenes. As for the storyline, it never quite gels. Instead, it grows increasingly bizarre and disjointed with lots of pseudo-mythical mumbo-jumbo, culminating in an apocalyptic scenario that feels lifted from an episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion. In other words, this one’s for Macross diehards and completists, only.

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