#2016 spring

[f-iligree]

Marni / Spring 2016 RTW

[hardworkandguts]

Macross Delta

マクロス∆

(Anime)

mecha musical romance by Shoji Kawamori

Era: 2010s

Rating: D

Plot: Eight years after the events of Frontier, the ever expanding human civilization is dealing with VAR syndrome, a mysterious disease where those affected enter a blind rage after a goal is disallowed after three minutes of deliberations hearing a mysterious song. The only known remedy are the songs of Walkure, a tactical sound idol group flashing gang signs. Meanwhile, Hayate Himmelmann, a drifter, is fired from his job stacking crates in a space port, and meets a stowaway, Freyja Wion, an energetic girl who escaped from Windermere, dreaming to join Walkure.

Length: 26 episodes, 2 films

Thoughts: Right, let me get straight to the point and say this is going to be me getting really mad at it, and pretty evidently the reason I avoid talking of stuff I disliked because my extremely petty 90s British music journalist starts emerging. I dropped it once after 8 or 9 episodes, came back to it to reluctantly finish it months later, and now I'm rewatching it again because it's the last of the Macross shows and my brain would rather subject itself to watching it than leaving one unposted about. Although maybe I should just pretend it didn't exist, like all those Highlander sequels they never made.

So, the problems, which themselves allegedly started because it was supposed to be much shorter with a movie to finish the story off. This show bothers me so much on so many levels it doesn't surprise me the least it may have been retooled from a 400 minute project to almost double that.

The characters. Not only instead of one idol (or two, in Frontier) there's five. Like the rest of the cast they mostly have one unique thing about them and you're better off just remembering them for that and not trying to focus on any more details because it's a waste of time - there's really not much to anyone other than that, all are barely above "non speaking role" level. A big part of the problem of the bloated cast of mostly extras is the focus on Windermere. The "SPACY does dodgy shit" is already well established, there's no need to develop so much the backstory of them. SPACY screwed them, they're out for payback, make them kind of sympathetic or that the SPACY is as bad as them or something. I don't need all the scenes about internal workings that are just a slog or infodumping. Plus, who thought it would be a good idea to create the Aerial Knights, that just wreck the flow of every battle - arguably, the only thing it does well just to have captain guy talking to pilot B to let the true wind take him or whatever? You need maybe a couple guys, but seven interchangeable assholes?

Other thing I don't like is that it feels like an extra cynical cash grab. Yes, I've started the series by suggesting the pitch was probably "we can sell toys and soundtracks", but the decision to go full idol group seemed just opportunism to sell merch of five characters and just dump a load of mostly mid songs. The scene where they release a song to deploy a virus on the system and cash in from sales at the same time? It's the header image for a reason, the perfect summary of what many decisions taken for Delta feel to me. Sell waifus and iTunes downloads.

There's some stuff I like; it hits the notes Macross should hit - music, connected to the protoculture, is at the forefront of saving the universe (even if parts of it feel ripped off from Macross II), the variable fighters, theres initially not much in the tension between civilian and military command (as they're planet-based in the first half) but the plot revolves around the SPACY doing bad shit and trying to cover that that, and a love triangle. And this, better than anything, explains how short Macross falls - Mirage is just... a complete non factor? Like many things, it feels like everything was in place but the execution of the ideas was completely botched. It really puts some focus back on dogfighting (because those seven assholes really had to serve a purpose, but it's not like I had to know their family history and favourite hobbies), some of it pretty intense. Some of the songs? Not bad. Visually, it looks uneven. I can live with the 3D mechanical models and elements next to the characters in the previous two shows and accepted that's how things were always going to be, but here? Ugh. How do you manage to make something that on occasion looks more distracting than in the 90s when that stuff was new?

It got two movies, the first, released in 2018 is a retelling of the story reusing a lot of animation with some changes and a few omissions to the story (for instance, what Hayate's dad did goes unmentioned). If in one hand it compresses a lot of the story (bad), it also compresses a lot of the story (good), and it's hard to say if it my head was filling in gaps with stuff from the show or there were jumps where things don't make sense, but either way, if you find myself in my camp, it's probably the better way of seeing Delta (C). 2021 saw the release of Zettai Live, which continues from the end of the movie, and as Walkure and Delta are in Windermere as part of the peace negotiations, a new enemy folds with the goal of freeing the galaxy from the influence of humanity and the mysterious Lady M. It reuses some bits of the plot from the show, one of the series's favourites makes another appearance, and we get a sad but kind of meaningful ending. Do I prefer the movie version of the story? Well, it's certainly better in many aspects (B).

So, where does Macross go from here? If I had to guess, between the Labyrinth of Time short and the references to Megaroad here, I wonder if the plan is to bridge the franchise together. Time will tell, but this feels where it's going to lead - Lynn Minmei is presumed lost, so is Alto, maybe Basara found a way to get to them in his travels. The galaxy needs saving, and it will take more than one hero. What is Mari Iijima up to these days?

Recommended to: WELL NOT TO ME IT ISN'T. Except the movies.

Plus:

Predicted people with vaguely European names losing their shit because of something called VAR

The dogfights look veeeeeery cool

Freyja deserved a better show than this

Movies are an improvement over the show.

Minus:

I'd be more interested in hearing the shit the antagonists went through if they didn't suck so much.

The 3D models look *awfully* out of place next to the characters.

A complete slog with bland, undercooked characters.

Honestly, throw 30 more characters in there, will you? Maybe a gardener for the Windermere royal family or something.

The love triangle with two sides.

[akmu-archives]

[160705] ['SPRING'] - Comeback MD

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More: Behance Design

[petitworld]

Trentham Gardens, Stoke-on-Trent, England by Nigel Dunnett

[liveforthereverie]

Rodarte Spring 2016

[miamaimania]

Undercover's Spring 2016 Collection

[lookingforvictoria]

Spring break is near!

[leavethisbluetheneighbourhood]

After the cold winter ends

Until spring comes again

Until flowers bloom

Stay there a little longer

[alternativerunway]

Roberto Cavalli Spring 2016

[violetsinblacknwhite]

﹒⪩⪨﹒remind me how it used to be ﹒⪩⪨﹒

[f-iligree]

Valentino / Spring 2016 Couture

[hardworkandguts]

Flying Witch

ふらいんぐうぃっち

(Anime + Manga)

Iyashikei by Chihiro Ishizuka

Era: 2010s, 2020s.

Rating: B

Plot: Turning 15, witches are considered adults and are expected to leave home and live independently to learn their craft. Makoto's parents, however, preferred she went to live with their family in Aomori, rural northern Japan, and that she finishes high school because being a witch doesn't earn a living the way it used to.

Length: 12 episodes, around 80 chapters (manga ongoing)

Thoughts: I'm not a historian, although for all that matters, I think Kiki's Delivery Service, which might be my favourite Ghibli movie, is a key point of the development of iyashikei, the "turn off your brain and just vibe in very low frequency mode" variant of slice of life, also probably my favourite genre. Flying Witch kinda feels like it's riffing on the same idea, and the results are pretty solid. You can expect the usual stories from this sort of show: Makoto learning about things like farming, gathering and cooking wild herbs, dealing with her Ryoga syndrome, learning to be a witch and meeting other witches, whose existence is apparently the worst kept secret in this world. The rest of the cast include her cat familiar Chito, her second cousins, Chinatsu and Kei, schoolmate Nao, uncle Keiji and aunt Nana, who is always very unfazed by the weird characters Makoto takes home, like her older sister Akane, a powerful witch who now travels around the world, Inukai, a witch living in the area who was transformed into a half-dog after eating one of Akane's chocolates, or the friendly but spooky Spring harbinger. There's also the Cafe Concrucio, a hangout for the local witches and other supernatural beings which could be a show by itself. It's a very relaxed show you can just sit back for 25 minutes and see where things go knowing there isn't much drama or anything.

Technically, it's an incredible looking anime. The backgrounds are filled with detail, and the additional texturing/shading on the characters make them look less out of place than in other shows who do this kind of background work. It's just subtle enough to make everything look in place, but not enough to get you distracted if they're 3D models or something like that.

Jumping into the manga, the adaptation stops around chapter 25, and is pretty faithful other than some additional padding to the stories to make them fit the runtime, and I feel a bit more focus on the iyashikei side of it. The manga remains mostly episodic, with characters also progressing in their abilities, and feature some world-building, such as the Witches Association assigning them jobs and their role in protecting their existence a secret. In general, going back to the start, I feel the more the story advances, the more it gets a kinds of Ghibli adventure feel, the adaptation covers the flying whale chapter, but it later adds others such as the Maneki-neko temple during Makoto's visit back to Yokohama, the mini Mandrakes also wouldn't be that far off as characters. It has a bit more stuff happening but generally it doesn't drag the suspense for more than it has to.

Recommended to: iyashikei fans.

Plus:

Oof, the adaptation is absolutely gorgeous.

Very relaxing, without being too much of a thing where nothing happens.

Minus:

As the manga gets more into magic, it loses a bit of that touch in common with the regular world.

[mmmillss]

[petitworld]

Small Hythe Place, Tenterden, England by Bob Radlinski

[pixiedrake]

[miamaimania]

Pillow Backpack from Hood By Air - Spring 2016 RTW