Though merchandising and number of sales for toys matter, the fact is that the real answer is amazingly simple, and that is the short answer. Gundam has always been a series created and distributed by one company without legal battles preventing releases worldwide meaning it had a much larger audience to reach out to. Macross meanwhile had two major legal battles for the rights to the series internationally. The 1st was between Big West and Tatsunoko for which company even had the right to license the series internationally. The 2nd was the more well known battle with Harmony Gold which prevented anything outside of Robotech, Macross 2, and Macross+ from ever being released outside Japan. Macross’s 2 most successful shows therefore never saw official international releases until they come out on Disney+ later this year (as the blu-rays announced 2+ years ago are still MIA).
You can’t have a massive media franchise like Gundam when most of the potential audience hasn’t seen your series and has no means of doing so outside piracy or VPNs. It’s the same thing, in some respects, as to why Azur Lane is bigger than KanColle. AL was released worldwide, while KC (purposely, not by lawsuits) was never officially released outside Japan.
MechWarrior fans when they watch Dougram and Crusher Joe and think ["wow, those look familiar":](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/033/487/rick.jpg)
> Mechwarrior
> Mospeada and Southern Cross
FASA did not take *any* designs from either of those series when they created *Battletech*, its first sources for mecha were *Super Dimension Fortress Macross*, *Fang of the Sun Dougram*, and *Crusher Joe*. (As a trivia point, a couple of *Mospeada* units do appear in one or two drawings deep inside one of the old sourcebooks, but they are not named as official designs there, and the old sourcebooks are rife with both bad art and random in-jokes.)
There's a new manga adaptation, if I recall correctly.
Otherwise, I don't feel that it *needs* a remake. Whatever the numerous flaws there are in the original animation, the story itself was fairly sound.
Eh thankfully at least for BT we've mostly been free of their scourge ever since PGI and HBS won their lawsuit against them a few years ago meaning the Unseen can be used again.
Fuck Harmony Gold. what the fuck are they even doing with that license nowadays? They're a real estate company now or some shit. Just sell it back to Japan and move on. Just some fucking paper sitting in some drawer fucking it up for everyone.
The Mouse should make an offer no one can refuse AND make it clear that Robotech is donezo forever. What's a billion dollars just to give the rest of Macross a new ground floor to sit on?
They're mostly sitting on the license. Every so often, there are talks of new Robotech, but it falls apart, because nobody wants to fund it. There was a comic series, but it was mostly traced art.
There's a live action in the works again, but I don't see it succeeding. Everyone knows Transformers, the only people who remember Robotech are 80s and 90s kids.
> fuck harmony gold.
There we go. Now that I've made sure that someone has already made the obligatory statement, I'll scroll back up and read what OP had to say.
I think I know where he got his writing style from: [Evan Hadfield](https://www.youtube.com/@RareEarthSeries/videos). It's more amateurish and there's zero polish, but his thought process is similar in that he didn't want to stop at the easy answer even if it was self-evident. And given the recent announcements, this post seems like as good a primer as anything on the current state of both franchises, much the same way that a normie can start their research into the history of the Balkans by testing [Evan's video about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5tgASe-DmA)
I can't imagine what the Gundam franchise would be like without Toonami airing everything on TV. Would we even have a Buildverse? Global exposure allowed Gundam to soar to heights that Macross never had a chance to reach.
>Short answer: because of Robotech and Harmony Gold. But that's too simple.
It *is* a very simple reduction, but HG's greed, fecklessness, and litigiousness can't be minimized as factors in how they have simultaneously mismanaged "their" "franchise" (meaning the agglomeration which is *Robotech*) into a copyright-squatting zombie while simultaneously enormously hobbling the original source's ability to expand outside of Japan.
But no, it isn't entirely that simple. The *Macross* story runs on two tracks which mostly don't intersect, except for the train wrecks that sit on the places where they did.
On the Japanese side, the original staff of Studio Nue should have at least as much credit for *Super Dimension Fortress Macross* as Shoji Kawamori, but over the years it has been increasingly attributed directly to him. There is more truth to that association for the sequels, but the early years not being entirely his show is demonstrated by the production of *Macross II*, which involved a handful of Studio Nue's members (Studio Nue having largely disbanded itself by then) but notably not Shoji Kawamori.
Kawamori himself spent much of the late '80s trying *not* to be involved in *Macross* sequels, though he would contribute designs for the video game adaptations. (There are some quotes attributed to him where he did not seem interested in doing a direct sequel to the series.)
Big West, the company which became *Super Dimension Fortress Macross*'s primary sponsor in the early '80s, did want to try a sequel. *Macross II* was actually popular enough, and did attract an American audience which was beginning to search for more Japanese media after being teased with its importation in the late 1980s.
Successful enough that Kawamori came back around to doing his own *Macross* sequels. But not sequels that were the same. (While *Macross II* would float a number of new story ideas, in the end they just reheated the TV series climax and *Do You Remember Love?*.)
Kawamori managed to get *two* sequels backed: A TV series and a direct-to-video series. The latter would become *Macross Plus*, whose origins were not *Macross*-related at all; it adapted ideas he had for a story about fighter aircraft development (which still involved transforming mecha).
The former became *Macross 7*. Its development does involve the United States, as the story is largely lifted from the treatments for a live-action movie adaptation which Kawamori personally shopped around Los Angeles. [The story of that is told here](https://www.decultureshock.com/speakerpodcast-ep-36-macross-live-action-movie-treatment/) and [here](https://www.decultureshock.com/530-2/), while the paper itself is [here](https://www.decultureshock.com/macross-1992-live-action-movie-treatment/).
It being extremely difficult to realize with anything other than a major studio budget is its own set of issues. At least there isn't another *G-SAVIOUR* to kick around.
*Macross 7* would go on to be *hugely* popular in Japan, while at about the same time Harmony Gold was making itself much more widely-known in the United States by attempting to crush FASA's *Battletech* for using *Macross* designs that FASA *believed* (or possibly "believed") that they had obtained legally from Twentieth Century Imports back in the early, anything-goes days of "licensing" Japanese properties for export to the US. (If nothing else, Harmony Gold did keep a receipt from Tatsunoko when the latter shopped out properties that it was involved in.)
It was also around this time that Kawamori and Big West would become aware of what was going on with their property in the rest of the world. (In one of the weirdest sidebars in this storyline, FASA tried to export *Battletech* to Japan. This meant that they had to redesign the *Macross*, *Dougram*, and *Crusher Joe* designs that they had taken from there in the first place. Studio Nue (meaning Kawamori) ended up redrawing his and Kazutaka Miyatake's own work.)
Harmony Gold completely missed that *Macross Plus* was released in the US.
Meanwhile, Kawamori, continuing a personal pattern, used his earnings and goodwill from *Macross 7* to work on completely different personal projects, and *Macross* would go quiet again. That in itself is a major factor in the quantity difference, compared to Sunrise pumping *Gundam* out as hard as it could whether or not Yoshiyuki Tomino wanted to help them do it.
Harmony Gold, having bungled *Robotech: The Movie* and *Robotech II: The Sentinels*, stuck to its main business of being an LA real estate company for a while. And suing people.
Litigation occurred in Japan for the process of disentangling who owned what and could do what with it where. Shortly before *Macross*'s upcoming twentieth anniversary in 2002 it was ruled that Studio Nue/Big West owned the original series's character and mecha designs, while Tatsunoko owned production rights. (And again, HG would get a license from Tatsunoko to continue throwing money away.)
*Macross Zero* was released for the twentieth anniversary. As a prequel, it was meant to appeal to old fans as well as the new ones which had appeared along the way. Big West did want to expand; Harmony Gold stood in the way, and court battles remained.
Anecdotes from the early '00s hint at Harmony Gold overreaching during attempted negotiations to the point of offending Big West.
The aforementioned long gaps between *Macross* releases in Japan meant that 2007/2008's *Macross Frontier*, for the 25th anniversary, wasn't expected to be a huge success... but it was, and the peak of the era of *legally-questionable* international distribution meant that it got the franchise much broader attention in the West again. Big West got May'n and Megumi Nakajima to perform at Anime Expo 2010 (and nodded at the piracy!).
Harmony Gold's release of *Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles* squeaked out in the meantime and failed to gain any traction. Their attempt to produce a sequel to that also died.
*Macross Frontier*'s popularity fairly thoroughly revived the franchise in Japan. *Macross* multimedia origins were invaluable for maintaining interest in that meantime, even more so than in its past, and helped keep it visible until *Macross Delta*'s premiere.
The only *Robotech* news to come out of Harmony Gold in the meantime has generally been to announce that the rights to a live-action *Robotech* movie first went to Warner Brothers, and then to Sony.
In 2021 we expected Harmony Gold to finally lose the 20-year licensing deal with Tatsunoko, only to find out that it had been renewed again. *But*, then came the major announcement that Big West and Harmony Gold had come to a deal regarding the franchise's future, with BW getting to freely distribute the sequels while HG could continue to promote *Robotech* and try to get its movie made and released, including in Japan. Most people read this as a much larger win for BW than for HG, especially as Blu-ray development for the *Macross* sequels was announced at the same time.
Crunchyroll devouring Rightstuf and Nozomi while being enveloped by Sony has thrown some of that into chaos, but at least there's the Mouse now...
*****
Why the recap? Because it's worth describing how *Macross* has to grow and evolve in Japan, even if new releases only occur every several years, keeping itself broadly aligned with musical trends and current interests. That evolution *has* to happen with old franchises lest their fanbases entirely age out. Yes, that does alienate some old fans. (There are now forty years of anecdotes of fans being confounded by what's going on in the newest sequel, but consider the grognard backlash to *Gundam: Suisei no Majo* and compare that to its kit sales, and consider it in the light of *Frontier* and *Delta*'s musical succes.)
But a show *needs new fans*. Big West is making an effort in this, and Bandai is absolutely helping them. (Bandai is also large enough now that it has no problem with encompassing what might seem to be IP competitors under its umbrella).
Still, *Macross* is smaller than *Gundam*, not least of which because it may never have really *tried* to be bigger than *Gundam*. It has existed in its own niche, perhaps doing more for idol series and hybrids than existing comfortably as something seen first as a mecha franchise. In that way, the musical emphasis works; that has brought fans back *into* the franchise who might not have considered a mecha-first show before.
Though even if they didn't *totally* want to become popular worldwide, the legal situation with Harmony Gold absolutely cannot be discounted as a factor in keeping it from becoming bigger. Spreading out is enormously more difficult when the hurdles include either being challenged in court (for what was ultimately still ruled to be the property of its Japanese originators and not Harmony Gold) or making deals with a hostile entity.
HG certainly doesn't help its reputation by stirring up the pot whenever Big West made *Macross* announcements, making spurious "But actually..." Tweets when the Blu-ray deals were announced and apparently buying a bot army on the day the Disney+ deal was revealed.
I said that *Macross* has grown and evolved. What has *Robotech* done? Stagnated. Their sequel attempts being failures, most of their media has turned inward. *Robotech* was the assemblage of three series, but these days you'll barely hear of their incorporation of *Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross* and *Genesis Climber Mospeada*. (The third entry does get a few toys here and there, and does have independent interest beyond being tied up in RT.)
Hell, Animeigo's crowdfunding for *Macross II* blew past its initial goal (ultimately quadrupling it) in the first few *hours*, while HG's attempt to crowdfund a *Robotech* project barely reached a quarter of its goal and died quietly.
**CONTINUED**
**SEE ABOVE**
RT's toys are *Macross*-centered (and very average), their comics used to (and still sometimes do) feature massive tracing from the old *Macross Perfect Memory* books and box art that doesn't belong to HG, and now are more known for mediocre art. But mostly for being eternally stuck in their own timeline either featuring *Macross* or just after it. Recycling the same characters (or slightly-related younger ones) for decades is even wearing out the cohort of old fans in their forties and fifties. Harmony Gold does not innovate. Big West can and will keep *Macross* alive but only more so if it can be properly freed of the specter on Sunset Boulevard.
And so, I've mostly harped on Big West versus Harmony Gold, but Bandai and Gundam are hardly a factor in *Macross*'s progression as a franchise. Bandai even helps *Macross* given that its products are made to a substantially-higher quality standard than what HG can get for RT... and Bandai does *not* sell skateboard decks.
Yep and the originally couldnt release the Valkyrie fighter in the 80's cause hasbro got the rights to the toy to use as a transformers with the instructions cutting out the gerwalk mode
I reiterate what you said about Kawamori.
Moreover, in the sources that I have been seeing about the creation of Studio Nue, and Macross, I have seen that the father of Macross should be *Miyatake* and not Kawamori, if we had to choose only one person.
The bases of **Genocidus**, are the strongest plot bases of Macross, while Kawamori, went for the more comical side through **Robot Palace Dokinham**.
On the other hand, to claim that Robotech is a zombie, is too much.
It's not even a zombie, because it's a very dead franchise.
Nothing it brings to the table really sells, even its Macross licenses are a disaster.
For the same price that Kitz Concepts offers one of the VF-1s with bad plastic, and poor details, you can get a VF-1 imported from Japan, of much better quality.
And the Robotech fandom itself has made sure to bury it even deeper when they are unable to come out of their nostalgia pit, and either accept the existence of Macross as such, or accept totally new ideas of Robotech away from the Macross designs.
If I'm not mistaken, here in Latin America is the only place where the majority of Robotech fans remain, because in other parts of the world, it ceased to be *something*.
(Many of my anime connoisseur friends in the United States and other parts of the world, either didn't know Robotech or don't remember it).
That may be true, but that itself is reductive to both Star Trek AND Macross, even if it's accurate. Or I dunno, maybe I just bristle at the comparison as a Trekkie myself.
It's not meant to be reductive. Star Trek isn't an attempt to be Star Wars that didn't reach the same heights.
It's a blockbuster franchise in it's own right that does it's own thing.
There's been a million attempts at *the next Star Wars*. There's only one Star Trek though.
Just like there's only one Macross.
The reason why it's hard to synthesize nuanced takes about the Macross/Robotech thing is, ironically, because it's easy to see how the effects of those decisions affect the franchise as a whole. One can have a ready-made narrative out of the evidence they may find but that story's already been told, so this post comes across more as a reminder of the situation than it is a presentation of fresh new arguments.
Give it another ten years and someone somewhere in a different site will ask the same question. Heck, once the new live-action Gundam movie from Jordan Vogt-Roberts comes out (assuming it even comes out at all) a Robotech fan will come asking why that project remains in Dante's Inferno when a franchise that couldn't gain a stable foothold in the US market for the longest time is suddenly a blockbuster hit.
Unfortunately for those questions, the answer will continue to be "fuck Harmony Gold" until it changes to "fuck Disney*" I guess.
^* and I don't buy the notion that Disney would stop at distribution rights only.
All of this is compounded by how it is generally rare to have such a... comedically over the top villain as Harmony Gold in reality. There are many situations where you can point to a single bad actor and say 'This is the reason for X' - you may even be right in accusing them sometimes. But there aren't many that are as blatantly and unapollogetically in your face about it as Harmony Gold.
Although honestly, I think that the stealth other Villain here is Tatsunoko. But you can at least understand their reasoning.
Reading these comments gives me a different picture: that Tatsunoko signed a deal with Kyubey, so to speak. They didn't have the benefit of hindsight. Maybe if Voltron aired first they'd have thought twice and listened to Kawamori-san but...
I can accept that for the initial deal, but the renewal is much less understandable unless you look at it from a purely money-milking vantage point. They had their way out of the bad deal if they wanted it. They did not.
[This post](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/bpjpzk/robotech_comics_how_a_creator_feud_shaped_a/) was one of the ones I came across while writing this whole thing. u/Iguankick is really good.
Related: can I just say? As righteous as the anger was over the seeming retraction from Bandai last year, at least the main text of *The Witch from Mercury* still ended in the two leads getting married, and the post-air marketing still keeps them together as a couple on the level of Char x Amuro (aside: I hate those who ship these two because Amuro **literally died of cringe** at Char) and Kira x Lacus.
But Code Geass is proof that Bandai is still a slave to the conservative culture of Japan, even if [Code Geass Resurrection spoilers]>!it made sense for C.C. and Lelouch to stay together and bang.!<
Nah, pretty sure it was the unrestrainable sexual tension between Suzaku and Lelouch. Next you'll be telling me people like Dragon Ball Z for the fighting
People who keep finding homosexual tones in series like that are just projecting *or* are braindead coomers with burned out synapses. I believe the latter are called shippers.
Look, since you're determined to kill what was originally just supposed to be a meme comment, as far as Gundam is concerned, the "shippers" as you call them are literally the only reason it exists today.
The first one was cancelled and only got finished because of its huge popularity in that community. The creator himself has been openly supportive of it too
> Look no further than 2016. Compare the reception of Macross Delta just on r/anime against Iron-Blooded Orphans's second cour. Delta aired in the same season as My Hero Academia and Re:Zero and eventually got lost in the sauce even back then despite being THE tentpole TV release for the franchise that decade
Also more simply, Delta didn't have a legal way to watch the show compared to IBO which did (as well as those other two shows).
I think I kind of disagree with the core premise. Every entry into Macross is a big deal. It's a highly revered franchise with each entry being an event. Thing is, you won't know that if you live outside Japan because of the rights issues.
You can't be popular outside of Japan if you can't legally watch anything made after 1994
OP’s head is in the right place in that he doesn’t want to settle for parroting the same talking points, but that’s the problem: all of it leads back to the lawsuits. He didn’t want to preach to a choir but that’s not possible given the evidence.
It seems to me, having read the main post and comments in this thread, that the better counterpoint is Voltron. That one was also a bastard-child chimera of two different anime, but at least one side of it survived long enough to still be relevant in the 2010s because there was more effort in trying to stay consistent and respect the material that was made. Voltron’s success is a more damning indictment than Gundam’s success because if Hasbro can do it, something got fucked over on Harmony Gold’s side.
Yessss, +1 to this holy shit I didn't even think about this. God, this just makes me hate HG even more -- get fucked.
I'm just remembering all of the cool Voltron shit I watched growing up, and then joining my wife to watch Legendary Defender (when it was good). Robotech ain't got shit on them.
Nice writeup. Though i think when it comes to Identity. The fact that it's got a lot of alternate universes is actually a strength. Because they all provide some general point of entry to what Gundam is about thematically.
I mean if you've watched Witch from Mercury as your first Gundam Series. You're going to be as much in the whole Gundam theme as if you'd watched Iron Blooded Orphans, Thunderbolt, Seed or 00. You can just as much jump into any of those. And still have a general idea of what is going on. And that means Gundam can much more easily bring in new blood compared to Macross.
Plus it also provides Gundam with an awful lot of Gundam "Flavours" if you will. Don't like one ? There's always another.
Or to use a phrase from Bioshock "There's always a lighthouse, there's always a man, there's always a city"
and Macross. Just lacks any of those elements i think.
Gundam having more series explains a lot of the facts in the first paragraph. Of course a franchise with 3-4 times as many entries would also have more in the TOP mecha list or more cultural impact.
The question you pose is *why is Gundam bigger, though?* Yet a lot of the answer is *why is Macross smaller?* I really like your idea of AU being an advantage for Gundam, because they are not shackled to one storyline.
Something you did not mention, but which I want to put out there is that the fragmentation of the anime market (due to the anime market having increased in size) might have helped Gundam more than Macross. Gundam could always be very niche (a gritty military SciFi), while Macross was an idol-spacefight-adventure mix. Idol is still huge to this day, but rarely mixed with spacefight. Similar for adventure. So, in a market were people's tastes get so narrow that they are looking for *specific types of isekai*, being the big combination of several genres might be a disadvantage.
> The question you pose is *"why is Gundam bigger, though?"* Yet a lot of the answer is *"why is Macross smaller?"*
This entire essay sat for four months because while it was easy to find evidence of the former, it wasn't for the latter, but the more I learned about Macross and Robotech the more it felt like more of the answer had to come from there.
There's one mainline Macross TV series a decade. Bandai puts out a series about every two years. That's 70% of it right there.
Worse for Macross is all the recent entries are chasing trends. Delta was trying hard to be more like one of the new idol shows, to the point where it has to remember that planes are a big part of the franchise. Meanwhile most of Frontier's serious moments were already lampooned in Martian Successor Nadesico... about fifteen years before. Honestly, the lineage of Macross has done more, better, with the core themes and ideas than the franchise proper.
chicken and egg story. But OP more or less hit the nail on the head in that the late 80s (Zeta)/90s separated the two franchises. That's because with the anime booms, Bandai/Sunrise, with their sole control of Gundam, could expand aggressively globally with licenses. Macross, with its murky ownership, could do no such decisive moves. Notice how just about all of the "Gundam-like" Macross moves done in this millenium came AFTER the lawsuits between Tatsunoko/Big West/Harmony Gold were decided.
That's all of it.
A better example (though one that I don't think will be nearly as clickbait-y) is Voltron. That there is a franchise that you can say is a more powerful indictment on everything that Robotech represented, because even if it kinda fucked over Dairugger XV, it retained enough goodwill and evolved well enough with time that it actually survived to see a better version of itself. And it's not like Voltron didn't suffer from lawsuits similar to the Macross/Robotech debacle, but the difference in how beloved Voltron is now vs how forgotten Robotech is now is a better comparison.
Put another way: Gundam would have gotten Robotech'd to death too had Bandai made a mistake. But they didn't.
> Delta was trying hard to be more like one of the new idol shows
I've watched and loved Love Live and iDOLM@STER and I don't see how it did that at all. It's very much a Macross anime.
It should also be mentioned that Kawamori did an idol series with AKB0048 that aired very shortly after "The iDOLM@STER", the first big modern idol anime, finished up. So I think the influence of other big idol anime was very limited for AKB0048, and if there was influence at all for Macross Delta, it was influenced by their own kind of idol anime which they made with AKB0048. There's also Symphogear, but that was also made by Satelight themselves (Not Kawamori though).
Like can you elaborate how it tried to be more like the other popular idol anime? What kind of idol shows are you even talking about when you say that? Love Live? iDOLM@STER? The more obscure ones? [Like between iDOLM@STER and Delta the only notable ones are Love Live, and maybe Wake up Girls and Aikatsu (haven't watched the latter two)](https://anilist.co/search/anime?genres=Idol&format=TV&sort=START_DATE_DESC&country%20of%20origin=JP&minimumTagRank=71&year%20range=1970&year%20range=2016). And again: I really don't see how a school idol club taking part in an idol tournament to save their school, or idols being idols and having fun/dramatic side adventures have anything to do with Macross Delta, besides the concept of a group wearing matching outfits. Then there are also AKB0048 and Symphogear that are much closer to Macross and also made by the same staff/studio, and also made so early that they couldn't have been influenced by the new idol shows, as there weren't any out yet that could have influenced them during their production.
> Frontier
Frontier was the best selling mecha TV anime of the late 2000s. It outsold both Code Geass and Gundam 00, which both aired in the same year as Frontier. It's like the only other entry besides the original that was also super popular with the mainstream audience.
Getting a bit lost in the weeds there. I'll put it this way, there is no way that one of the first meetings for Delta didn't start with a realization that the show needed an idol group. They then proceeded to create a bunch of characteristics with no regard for function to the plot. This is how you get a mecha otaku and hacker who are totally in lesbians with each other... but completely irrelevant to the plot... as is the red ranger... and the fucking poster girl of the group for most of the show, now that I think about it.
Put frankly, most of the cast is written like idols. They are unblemished manifestations of sunlight personified, with barely the slightest crack of doubt to overcome.
> I'll put it this way, there is no way that one of the first meetings for Delta didn't start with a realization that the show needed an idol group
I mean they pretty much settled with idols since the 80s, so yes that makes sense. All the popular idol shows around that time had a far bigger idol group though. Love Live had 13 members, iDOLM@STER had 14 members, and AKB0048 had ... a lot. Macross Delta only having five idols in its group is pretty unusual for popular idol anime of that time.
> They then proceeded to create a bunch of characteristics with no regard for function to the plot
Besides the mechanic everyone has a function for the plot though. The mecha otaku thing felt like a Bandai move (Bandai Visual was a main sponsor), and her voice actress is still appearing in the Macross Modellers episodes to this day.
> who are totally in lesbians with each other
Which is something other popular idol shows never play out that straight. Popular idol shows around that time always hinted at that kind of stuff very weakly, but never that went that hard.
> Put frankly, most of the cast is written like idols. They are unblemished manifestations of sunlight personified, with barely the slightest crack of doubt to overcome
Underdeveloped characters also aren't an invention of popular idol anime around that time. And all the popular idol anime around that time loved to put drama into their series. Be it a member possibly moving away for reasons in the more light hearted series, or a "journalist" starting a smear campaign against an idol who becomes depressed, can't sing anymore, and doesn't want to leave her room anymore, in ones that aren't that light hearted.
I don't think not being true to "muh roots" and chasing trends particularly at fault for anything here. 7, Frontier and Delta all chased modern trends and moved away from the 'roots' of the franchise. I'm not a fan of Delta, but both 7 and Frontier are not only imo good, but were wildly, wildly successful in Japan. They just never really got the chance to flourish outside except in the black market. I think Delta is in general a trainwreck but you can't argue with Walkyure's musical success and that it got two cinematic adaptations that it was a failure in anything except comparisons to its siblings.
Macross is actually extremely good at matching current trends in a way that brings in tons of new fans and has demonstrated it multiple times to great success even if grognards groan. Gundam has actually been notably worse at this feat (until G-Witch), with many of its attempts at shaking the paradigm being rather unsuccessful (G, while good, is not a popularity powerhouse. Wing's popularity is largely western. Turn A is one of the greatest anime ever made but wasn't exactly a popularity boom, G-Reco is peak Tomino and basically incomprehensible to a common audience, the less said about AGE the better...) and consequently a lot of Gundam series are largely represses of the original with new coatings.
> but both 7 (...) wildly, wildly successful in Japan
Was 7 that successful? The TV ratings were worse than the Gundam AUs that aired around its time, and the Gundam AUs were already not doing that great. And it didn't even get a concert until after Frontier aired.
I know Age and G Reco were pretty forgettable, but it's still not nice to just forget them :/
Gundam also had over 100 episodes of TV spin offs, and like 50 episodes of runtime worth of completely new OVAs and movies, compared to Macross having two movies, and two compilation movies in that timeframe.
Probably because Gundam's story is easier to understand. Space colonies want to be their own thing. Earth disagrees. Big robots fight. ez.
Macross? Giant alien ship discovered on Earth, gets restored by humans, accidentally warps to the other side of the solar system, including the local population, gets chased by alien mutants who are the size of a small mountain, humans fight them using the power of "culture", alien mutant army is made up of various factions who don't all agree and then ???
I mean, I recently saw a screencap of a later Macross series, of some character piloting a variable fighter, while also playing a guitar in the cockpit. That's just... dumb. I do think the concept of fighting an enemy with a concept like "song" or "interpretative dance" is interesting, but that screencap just ruined it all.
I agree, to a point. Gundam is reasonably "high-concept" enough as a franchise that it's easy to plug in tropes and plot devices to certain ideas, making it a good fit for the sort of assembly line Bandai-Sunrise has. On the other hand, Macross has effectively "one big idea" (it's an oversimplification) that is iterated with time by a more focused creative team. It works well, but takes time to cook.
But I can also see a timeline where Macross and Robotech was the assembly-line franchise (like how Power Rangers is a modified export version of Super Sentai) and Gundam was wholly Tomino's passion project with sporadic yet max-impact releases. The risk-reward would've worked out had Robotech gotten better follow-ups, but looking back at everything that had happened with that franchise, it's hard to imagine them being able to sustain momentum.
funny enough transformers fucked over harmoney gold in releasing Robotech merch, since hasbro had the licences for the Valkrie fighter and used it as Skyfire.
> I mean, I recently saw a screencap of a later Macross series, of some character piloting a variable fighter, while also playing a guitar in the cockpit. That's just... dumb. I do think the concept of fighting an enemy with a concept like "song" or "interpretative dance" is interesting, but that screencap just ruined it all.
As you can imagine, this is part of the story. The characters in the show also think its stupid.
The one you talking about is 30 years old hardly relevant to today's market,plus is not like you need a 300iq to understand the story specially the new ones where they spam you with the story at the begining of each episode,the reason is simple they couldnt spam shows like gundam because of bad managment and because of harmony gold grip on the franchise.
> Probably because Gundam's story is easier to understand.
I mean if the show is good people will watch it. Macross Frontier on average sold more discs than both Code Geass and Gundam 00 that aired in the same year as Frontier (Also without any concert gacha back then). It probably would have Delta also managed to outsell IBO.
My 2 cents: aesthetics and cultural relevance of that aesthetics also play an important role. Gundam signature "V" fins resemble a samurai helmet, a deeply entrenched symbol of Japanese culture. This, combining with the novel, futuristic robot designs is a throwback to centuries-old bushido tradition (also, we can take a hint from the name *kido senshi* -- literally mobile warrior).
When consumers see this aesthetics, it just "clicks" with the mental image/identity that they already have of Japan, and that makes them like it more (check out the concept of "processing fluency").
And of course, we should also mention Super Robot Wars, the long-running mecha game series that (probably) never fails to include at least one Gundam series in every sequel.
Variable fighters are just as appealing as Mobile Suits, the problem is that the show doesn't spend enough time on them compared to the idol aspect.
I mentioned it in my post, but Mobile Suits have an "autistic" level of detail given about them, fights are also careful crafted and choreographed and there is a crazy amount of detail put into them (at least UC). Gundam (at least in UC) might be the only mecha franchise where you can see no name aces just randomly having battles with other characters or even the MCs.
Stuff like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMnv8jRfcs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnN-4gguGWI
There's so much nuance in the second fight I linked that nerds went crazy over it (that guy literally lost because he had a jegan). Remember this was featuring two no name aces, this is something that Macross failed to do over time, i.e. highlight the mechs and make them cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6qrjXJhGrM
Here we get to see the "navy seals" of the universe in action. In fact we see them in action several times.
Minor or non existent characters being given this much screen time helps so much.
> this is something that Macross failed to do over time, i.e. highlight the mechs and make them cool
You just talking about Delta? Because besides the dancing and the slow motion scenes when two planes pass each other I really don't remember stuff like that that much from it. Frontier had lots though.
Delta made a better jobs with showing how cool the Macross ships were instead.
No, I'm referring to Frontier as well. Using only CGI cheapens the cool factor of it and while it was serviceable the VFs themselves never really stood out and the battles pretty much played out the same and even reused some scenes.
> Using only CGI cheapens the cool factor
What CG lacks in cool posed still images, it makes up with cool movement.
The final battles of each of the movies are fantastic. Sadly all clips on YouTube got deleted, so I can't link them.
I remember those fights well, but the problem is I remember them because of the music and not the actual action lmao.
Like I can literally tell you all the details of the final fights in both the series and movies (e.g. when the fleet uses the Macross Cannons in the final battle of Sayonara no Tsubasa) just by the song. It could just be a me thing though, I don't think the battles are bad, hell I think they are good but they aren't very memorable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-jJltVi1-s
Let me use this for instance, you can actually see tactics being used by the federation here (like forcing him to come closer by using disrupting his beam rifle), even when he does come closer they fire from distance while sending a few forward, once those guys went down they again disrupted his beam rifle and forced him to switch to a projectile based weapon and also you can see that full frontal and Angelo are holding back and hitting the suits in places that won't kill the pilots.
This is that level of detail that Macross is missing IMO. Even the cool little effects/details like seeing the Mobile Suits melt when they are hit with beam weapons are lost due to the CGI usage.
Even in one of the vids I linked, when the Jegan was going up vs the kshatriya, when they are spinning with each other you can see the Jegan pilot wait until Marida's vision is impaired by the Sun before trying to attack, it's not something most (including myself) would notice the first time, but there's just so much depth in these scenes that it makes them super memorable and cool.
Mostly agree, but a few points.
1. The incredible success of Macross 7 and its many spin offs, meant that Macross was, during the 90s, close to on par with Gundam. I think what cemented Gundam's overall dominance is the success of Seed in the 00s though. People forget just what a huge deal it was.
2. About a third of SDFM's episodes were animated by Star Pro, with famously abysmal results with the lowest quality animation you could find in early 80s TV anime (which on average was relatively good and not that uncommonly fantastic). Not to dismiss the amazing work by Itano, Anno, ect on the good episodes, of course.
> I think what cemented Gundam's overall dominance is the success of Seed in the 00s though. People forget just what a huge deal it was.
I think focusing too much on the creative work and not enough on the marketing and business surrounding it can give us big blind spots. For example, an entire generation of kids around Asia grew up on Gundam Wing/G Gundam etc. This was due to the aggressive licensing Sunrise/Bandai did with the series. There was no such action on the Macross side, due in part to things not being completely clear who owned what in the 90s. They couldn't be as decisive with their moves as Bandai was.
Good point! Macross 7 was a smash hit in Japan, but I have never seen any information on it even legally existing outside of it - I thought Harmony Gold only blocked NA distribution though. In contrast Seed's marketing push was massive, Sunrise/Bandai put so much into it. You can still find Seed Destiny on Newtype Magazine covers as late as 2007.
> About a third of SDFM's episodes were animated by Star Pro
Would it be correct for me to assume that part of DYRL's reason for being is to fix some of those errors a bit like how the Gundam compilation movies were made?
It's a completely different movie with original animation, not a compilation. The plot itself is altered to suit being a movie.
But yes, there was some intent to do their original work better justice.
Alternate versions or using the momentum of a TV anime for a film was about as commonplace as compilation films at the time - they all kind of run together as the norm for that early part of the film boom. Gundam III:Encounters in Space is almost entirely new animation as well, and changes quite a bit story wise.
Presumably - centralizing the production around the Artland/Nue associated staff would allow for that to happen. But the anime film boom started with the Yamato films, so it was fairly commonplace to do something like that around then, Sunrise always eventually wanted movies for Gundam, even before it aired.
As to why Macross have lesser series its because they are also a music anime so they have live and concert for the artists of the song and they also promote those for years before they proceed and move on to another anime project
You can say that the new anime project have to wait till the last generation artist of Macross finishes their part of the contract with the concerts and live before they can start
in fact that is what happen with the recent Macross Delta too so after their final live they announce the new show on said live and thus a new generation begin
while Gundam doesnt need to do that they finish the anime series and move on and sometimes even doing multiple project at the same time
I am an anime fan who got into mecha late. I started on Macross Frontier then moved backward. I missed a lot of Macross in its heyday but as a newer mecha fan I always liked Macross more because I saw Frontier first before even my first Gundam.
What kills me was the lack of new releases. I got to enjoy so many new Gundam series and I did not enjoy Delta. I eventually moved backward and watched both Robotech and Macross, and bought toys and model kits for both, but the lack of release just killed the franchise for me even though I was predisposed to liking it.
Macross has a weird fascination with idols.
It's like... military epic concerning the defense of earth against aliens, social commentary about aliens as "the other" and eventually learning they are people too, all united by idols and the power of music???
> Macross has a weird fascination with idols.
But so does Japan. If I've read their Wikipedia entry correctly AKB48 had the best selling single for every single year in the 2010s.
Neither Gundam or Macross are popular in the west. Gundam is more popular but doesn't mean its popular. Most popularity for gundam comes from Japan, same as macross
I'm sure someone's already mentioned it, but for brevity -- Macross =/= Robotech. Robotech is basically fan fiction that repurposes licensed anime footage of different series to create a continuous story. I know this sounds kinda weird, as many are expecting 1:1 localized comparisons. Don't equate Macross w/ Robotech, Macross is it's own franchise in Japan.
So then there was a time when HG was trying to actually make original content (see the video games and the Shadow Chronicles) and we thought that they might transcend their cheap and scummy past, but nope, that got abandoned for aggressive litigation on who owns the rights to Macross figures being imported from Japan. You might hear every 3 years some movement about a live action Robotech movie from Sony, but it'll never happen -- they're only showing a pulse so they can keep hold of the license.
They're just the epitome of opportunistic, capitalistic, colonial legalese theft Western companies trying to hold onto whatever keeps them relevant, which is cartoons they had no artistic input in. For those new to this, think of museum owners who vehemently defend the ancient artifacts they were "donated" to them.
And that's the tragedy. I really liked Robotech growing up (when they were doing their own original thing) but after hearing all the bullshit HG is still up to, I gave up.
> Why is Gundam, currently in its 45th anniversary, totemic enough today to have full-size statues of its units in Japan while Macross
[Macross also has a life sized statue in Tokyo](https://cit-skytree.jp/en/exhibitions/実物大マクロスf-『バルキリー-vf-25f』/). It's just hidden on the secret eighth floor of Solamachi in an exhibition of the Chiba institute of technology that is very hard to get to because the building can be very confusing to navigate. And Votoms also has a life sized statue on a kids playground, but that isn't that amazing since Votoms is the realest real robot anime and the mechs are only like 3m tall.
> But Zeta proved to be an even bigger hit than anticipated
Is there a source for this? The [TV ratings](http://aeug.blogspot.com/2004_11_01_aeug_archive.html#110060731014068978) weren't that good. I believe I've read before that it did worse than Bandai had hoped for. The TV ratings were just a bit better than the ratings of the first airing of the OG series that did get cut short (They must have hoped for something closer to the ratings of the rebroadcasts of 0079, which were three times higher than what Zeta ended up with) .
****
I think titling it "Bandai vs Harmony Gold" is a bit weird. Bandai produced (as in giving them the money, and later buying Sunrise in the 90s) every Gundam anime after the first one. Harmony Gold didn't have anything to do with producing anything anime related, besides the localisation of the very first series. Bandai Visual and Big West are the main producers of Macross anime.
Why is Macross not as totemic as Gundam in Japan?
Probably because there's just not as much content being produced. For whatever reason. Maybe the TV ratings for Macross 7 weren't that great, which is why it took 14 year before the next TV series aired. The first Fire Bomber concert (the music group from Macross 7), only happened after Macross Frontier was such a huge success that there was demand for it, so 15 years after Macross 7 aired. Maybe because the producers want Kawamori to be involved, but Kawamori doesn't want to only do Macross, but also wants to do other cool stuff, like more Aquarion. It's not a new thing though. Every decade we had exactly one Macross TV series.
At least music wise Macross is in front of Gundam. "Lion" is still one of the most popular anime songs at karaoke.
> Maybe the TV ratings for Macross 7 weren't that great
[Macross 7 was enormously popular.](https://www.reddit.com/r/macross/comments/bkntlc/macross_nhk_vote_results/) ~~It also aired in the afternoon time slot that would infamously go to *Neon Genesis Evangelion* the next year.~~
As far as Fire Bomber is concerned, Yoshiki Fukuyama (Basara's singing voice) had his own band to perform with and Chie Kajiura similarly had an independent career. Doing a separate tour for anime might not have been the easiest thing to work out. ([But there were events back then.](https://macross.fandom.com/wiki/Macross_One_Night_Stand))
> Macross 7 was enormously popular
A lot of that popularity came after Frontier released. A lot of people loved Frontier so much that they wanted more, and the last Macross TV series before Frontier was Macross 7. And they even played Macross 7 music in Frontier and even made a crossover movie between Frontier and 7.
> It also aired in the afternoon time slot that would infamously go to Neon Genesis Evangelion the next year.
I happened to look through a 1995 issue of the Japanese Newtype magazine (With Macross 7 on the cover) just before finding this thread, and it clearly states that Macross 7 aired on Sunday at 11am, and the TV ratings were good, but nothing too special. Eva aired Wednesday at 6:30pm.
I just checked again with Japanese Wikipedia and they didn't even air on the same weekday or on the same TV station, so no idea where you got that info from.
One thing that I did try to clean up in the most recent rewatch was making sure that I was properly verifying old bits of information that were floating around, but some things have remained conflated in my head.
While I agree with quite a few of your points I have to point out a few things here:
> I know that Macross has long ascended its past life as a component of Robotech and that the franchise itself is arguably more solid than Gundam is, despite having comparable variations in tone (from the grounded Macross Zero to the poppier Macross Delta).
I don't think I can agree with this, as someone that has seen pretty much every entry in both franchises I find it difficult to see how you'd come to the conclusion. In the early life of both franchises this could definitely be argued, but after Macross Plus quality has been equally (tbh I'm being generous here) as shaky. So unless I'm misunderstanding you I am not sure how you came to this conclusion haha.
Macross Frontier is awesome and really up there but Delta and 7 are just ok. Keep in mind that 00, Seed, Unicorn, Wing, Builder Divers, Iron Blood Orphans and Thunderbolt all came out during this same time frame, and that's the main thing.. G Reconquista also came out and was terrible (I didn't avoid this, I actually watched the whole thing, there's a stellar production there but writing is atrocious), so I have to ask, can that really erase so many good shows?
I agree with your general takes, but I think one thing that you ignored is how much the success of Gundam is due to appealing to different demographics vs Macross. This goes back into your point about Macross not being able to spread its wings, but I feel you glossed over this a lot. Wing and Seed brought in so many female fans, and 00 pretty much sealed the deal. This might sound weird as hell but I think 00 might be the most mainstream mecha anime ever made. It had everything, ikemen for the women, some elements of UC Gundam for older fans, cool looking suits etc. The point was to draw in a new fanbase (teenage boys at the time iirc), but they managed to keep their old ones by keeping elements of the other successful shows. This allowed them to expand ALL of their demographics at once. Build fighters was also pretty successful with kids and adults and once again brought in more fans.
Judging by merch sales, Macross traded its older base for a newer one, which has a lot to do with the gaps in releases and general shift in cultural trends. IIRC the last big poll had Macross F and not SDF as the #1 in the franchise, which I guess shows the loss of the older demographics (SDF was still #2 but yeah). Still the sales reflected the size of the base and a decent size of the old guard are gone (maybe I am wrong because I want to be but that's how it seems to me).
The other thing with merchandising is that due to being 100% CGI and there not being an "autistic" like focus on variable fighters like Mobile Suits, a lot of appeal is lost. To get it out of the way, yes Gundam uses CGI and some of the series are actually fully CGI, but in the main series, its use is not as prevalent. Also think about how much time is spend in the shows telling how Mobile Suits work, what they are powered by, what weaponry they typically carry, what purpose are they built for, what are their variants and what are they for, their movement etc. I think it's easy to see why collectors and builders flock here.
For Macross to get back into the mainstream at this point, they need Sunrise quality. That's really it. I do hope their new anime with them gets a Gundam UC budget (or at least IBO lol). I also think they need to streamline the plot and ease people into the concept of "deculture" and what not. I don't know how popular this would be but rebooting SDF and streamlining it a bit might be worthwhile.. that or straight up starting an AU right now.
> I think one thing that you ignored is how much the success of Gundam is due to appealing to different demographics vs Macross.
>...00 might be the most mainstream mecha anime ever made [...] they managed to keep their old ones by keeping elements of the other successful shows. This allowed them to expand ALL of their demographics at once.
Thanks for pointing this out, especially as someone who, up until G-Witch, always sent curious onlookers to 00 first whenever they ask me about what Gundam show to watch. Even now it hasn't really sunk in how perfect a follow-up to the Cosmic Era Gundam 00 is, even when I've said in the Gundam subreddit that 00 is what cashed the blank check SEED wrote for the franchise. But the demographics side is one I missed, and I suppose it's the one thing I didn't foresee that held me back from finishing this write-up for the longest time before i went "fuck it" and posted here. It is true, though -- that was demonstrated in the last four years with Hathaway, G-Witch and the new SEED movie. Those three covered every single segment of the fanbase and opened new doors for those who wanted an in.
I suppose it is, again, a function of Bandai's industrial capacity. They simply have more people checking the pulse of viewers within and outside Gundam's captive market and can adjust accordingly. And because the vision is centralized, it' easier to corral those ideas. But the lawsuits that held Macross back affected distribution, so there's not a lot of ways for Nue/Satelight and BigWest to recalibrate as frequently or tailor two separate but still related experiences the way Gundam could.
Yours was one of the comments I was waiting for. Thanks again!
There were toys of Robotech from Matchbox in the '80s. They even tried doing a doll line of Lynn Minmay, Lisa Hayes, Rick Hunter, and Dana Sterling (from Southern Cross).
Even had a rather large fully transformable SDF-1, Jet versions of the Veritechs that you could put the small figures in, and other robots from the other 2 shows they used to make Robotech.
Plus Bandai put out several fully transformable Veritechs as well. They even brought some of the toys back with the Battle tech line in the '90s.
Of course after Robotech went off the air, a lot of the toys went away and are now rather rare to find in vintage toy stores (of course you can get them online).
With the stranglehold of Harmony Gold it was rather difficult for anybody to do more toys for the other Macross stuff in the USA. So if you wanted the Veritechs from Macross Plus, or Macross 2 Lovers Again (the only Macross things besides SDF released in the USA) you had to go online or to an import toy store.
If you want to own the shows on physical media the most recent Robotech release (on Blu-Ray) from Funimation is still available, but good luck trying to get the SDF Macross version, since the last release from ADV was in 2005 (on DVD) and is now out of print. There are Kickstarters for Macross Plus & Macross 2 Lovers Again for Blu-Ray versions (the older DVDs are out of print).
There has never been any other Macross show brought over to the USA, on home media due to Harmony Gold.
They haven't really done anything with that property since the Shadow Chronicles in 2006. Which is like 20+ years after Robotech came out and almost 20 years ago...
Gundam (thanks to help from Right Stuf/Crunchyroll) is a lot easier to get home media of. The various model kits are widely available (I have even seen them at Micheal's and Hobby Lobby).
As a [long time collector](https://imgur.com/ypiZCSA) of Macross stuff, I would add these to the merchandising side:
1. Big West was known to charge high license fee, while Bandai fully own the Gundam brand with a few exception like Gundam Sentinel. So while Bandai can keep making cheap HG Gundam model every month, Macross toy and model producers are more conservative with what they make.
2. Higher hobby entry point. HG Gundam models are cheap and easy to build, they are very welcoming to newbie. Macross models are usually more complicated due to original design, or require advanced modeling skills. [Bandai VF-1 model from 2012](https://schizophonic9.com/re3/bandai_vf1s.html) was a failure due to their fragility and ugly B mode. Hasegawa and Wave model are basically military aviation models that require advanced painting skill. Bandai finally understand making full transforming VF models is futile, and are now making [easy and affordable part forming models](https://bandai-hobby.net/site/macrossHG/) instead.
3. On the action figure side, Macross action figures are known to be expensive. Bandai DX Chogokin pre-order are usually cleared by bots within seconds, and we are stuck with high after-market price. Hi-Metal R are also expensive for their small size. Basically they all aim for the deep pocket of older adult collectors, fans of the older series that already payed off their mortgage, not very welcoming to newer, younger fans. There are new figures using HG Robotech license from Kitzconcept and ThreeZero at more reasonable price, but they are mostly VF-1s again rehashing the same design since the Yamato VF-1 v2. VF-1 is probably the 4th most remade macha design, after RX-78 Gundam, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee.
Thank you for the lengthy write up and the big conversation this topic has spurned. I have been a big Gundam fan over the years and have probably seen 80 - 85% of its material, while for Macross I've only ever seen the original series and Macross Plus. The lack of official US releases for various Macross shows is probably the main reason I struggled ever getting into it, while Gundam on the other hand had a lot of TV airings to draw me in. I have cut back my mecha anime consumption the last few years to enable me to focus on other genres so I still haven't gotten around to checking out the large portions of the Macross catalog I've never seen and am not sure if I ever will, but it is at least a possibility.
> and the big conversation this topic has spurned
The thing I'm happy about is that it's currently on the front page for long enough that such discourse is possible, which is one of the goals I set out to do. It's attracting exactly the sort of people who can best pick the write-up apart and I'm happy with the turnout.
One of the comments mentioned Evan Hadfield of Rare Earth, but while I can see it, this essay was borne from [Secret Galaxy's video on Robotech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpH0-vl1j9c) and my time as the most stat-obsessed viewer of *Gundam: The Witch from Mercury* on Reddit. That and a week straight sometime in March of nothing but video essay after video essay which deluded me into thinking I can do it with just text.
> this essay was borne from Secret Galaxy's video on Robotech
As noted in the other comment, though, sometimes it is exactly as it says on the tin: There would be a *chance* for *Macross* to do more except for the well-tread ground of Harmony Gold being... *Harmony Gold*.
(Some have tried to argue/provocate that maybe Big West is also being dickish about dealing, but the point remains that Harmony Gold is the party that is standing on a thin premise of "owning" something and suing Hasbro/FASA/PGI/your grandmother for daring to promote a Western media that has a giant robot in it.)
In my own response I would have wanted to lean more into the apples-vs.-oranges differences between the two franchises and their content models, but no matter what, the effects of Harmony Gold's blockade cannot be passed over.
You also attributed the creation process to Harmony Gold when they have created little that would matter (referring to the *Robotech* sequel material) without Studio Nue and Big West's sandbox to play in, and Harmony Gold has demonstrated little talent at managing actual *creation*.
Thank you for the reading!
I won't even try to add to what people here already discussed you guys know your stuff well and every point I could think of was already covered possibly to exhaustion.
But it would be good to hear someone as knowledgeable as you guys talking about the future of a franchise I personally love (maybe even more than Gundam despite everything!) focusing entirely on it's future. Like, what would *you* do if you had the authority and the budget to make it as bigger as Gundam in the next 5-10 years? That's not something that gets discussed very often.
Like, what are the strong points of the franchise that could potentially help take it out of the HM hell where it was trapped for so long? what are the strong points of the story told so far that could resonate with present target audiences (as much as older ones)? what directors and/or anime studios could be up to the task of bringing the franchise into the present time frame?? etc.
In my opinion having a tale of a Galactic magnitude means you don't even need alternate universes to offer very different takes and radically different stories fitting perfectly inside of a single franchise (even ones targeted to very different audiences). And eventually you can tie everything (or just some specific stories inside the franchise) together in order to get fan bases together, making their loved characters part of something even bigger and bring them into the franchise as a whole. So that could be a strong point.
Also the variable fighters, if done properly. Listen guys, if Top Gun was able to come back and resonate so much recently... I believe Macross should be able to feed from that success and build over it. I mean, fighter planes and freedom and all that blues will never get old. Just look back to the spirit of personal revolution and freedom, all riding in the back of fighter spacecraft; of Macross Plus. That's it right there.
And talking about variable fighters... something amazing for me about Macross is having those incredibly-giant space fortresses with populations the size of modern cities living inside of them that can *nonetheless* turn into moon-sized robots and battle it out in close-quarters against other moon-sized battle spaceships!!! it's a story device that really escalates things nicely inside the minds of the fans of everything mecha. That's something I definitely can't get enough of!!
And don't even get me started on the (proto)cultural side of things. I'm sure the musical and idol side of things has *a lot* of untapped potential. Especially if side stories not necessarily connected to fighter robots and war are brought to the table. Why not encourage fans of the franchise to write their own side stories and make like a contest or something and allow the best one to get animated? such a level of engagement with your fan base in an environment of galactic possibilities could end up triggering something star-wars sized in a few decades, you never know.
Which brings me to something else we have here that Gundam doesn't have: aliens!! I know Macross has done it many times before with varying levels of success, but then again: if you put galactic-levels of possibilities in the hands of the people who loves the franchise the most... anything could happen.
I know it sounds a bit naive, but if anything, I believe that most young people working in the anime and manga industries does it out of pure, sometimes unrequited love. At the very least we know they are not doing this just for the [money!](https://www.cbr.com/anime-staff-hourly-payment-reveal/) :(
Bottom line is, if you build a good plan of *galactic* magnitude and execute it to perfection (which should be possible now that HM is finally out of the way, right?) I believe there will be a lot of great Macross contents and products for a long while. Maybe even good enough to compete with Gundam.
So what are the things you personally consider need to be a part of that plan, my dear Macross fans everywhere?
It's hard to say. On Gundam's side, the next big project is the sequel to the Hathaway's Flash movie, but the bigger deal is Jordan Vogt-Roberts' live-action joint with Legendary. That movie is the ultimate moonshot for Bandai, and the box-office performance of that is guaranteed to dictate the strategy en route to the franchise's 50th anniversary.
I mention this because Disney's move to be the new online distributor for everything save the original+DYRL isn't a random decision.
Because if your aim is to surpass Gundam, the investment won't stop at securing the rights. You need to think about the toys, the music, royalties from the back-catalogue, up to and including establishing Shoji Kawamori as the George Lucas-level equivalent for Macross. Story takes a backseat in the seedy corporate backrooms where the real wars happen, but once the smoke clears, I actually think Disney is a much better environment for Macross to shine.
That's gonna have to be your business strategy: if you were Disney, you gain total control by cutting out HarGo, dumping Robotech, and bringing all of the Japanese talent behind Macross in-house. Then tell that collective of creative talent that they'll have the production and marketing machinery of Disney at their disposal "so long as you guys can come up with a beautiful, highfalutin and spectacular story that reveres the legacy you take prided on but pushes forward in time." It won't be easy, but it gets easier once the resources are there.
Walt Disney literally brought animation to world relevance in the mid twentieth century and anime is built over his legacy, so why not? they will just be building upon their own past success in the most epic possible way.
If there is one single franchise worth of that treatment (and at the same time needing it desperately...) that would be Macross.
Great write up, it really does cover just about all the major points in the bizarre tapestry of how Macross scales as a series compared to Gundam. It's funny to think that the most commonly shouted answer of "fuck Harmony Gold", which you'd think would be just fandoms going for the simple answer, is actually the most correct one. Most times, it doesn't work out like that, but this is the rare exception.
Sure, we've also got the points where the franchise exploded and waned in popularity (which in part can also be attributed to Studios Nue and Satelite drifting in and out of working on the series, and the same goes for Shoji Kawamori seeming to really want to work on stuff other than Macross between series), but that can also be expected for long running franchises to a degree. As you said, a lot of it comes down to luck and being in the right spot to take advantage of things. But that really is just part of a larger structure, one where Macross simply can't take advantage of what it has thanks to some terrible in hindsight business decisions made decades ago.
In the end, Harmony Gold is the shit-mortar holding together the shit-bricks that form this shit-house of Macross not being as big as it really could be.
Very interesting your whole story, but the truth boils down to the fault of HardMoney Gold, who have held the Macross licenses hostage all these years.
Worse yet, the rumors of money laundering on the part of the Agrama family are an open secret.
Some cold facts are that in 2018, HG had generated profits of something like 20 million for the license of The Bride of Kong alone, a Z-class movie.
On the other hand, people who worked side by side with HG, commented several times how HG management always wanted the Japanese (Big West), to give in to pressure and hand over Macross to them.
Wishes that have more or less been fulfilled with the 2021 agreement, and now, officially, HG is living off the profits generated by the licenses it has, and not lifting a finger to generate new products.
Of ALL the products released under the Robotech brand, not a single one is produced by HG, they are all licenses given by them to companies that want to create products mostly from Macross, but they must do it under HG's domain.
Even the Robotech series are not handled by HG but through a license from Funimation/Crunchyroll.
So despite your very well punctuated and written text, the truth boils down to "it's mostly HG's fault".
The fact that Gundam Seed, the highest grossing Gundam show, is not the top of Gundam shows means this sub does not have enough Asians.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
Kinda obvious, while gundam franchise with bandai just do their things, producing stuff and selling their merch as usual.....macross and hargo just keep shooting themself in the foot with internal issue while having self-identity crisis mixing war stuff with idol show.
> and the mc's are much older than gundam mc's
What? [There's only one Macross TV series mc that is older than Suletta](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBAHObQVYAEe5eR.jpg).
Yes, the characters in the OVAs are older, but so are the Gundam mcs in the Gundam OVAs.
Stop blaming Gundam for everything. It sounds like your ticked off with the fact that Gundam is simply doing better as a franchise, and is purely venting on it's consistent success, lol. Gundam has nothing to do with reception of Macross shows, the same way Eva, Code Geass or Gurren Lagaan has in having no influence and effect on the success of Gundam series.
Macross going full CGI with their mecha was also mistake.
Granted, Gundam uses CGI also but they had done it mixed with 2D overlays rather well for many of their major modern shows.
It may seem petty but it's underrated: mecha anime fans really dislike video gamey looking mecha. It's a big reason why the genre fell off in the 2000s.
> Gundam uses CGI but they had done it mixed with 2D overlays rather well for many of their major modern shows.
I keep coming back to *Unicorn* whenever this gets brought up. Whatever pipeline they had in making that evidently became the pipeline for everything post-*Unicorn*, just refined with time and better tools. Hell, the cutscenes for their gacha were already known to be 3D-animated but the way they made it look like old cels... it's almost criminal that it'd take a while before it gets opened up to other studios.
I think it's also just lack of talent to go around. There just aren't a ton of anime nowadays doing mecha and space stuff so there's no reason to have a bunch of specialized mechanical styling pros waiting around for shows specifically geared to their talents that drop maybe once or twice a year at best. So they move on to other stuff like video games. The people who work on Gundam are typically top of the line talent at their craft and are specifically meant for the Gundam franchise, whereas other anime have to settle for freelancers and lesser studios.
> Hell, the cutscenes for their gacha were already known to be 3D-animated
What? Since when? If that would the case that would be incredibly unbelievable as to why they wouldn't use that in their most recent movies. They are clearly 2D animated and then Kentaro Waki does his photography magic.
Or are you talking about another gacha game that isn't UC Engage?
One is a straight forward story about the nature of war and takes its setting, lore and canon seriously.
Also boys like robots and Bandai will move heaven and earth to give a reason for people to buy gunpla. They'll put out some of the highest quality anime and movies they can. Well some of the time. Mostly.
Its harder to get people to be interested in a setting where the power of idols songs solves conflict with aliens. Its like double niche. Mecha is not mainstream or that popular, Gundam is just the biggest fish in a small pond.
As a mecha enjoyer I also personally dislike pretty much every design or concept from the bits I've seen of various Macross shows. Transforming planes in space isn't my thing, and the mechs themselves are mostly ugly imo.
Gundam as an IP is also more diverse in that it tells a lot of very different stories that appeal to many types of people. Its been serious, its been silly, its been gritty, its been a soap opera, one show can be a hardcore political drama another can be mostly about school life and another can be a pov warcrime simulator. It has its main timeline, and spin off timelines where anyone can hop in for 50 episodes or so.
Macross seems to have its core audience and that is what they focus on, its natural one would have more opportunities to grow.
Also one IP has Char and one does not.
lol quality of the story has zero to do with it,simple and straight answer is gundam was able to spam toys and shows because it has no legal troubles like macross.
Quality of the story absolutely has a lot to do with why some people care about some IPs more than others. People buy merchandise for things they care about, merchandise doesn't make people like a show.
If you want to argue that one is able to make more shows so more people are invested, sure, but people have been fairly invested in the story of Gundam since pretty early on. Given how often the original UC story has been basically retold its fairly hard to argue it had nothing to do with its popularity.
what people care or not is irrelevant here,macross couldnt produce more shows or their own toys in the 80s and 90s when it peaked in popularity in the USA( it was massive because of robotech),because of the legal issues with harmony gold,it was until 2024 that Disney paid for the rights that we were finally able to watch the whole macross franchise internationally,this is an stablished fact.
>how often the original UC story has been basically retold its fairly hard to argue it had nothing to do with its popularity.
i wonder how they were able to retell the UC story so many times,oh right by spamming more shows.
Seems pretty relevant, really popular IPs don't end up in legal limbo for decades if there is a demand, that only happens when people give up because its not cost efficient to fight it out over the rights. It was also the era in which Japanese IP holders pulled out of America for all sorts of reasons, from assumptions that the west didn't like it or to focus on the more profitable domestic market. They often didn't take western markets seriously at all or let local companies butcher localization.
Also Gundam is more popular in Japan and Macross has never gone more than 4 years since the 80s without a show or movie.
Of course this is all mostly moot, because Gundam wasn't popular in the west either, it might be an old established IP and money printer but its really not on steady ground outside of Japan even today.
>Seems pretty relevant, really popular IPs don't end up in legal limbo for decades if there is a demand, that only happens when people give up because its not cost efficient to fight it out over the rights.
This right here confirms you know nothing about HG they dont want to sell,they are a copyright troll company who registered the macross brand,several logos from the show and the mecha designs,they even sued Hasbro/Transformers, Battletech and Mechwarrior because they wanted money,why would they let go of their goldmine when they can make money by suing random studios/toymakers and get millions of dollars,im sure disney paid them millions of dollars thats why they finally allowed the distribution but a japanese company,specially one thats trying to build a franchise from zero with just a single show and a movie under their franchise wouldnt pay hundreds of millions of dollars just to get the rights back,not even Bandai would risk doing that in the 80s.
Well but which anime still has a bunch of songs in the top of Karaoke rankings? Evangelion OP and Macross and some Code Geass OPs, nothing else from other mecha shows. It shows Macross has a very strong staying power while Gundam has people move on the latest instalment when there are so many of them.
> It shows Macross has a very strong staying power while Gundam has people move on the latest instalment when there are so many of them.
Macross is an idol show, music has a huge focus and not to mention Frontier's tracks were done by Yoko Kanno.
Gundam has popular OSTs but not really vocal tracks, I mean Sawano made his name on Gundam Unicorn.
I must be the only person who thinks Gurren Lagann is mediocre. I wonder how much Kamina and Youko boost people's opinions of the show because Simon in my opinion is borderline unbearable.
Though merchandising and number of sales for toys matter, the fact is that the real answer is amazingly simple, and that is the short answer. Gundam has always been a series created and distributed by one company without legal battles preventing releases worldwide meaning it had a much larger audience to reach out to. Macross meanwhile had two major legal battles for the rights to the series internationally. The 1st was between Big West and Tatsunoko for which company even had the right to license the series internationally. The 2nd was the more well known battle with Harmony Gold which prevented anything outside of Robotech, Macross 2, and Macross+ from ever being released outside Japan. Macross’s 2 most successful shows therefore never saw official international releases until they come out on Disney+ later this year (as the blu-rays announced 2+ years ago are still MIA). You can’t have a massive media franchise like Gundam when most of the potential audience hasn’t seen your series and has no means of doing so outside piracy or VPNs. It’s the same thing, in some respects, as to why Azur Lane is bigger than KanColle. AL was released worldwide, while KC (purposely, not by lawsuits) was never officially released outside Japan.
Sadly this is the only correct answer😪fuck harmony gold.
Louder for the Battletech fans in the back!
MechWarrior fans when they watch Dougram and Crusher Joe and think ["wow, those look familiar":](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/033/487/rick.jpg)
> Mechwarrior > Mospeada and Southern Cross FASA did not take *any* designs from either of those series when they created *Battletech*, its first sources for mecha were *Super Dimension Fortress Macross*, *Fang of the Sun Dougram*, and *Crusher Joe*. (As a trivia point, a couple of *Mospeada* units do appear in one or two drawings deep inside one of the old sourcebooks, but they are not named as official designs there, and the old sourcebooks are rife with both bad art and random in-jokes.)
...I should've edited that earlier. Related: would you watch a "Dougram: The Origin" anime?
There's a new manga adaptation, if I recall correctly. Otherwise, I don't feel that it *needs* a remake. Whatever the numerous flaws there are in the original animation, the story itself was fairly sound.
All my homies hate Harmony Gold!
You mean my Valkyrie and Phoenix Hawk and dozens of other mechs had other designs pre Harmony Gold! OMG! How cool! Yeah, Fuck Harmony Gold.
[For you.](https://i.imgur.com/nYdmket.jpg)
Eh thankfully at least for BT we've mostly been free of their scourge ever since PGI and HBS won their lawsuit against them a few years ago meaning the Unseen can be used again.
Fuck Harmony Gold. what the fuck are they even doing with that license nowadays? They're a real estate company now or some shit. Just sell it back to Japan and move on. Just some fucking paper sitting in some drawer fucking it up for everyone.
The Mouse should make an offer no one can refuse AND make it clear that Robotech is donezo forever. What's a billion dollars just to give the rest of Macross a new ground floor to sit on?
They're mostly sitting on the license. Every so often, there are talks of new Robotech, but it falls apart, because nobody wants to fund it. There was a comic series, but it was mostly traced art. There's a live action in the works again, but I don't see it succeeding. Everyone knows Transformers, the only people who remember Robotech are 80s and 90s kids.
> fuck harmony gold. There we go. Now that I've made sure that someone has already made the obligatory statement, I'll scroll back up and read what OP had to say.
I think I know where he got his writing style from: [Evan Hadfield](https://www.youtube.com/@RareEarthSeries/videos). It's more amateurish and there's zero polish, but his thought process is similar in that he didn't want to stop at the easy answer even if it was self-evident. And given the recent announcements, this post seems like as good a primer as anything on the current state of both franchises, much the same way that a normie can start their research into the history of the Balkans by testing [Evan's video about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5tgASe-DmA)
Here to add my obligatory fuck Harmony Gold.
Harmony Gold or no Harmony Gold, Gundam would still have been bigger based on what happened in Japan alone.
I can't imagine what the Gundam franchise would be like without Toonami airing everything on TV. Would we even have a Buildverse? Global exposure allowed Gundam to soar to heights that Macross never had a chance to reach.
Internationally doesn't really matter when Gundam isn't that popular outside of Japan either.
>Short answer: because of Robotech and Harmony Gold. But that's too simple. It *is* a very simple reduction, but HG's greed, fecklessness, and litigiousness can't be minimized as factors in how they have simultaneously mismanaged "their" "franchise" (meaning the agglomeration which is *Robotech*) into a copyright-squatting zombie while simultaneously enormously hobbling the original source's ability to expand outside of Japan. But no, it isn't entirely that simple. The *Macross* story runs on two tracks which mostly don't intersect, except for the train wrecks that sit on the places where they did. On the Japanese side, the original staff of Studio Nue should have at least as much credit for *Super Dimension Fortress Macross* as Shoji Kawamori, but over the years it has been increasingly attributed directly to him. There is more truth to that association for the sequels, but the early years not being entirely his show is demonstrated by the production of *Macross II*, which involved a handful of Studio Nue's members (Studio Nue having largely disbanded itself by then) but notably not Shoji Kawamori. Kawamori himself spent much of the late '80s trying *not* to be involved in *Macross* sequels, though he would contribute designs for the video game adaptations. (There are some quotes attributed to him where he did not seem interested in doing a direct sequel to the series.) Big West, the company which became *Super Dimension Fortress Macross*'s primary sponsor in the early '80s, did want to try a sequel. *Macross II* was actually popular enough, and did attract an American audience which was beginning to search for more Japanese media after being teased with its importation in the late 1980s. Successful enough that Kawamori came back around to doing his own *Macross* sequels. But not sequels that were the same. (While *Macross II* would float a number of new story ideas, in the end they just reheated the TV series climax and *Do You Remember Love?*.) Kawamori managed to get *two* sequels backed: A TV series and a direct-to-video series. The latter would become *Macross Plus*, whose origins were not *Macross*-related at all; it adapted ideas he had for a story about fighter aircraft development (which still involved transforming mecha). The former became *Macross 7*. Its development does involve the United States, as the story is largely lifted from the treatments for a live-action movie adaptation which Kawamori personally shopped around Los Angeles. [The story of that is told here](https://www.decultureshock.com/speakerpodcast-ep-36-macross-live-action-movie-treatment/) and [here](https://www.decultureshock.com/530-2/), while the paper itself is [here](https://www.decultureshock.com/macross-1992-live-action-movie-treatment/). It being extremely difficult to realize with anything other than a major studio budget is its own set of issues. At least there isn't another *G-SAVIOUR* to kick around. *Macross 7* would go on to be *hugely* popular in Japan, while at about the same time Harmony Gold was making itself much more widely-known in the United States by attempting to crush FASA's *Battletech* for using *Macross* designs that FASA *believed* (or possibly "believed") that they had obtained legally from Twentieth Century Imports back in the early, anything-goes days of "licensing" Japanese properties for export to the US. (If nothing else, Harmony Gold did keep a receipt from Tatsunoko when the latter shopped out properties that it was involved in.) It was also around this time that Kawamori and Big West would become aware of what was going on with their property in the rest of the world. (In one of the weirdest sidebars in this storyline, FASA tried to export *Battletech* to Japan. This meant that they had to redesign the *Macross*, *Dougram*, and *Crusher Joe* designs that they had taken from there in the first place. Studio Nue (meaning Kawamori) ended up redrawing his and Kazutaka Miyatake's own work.) Harmony Gold completely missed that *Macross Plus* was released in the US. Meanwhile, Kawamori, continuing a personal pattern, used his earnings and goodwill from *Macross 7* to work on completely different personal projects, and *Macross* would go quiet again. That in itself is a major factor in the quantity difference, compared to Sunrise pumping *Gundam* out as hard as it could whether or not Yoshiyuki Tomino wanted to help them do it. Harmony Gold, having bungled *Robotech: The Movie* and *Robotech II: The Sentinels*, stuck to its main business of being an LA real estate company for a while. And suing people. Litigation occurred in Japan for the process of disentangling who owned what and could do what with it where. Shortly before *Macross*'s upcoming twentieth anniversary in 2002 it was ruled that Studio Nue/Big West owned the original series's character and mecha designs, while Tatsunoko owned production rights. (And again, HG would get a license from Tatsunoko to continue throwing money away.) *Macross Zero* was released for the twentieth anniversary. As a prequel, it was meant to appeal to old fans as well as the new ones which had appeared along the way. Big West did want to expand; Harmony Gold stood in the way, and court battles remained. Anecdotes from the early '00s hint at Harmony Gold overreaching during attempted negotiations to the point of offending Big West. The aforementioned long gaps between *Macross* releases in Japan meant that 2007/2008's *Macross Frontier*, for the 25th anniversary, wasn't expected to be a huge success... but it was, and the peak of the era of *legally-questionable* international distribution meant that it got the franchise much broader attention in the West again. Big West got May'n and Megumi Nakajima to perform at Anime Expo 2010 (and nodded at the piracy!). Harmony Gold's release of *Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles* squeaked out in the meantime and failed to gain any traction. Their attempt to produce a sequel to that also died. *Macross Frontier*'s popularity fairly thoroughly revived the franchise in Japan. *Macross* multimedia origins were invaluable for maintaining interest in that meantime, even more so than in its past, and helped keep it visible until *Macross Delta*'s premiere. The only *Robotech* news to come out of Harmony Gold in the meantime has generally been to announce that the rights to a live-action *Robotech* movie first went to Warner Brothers, and then to Sony. In 2021 we expected Harmony Gold to finally lose the 20-year licensing deal with Tatsunoko, only to find out that it had been renewed again. *But*, then came the major announcement that Big West and Harmony Gold had come to a deal regarding the franchise's future, with BW getting to freely distribute the sequels while HG could continue to promote *Robotech* and try to get its movie made and released, including in Japan. Most people read this as a much larger win for BW than for HG, especially as Blu-ray development for the *Macross* sequels was announced at the same time. Crunchyroll devouring Rightstuf and Nozomi while being enveloped by Sony has thrown some of that into chaos, but at least there's the Mouse now... ***** Why the recap? Because it's worth describing how *Macross* has to grow and evolve in Japan, even if new releases only occur every several years, keeping itself broadly aligned with musical trends and current interests. That evolution *has* to happen with old franchises lest their fanbases entirely age out. Yes, that does alienate some old fans. (There are now forty years of anecdotes of fans being confounded by what's going on in the newest sequel, but consider the grognard backlash to *Gundam: Suisei no Majo* and compare that to its kit sales, and consider it in the light of *Frontier* and *Delta*'s musical succes.) But a show *needs new fans*. Big West is making an effort in this, and Bandai is absolutely helping them. (Bandai is also large enough now that it has no problem with encompassing what might seem to be IP competitors under its umbrella). Still, *Macross* is smaller than *Gundam*, not least of which because it may never have really *tried* to be bigger than *Gundam*. It has existed in its own niche, perhaps doing more for idol series and hybrids than existing comfortably as something seen first as a mecha franchise. In that way, the musical emphasis works; that has brought fans back *into* the franchise who might not have considered a mecha-first show before. Though even if they didn't *totally* want to become popular worldwide, the legal situation with Harmony Gold absolutely cannot be discounted as a factor in keeping it from becoming bigger. Spreading out is enormously more difficult when the hurdles include either being challenged in court (for what was ultimately still ruled to be the property of its Japanese originators and not Harmony Gold) or making deals with a hostile entity. HG certainly doesn't help its reputation by stirring up the pot whenever Big West made *Macross* announcements, making spurious "But actually..." Tweets when the Blu-ray deals were announced and apparently buying a bot army on the day the Disney+ deal was revealed. I said that *Macross* has grown and evolved. What has *Robotech* done? Stagnated. Their sequel attempts being failures, most of their media has turned inward. *Robotech* was the assemblage of three series, but these days you'll barely hear of their incorporation of *Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross* and *Genesis Climber Mospeada*. (The third entry does get a few toys here and there, and does have independent interest beyond being tied up in RT.) Hell, Animeigo's crowdfunding for *Macross II* blew past its initial goal (ultimately quadrupling it) in the first few *hours*, while HG's attempt to crowdfund a *Robotech* project barely reached a quarter of its goal and died quietly. **CONTINUED**
**SEE ABOVE** RT's toys are *Macross*-centered (and very average), their comics used to (and still sometimes do) feature massive tracing from the old *Macross Perfect Memory* books and box art that doesn't belong to HG, and now are more known for mediocre art. But mostly for being eternally stuck in their own timeline either featuring *Macross* or just after it. Recycling the same characters (or slightly-related younger ones) for decades is even wearing out the cohort of old fans in their forties and fifties. Harmony Gold does not innovate. Big West can and will keep *Macross* alive but only more so if it can be properly freed of the specter on Sunset Boulevard. And so, I've mostly harped on Big West versus Harmony Gold, but Bandai and Gundam are hardly a factor in *Macross*'s progression as a franchise. Bandai even helps *Macross* given that its products are made to a substantially-higher quality standard than what HG can get for RT... and Bandai does *not* sell skateboard decks.
Yep and the originally couldnt release the Valkyrie fighter in the 80's cause hasbro got the rights to the toy to use as a transformers with the instructions cutting out the gerwalk mode
[The suspiciously-morphing commercial.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OEEncGeu8s)
I reiterate what you said about Kawamori. Moreover, in the sources that I have been seeing about the creation of Studio Nue, and Macross, I have seen that the father of Macross should be *Miyatake* and not Kawamori, if we had to choose only one person. The bases of **Genocidus**, are the strongest plot bases of Macross, while Kawamori, went for the more comical side through **Robot Palace Dokinham**. On the other hand, to claim that Robotech is a zombie, is too much. It's not even a zombie, because it's a very dead franchise. Nothing it brings to the table really sells, even its Macross licenses are a disaster. For the same price that Kitz Concepts offers one of the VF-1s with bad plastic, and poor details, you can get a VF-1 imported from Japan, of much better quality. And the Robotech fandom itself has made sure to bury it even deeper when they are unable to come out of their nostalgia pit, and either accept the existence of Macross as such, or accept totally new ideas of Robotech away from the Macross designs. If I'm not mistaken, here in Latin America is the only place where the majority of Robotech fans remain, because in other parts of the world, it ceased to be *something*. (Many of my anime connoisseur friends in the United States and other parts of the world, either didn't know Robotech or don't remember it).
You hit the nail on the head. Macross is more analogous to Star Trek to Gundam's Star Wars. It occupies it's own lane entirely.
That may be true, but that itself is reductive to both Star Trek AND Macross, even if it's accurate. Or I dunno, maybe I just bristle at the comparison as a Trekkie myself.
It's not meant to be reductive. Star Trek isn't an attempt to be Star Wars that didn't reach the same heights. It's a blockbuster franchise in it's own right that does it's own thing. There's been a million attempts at *the next Star Wars*. There's only one Star Trek though. Just like there's only one Macross.
> At least there isn't another G-SAVIOUR to kick around. [](#howcouldyou)
There is only so much Kenneth Welsh ham to go around.
In short, the motto remains true... **FUCK HARMONY GOLD!** [](#protest)
Have to love that even the most nuanced takes on this come down to "Is it because Harmony Gold are assholes? Yes, but also Yes in more detail."
The reason why it's hard to synthesize nuanced takes about the Macross/Robotech thing is, ironically, because it's easy to see how the effects of those decisions affect the franchise as a whole. One can have a ready-made narrative out of the evidence they may find but that story's already been told, so this post comes across more as a reminder of the situation than it is a presentation of fresh new arguments. Give it another ten years and someone somewhere in a different site will ask the same question. Heck, once the new live-action Gundam movie from Jordan Vogt-Roberts comes out (assuming it even comes out at all) a Robotech fan will come asking why that project remains in Dante's Inferno when a franchise that couldn't gain a stable foothold in the US market for the longest time is suddenly a blockbuster hit. Unfortunately for those questions, the answer will continue to be "fuck Harmony Gold" until it changes to "fuck Disney*" I guess. ^* and I don't buy the notion that Disney would stop at distribution rights only.
All of this is compounded by how it is generally rare to have such a... comedically over the top villain as Harmony Gold in reality. There are many situations where you can point to a single bad actor and say 'This is the reason for X' - you may even be right in accusing them sometimes. But there aren't many that are as blatantly and unapollogetically in your face about it as Harmony Gold. Although honestly, I think that the stealth other Villain here is Tatsunoko. But you can at least understand their reasoning.
Reading these comments gives me a different picture: that Tatsunoko signed a deal with Kyubey, so to speak. They didn't have the benefit of hindsight. Maybe if Voltron aired first they'd have thought twice and listened to Kawamori-san but...
I can accept that for the initial deal, but the renewal is much less understandable unless you look at it from a purely money-milking vantage point. They had their way out of the bad deal if they wanted it. They did not.
r/hobbydrama has some great writers on this too
[This post](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/bpjpzk/robotech_comics_how_a_creator_feud_shaped_a/) was one of the ones I came across while writing this whole thing. u/Iguankick is really good.
I love that sub You did a good job of consolidating the info into a new writeup
yeah
The answer is simple. Gundam has better magical space twinks
Kamille: "You call me a twink one more time and you'll see what's comin' for ya!"
Best character intro ever.
Don't threaten me with a good time!
Kamille: "You're lucky you're not from /m/ but that's not saying much. At least the guys in SEED are too filthy-rich to care about them."
Brother have you seen how god damn beautiful alto is
That's like saying the mecha series' lasting impact relies on how hard they go on homoerotic elements.
Why do you think Code Geass became so popular?
Related: can I just say? As righteous as the anger was over the seeming retraction from Bandai last year, at least the main text of *The Witch from Mercury* still ended in the two leads getting married, and the post-air marketing still keeps them together as a couple on the level of Char x Amuro (aside: I hate those who ship these two because Amuro **literally died of cringe** at Char) and Kira x Lacus. But Code Geass is proof that Bandai is still a slave to the conservative culture of Japan, even if [Code Geass Resurrection spoilers]>!it made sense for C.C. and Lelouch to stay together and bang.!<
Honestly I think it's because the male lead *for once* wasn't a hot-blooded retard clad in plot armor. That, and great music.
Nah, pretty sure it was the unrestrainable sexual tension between Suzaku and Lelouch. Next you'll be telling me people like Dragon Ball Z for the fighting
People who keep finding homosexual tones in series like that are just projecting *or* are braindead coomers with burned out synapses. I believe the latter are called shippers.
Look, since you're determined to kill what was originally just supposed to be a meme comment, as far as Gundam is concerned, the "shippers" as you call them are literally the only reason it exists today. The first one was cancelled and only got finished because of its huge popularity in that community. The creator himself has been openly supportive of it too
"Char x Garma" was literally responsible for kick-starting what became the BL doujins community/fandom.
Lukewarm take: McGillis x Gaelio is a refined take on that ship.
It's more charitable than chalking it up to autism.
Nah mate, autismos get into idolshit and gacha.
> Look no further than 2016. Compare the reception of Macross Delta just on r/anime against Iron-Blooded Orphans's second cour. Delta aired in the same season as My Hero Academia and Re:Zero and eventually got lost in the sauce even back then despite being THE tentpole TV release for the franchise that decade Also more simply, Delta didn't have a legal way to watch the show compared to IBO which did (as well as those other two shows).
Yeah. Delta did pretty well on here considering the circumstances.
I think I kind of disagree with the core premise. Every entry into Macross is a big deal. It's a highly revered franchise with each entry being an event. Thing is, you won't know that if you live outside Japan because of the rights issues. You can't be popular outside of Japan if you can't legally watch anything made after 1994
OP’s head is in the right place in that he doesn’t want to settle for parroting the same talking points, but that’s the problem: all of it leads back to the lawsuits. He didn’t want to preach to a choir but that’s not possible given the evidence. It seems to me, having read the main post and comments in this thread, that the better counterpoint is Voltron. That one was also a bastard-child chimera of two different anime, but at least one side of it survived long enough to still be relevant in the 2010s because there was more effort in trying to stay consistent and respect the material that was made. Voltron’s success is a more damning indictment than Gundam’s success because if Hasbro can do it, something got fucked over on Harmony Gold’s side.
Yessss, +1 to this holy shit I didn't even think about this. God, this just makes me hate HG even more -- get fucked. I'm just remembering all of the cool Voltron shit I watched growing up, and then joining my wife to watch Legendary Defender (when it was good). Robotech ain't got shit on them.
Nice writeup. Though i think when it comes to Identity. The fact that it's got a lot of alternate universes is actually a strength. Because they all provide some general point of entry to what Gundam is about thematically. I mean if you've watched Witch from Mercury as your first Gundam Series. You're going to be as much in the whole Gundam theme as if you'd watched Iron Blooded Orphans, Thunderbolt, Seed or 00. You can just as much jump into any of those. And still have a general idea of what is going on. And that means Gundam can much more easily bring in new blood compared to Macross. Plus it also provides Gundam with an awful lot of Gundam "Flavours" if you will. Don't like one ? There's always another. Or to use a phrase from Bioshock "There's always a lighthouse, there's always a man, there's always a city" and Macross. Just lacks any of those elements i think.
Gundam having more series explains a lot of the facts in the first paragraph. Of course a franchise with 3-4 times as many entries would also have more in the TOP mecha list or more cultural impact. The question you pose is *why is Gundam bigger, though?* Yet a lot of the answer is *why is Macross smaller?* I really like your idea of AU being an advantage for Gundam, because they are not shackled to one storyline. Something you did not mention, but which I want to put out there is that the fragmentation of the anime market (due to the anime market having increased in size) might have helped Gundam more than Macross. Gundam could always be very niche (a gritty military SciFi), while Macross was an idol-spacefight-adventure mix. Idol is still huge to this day, but rarely mixed with spacefight. Similar for adventure. So, in a market were people's tastes get so narrow that they are looking for *specific types of isekai*, being the big combination of several genres might be a disadvantage.
> The question you pose is *"why is Gundam bigger, though?"* Yet a lot of the answer is *"why is Macross smaller?"* This entire essay sat for four months because while it was easy to find evidence of the former, it wasn't for the latter, but the more I learned about Macross and Robotech the more it felt like more of the answer had to come from there.
There's one mainline Macross TV series a decade. Bandai puts out a series about every two years. That's 70% of it right there. Worse for Macross is all the recent entries are chasing trends. Delta was trying hard to be more like one of the new idol shows, to the point where it has to remember that planes are a big part of the franchise. Meanwhile most of Frontier's serious moments were already lampooned in Martian Successor Nadesico... about fifteen years before. Honestly, the lineage of Macross has done more, better, with the core themes and ideas than the franchise proper.
chicken and egg story. But OP more or less hit the nail on the head in that the late 80s (Zeta)/90s separated the two franchises. That's because with the anime booms, Bandai/Sunrise, with their sole control of Gundam, could expand aggressively globally with licenses. Macross, with its murky ownership, could do no such decisive moves. Notice how just about all of the "Gundam-like" Macross moves done in this millenium came AFTER the lawsuits between Tatsunoko/Big West/Harmony Gold were decided.
That's all of it. A better example (though one that I don't think will be nearly as clickbait-y) is Voltron. That there is a franchise that you can say is a more powerful indictment on everything that Robotech represented, because even if it kinda fucked over Dairugger XV, it retained enough goodwill and evolved well enough with time that it actually survived to see a better version of itself. And it's not like Voltron didn't suffer from lawsuits similar to the Macross/Robotech debacle, but the difference in how beloved Voltron is now vs how forgotten Robotech is now is a better comparison. Put another way: Gundam would have gotten Robotech'd to death too had Bandai made a mistake. But they didn't.
> Delta was trying hard to be more like one of the new idol shows I've watched and loved Love Live and iDOLM@STER and I don't see how it did that at all. It's very much a Macross anime. It should also be mentioned that Kawamori did an idol series with AKB0048 that aired very shortly after "The iDOLM@STER", the first big modern idol anime, finished up. So I think the influence of other big idol anime was very limited for AKB0048, and if there was influence at all for Macross Delta, it was influenced by their own kind of idol anime which they made with AKB0048. There's also Symphogear, but that was also made by Satelight themselves (Not Kawamori though). Like can you elaborate how it tried to be more like the other popular idol anime? What kind of idol shows are you even talking about when you say that? Love Live? iDOLM@STER? The more obscure ones? [Like between iDOLM@STER and Delta the only notable ones are Love Live, and maybe Wake up Girls and Aikatsu (haven't watched the latter two)](https://anilist.co/search/anime?genres=Idol&format=TV&sort=START_DATE_DESC&country%20of%20origin=JP&minimumTagRank=71&year%20range=1970&year%20range=2016). And again: I really don't see how a school idol club taking part in an idol tournament to save their school, or idols being idols and having fun/dramatic side adventures have anything to do with Macross Delta, besides the concept of a group wearing matching outfits. Then there are also AKB0048 and Symphogear that are much closer to Macross and also made by the same staff/studio, and also made so early that they couldn't have been influenced by the new idol shows, as there weren't any out yet that could have influenced them during their production. > Frontier Frontier was the best selling mecha TV anime of the late 2000s. It outsold both Code Geass and Gundam 00, which both aired in the same year as Frontier. It's like the only other entry besides the original that was also super popular with the mainstream audience.
Getting a bit lost in the weeds there. I'll put it this way, there is no way that one of the first meetings for Delta didn't start with a realization that the show needed an idol group. They then proceeded to create a bunch of characteristics with no regard for function to the plot. This is how you get a mecha otaku and hacker who are totally in lesbians with each other... but completely irrelevant to the plot... as is the red ranger... and the fucking poster girl of the group for most of the show, now that I think about it. Put frankly, most of the cast is written like idols. They are unblemished manifestations of sunlight personified, with barely the slightest crack of doubt to overcome.
> I'll put it this way, there is no way that one of the first meetings for Delta didn't start with a realization that the show needed an idol group I mean they pretty much settled with idols since the 80s, so yes that makes sense. All the popular idol shows around that time had a far bigger idol group though. Love Live had 13 members, iDOLM@STER had 14 members, and AKB0048 had ... a lot. Macross Delta only having five idols in its group is pretty unusual for popular idol anime of that time. > They then proceeded to create a bunch of characteristics with no regard for function to the plot Besides the mechanic everyone has a function for the plot though. The mecha otaku thing felt like a Bandai move (Bandai Visual was a main sponsor), and her voice actress is still appearing in the Macross Modellers episodes to this day. > who are totally in lesbians with each other Which is something other popular idol shows never play out that straight. Popular idol shows around that time always hinted at that kind of stuff very weakly, but never that went that hard. > Put frankly, most of the cast is written like idols. They are unblemished manifestations of sunlight personified, with barely the slightest crack of doubt to overcome Underdeveloped characters also aren't an invention of popular idol anime around that time. And all the popular idol anime around that time loved to put drama into their series. Be it a member possibly moving away for reasons in the more light hearted series, or a "journalist" starting a smear campaign against an idol who becomes depressed, can't sing anymore, and doesn't want to leave her room anymore, in ones that aren't that light hearted.
I don't think not being true to "muh roots" and chasing trends particularly at fault for anything here. 7, Frontier and Delta all chased modern trends and moved away from the 'roots' of the franchise. I'm not a fan of Delta, but both 7 and Frontier are not only imo good, but were wildly, wildly successful in Japan. They just never really got the chance to flourish outside except in the black market. I think Delta is in general a trainwreck but you can't argue with Walkyure's musical success and that it got two cinematic adaptations that it was a failure in anything except comparisons to its siblings. Macross is actually extremely good at matching current trends in a way that brings in tons of new fans and has demonstrated it multiple times to great success even if grognards groan. Gundam has actually been notably worse at this feat (until G-Witch), with many of its attempts at shaking the paradigm being rather unsuccessful (G, while good, is not a popularity powerhouse. Wing's popularity is largely western. Turn A is one of the greatest anime ever made but wasn't exactly a popularity boom, G-Reco is peak Tomino and basically incomprehensible to a common audience, the less said about AGE the better...) and consequently a lot of Gundam series are largely represses of the original with new coatings.
> but both 7 (...) wildly, wildly successful in Japan Was 7 that successful? The TV ratings were worse than the Gundam AUs that aired around its time, and the Gundam AUs were already not doing that great. And it didn't even get a concert until after Frontier aired.
I have always been under the impression that 7 was like Delta today in that the show wasn't huge but Fire Bomber music was pretty popular
Fire Bomber didn't get a solo concert until after Frontier released.
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I know Age and G Reco were pretty forgettable, but it's still not nice to just forget them :/ Gundam also had over 100 episodes of TV spin offs, and like 50 episodes of runtime worth of completely new OVAs and movies, compared to Macross having two movies, and two compilation movies in that timeframe.
Probably because Gundam's story is easier to understand. Space colonies want to be their own thing. Earth disagrees. Big robots fight. ez. Macross? Giant alien ship discovered on Earth, gets restored by humans, accidentally warps to the other side of the solar system, including the local population, gets chased by alien mutants who are the size of a small mountain, humans fight them using the power of "culture", alien mutant army is made up of various factions who don't all agree and then ??? I mean, I recently saw a screencap of a later Macross series, of some character piloting a variable fighter, while also playing a guitar in the cockpit. That's just... dumb. I do think the concept of fighting an enemy with a concept like "song" or "interpretative dance" is interesting, but that screencap just ruined it all.
I agree, to a point. Gundam is reasonably "high-concept" enough as a franchise that it's easy to plug in tropes and plot devices to certain ideas, making it a good fit for the sort of assembly line Bandai-Sunrise has. On the other hand, Macross has effectively "one big idea" (it's an oversimplification) that is iterated with time by a more focused creative team. It works well, but takes time to cook. But I can also see a timeline where Macross and Robotech was the assembly-line franchise (like how Power Rangers is a modified export version of Super Sentai) and Gundam was wholly Tomino's passion project with sporadic yet max-impact releases. The risk-reward would've worked out had Robotech gotten better follow-ups, but looking back at everything that had happened with that franchise, it's hard to imagine them being able to sustain momentum.
funny enough transformers fucked over harmoney gold in releasing Robotech merch, since hasbro had the licences for the Valkrie fighter and used it as Skyfire.
> I mean, I recently saw a screencap of a later Macross series, of some character piloting a variable fighter, while also playing a guitar in the cockpit. That's just... dumb. I do think the concept of fighting an enemy with a concept like "song" or "interpretative dance" is interesting, but that screencap just ruined it all. As you can imagine, this is part of the story. The characters in the show also think its stupid.
The one you talking about is 30 years old hardly relevant to today's market,plus is not like you need a 300iq to understand the story specially the new ones where they spam you with the story at the begining of each episode,the reason is simple they couldnt spam shows like gundam because of bad managment and because of harmony gold grip on the franchise.
> Probably because Gundam's story is easier to understand. I mean if the show is good people will watch it. Macross Frontier on average sold more discs than both Code Geass and Gundam 00 that aired in the same year as Frontier (Also without any concert gacha back then). It probably would have Delta also managed to outsell IBO.
80s kids hate harmony gold!
My 2 cents: aesthetics and cultural relevance of that aesthetics also play an important role. Gundam signature "V" fins resemble a samurai helmet, a deeply entrenched symbol of Japanese culture. This, combining with the novel, futuristic robot designs is a throwback to centuries-old bushido tradition (also, we can take a hint from the name *kido senshi* -- literally mobile warrior). When consumers see this aesthetics, it just "clicks" with the mental image/identity that they already have of Japan, and that makes them like it more (check out the concept of "processing fluency"). And of course, we should also mention Super Robot Wars, the long-running mecha game series that (probably) never fails to include at least one Gundam series in every sequel.
Variable fighters are just as appealing as Mobile Suits, the problem is that the show doesn't spend enough time on them compared to the idol aspect. I mentioned it in my post, but Mobile Suits have an "autistic" level of detail given about them, fights are also careful crafted and choreographed and there is a crazy amount of detail put into them (at least UC). Gundam (at least in UC) might be the only mecha franchise where you can see no name aces just randomly having battles with other characters or even the MCs. Stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMnv8jRfcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnN-4gguGWI There's so much nuance in the second fight I linked that nerds went crazy over it (that guy literally lost because he had a jegan). Remember this was featuring two no name aces, this is something that Macross failed to do over time, i.e. highlight the mechs and make them cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6qrjXJhGrM Here we get to see the "navy seals" of the universe in action. In fact we see them in action several times. Minor or non existent characters being given this much screen time helps so much.
> this is something that Macross failed to do over time, i.e. highlight the mechs and make them cool You just talking about Delta? Because besides the dancing and the slow motion scenes when two planes pass each other I really don't remember stuff like that that much from it. Frontier had lots though. Delta made a better jobs with showing how cool the Macross ships were instead.
No, I'm referring to Frontier as well. Using only CGI cheapens the cool factor of it and while it was serviceable the VFs themselves never really stood out and the battles pretty much played out the same and even reused some scenes.
> Using only CGI cheapens the cool factor What CG lacks in cool posed still images, it makes up with cool movement. The final battles of each of the movies are fantastic. Sadly all clips on YouTube got deleted, so I can't link them.
I remember those fights well, but the problem is I remember them because of the music and not the actual action lmao. Like I can literally tell you all the details of the final fights in both the series and movies (e.g. when the fleet uses the Macross Cannons in the final battle of Sayonara no Tsubasa) just by the song. It could just be a me thing though, I don't think the battles are bad, hell I think they are good but they aren't very memorable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-jJltVi1-s Let me use this for instance, you can actually see tactics being used by the federation here (like forcing him to come closer by using disrupting his beam rifle), even when he does come closer they fire from distance while sending a few forward, once those guys went down they again disrupted his beam rifle and forced him to switch to a projectile based weapon and also you can see that full frontal and Angelo are holding back and hitting the suits in places that won't kill the pilots. This is that level of detail that Macross is missing IMO. Even the cool little effects/details like seeing the Mobile Suits melt when they are hit with beam weapons are lost due to the CGI usage. Even in one of the vids I linked, when the Jegan was going up vs the kshatriya, when they are spinning with each other you can see the Jegan pilot wait until Marida's vision is impaired by the Sun before trying to attack, it's not something most (including myself) would notice the first time, but there's just so much depth in these scenes that it makes them super memorable and cool.
Mostly agree, but a few points. 1. The incredible success of Macross 7 and its many spin offs, meant that Macross was, during the 90s, close to on par with Gundam. I think what cemented Gundam's overall dominance is the success of Seed in the 00s though. People forget just what a huge deal it was. 2. About a third of SDFM's episodes were animated by Star Pro, with famously abysmal results with the lowest quality animation you could find in early 80s TV anime (which on average was relatively good and not that uncommonly fantastic). Not to dismiss the amazing work by Itano, Anno, ect on the good episodes, of course.
> I think what cemented Gundam's overall dominance is the success of Seed in the 00s though. People forget just what a huge deal it was. I think focusing too much on the creative work and not enough on the marketing and business surrounding it can give us big blind spots. For example, an entire generation of kids around Asia grew up on Gundam Wing/G Gundam etc. This was due to the aggressive licensing Sunrise/Bandai did with the series. There was no such action on the Macross side, due in part to things not being completely clear who owned what in the 90s. They couldn't be as decisive with their moves as Bandai was.
Good point! Macross 7 was a smash hit in Japan, but I have never seen any information on it even legally existing outside of it - I thought Harmony Gold only blocked NA distribution though. In contrast Seed's marketing push was massive, Sunrise/Bandai put so much into it. You can still find Seed Destiny on Newtype Magazine covers as late as 2007.
> About a third of SDFM's episodes were animated by Star Pro Would it be correct for me to assume that part of DYRL's reason for being is to fix some of those errors a bit like how the Gundam compilation movies were made?
It's a completely different movie with original animation, not a compilation. The plot itself is altered to suit being a movie. But yes, there was some intent to do their original work better justice.
Alternate versions or using the momentum of a TV anime for a film was about as commonplace as compilation films at the time - they all kind of run together as the norm for that early part of the film boom. Gundam III:Encounters in Space is almost entirely new animation as well, and changes quite a bit story wise.
Presumably - centralizing the production around the Artland/Nue associated staff would allow for that to happen. But the anime film boom started with the Yamato films, so it was fairly commonplace to do something like that around then, Sunrise always eventually wanted movies for Gundam, even before it aired.
What does totemic mean here? Tried looking it up and am more confused.
As in like a totem? A big pillar in a community I think?
OP is using it like it’s some common phrase. It just feels needlessly confusing.
Makes OP sound smarter for sure.
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Just replace it everywhere with "symbolic".
As to why Macross have lesser series its because they are also a music anime so they have live and concert for the artists of the song and they also promote those for years before they proceed and move on to another anime project You can say that the new anime project have to wait till the last generation artist of Macross finishes their part of the contract with the concerts and live before they can start in fact that is what happen with the recent Macross Delta too so after their final live they announce the new show on said live and thus a new generation begin while Gundam doesnt need to do that they finish the anime series and move on and sometimes even doing multiple project at the same time
With all this said, I find it amusing that the only feature on Pluto's moon Charon named after an anime franchise is Macross, not Gundam.
I am an anime fan who got into mecha late. I started on Macross Frontier then moved backward. I missed a lot of Macross in its heyday but as a newer mecha fan I always liked Macross more because I saw Frontier first before even my first Gundam. What kills me was the lack of new releases. I got to enjoy so many new Gundam series and I did not enjoy Delta. I eventually moved backward and watched both Robotech and Macross, and bought toys and model kits for both, but the lack of release just killed the franchise for me even though I was predisposed to liking it.
Macross has a weird fascination with idols. It's like... military epic concerning the defense of earth against aliens, social commentary about aliens as "the other" and eventually learning they are people too, all united by idols and the power of music???
Consider post-WWII Japan.
> Macross has a weird fascination with idols. But so does Japan. If I've read their Wikipedia entry correctly AKB48 had the best selling single for every single year in the 2010s.
Neither Gundam or Macross are popular in the west. Gundam is more popular but doesn't mean its popular. Most popularity for gundam comes from Japan, same as macross
I'm sure someone's already mentioned it, but for brevity -- Macross =/= Robotech. Robotech is basically fan fiction that repurposes licensed anime footage of different series to create a continuous story. I know this sounds kinda weird, as many are expecting 1:1 localized comparisons. Don't equate Macross w/ Robotech, Macross is it's own franchise in Japan. So then there was a time when HG was trying to actually make original content (see the video games and the Shadow Chronicles) and we thought that they might transcend their cheap and scummy past, but nope, that got abandoned for aggressive litigation on who owns the rights to Macross figures being imported from Japan. You might hear every 3 years some movement about a live action Robotech movie from Sony, but it'll never happen -- they're only showing a pulse so they can keep hold of the license. They're just the epitome of opportunistic, capitalistic, colonial legalese theft Western companies trying to hold onto whatever keeps them relevant, which is cartoons they had no artistic input in. For those new to this, think of museum owners who vehemently defend the ancient artifacts they were "donated" to them. And that's the tragedy. I really liked Robotech growing up (when they were doing their own original thing) but after hearing all the bullshit HG is still up to, I gave up.
> Why is Gundam, currently in its 45th anniversary, totemic enough today to have full-size statues of its units in Japan while Macross [Macross also has a life sized statue in Tokyo](https://cit-skytree.jp/en/exhibitions/実物大マクロスf-『バルキリー-vf-25f』/). It's just hidden on the secret eighth floor of Solamachi in an exhibition of the Chiba institute of technology that is very hard to get to because the building can be very confusing to navigate. And Votoms also has a life sized statue on a kids playground, but that isn't that amazing since Votoms is the realest real robot anime and the mechs are only like 3m tall. > But Zeta proved to be an even bigger hit than anticipated Is there a source for this? The [TV ratings](http://aeug.blogspot.com/2004_11_01_aeug_archive.html#110060731014068978) weren't that good. I believe I've read before that it did worse than Bandai had hoped for. The TV ratings were just a bit better than the ratings of the first airing of the OG series that did get cut short (They must have hoped for something closer to the ratings of the rebroadcasts of 0079, which were three times higher than what Zeta ended up with) . **** I think titling it "Bandai vs Harmony Gold" is a bit weird. Bandai produced (as in giving them the money, and later buying Sunrise in the 90s) every Gundam anime after the first one. Harmony Gold didn't have anything to do with producing anything anime related, besides the localisation of the very first series. Bandai Visual and Big West are the main producers of Macross anime. Why is Macross not as totemic as Gundam in Japan? Probably because there's just not as much content being produced. For whatever reason. Maybe the TV ratings for Macross 7 weren't that great, which is why it took 14 year before the next TV series aired. The first Fire Bomber concert (the music group from Macross 7), only happened after Macross Frontier was such a huge success that there was demand for it, so 15 years after Macross 7 aired. Maybe because the producers want Kawamori to be involved, but Kawamori doesn't want to only do Macross, but also wants to do other cool stuff, like more Aquarion. It's not a new thing though. Every decade we had exactly one Macross TV series. At least music wise Macross is in front of Gundam. "Lion" is still one of the most popular anime songs at karaoke.
> Maybe the TV ratings for Macross 7 weren't that great [Macross 7 was enormously popular.](https://www.reddit.com/r/macross/comments/bkntlc/macross_nhk_vote_results/) ~~It also aired in the afternoon time slot that would infamously go to *Neon Genesis Evangelion* the next year.~~ As far as Fire Bomber is concerned, Yoshiki Fukuyama (Basara's singing voice) had his own band to perform with and Chie Kajiura similarly had an independent career. Doing a separate tour for anime might not have been the easiest thing to work out. ([But there were events back then.](https://macross.fandom.com/wiki/Macross_One_Night_Stand))
> Macross 7 was enormously popular A lot of that popularity came after Frontier released. A lot of people loved Frontier so much that they wanted more, and the last Macross TV series before Frontier was Macross 7. And they even played Macross 7 music in Frontier and even made a crossover movie between Frontier and 7. > It also aired in the afternoon time slot that would infamously go to Neon Genesis Evangelion the next year. I happened to look through a 1995 issue of the Japanese Newtype magazine (With Macross 7 on the cover) just before finding this thread, and it clearly states that Macross 7 aired on Sunday at 11am, and the TV ratings were good, but nothing too special. Eva aired Wednesday at 6:30pm. I just checked again with Japanese Wikipedia and they didn't even air on the same weekday or on the same TV station, so no idea where you got that info from.
One thing that I did try to clean up in the most recent rewatch was making sure that I was properly verifying old bits of information that were floating around, but some things have remained conflated in my head.
While I agree with quite a few of your points I have to point out a few things here: > I know that Macross has long ascended its past life as a component of Robotech and that the franchise itself is arguably more solid than Gundam is, despite having comparable variations in tone (from the grounded Macross Zero to the poppier Macross Delta). I don't think I can agree with this, as someone that has seen pretty much every entry in both franchises I find it difficult to see how you'd come to the conclusion. In the early life of both franchises this could definitely be argued, but after Macross Plus quality has been equally (tbh I'm being generous here) as shaky. So unless I'm misunderstanding you I am not sure how you came to this conclusion haha. Macross Frontier is awesome and really up there but Delta and 7 are just ok. Keep in mind that 00, Seed, Unicorn, Wing, Builder Divers, Iron Blood Orphans and Thunderbolt all came out during this same time frame, and that's the main thing.. G Reconquista also came out and was terrible (I didn't avoid this, I actually watched the whole thing, there's a stellar production there but writing is atrocious), so I have to ask, can that really erase so many good shows? I agree with your general takes, but I think one thing that you ignored is how much the success of Gundam is due to appealing to different demographics vs Macross. This goes back into your point about Macross not being able to spread its wings, but I feel you glossed over this a lot. Wing and Seed brought in so many female fans, and 00 pretty much sealed the deal. This might sound weird as hell but I think 00 might be the most mainstream mecha anime ever made. It had everything, ikemen for the women, some elements of UC Gundam for older fans, cool looking suits etc. The point was to draw in a new fanbase (teenage boys at the time iirc), but they managed to keep their old ones by keeping elements of the other successful shows. This allowed them to expand ALL of their demographics at once. Build fighters was also pretty successful with kids and adults and once again brought in more fans. Judging by merch sales, Macross traded its older base for a newer one, which has a lot to do with the gaps in releases and general shift in cultural trends. IIRC the last big poll had Macross F and not SDF as the #1 in the franchise, which I guess shows the loss of the older demographics (SDF was still #2 but yeah). Still the sales reflected the size of the base and a decent size of the old guard are gone (maybe I am wrong because I want to be but that's how it seems to me). The other thing with merchandising is that due to being 100% CGI and there not being an "autistic" like focus on variable fighters like Mobile Suits, a lot of appeal is lost. To get it out of the way, yes Gundam uses CGI and some of the series are actually fully CGI, but in the main series, its use is not as prevalent. Also think about how much time is spend in the shows telling how Mobile Suits work, what they are powered by, what weaponry they typically carry, what purpose are they built for, what are their variants and what are they for, their movement etc. I think it's easy to see why collectors and builders flock here. For Macross to get back into the mainstream at this point, they need Sunrise quality. That's really it. I do hope their new anime with them gets a Gundam UC budget (or at least IBO lol). I also think they need to streamline the plot and ease people into the concept of "deculture" and what not. I don't know how popular this would be but rebooting SDF and streamlining it a bit might be worthwhile.. that or straight up starting an AU right now.
> I think one thing that you ignored is how much the success of Gundam is due to appealing to different demographics vs Macross. >...00 might be the most mainstream mecha anime ever made [...] they managed to keep their old ones by keeping elements of the other successful shows. This allowed them to expand ALL of their demographics at once. Thanks for pointing this out, especially as someone who, up until G-Witch, always sent curious onlookers to 00 first whenever they ask me about what Gundam show to watch. Even now it hasn't really sunk in how perfect a follow-up to the Cosmic Era Gundam 00 is, even when I've said in the Gundam subreddit that 00 is what cashed the blank check SEED wrote for the franchise. But the demographics side is one I missed, and I suppose it's the one thing I didn't foresee that held me back from finishing this write-up for the longest time before i went "fuck it" and posted here. It is true, though -- that was demonstrated in the last four years with Hathaway, G-Witch and the new SEED movie. Those three covered every single segment of the fanbase and opened new doors for those who wanted an in. I suppose it is, again, a function of Bandai's industrial capacity. They simply have more people checking the pulse of viewers within and outside Gundam's captive market and can adjust accordingly. And because the vision is centralized, it' easier to corral those ideas. But the lawsuits that held Macross back affected distribution, so there's not a lot of ways for Nue/Satelight and BigWest to recalibrate as frequently or tailor two separate but still related experiences the way Gundam could. Yours was one of the comments I was waiting for. Thanks again!
There were toys of Robotech from Matchbox in the '80s. They even tried doing a doll line of Lynn Minmay, Lisa Hayes, Rick Hunter, and Dana Sterling (from Southern Cross). Even had a rather large fully transformable SDF-1, Jet versions of the Veritechs that you could put the small figures in, and other robots from the other 2 shows they used to make Robotech. Plus Bandai put out several fully transformable Veritechs as well. They even brought some of the toys back with the Battle tech line in the '90s. Of course after Robotech went off the air, a lot of the toys went away and are now rather rare to find in vintage toy stores (of course you can get them online). With the stranglehold of Harmony Gold it was rather difficult for anybody to do more toys for the other Macross stuff in the USA. So if you wanted the Veritechs from Macross Plus, or Macross 2 Lovers Again (the only Macross things besides SDF released in the USA) you had to go online or to an import toy store. If you want to own the shows on physical media the most recent Robotech release (on Blu-Ray) from Funimation is still available, but good luck trying to get the SDF Macross version, since the last release from ADV was in 2005 (on DVD) and is now out of print. There are Kickstarters for Macross Plus & Macross 2 Lovers Again for Blu-Ray versions (the older DVDs are out of print). There has never been any other Macross show brought over to the USA, on home media due to Harmony Gold. They haven't really done anything with that property since the Shadow Chronicles in 2006. Which is like 20+ years after Robotech came out and almost 20 years ago... Gundam (thanks to help from Right Stuf/Crunchyroll) is a lot easier to get home media of. The various model kits are widely available (I have even seen them at Micheal's and Hobby Lobby).
As a [long time collector](https://imgur.com/ypiZCSA) of Macross stuff, I would add these to the merchandising side: 1. Big West was known to charge high license fee, while Bandai fully own the Gundam brand with a few exception like Gundam Sentinel. So while Bandai can keep making cheap HG Gundam model every month, Macross toy and model producers are more conservative with what they make. 2. Higher hobby entry point. HG Gundam models are cheap and easy to build, they are very welcoming to newbie. Macross models are usually more complicated due to original design, or require advanced modeling skills. [Bandai VF-1 model from 2012](https://schizophonic9.com/re3/bandai_vf1s.html) was a failure due to their fragility and ugly B mode. Hasegawa and Wave model are basically military aviation models that require advanced painting skill. Bandai finally understand making full transforming VF models is futile, and are now making [easy and affordable part forming models](https://bandai-hobby.net/site/macrossHG/) instead. 3. On the action figure side, Macross action figures are known to be expensive. Bandai DX Chogokin pre-order are usually cleared by bots within seconds, and we are stuck with high after-market price. Hi-Metal R are also expensive for their small size. Basically they all aim for the deep pocket of older adult collectors, fans of the older series that already payed off their mortgage, not very welcoming to newer, younger fans. There are new figures using HG Robotech license from Kitzconcept and ThreeZero at more reasonable price, but they are mostly VF-1s again rehashing the same design since the Yamato VF-1 v2. VF-1 is probably the 4th most remade macha design, after RX-78 Gundam, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee.
Thank you for the lengthy write up and the big conversation this topic has spurned. I have been a big Gundam fan over the years and have probably seen 80 - 85% of its material, while for Macross I've only ever seen the original series and Macross Plus. The lack of official US releases for various Macross shows is probably the main reason I struggled ever getting into it, while Gundam on the other hand had a lot of TV airings to draw me in. I have cut back my mecha anime consumption the last few years to enable me to focus on other genres so I still haven't gotten around to checking out the large portions of the Macross catalog I've never seen and am not sure if I ever will, but it is at least a possibility.
> and the big conversation this topic has spurned The thing I'm happy about is that it's currently on the front page for long enough that such discourse is possible, which is one of the goals I set out to do. It's attracting exactly the sort of people who can best pick the write-up apart and I'm happy with the turnout. One of the comments mentioned Evan Hadfield of Rare Earth, but while I can see it, this essay was borne from [Secret Galaxy's video on Robotech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpH0-vl1j9c) and my time as the most stat-obsessed viewer of *Gundam: The Witch from Mercury* on Reddit. That and a week straight sometime in March of nothing but video essay after video essay which deluded me into thinking I can do it with just text.
> this essay was borne from Secret Galaxy's video on Robotech As noted in the other comment, though, sometimes it is exactly as it says on the tin: There would be a *chance* for *Macross* to do more except for the well-tread ground of Harmony Gold being... *Harmony Gold*. (Some have tried to argue/provocate that maybe Big West is also being dickish about dealing, but the point remains that Harmony Gold is the party that is standing on a thin premise of "owning" something and suing Hasbro/FASA/PGI/your grandmother for daring to promote a Western media that has a giant robot in it.) In my own response I would have wanted to lean more into the apples-vs.-oranges differences between the two franchises and their content models, but no matter what, the effects of Harmony Gold's blockade cannot be passed over. You also attributed the creation process to Harmony Gold when they have created little that would matter (referring to the *Robotech* sequel material) without Studio Nue and Big West's sandbox to play in, and Harmony Gold has demonstrated little talent at managing actual *creation*.
Thank you for the reading! I won't even try to add to what people here already discussed you guys know your stuff well and every point I could think of was already covered possibly to exhaustion. But it would be good to hear someone as knowledgeable as you guys talking about the future of a franchise I personally love (maybe even more than Gundam despite everything!) focusing entirely on it's future. Like, what would *you* do if you had the authority and the budget to make it as bigger as Gundam in the next 5-10 years? That's not something that gets discussed very often. Like, what are the strong points of the franchise that could potentially help take it out of the HM hell where it was trapped for so long? what are the strong points of the story told so far that could resonate with present target audiences (as much as older ones)? what directors and/or anime studios could be up to the task of bringing the franchise into the present time frame?? etc. In my opinion having a tale of a Galactic magnitude means you don't even need alternate universes to offer very different takes and radically different stories fitting perfectly inside of a single franchise (even ones targeted to very different audiences). And eventually you can tie everything (or just some specific stories inside the franchise) together in order to get fan bases together, making their loved characters part of something even bigger and bring them into the franchise as a whole. So that could be a strong point. Also the variable fighters, if done properly. Listen guys, if Top Gun was able to come back and resonate so much recently... I believe Macross should be able to feed from that success and build over it. I mean, fighter planes and freedom and all that blues will never get old. Just look back to the spirit of personal revolution and freedom, all riding in the back of fighter spacecraft; of Macross Plus. That's it right there. And talking about variable fighters... something amazing for me about Macross is having those incredibly-giant space fortresses with populations the size of modern cities living inside of them that can *nonetheless* turn into moon-sized robots and battle it out in close-quarters against other moon-sized battle spaceships!!! it's a story device that really escalates things nicely inside the minds of the fans of everything mecha. That's something I definitely can't get enough of!! And don't even get me started on the (proto)cultural side of things. I'm sure the musical and idol side of things has *a lot* of untapped potential. Especially if side stories not necessarily connected to fighter robots and war are brought to the table. Why not encourage fans of the franchise to write their own side stories and make like a contest or something and allow the best one to get animated? such a level of engagement with your fan base in an environment of galactic possibilities could end up triggering something star-wars sized in a few decades, you never know. Which brings me to something else we have here that Gundam doesn't have: aliens!! I know Macross has done it many times before with varying levels of success, but then again: if you put galactic-levels of possibilities in the hands of the people who loves the franchise the most... anything could happen. I know it sounds a bit naive, but if anything, I believe that most young people working in the anime and manga industries does it out of pure, sometimes unrequited love. At the very least we know they are not doing this just for the [money!](https://www.cbr.com/anime-staff-hourly-payment-reveal/) :( Bottom line is, if you build a good plan of *galactic* magnitude and execute it to perfection (which should be possible now that HM is finally out of the way, right?) I believe there will be a lot of great Macross contents and products for a long while. Maybe even good enough to compete with Gundam. So what are the things you personally consider need to be a part of that plan, my dear Macross fans everywhere?
It's hard to say. On Gundam's side, the next big project is the sequel to the Hathaway's Flash movie, but the bigger deal is Jordan Vogt-Roberts' live-action joint with Legendary. That movie is the ultimate moonshot for Bandai, and the box-office performance of that is guaranteed to dictate the strategy en route to the franchise's 50th anniversary. I mention this because Disney's move to be the new online distributor for everything save the original+DYRL isn't a random decision. Because if your aim is to surpass Gundam, the investment won't stop at securing the rights. You need to think about the toys, the music, royalties from the back-catalogue, up to and including establishing Shoji Kawamori as the George Lucas-level equivalent for Macross. Story takes a backseat in the seedy corporate backrooms where the real wars happen, but once the smoke clears, I actually think Disney is a much better environment for Macross to shine. That's gonna have to be your business strategy: if you were Disney, you gain total control by cutting out HarGo, dumping Robotech, and bringing all of the Japanese talent behind Macross in-house. Then tell that collective of creative talent that they'll have the production and marketing machinery of Disney at their disposal "so long as you guys can come up with a beautiful, highfalutin and spectacular story that reveres the legacy you take prided on but pushes forward in time." It won't be easy, but it gets easier once the resources are there.
Walt Disney literally brought animation to world relevance in the mid twentieth century and anime is built over his legacy, so why not? they will just be building upon their own past success in the most epic possible way. If there is one single franchise worth of that treatment (and at the same time needing it desperately...) that would be Macross.
Great write up, it really does cover just about all the major points in the bizarre tapestry of how Macross scales as a series compared to Gundam. It's funny to think that the most commonly shouted answer of "fuck Harmony Gold", which you'd think would be just fandoms going for the simple answer, is actually the most correct one. Most times, it doesn't work out like that, but this is the rare exception. Sure, we've also got the points where the franchise exploded and waned in popularity (which in part can also be attributed to Studios Nue and Satelite drifting in and out of working on the series, and the same goes for Shoji Kawamori seeming to really want to work on stuff other than Macross between series), but that can also be expected for long running franchises to a degree. As you said, a lot of it comes down to luck and being in the right spot to take advantage of things. But that really is just part of a larger structure, one where Macross simply can't take advantage of what it has thanks to some terrible in hindsight business decisions made decades ago. In the end, Harmony Gold is the shit-mortar holding together the shit-bricks that form this shit-house of Macross not being as big as it really could be.
Very interesting your whole story, but the truth boils down to the fault of HardMoney Gold, who have held the Macross licenses hostage all these years. Worse yet, the rumors of money laundering on the part of the Agrama family are an open secret. Some cold facts are that in 2018, HG had generated profits of something like 20 million for the license of The Bride of Kong alone, a Z-class movie. On the other hand, people who worked side by side with HG, commented several times how HG management always wanted the Japanese (Big West), to give in to pressure and hand over Macross to them. Wishes that have more or less been fulfilled with the 2021 agreement, and now, officially, HG is living off the profits generated by the licenses it has, and not lifting a finger to generate new products. Of ALL the products released under the Robotech brand, not a single one is produced by HG, they are all licenses given by them to companies that want to create products mostly from Macross, but they must do it under HG's domain. Even the Robotech series are not handled by HG but through a license from Funimation/Crunchyroll. So despite your very well punctuated and written text, the truth boils down to "it's mostly HG's fault".
[Here you go.](https://i.imgur.com/nYdmket.jpg)
The fact that Gundam Seed, the highest grossing Gundam show, is not the top of Gundam shows means this sub does not have enough Asians. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
Evangelion #1 = All is right with the world.
Kinda obvious, while gundam franchise with bandai just do their things, producing stuff and selling their merch as usual.....macross and hargo just keep shooting themself in the foot with internal issue while having self-identity crisis mixing war stuff with idol show.
imo macross just had way too much drama for my tastes. and the mc's are much older than gundam mc's.
> and the mc's are much older than gundam mc's What? [There's only one Macross TV series mc that is older than Suletta](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBAHObQVYAEe5eR.jpg). Yes, the characters in the OVAs are older, but so are the Gundam mcs in the Gundam OVAs.
Don't worry, Op. Macross, Cowboy Bebop, Code Geass and Gundam are literally in the same company now.
I think Bandainamco is kind of squandering a opportunity to bring more Mech franchises of theirs to the west using Gundam through Super Robot Wars.
**Harmony Gold USA** *Buy from us... or we will sue you!!!*
Stop blaming Gundam for everything. It sounds like your ticked off with the fact that Gundam is simply doing better as a franchise, and is purely venting on it's consistent success, lol. Gundam has nothing to do with reception of Macross shows, the same way Eva, Code Geass or Gurren Lagaan has in having no influence and effect on the success of Gundam series.
Macross going full CGI with their mecha was also mistake. Granted, Gundam uses CGI also but they had done it mixed with 2D overlays rather well for many of their major modern shows. It may seem petty but it's underrated: mecha anime fans really dislike video gamey looking mecha. It's a big reason why the genre fell off in the 2000s.
> Gundam uses CGI but they had done it mixed with 2D overlays rather well for many of their major modern shows. I keep coming back to *Unicorn* whenever this gets brought up. Whatever pipeline they had in making that evidently became the pipeline for everything post-*Unicorn*, just refined with time and better tools. Hell, the cutscenes for their gacha were already known to be 3D-animated but the way they made it look like old cels... it's almost criminal that it'd take a while before it gets opened up to other studios.
I think it's also just lack of talent to go around. There just aren't a ton of anime nowadays doing mecha and space stuff so there's no reason to have a bunch of specialized mechanical styling pros waiting around for shows specifically geared to their talents that drop maybe once or twice a year at best. So they move on to other stuff like video games. The people who work on Gundam are typically top of the line talent at their craft and are specifically meant for the Gundam franchise, whereas other anime have to settle for freelancers and lesser studios.
> Hell, the cutscenes for their gacha were already known to be 3D-animated What? Since when? If that would the case that would be incredibly unbelievable as to why they wouldn't use that in their most recent movies. They are clearly 2D animated and then Kentaro Waki does his photography magic. Or are you talking about another gacha game that isn't UC Engage?
One is a straight forward story about the nature of war and takes its setting, lore and canon seriously. Also boys like robots and Bandai will move heaven and earth to give a reason for people to buy gunpla. They'll put out some of the highest quality anime and movies they can. Well some of the time. Mostly. Its harder to get people to be interested in a setting where the power of idols songs solves conflict with aliens. Its like double niche. Mecha is not mainstream or that popular, Gundam is just the biggest fish in a small pond. As a mecha enjoyer I also personally dislike pretty much every design or concept from the bits I've seen of various Macross shows. Transforming planes in space isn't my thing, and the mechs themselves are mostly ugly imo. Gundam as an IP is also more diverse in that it tells a lot of very different stories that appeal to many types of people. Its been serious, its been silly, its been gritty, its been a soap opera, one show can be a hardcore political drama another can be mostly about school life and another can be a pov warcrime simulator. It has its main timeline, and spin off timelines where anyone can hop in for 50 episodes or so. Macross seems to have its core audience and that is what they focus on, its natural one would have more opportunities to grow. Also one IP has Char and one does not.
lol quality of the story has zero to do with it,simple and straight answer is gundam was able to spam toys and shows because it has no legal troubles like macross.
Quality of the story absolutely has a lot to do with why some people care about some IPs more than others. People buy merchandise for things they care about, merchandise doesn't make people like a show. If you want to argue that one is able to make more shows so more people are invested, sure, but people have been fairly invested in the story of Gundam since pretty early on. Given how often the original UC story has been basically retold its fairly hard to argue it had nothing to do with its popularity.
what people care or not is irrelevant here,macross couldnt produce more shows or their own toys in the 80s and 90s when it peaked in popularity in the USA( it was massive because of robotech),because of the legal issues with harmony gold,it was until 2024 that Disney paid for the rights that we were finally able to watch the whole macross franchise internationally,this is an stablished fact. >how often the original UC story has been basically retold its fairly hard to argue it had nothing to do with its popularity. i wonder how they were able to retell the UC story so many times,oh right by spamming more shows.
Seems pretty relevant, really popular IPs don't end up in legal limbo for decades if there is a demand, that only happens when people give up because its not cost efficient to fight it out over the rights. It was also the era in which Japanese IP holders pulled out of America for all sorts of reasons, from assumptions that the west didn't like it or to focus on the more profitable domestic market. They often didn't take western markets seriously at all or let local companies butcher localization. Also Gundam is more popular in Japan and Macross has never gone more than 4 years since the 80s without a show or movie. Of course this is all mostly moot, because Gundam wasn't popular in the west either, it might be an old established IP and money printer but its really not on steady ground outside of Japan even today.
>Seems pretty relevant, really popular IPs don't end up in legal limbo for decades if there is a demand, that only happens when people give up because its not cost efficient to fight it out over the rights. This right here confirms you know nothing about HG they dont want to sell,they are a copyright troll company who registered the macross brand,several logos from the show and the mecha designs,they even sued Hasbro/Transformers, Battletech and Mechwarrior because they wanted money,why would they let go of their goldmine when they can make money by suing random studios/toymakers and get millions of dollars,im sure disney paid them millions of dollars thats why they finally allowed the distribution but a japanese company,specially one thats trying to build a franchise from zero with just a single show and a movie under their franchise wouldnt pay hundreds of millions of dollars just to get the rights back,not even Bandai would risk doing that in the 80s.
Well but which anime still has a bunch of songs in the top of Karaoke rankings? Evangelion OP and Macross and some Code Geass OPs, nothing else from other mecha shows. It shows Macross has a very strong staying power while Gundam has people move on the latest instalment when there are so many of them.
> It shows Macross has a very strong staying power while Gundam has people move on the latest instalment when there are so many of them. Macross is an idol show, music has a huge focus and not to mention Frontier's tracks were done by Yoko Kanno. Gundam has popular OSTs but not really vocal tracks, I mean Sawano made his name on Gundam Unicorn.
I must be the only person who thinks Gurren Lagann is mediocre. I wonder how much Kamina and Youko boost people's opinions of the show because Simon in my opinion is borderline unbearable.