Macross II

Director
Kenichi Yatagai
Production
AIC, Bandai, Big West
Country of origin
Japan
Format
OVA
Running time
6 episodes
Year
1992

Super Demensional Fortress Macross II

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
17th Dec 04

Macross II is a six episode OVA sires based on the super hit Macross (Was edited and had the story tampered with to make it the first part of Robotech). Now I'm not going to get into the entire Robotech V. Macross debate, though I will say that although Robotech was the first anime I saw, I tend to prefer Macross any hate mail will be ignored and any ticking packages shall be marked return to sender!

Macross II is set about eighty years after the events in Macross; there is a peace treaty with some Zentradi but Earth still gets attacked by a number of space travelling Zentradi, which are often fought of with no problem. Hibiki Kanzaki is a sensationalist reporter who jumps at the chance to report on the first new attack since Hibiki was a young boy. Piloting a Valkarie (a transforming fighter plane capable of flying in space) for the seasoned war reporter, Hibiki follows the battle. Of course there's something different about these latest attackers, and Earth's forces underestimate them to a great cost. While trying to get some killer footage inside on of the enemy battleships Hibiki comes across a young girl, the seasoned reporter jumps out pops her in the cockpit, and then is killed…he tells Hibiki to take the footage and the girl back to Earth. Hibiki keeps his discovery to himself and tries to interview the girl, named Ishtar about her people, who come and try to take Ishtar back. She refuses saying she believes that the Alus is on Earth, which she believes is the Macross.

While the animation is fairly old the story telling is top notch just what you would expect from Macross. There isn't an incredible amount of mecha action as the story focus is more on romance. The romance being the incredibly popular Macross love triangle. Although it's not as well done as it is in Macross Plus. Depending on where the DVD is from it's often presented in different ways; my copy is from Kiesik and has a couple of reviews written on its American release on VHS, along with a photo gallery (of Macross not Macross II) and no Japanese language option, but does present most of the songs in Japanese. Whereas the DVD of Macross II in America has a Japanese language option but cuts out the opening and closing animation to make it seem like a movie (though they leave the ad breaks in).

The English language dub is ok; the main characters all sound good but have been bettered by today's average standard for dubbing, some of the secondary characters are down right awful though.

If you like Macross, Macross II is rather hit or miss amongst fans, and is even contradicted by the events in Macross Plus, and it's not a small oversight, but a huge one. Macross II is best enjoyed as an alterative time line adventure, in a similar way that you can look at Robotech as being an alternative (but inferior) version of Macross.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 17th Dec 04

Macross II Images