Rubbertack is Back

http://myfantasyart.com/2013/06/20/robotech-trailer-unveils-brand-new-film-love-live-alive/

One thing that’s been lost on my current blog and Tumblr is that my Zentradi obsession started with seeing the Robotech dub in 2008, and that a couple years ago, I spent my time tearing way through every old, forgotten Robotech novel and comic I could find. I still like some parts of those, hate others (especially the lack of good original characters and the suggestion that the Zentradi/human alliance was self-destructive), and overall would say that I don’t hate Robotech as a concept and a franchise.

However, I quickly understood that continuing Robotech past the 1990s wasn’t going to go anywhere storywise. The legal restrictions were much tighter, with the new sequel comics killing off every old character they could, and releases of new material getting more and more sporadic. The Shadow Chronicles, the animated film from that era, apparently took forever to make but was still boring crap, and the long-questioned sequel failed to materialize.

Recently, it’s been said that Robotech will finally...uh...be...moving ahead with “Love, Live Alive”. The original “Love, Live, Alive” was a sequel OVA to Genesis Climber Mospeda, the anime that was dubbed into the third part of Robotech. It mostly consisted of animated music videos, with a tiny amount of original footage.

Yet the trailer shows new footage from the “Shadows” universe that is the new Robotech, which is probably exciting to the small core of die-hard fans that have been waiting to see the Shadows universe continued, and this will probably supplement the short animation from the original LLA. Hey, guys, knock yourselves out.

But I just couldn’t keep going with this, and I can’t get back into that fold. I know that nothing will really change with this franchise. It’ll always keep scrabbling in its current rut.

Part of me thinks that modern Robotech would be inherently doomed no matter what talent was behind it, since a good story usually would tie up all its loose ends, deal decently with all its characters and its plot points, and Robotech can’t even manage that because it doesn’t have access to these things. Dancing around the characters or setting the story in the far-flung future wouldn’t be solving this problem, but avoiding the issue. It’s a trap.

Yet I don’t want to let the writers off the hook that easily. It still might have been possible to create something decent and fulfilling despite the legal restraints, but it looked like Tommy Yune and everyone else didn’t even try. The minds behind Robotech in the 21st century just keep promoting the same junk over and over again, going to cons with all the other active companies to pretend they are actually doing something.

Meanwhile, Harmony Gold spends money and makes empty promises, with the only things to show for it being some sporadic toy and RPG manual releases, a few comics, and one extremely boring movie. All of it sucks, can’t even be enjoyed on an emotional level.

It was painful and pathetic to watch, and after a while I stopped feeling hurt by it. I also stopped feeling sorry for the fans who still believed Robotech would make something of itself. After all that had happened, anyone should have been able to see the writing on the wall. The franchise is dead, but somebody’s still dangling its corpse on marionette strings.

As to the prospect of a live-action Robotech movie, well, that’s also a nigh-impossibility. Asking it to be one forgets that, unlike other popular eighties cartoons, Robotech wasn’t made as a single work by a single company, but three separate anime redubbed to be one series. That makes it harder to adapt than, say, Transformers. I wish people would remember that.

A Better Breed of Bitch: Female Zentradi and the Assumption of Superiority

I always used to notice this weird thing in both Macross and Robotech fandom: the consistent off-the-cuff assumption that female Zentradi (or "Zentraedi") are a higher quality of soldier and personage than the Zentradi men. Nothing in any Macross material states this, so it's "fanon" in the truest sense, meaning fans coming together and agreeing upon some truth that they all perceive in the material, but that is not actually an official part of the universe.

I can think of a few reasons why this perception took root, but none of these reasons are enough for me to declare it a canonical "truth", or even something that aligns with my own interpretations of the series. This is true for Macross or Robotech, though only Macross' material holds weight. The Robotech-exclusive material can be studied more as a reaction to the original Macross, than something equal with it.

(Oh, and I'll add "Meltrandi" here to get search results, but I pointedly don't call female Zentradi "Meltrandi" because they don't need a special term, and it's used very rarely in media outside of DYRL, whose portrayal of Zentradi I hate anyway.)

The first reason that female Zentradi might be considered a better breed is that all of them are beautiful. The only"unconventional" female Zentradi design is the very muscular but otherwise pretty Veffidas Feaze of Macross 7. Any other female Zentradi are generically gorgeous according to the standards of modern culture, with the only thing odd about them being anime hair. Male Zentradi designs, on the other hand, run the gamut from the ugly to the handsome, with weird skin colours and the occasional cybernetic attachment.

As time goes on, the design gulf between the genders grows wider. The film Do You Remember Love?  added giant brains to male Zentradi advisors and more extensive cybernetic attachments, and hinted that all male Zentradi soldiers were now bald. Not all of this was carried through to the main continuity, but much of it was, so that we have male Zentradi who still look like normal humans, but other characters with a more intense variety of "ugly" designs. The female designs, however, remain unchanged across all continuities.

There is also the question of whether the male Zentradi's goofy anime faces are meant to represent actual physical deformity, with buggy eyes, saggy skin, and apelike features. I don't think they were, though the Robotech novels certainly thought so. However, even if it's not deformity, it still represents the greater range of character designs among male Zentradi.

I'd argue that nobody on the creative ever intended that female Zentradi were literally more beautiful than male Zentradi, were be manufactured to be exactly that. Rather, it's just that old thing where male characters can have a wide variety of body types, while female characters must all be generically sexy. It's not actually part of the characters' biology, but just a motif that's used without thinking. In this case, I think fanboy-pleasing is part of the intention, but other than that, there is no deeper explanation for why female Zentradi are always "hot".

And viewers should never underestimate the power of beauty. Female Zentradi could be assumed to be of a higher class, more refined, intelligent, and elegant, simply because none of them are ugly or goofy-looking. My reaction is sort of the opposite—having a wider variety of character designs makes the male characters more interesting and engaging, while the more uniform female designs are duller.

It's also harder to call a group flawed when they have little screen time. While beautiful female Zentradi might make for popular characters, in the original series only Milia (Miriya) and Laplamiz (Azonia) had any substantial role, and only a small number of female soldiers and staff had any lines at all.

And even though Laplamiz exists, Milia Fallyna is undoubtedly more prominent. As usual, whenever a character is the major representative of their group in a series, he or she starts to define the series' representation of that group. Milia, who is beautiful, skilled, and whose comical moments are minimal, therefore becomes what viewers think all female Zentradi are like, because we see little to contradict that. And so the logic goes, if female Zentradi are all close in quality to Milia, of course they are superior to the men. In other words, because SDFM has a smaller amount of female Zentradi in speaking roles, it's easier to base the faction off of what we do see, than to assume it is diverse.

But to me, having less female Zentradi characters makes their faction less interesting, not more. I just can't imagine the entire faction being like Milia, every soldier only a little bit shy of being an "ace". Why would that be true of any army, even a fictional one? There have to be female equivalents to the Regult pilots that die like flies, Zentradi women who simply weren't fast or smart enough.

Regardless, I sometimes wonder if female Zentradi are given prominent roles in later stories, exactly because Milia was so popular. This is especially true if you include characters of mixed Zentradi/human race, but even so, most of the major Zentradi characters following Space War 1 have been female: Klan Klang, Veffidas Feaze, and the returning Milia. Likely this is just due to following what worked with the audience before, but I can see how this might contribute to a greater perception of the "worthiness" of female Zentradi to the fanbase, if the female Zentradi characters keep being the primary ones.

Male Zentradi also have many types of mecha, while female Zentradi have only one: the Queadluun-Rau battle suit. The Queadluun-Rau is one of my favourites, a big, bulky machine that's a far cry from the sleek and sexy armour I expected. Other people seem to agree with me, as the Queadluun is a popular choice for mecha art and kitbashing.

 However, there's when the only female mecha is this wonderful, powerful death machine, it brings up the reputation of the female fleet. While the male fleet has smaller, more disposable mecha, such as the "legendary" Regults/Battlepods that get destroyed by the boatload, if the cool Q-Raus are all you have, it makes the female fleet look cooler by comparison. We all know there are female Zentradi soldiers dying left and right in the actual battles, but Queadluuns just look better than those fragile walking eggs, and the former might overwhelm the latter truth.
(I've also wondered if writers were  less comfortable with using female characters as disposable infantry, and that is why female Zentradi don't do ground warfare. The only exception is the "Draug", a female Zentradi ground vehicle found in the PC game Macross VOXP, and its obscurity might still prove the above point. Also, it looks like a squished Queadluun rather than having a unique design.)

Notably, the upgraded mecha that cracked the "mainstream" of Macross are the Queadlunn variants: the Queadluun-Rae (or Rare) from Macross Frontier, and the Queadluun-Quilqua from Macross 7: The Galaxy is Calling Me. Sure, there are many upgraded versions of male Zentradi mecha, but they are confined to games and guidebooks, while anime releases are the backbone of Macross media. Furthermore, the Queadluun-Rae had several toys made of it, strengthening its representation. The accidental implication is that female Zentradi mecha reflect the supposed quality of their owners, both of being more worthy of being perpetuated and upgraded than their male equivalents.

Once again, though, my reaction is to prefer a range of things than just one "cool thing". I love the Queadluun-Raus, but was disappointed to understand it was the only mecha that female Zentradi had (despite those mysterious Regults in the belly of Laplamiz' ship, which have to be a continuity error). More is better, a wider range of things is more appealing.

I realize that no one takes stock in Robotech these days, but to make a point, I'll say that the Robotech expanded universe has its fair share of material that could promote this view of female Zentradi as superior. However, in this case this material is, if not strictly "fanon", still the result of people not involved in the original production looking at the material and drawing their own conclusions.

Every new female Zentradi created for this side of the Pacific is still good-looking (and usually has a name that sounds feminine to English-speakers, for some reason), and are more prominent than any new male characters created, with the most important ones being Seloy Deparra and Kazianna Hesh. All of them are Queadluun pilots, or in this case, the messy Romanization of "Quadronos", but given that their army was made of little else, I can let that slide. However, the focus on only creating new female characters for prominent roles might suggest a greater perception of "worthiness", the same way that most prominent new Zentradi in Macross are women as well, especially if we include those of mixed race. It's an odd coincidence.

In the original Palladium Robotech RPG, the only character class that a female Zentradi can have is "officer", while the male classes include the ranks of Officers of the High Command, Fighter Pilots, Officers, and Foot Soldiers. That makes so little sense: if they are all officers, who the hell do they have authority over? The exact reason for this choice is never given, but to me it seems like they thought a female Zentradi army would be more glamorous and didn't think about anything else.

Furthermore, when James Luceno wrote the midquel Robotech novels, he decided to chronicle the pointless and contradictory self-destruction of the Zentradi race. Stupid, but he also made a point of saying that the female Zentradi lasted longer, and that their deaths involved a last-ditch attempt to protect the earth. The choice of which gender to survive longer could have been random, but given what else we've seen, Luceno may have been another one of those who thought that female Zentradi were just better.

Newer Robotech material just doesn't deal with Zentradi because of the legal trouble surrounding Macross, but the newer version of the Palladium RPG does something very strange. You see, the Robotech dub made a few mistakes and had male voices among the female Zentradi one-offs, and the RPG tried to explain it by saying male Zentradi were assigned to "menial duties" among the female fleets.

This defeats the entire plot point that Zentradi were sexually segregated, which was a major component of their character arc. Besides that huge error, though, it might suggest that Palladium has bought into the fanon hype, because female Zentradi are just too cool and glamorous to concern themselves with the menial day-to-day running of a ship.

All of this is based on guesswork, since no one, to my knowledge, has ever actually said why they believe female Zentradi are of a higher calibre. Looking at what we're presented, I see plenty that would trigger that perception, but no real evidence for it. Furthermore, it helps me understand why, even though I'm a female Zentradi fan, the actual female Zentradi characters never interested me that much. It's because there are less of them in speaking roles in Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and in that group, a narrower range of designs and roles. What seems to make some fans think they're of a greater quality are the same traits that make me disinterested. Which is a shame.

The Last Robotech Novel [That I Read Out of Order]

I have an ambivalent relationship with the series of Robotech novels, based on the 1980s anime mash-up. On one hand, some of the novels introduced concepts that helped to soothe the various issues I had with the way other continuities handled my favourite characters and things, and also provided me with fanfic fodder. On the other, the novels are generally poorly-written, and also do horrible things with my own favourite concepts. It's a conundrum.

Because of this, I dragged my feet on finding the last two "Lost Generation" Robotech novels, the trio of "midquels" written when James Luceno was the only living half of the "Jack McKinney" duo. The other "Lost Generation" novel, The Zentraedi Rebellion, is, as I've said before, one with which I've made lemons out of lemonade, and which was founded on a solid concept.

However, The Zentradi Rebellion suffered from the same basic problems as the other two novels, which are excessive "grittiness", and redundancy. I'm sure they also mess with continuity, too, but I'm not so invested that I would spend time figuring out how exactly they do.

Recently, I managed to find the last of the "Lost Generation" novels, The Master's Gambit, in a used bookstore. It actually precedes Before the Invid Storm, which I read beforehand, but my apathy should be a clue as to why that doesn't matter too much. I read The Master's Gambit in three days, feeling the urge to wash my hands of it but unable to stop reading. It's one of the few times I've succumbed to that nerd disease known as completism.

The three novels roughly correspond with each "generation" of Robotech, and this one is parallel to the middle-segment Robotech Masters series. A lot of its content is supposedly based on Robotech: the Untold Story, a movie combining the anime film Megazone 23 and other footage to create a Robotech movie that never saw a wide release. I cop to not seeing either Megazone 23 or Robotech: the Untold Story, and look at this novel in terms of how it fits into the overall scheme of what I do know.

While others may not accept the spot-welding of three unrelated anime series, the world portrayed in The Master's Gambit seems even farther afield from the common ground the original series supposedly had. The more familiar world of military politics and impending alien arrival, is combined with a story about hackers, information trading, and neo-yakuza in future Tokyo, sending readers off-balance.

What The Master's Gambit does add to the plot and characters is almost universally, unrelentingly, bleak. This is a problem of all three "Lost Generation" novels, and I might as well re-articulate it here. The mainline novels already tried to up the sexual and violence quotient from the edited anime, but the Lost Gen novels go up higher, and add so much cynicism to them.

For example, there is the portrayal of Dana Sterling as a "wild child" which includes "seducing" the older Terry Weston, which is pretty wrong and horrible. An older man doesn't get "seduced" by a teen, okay? I don't care what erotic fanfic you like to write. Terry Weston was the protagonist of a minor Robotech comic series, so I'm not caring about the stain on his reputation, but it all sounds like something added to make the novel "edgy" without larger consideration. It simply doesn't compute with the world of Robotech to have this type of storyline, nor does it match with the cheery, peppy Dana Sterling of the animated series. Pair this with the very broken understanding of statutory rape, and we have a barrel of fun here.

(Another odd thing about the novel is that Luceno likes to pepper the Japan sequences with Japanese terms and phrases, most of which are translated, but it still reads like a bad anime fanfic. There is also a character named "Misa", which might be a reference to the original Macross.)

This is totally unsurprising given my Zentradi obsession, but the extremely dour perception of what would happen to the Zentradi stood out the most to me. However, even if you don't have any particular sentimental attachment to the Zentradi as a concept or as characters, their fate nicely shows the underlying problems of the "Lost Generation" novels, and is the example of lazy writing.

Yeah, the main series of novels did stupid things with the Zentradi, too, but the last two "Lost Generation" novels really do exceed them. They portray a world in which the humanity and human contact that the allied Zentradi wanted, everything they defected for, has completely gone to shit, due to a combination of xenophobic government policy, and the Zentradi's own inability to escape an ennui that comes with no longer being warriors. To that end, they have all self-exiled themselves to the non-functional Factory Satellite, where they basically sit around and wait to die, their only action taken being to become a sacrifice to protect the Earth.

Now, plenty of stories have been written to end in absolute failure, usually to make a larger philosophical statement. And I can see where Luceno might have gotten some of his ideas from: the later episodes of the TV series do show Zentradi having problems adjusting to human life, including turning on their allies and being unable to know what to do with their lives. However, there are still the questions of tone and quality to consider.

Macross is, even in the Robotech-dubbed form, a series about hope and sweetness and taking silly things seriously. It doesn't shy away from displaying the darker aspects to life, but that is only to bring its idealistic nature somewhat back down to earth. A grim tale of failure doesn't organically follow from a series about love triangles and giant alien fanboys. Problems with the Zentradi come off as bumps in the road, nothing to define the entire allied race or their future.

Furthermore, if a bleak ending is not justified by anything deeper than "Life's a bitch and then you die", it just seems like the author ran out of things to actually do with the characters or ways to build up their world/plot, and decided to just be lazy instead.

Conveniently, the only Zentraedi who could give lie to this perception of their race's future are either gone or dead. I'm still sore about Rico, Bron, and Konda being killed off due to an unexplained illness, but at least they were treated with some level of sentimentality and respect. The last two Lost Generation novels name-drop these characters but without any of that sentimentality, or dwelling on how their actions (spearheading a rebellion against their oppressive military structure and never being a danger to humanity) might contradict the views seen in these novels.

The basic idea is instead that even if the Zentradi thought they wanted freedom from the military lifestyle, their own instincts betrayed them even more than humanity's political backlash did. There is even a scene where Rolf Emerson, Dana's surrogate father and caretaker, actually pauses to wonder if Dana's temperamental behaviour is the result of her Zentradi genes, and the "gentle" genes from her human father helped to temper them. And this is supposed to be a heroic character? It doesn't manifest in his treatment of Dana at all, but it's still jarring.

It is particularly shocking because the Sentinels novels, which run parallel to these books, but were written before, have a much more sentimental treatment of the canonical Zentradi characters. There are several wrong-headed moves made, such as Breetai sacrificing himself to end a karmic cycle of violence, and Miriya quitting the military, but a reader gets the impression we're meant to care about these characters, and they're meant to be happy/doing the right thing. I wonder if these ideas were the product of Brian Daley, and Luceno had the darker vision of the Zentradi?

Another place where this is evident is in the portrayal of Exedore, my favourite character in the whole thing. In the Sentinels novels, he is presented as a benign figure, participating happily in scientific and social endeavours and having an amicable nature. In The Zentradi Rebellion, he is cynical and harsh instead. Now, I decided to interpret this as his jackassery being intentional, but a result of stress and an over-applied pragmatism, plus the mean streak that he already displayed in "Blitzkrieg", all that he eventually learned better from to become the nicer Sentinels Exedore. However, now I can easily see that these are simply two different views of the same character, without any intention of progression.

I might be generous and say that as far back as Carl Macek's original plans for a Robotech sequel, which these novels are based on, he wanted to suggest the Zentradi were very low in number, and that, due to the speed of novel production, Luceno just came up with something on the fly, without considering the larger implications involved. Even so, the results as well as the circumstances should be looked at critically.

And anyway, if the line is that Robotech is all one series, why try to get rid of elements from the first "season" when these elements could be integrated into the whole with a novel version, enhancing that perceived unity? It doesn't make sense. (An alternative explanation is simply that Macek was considering the total proportion of Zentradi, allied and not, who died, which in this case, the remaining defectors would be smaller in number, in comparison to the original intact, living army).

Are there any good things in this novel? Actually, I thought that Luceno's world-building, his little allusions into how societies and social hierarchies have changed after the near-apocalypse were interesting, actually feeling as though they were part of a developed setting that offered enough glimpses to make a reader feel satisfied without overwhelming them with exposition. The military and political manoeuvring would have been fascinating to read about if it did not enhance the character relationships in the TV series, and really didn't have that large an impact on the overall narrative. Nor does the part of the story with the Robotech Masters offer anything more about the race's vaguely-explained backstory. If the narrative had gone more places with these things, it would have been more fulfilling.

I would like to think that even if I had read these two novels while working through the strongest stages of my Robotech obsession, I would still be able to use the good things the other novels provided for me with a clear "conscience". However, I wouldn't like to try out that hypothesis, and am glad they were both encountered later, because god only knows the vast quantities of nerdrage they would have inspired when my interest was at its peak.

Opinions of Post-Macross Saga Zentraedi and Half-Zentraedi Characters: Robotech

I've changed since my early days in this dual fandom, but never enough to reject Robotech entirely. The reasons for this are complicated, and I don't entirely understand them. I know that objectively the old Robotech novels and comics suck, and nothing good about them was ever made that didn't derive from the three component series—but I keep coming back to them again and again, even when I cut all ties with Robotech fandom, and have rejected Tommy Yune's Robotech long ago. There are some small things I like in them, appealing moments arising from serendipity, as well as moments with potential. It's not about quality, per se.

Thus, when I discuss "Robotech" and Zentraedi (which I'll be spelling with that extra "e" for this part of the show), it is mostly dealing with characters from the obscure Robotech novels and comics--not canon anymore, but worth discussing. Robotech's portrayal of post-SDFM Zentraedi is more pessimistic than Macross, but there seems to be no real narrative thrust behind it...it just kind of happens.

Therefore I don't attribute malevolence to the Robotech writers, rather just that they didn't think things through often enough. Furthermore, regardless of how I react to said plot points, because it is Robotech and not Macross, events carry less personal weight with me, good or bad.

For all these reasons, no matter how critical my writing below gets, none of it means I will break with Roboetch. The trends of Macross coincidentally manifest here, with most of the major new Zentraedi characters are female, as well as all of Miriya's children. Yet, somehow, there is less of a sense that female Zentraedi are being particularly prized, since there are large groups of mixed-sex Zentraedi everywhere, and the male characters still get attention. That doesn't make up for anything else, but it helps things.

Dana Sterling

I found Dana as unlikable a character as Robotech fans typically do. On reflection it was a colossal misfire to dub her as the Sterling daughter, since it leaves a need to explain how a teal bob became a blonde 'fro, and makes Max and Miriya look like deadbeats for leaving their daughter behind on Earth, or at least contradicts their willingness to bring their child into danger that other time. Of course, much of this could also have been solved by setting all Robotech characters and spinoffs entirely on Earth, an avoidance that came back to bite the production crew in the ass later. Alternatively, Dana didn't have to be their child at all, since the third part of Robotech lacks that generational link.

Furthermore, Robotech colossally misses the point when it comes to Dana's nature: she ought to be considered a normal person rather than a scientific wonder, since humans and Zentradi are genetically identical. Yet in the novels she remains a valuable piece of research, and very few children are born to the Zentradi for some reason. Some of this stemmed from the Robotech dub using Dana's heritage to explain the psychic experiences of her original Japanese counterpart, but the expanded universe took it too far.

Dana's perky, irreverent personality also gets on my nerves, but I will say it is actually a subtle and believable mix of her parents', which is more than most fictional children ever get. Her choice of different combat methods also helps to further distinguish her, which is important when writing children of pre-established characters.

Aurora Sterling

I do have a misplaced fondness for Robotech II: The Sentinels, but Aurora is a perfect example of the way that so much of it didn’t take into account the characters' personalities at any point, or created any truly viable new characters. Max and Miriya are unusually accepting of having produced a fragile psychic child, and Miriya even accepts being incapacitated by the draining gestation of Aurora, and even quits the military soon after her birth.

None of the potential cynical interpretations of this are ever followed up on, and it seems to entirely be the character's voluntary decision. Aurora herself is essentially a plot device, and a load of predictable messianic-child traits, including an unshakable personality and no flaws or nuance. No effort is made to give her uniqueness or distinction, and even her exact origins remain cloudy.

Maia Sterling

The bottom of the Sterling pack, since much less effort was put into making her even appear to be original. She is a pilot, just like her parents. Her mecha are trimmed in purple, a mix of her parents' red and blue mecha-- even her hair is purple (!). In short, Maia is the laziest kind of character-child, with almost no identity outside of her heritage.

Kazianna Hesh

It's so easy to think cynical thoughts about Kazianna Hesh and her creation, but they feel hollow to me. Somehow, after turning up my nose at every female Zentradi created by the actual people behind Macross, I love the one created for the Robotech novels first, and I still like her more than Veffidas. That is because of her character, not because she is the lover of Breetai.

Despite my usual contempt for any attempt by Robotech to create original characters (contempt for the execution, not the principle) I've convinced myself that Kazianna has a personality. She is determined, intelligent, bold, and a bit playful. Unlike Miriya, she was able to pursue her own goals and proceed on her own terms from start to finish, and unlike most of the other Robotech-only characters, she actually seems "alive".

I do still wish she had been developed more as a character, and that some of her actions had had greater explanation. Her name is also awkward-sounding, since her surname is exactly like a human one, and her given name sounds feminine to English-speaking ears, a tradition that Robotech barely ever averted when it came to female Zentradi, changing "Laplamiz" to "Azonia" and naming the female fleet advisor "Yaita", as well as "Kiyora" and "Vala" from some video games, and "Marla" from the novels.

Drannin

Like Aurora, Drannin is another plot device, and he represents several flawed premises for the Robotech Zentraedi. For instance, it's heavily implied that he is the first biological full-Zentradi child. This is twenty years after the peace, so why would it take so damn long? It's never explained why, and it unintentionally suggests a bleak Zentraedi future. The novel never makes clear if he's simply the first giant-sized child or not, which would be more palatable.

Unlike Aurora, Drannin is apparently born without powers, but affected by the forces around him and develops psychic abilities, along with a bunch of other kids born aboard the SDF-3. He seems to be "grounded" unlike the aloof and mystical Aurora—yet Drannin doesn't seem to have any discernible personality. I want to go easy on Drannin, though; maybe it is only because he's Breetai's son, I don't know.

In that vein, though, I'm glad that Drannin wasn't played up as Breetai's "legacy". Sure, it's said once near the end that he's starting to look like Breetai, but that's about it. No bullshit about Breetai somehow being less than stone-cold dead just because he left a kid behind, or any need for Drannin to be like Breetai. He's just a kid like any other, albeit a giant kid who manifested psychic powers. However, this might only be because the novel ended with Drannin still young. Later series might have resorted to these cliches.

Breetai's Faction

What else do you call the handful of Zentraedi who went with the Robotech Expeditionary Force, and who may or may not operate under their own jurisdiction? Their exact legal status in comparison to the human members is never explored, which is another of the Robotech novels' flaws in world-building, despite them fleshing out the series backstory in other areas.

Except for Breetai and Kazianna, they're pretty much an undifferentiated clump. I was glad to see 'em having had enough with the megalomaniacal General Edwards and rebelling against him, and they as one take to Kazianna's son and mother-henning the later children that come.

However, though I once accepted it before actually thinking it through, the Zentraedi having a past life as giant miners on the planet Fantoma is a silly story point, and it's further disappointing that the Zentraedi (except Exedore and Miriya) are shuffled off to be miners for a good chunk of the early Sentinels comics and novels. There is a reason, but it's extremely contrived.

At the end of the Sentinels novels, only a small handful of Zentraedi are left, and they make a go of living on Fantoma, since they cannot be micronized again, due to their only having one chamber and it breaking down from multiple transformations, and now with no Protoculture to repair it. At least they didn't all die off, but it's unintentionally depressing when you think about it, especially because other novels show that there are no more Zentraedi left on Earth.

Seloy Deparra

It's good to see a female Zentradi character who is a genuine danger to humanity, which both series have lacked in since Laplamiz/Azonia, and she was obviously the second fiddle. Seloy is also fairly fleshed-out, with her anger at humanity small and personal, and her sentimentality a greater weakness, as she tries to bring Miriya back into her fold. However, her explaining her plans to Miriya, Bond villain-style, is hard to believe. Even if Seloy thought she could turn Miriya, she ought to have been smart enough not to give it all away that quickly.

Thankfully, her name is a break from the "Female Zentradi have names that end in 'a'" Robotech trend, but on the other hand, I am certain it's derived from some human term. The closest I've been able to find is Seloy-Oy, which is a glassware purchasing company based in Finland. The Zentraedi Rebellion implies that it's just the closest equivalent to what Seloy's name "actually" sounded like, but it's still not credible.

And yeah, because she appears in something written by Bill Spangler, she uses that ridiculous Robotech-Zentraedi language, a harsh, grating tongue that seems to be trying to ape Klingon speech, despite Zentraedi being the opposite of Klingons in some ways. I know I said I hate "Yack Deculture" and all its derivatives, but honestly, beyond that, the cadence of the Macross Zentradi language is much more appealing, and more consistent with the names of ships and characters.

Assorted Malcontents

They have names, many names, but they are pretty much interchangeable. The concept of the Malcontent Uprisings is still something that feels like it needed to happen, the final burst from the pressure cooker of post-Rain of Death Zentraedi unrest. I don't like the author trying to justify these events as the product an ingrained killing urge rather than individual psychological issues leading to mob mentality, more specifically even than Macross Plus does. Notably, though Michael Ling's comic art is terrible, the character designs feel like they could be Macross Zentraedi, with weird 80s hair and faces that run the gamut from normal to cartoonishy freakish.

Hosq and Hosq's Son

I have wiped most of the Hosq comics from my mind already, since they're poorly written and poorly drawn, even by the standards of the Robotech comics. They're a story about a male Zentraedi (whose name doesn't sound Zentraedi at all) and his half-human son, who fall in with a rebel faction. It's a flat and dull story, with inexplicable references to the Japanese Macross shoehorned in...all but for one fascinating notion. Hosq once led an independent Zentraedi settlement, which is an idea I would love to see explored. Just in a comic that doesn't suck.

The Zentraedi Colony of T'sencha

This is an obscure one, from the Robotech: Clone Special. It depicts a colony of crashed Zentraedi who have transformed themselves into a more humanlike mode of existence, with clear romantic attachments between some, and a micronized Zentraedi couple with a baby. I thought that was pretty cute, and though the art style is crude, as with the Malcontent comics, the Zentraedi characters feel like they could be Macross-saga Zentraedi designs.

I didn't like their chanting cargo-cult reaction when the comic's protagonist shows up, and again the Zentraedi are just window-dressing. The otherwise Zentraedi-free Clone series are some of my favourite Robotech comics: they're borderline original fiction with Robotech stuff spackled on, but they're also enjoyably esoteric, and are a lot more competent than the norm.

The Factory Satellite Remnants

Now this is just stupid. If it were treated with any seriousness, it would be horrifying, but as it is, it's thrown in completely from left field, and so is hard to rage about. Basically, when the Robotech novels were finished, author Brian Luceno, one half of the "Jack McKinney" writing duo, wrote a series of "midquel" novels trying to fill in gaps in the novel's timeline. I've read two of these books, and they feel too gritty and awkward to fit with the original books, although The Zentraedi Rebellion, like its original comic, had potential in terms of what it deals with.

However, I refer to Before the Invid Storm, in which a minor plot point is that all Zentraedi have re-located to the Factory Satellite, to live in what becomes squalor, and refuse aid from below. The males die first, and the females then in a kamikaze attack on incoming aliens. The only exceptions were the three ex-spies, Bron, Rico, and Konda, who choose to live on Earth, but died soon after of an inconsistently-explained illness.

This is all not explained. I don't see any necessity for it. From a writing perspective, why have a race be saved, only to internally self-destruct, and thus invalidate the entire plotline? Furthermore, what reason is there to try to eliminate the Zentraedi, when a benefit of the novels is supposed to be allowing all the elements from the three anime to exist in the first place?

Other

Once again, I haven't found every Zentradi character there is to find. In Robotech's case, there are still some video games that I have avoided, and some comics I haven't read, and at this point, don't plan to read.

Conclusion

Robotech is worse in a lot of ways, with its Zentraedi-related flaws easier to argue. The lives of Zentradi in general are obviously better in Macross. Yet Robotech did manage to create a few decent Zentradi characters, and there is less of a sharp gender divide, though one that is still there.

Yet the honest truth is that, whatever Robotech does with the Zentradi, it feels like, on some level, none of it "matters". That these portrayals are somehow "fake" and can't be counted as a strike against Zentradi representation, not of any large concern. Even what I like about them I still recognize as less "honest". Yet they're not going to go anywhere.

Halloween Image Macro

The Peculiar Olympians: Exedore Formo

“The Peculiar Olympians” is a series of blog posts about my most favourite fictional characters. They are each here for some combination of sympathy, empathy, inspiration, humour, quality, staying power, and/or significance to my relationship with fandom. These are not all the characters that I like, but they are the ones that have stood out to me the most. The list is also alphabetical and nothing more.

Like many nerds, I’ve fallen prey to the appeal of the “nerd surrogate”: a character with nerdy traits who puts them to high-ranked and significant use in a speculative fiction setting. Unlike many, I one of mine in the character of Exedore Formo.

Exedore Formo (also written as “Exsedol Folmo” or “Exedol” or just “Exedore”) is a rare non-combatant member of the Zentradi, an artificially-engineered race of giants created for the sole purpose of waging their creators’ war. It is not a proper “warrior culture”, but one without ceremony, ethos, or reward.

Exedore serves underneath his fleet commander in a multi-faceted role that includes aspects of historian, archivist, and tactician. He has a prim, intelligent personality, but is hardly incapable of emotion. In some continuities, his odd appearance is attributed to deformity.

Though Zentradi were warned by their now-absent creators to avoid contact with the smaller humanoids, their contact with humanity lead to an unprecedented upheaval. Fuelled by some male grunts’ infatuation with the human culture they had stumbled upon, a cultural revolution began in which the Zentradi betrayed their fleet leader to side with humanity.

Partially this was an act of preservation, as they were scheduled to die by being “contaminated”, but it is clear that contact with humanity appealed to something fundamental in the Zentradi they had been denied. (Usually) reduced to human size, Exedore continues to play a key role in the human military following these events.

Exedore is a creature of multiple portrayals and continuities, appearing originally in the anime Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, and then in the continuity for Robotech, in which SDFM and two other anime were redubbed to be a three-part series in the same continuity. Both of these franchises spun off into their own material, with very different treatments of Exedore.

Regardless, the best versions of Exedore are ones that represent a character with moments of both poignancy and comic relief, serving the basic role of “geek on the bridge” but with more personality than expected. The ideal Exedore also develops an increasing emotional range as time goes on, as a smaller aspect of the Zentradi revolution.

This portrayal tapped into some fundamental desire of mine, to break free of my own constraints and fulfill my ambitions, not to mention my general love of stories in which characters cast off a repressive society. At the same time, I embrace Exedore’s comical aspects, finding him an endearing figure, an example of “ugly cute”, and liking his funny-looking character design. 

Unfortunately, if we were to be specific, no one portrayal of Exedore involves all this. The ones that truly represent what I like best about the character appear in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and its dubbed counterpart Robotech: The Macross Saga. Only the novel and comic adaptations of the aborted sequel Robotech II: The Sentinels portray Exedore’s later character development in a satisfying way, despite these books being obscure works that are riddled with many other problems.

The most known portrayal of Exedore today is his Macross-franchise version that is completely retconned into a new form and characterization, with no real explanation in- or out-of-universe--the end result is that the character loses a lot of his quirkiness and personality, and doesn’t look as interesting. It’s a cringe-worthy thing to think about, and one that strongly tests my desire to respect the creators. I wrestle with the surprise that this would happen, and the knowledge that there are no real answers, but also that the writers have the freedom to do whatever they want with the characters. Still, I know what I prefer.

Making the Most

I forgot to mark the third year of my unusual relationship with Robotech. This is unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected, given that I’ve just been recovering from a bad patch with the fandom.

Over recent months, the many contradictions and disappointments in my fandom and Macross fandom had started to wear on me, leading to a phase where I spent more time wishing that my fandom experience were different, and mulling over my critical feelings towards the same, than enjoying what reality had given me.

I began to be overwhelmed by my (still valid) critiques of the Robotech novels and comics that had once been the building blocks of my interest, and by several other things that I won’t get into right now. I never considered turning my back on the novels, but I subconsciously tried to downplay their importance in forming my own fandom.

Thankfully, my friend John “Zen72” Thomas then released the last episode of his Robotech podcast, The Protoculture Times. Much, much longer than the other episodes, it contained re-run interviews and new ones, and was a great way to go out with a bang.

Zen is far more enthused about the Robotech novels than I am, and hearing him wax poetic about them brought back the feelings I had once had, before critical analysis kicked in. It brought my “spirit” back, even if my criticisms remained.

This was despite the fact that when he interviewed James Luceno, one half of the writing group which penned these novels. When Zen opened e-mail questions for Luceno, with the disclaimer that Luceno didn’t remember much, I tried to put forth a general question, to look like I was not one of those who expected the writers to remember everything. I wanted to understand some of the decisions made about the portrayal of the Zentraedi, the good choices and the bad ones.

Still, the response I received was what I had expected: the plots which had had such an impact on my fandom were strongly suggested to have been decisions made off the cuff, or ones whose motivation was lost in the mists of time. Given the speed at which those books were written that’s not surprising, but it’s still sobering to be reminded of the difference between authorial intent and my reaction.

What that in turn might mean is that, more than any other fandom, I’ve been left to my own devices, to make the fiction I wanted to have out of the stuff I’ve been given, for official material alone always bothers me in some profound way. It’s a sad state of affairs, when usually I’m a shaking canon junkie, but that’s the truth.

Still, somehow, taking a dip back into the McKinneyverse was needed to rejuvenate my nerddom. It’s a figurative dip, though. My increased critical sensibility didn’t vanish, and it does

What the novels gave to me was an extension and completion of certain characters. You know that I like Exedore, Breetai, Rico, Bron, and Konda the best, and the novels, no matter how clumsily, or inaccurately, showed these characters had hearts and minds worth delving into, and could complete their character arcs from the original series. Most of the rest of fandom seems to treat these characters as plot devices, but it’s not unreasonable to see them otherwise.

I later began to realize that their treatment was in truth not entirely rosy, but there are still moments worth preserving. I can spend my time thinking about what I would have done, or I could take what is given, but it is much easier to call back those positive feelings for the novels, and their strength has returned.

No matter how disinterested I am in the rest of the Robotech continuations, it would be stupid to put on a stoic face and pretend I was never energized by these books. This kind of thing is hard to explain to other fans, but it’s good to remember how true it is for me. I still want to be that person who waxes poetic about Sentinels Exedore, or who thinks Kazianna Hesh is her favourite female Zentraedi character, and thought parts of End of the Circle were actually fascinating.

Thundering Badasses

Yes, I’m going to revisit the world of the Zentraedi/Zentradi again from time to time. I’ve said most of what I wanted to say, but there are always these little things that demand addressing….

When I hear the term “badass”, I think of a character that is more than simply competent and strong. I think of a character that is absolutely impervious, unshakeable, and does everything with a smile or a roar. Such characters can be fun, but dullness can also come from being so perfect. I prefer characters with some kind of twist, some kind of twinge, a chink in their armour, a flaw on their surface, though that does not mean these characters are weak.

This is partly why I disagree that the ideal state of the Zentradi of the Robotech and Macross universes is for them to be more uniformly “badass” than they might be in the official materails. Granted, I’m also not comfortable with Zentradi being comic relief as the later Macross series sometimes have them, but total “badassery” isn’t the answer.

(Most of this applies to the male Zentradi characters, by the way, due to the portrayals of female Zentradi characters being far more uniform)

I liked the original Zentradi characters from SDFM because they are actual characters rather than symbols to show how great humanity is, having a fair range of characterization even when only providing exposition and chasing down humans. The thought of a homogenized Zentradi characterization undermines the power of Super Dimension Fortress Macross, risks turning into another show about beating up the cold, scary enemy aliens. If a major plot point is that the Zentradi and humans can find common ground, let the Zentradi have goofy, ugly, nerdy, and comical members, as well as strong, powerful, and refined ones.

Yet during my experience in Macross and Robotech fandoms, I get the persistent impression that others felt their respective universes could do with harsher, darker Zentradi. For one thing, there has been expressed preference for the redesigned male Zentradi from the Macross film Do You Remember Love?, whose darker, more alien appearance better suits this need. These incarnations also participate in a reduced storyline, so there is less room for that pesky humanistic portrayal to get in their way, are stripped down to their very essence of threat and their most basic transformation.

Some might say that the integration of these Zentradi redesigns into the main continuity demonstrates that the staff of Macross also believed that their initial male Zentradi were not intimidating enough; however, none of us can know that for sure. (Nor would this mean the original designs are full-stop inadequate.)

Yet I do wonder if it’s true, and what role this desire might have played in the radical retconning of Exsedol Folmo. He has never been a badass character, but this version of the character, which I call “Neo-Exsedol”, might be more in line with viewers’ wishes for the Zentradi. By being a more detached, stoic character, Neo-Exsedol might suit a more aloof Zentradi mien, of which the desire for more “badassery” is also a part. Perhaps someone, god forbid, even found Classic Exsedol to be goofy.

This all could be why some of my favourite Zentradi are disliked by the Macross and Robotech fandoms. Take Warera, Rori, and Konda, characters who, while they have a significant role in the story, are the absolute antithesis of what viewers expect members of a warrior alien race to be. They are immature, hedonistic, and ultimately good-hearted, never seen in combat, are comic relief, and their most resolute actions are done in the name of retiring from war. Some viewers might feel cheated, that characters like this rise to prominence and dilute the menacing nature of the Zentradi.

On the Robotech front, I’ll admit that the Powers that Were are far more obvious about what they would like the Zentradi to be. While some of the novels offer emotional growth for the original Zentraedi characters, some of the comics, particularly the work of writer Bill Spangler, are interested in making the general Zentraedi into a more stereotypical “proud warrior race”, and imposing this interpretation upon the new Zentraedi created for these stories. This fed back into the Robotech novels when the “Lost Generation” series of mid-quels were published and used several Zentraedi details from the comics.

These works do so in several ways. One is in providing Zentraedi with a harsh and grating native language (different from Macross attempts at the same, whose cadence I prefer over the Robotech one, disregarding its ridiculous phrase “Yack Deculture”). Zentraedi in this part of the comics even possess the concepts of honourable death and trial by combat, rather than simply winning any way they could and eliminating trouble without ceremony, as seemed to be the case in the original Macross. When new Zentraedi characters appear in the Robotech expanded universe, they are nearly always fighters, whether as rebels, mercenaries, or soldiers, rather than taking any kind of other path.

Never underestimate the stupidity of Robotech, you might say, but I would have thought the idea that the Zentradi weren’t a “proud warrior race” was a self-evident one. In fact, an important part of the story is that Zentradi have no culture at all, not even to apply ritual, honour, or ceremony to their fighting.  They simply do it because they are told to. Some individual Zentradi take personal pride in their accomplishments, but they are not a race of economy-sized Klingons.

The later Macross material has an advantage here, given that it shows the non-warrior Zentradi that the original series promised, and never adding the kind of “warrior culture” bunk that the Robotech adaptations did.

There can be “badass” Zentradi. By a certain margin, I think Britai, Milia, and Kamujin qualify, though Britai is more restrained, Milia is eventually “tamed”, and Kamujin is too clumsy for them to quite fit that mould. Comical Zentradi characters, too, shouldn’t define the whole of the Zentradi race, and there can even be comical Zentradi without substance. The point is that these characters, or any other character type, shouldn’t be used to define what Zentradi “should” be.

There is no character about whom I can say they are not a “true” Zentradi because they don’t live up to an imagined ideal. Even when I consider a character like Klan Klang to be almost mind-meltingly ridiculous, I can’t say that she isn’t a “real” Zentradi. Yes, her being Zentradi might intensify my negative response towards her, but if she were a human character, I would also dislike her.

Overall, both universes seem guilty of trying to “badass-ify” the Zentradi by creating a more stereotypical image of what a “warrior” race should look and/or act like. Macross is better about this sort of thing, since it’s harder to tell if their alterations to the Zentradi were done because the writers also felt the Zentradi should be more distant and “badass”, and there are counteractions to it. But the Macross fandom itself is not devoid of a desire to see more menacing Zentradi. The older Roboetch novels and comics also make an effort to present Zentradi as more of a stereotypical “proud warrior race”, which feels extremely off but might be related to a desire to make them more “badass”. I would simply have preferred a well-rounded characterization.

Reflections on Macrophilia Part 8: Conclusion

To recap: I love the Zentradi because I found that their original story resonated with me in a peculiar way, unintentionally touching on some of my personal ideals and desires. This was filtered through some appealing characters with their own stories to tell and their own initiative to take. Above all else, I grew attached to the human-friendly male Zentradi from the SDF-1 era (Exedore, Breetai, and the spy trio), with Exedore being at the forefront, because they were the characters who most strongly embodied the themes and ideals of the Zentradi. Exedore was the one I liked with the most, because I empathized with him the most obviously, and continued to  like him even when he was re-imagined as a new character. Anything else related to Macross or Robotech was a distant interest at best.

It might be argued that being primarily a Zentradi fan makes me a Macross fan by default, and I’d agree: I am a Macross fan. However, it doesn’t logically follow that I must be a Macross purist, too. It’s easy to say that Robotech offers nothing once one discovers the three separate original series, and I’d argue that is true for most when you strip away the nostalgia for Robotech. Yet it’s not that simple for me. Certain small things that Robotech once did with my favourite Zentradi are essential to my personal fandom, and I can’t give those things up, regardless of the crude, fake nature of their material.

Furthermore, when I’m involved with Robotech there is this sense of assurance that I can act on my automatic impulses and desires, be myself, spread my wings, have fun, rather than rework and twist my perceptions to try to fit the radical alterations made by Macross. I understand that the quality of the Macross stuff is better, and overall more supports the themes that drew me to the Zentradi, but those are not the only issues. The mishandling of my favourite Macross characters will always be a black mark.

Because of this comfort, early on I mistook myself for more of a Robotech fan, before reconsidering the complex issues surrounding this assertion. However, because I still allow Robotech to come into competition with Macross and in some ways win, such as in preferring Sentinels Exedore to Neo-Exsedol (strictly on a level of personal fondness rather than artistic legitimacy) , I can’t be a simple Macross fan.

Yet Macross is what originated the Zentradi. The first series is even better in its original presentation, and there are good things about Macross’ handling of the race. If I had the option of tweaking one universe or the other to contain my “ideal” Zentradi treatment, it would be a hell of a lot easier to remake Macross to my own standards.

Since the reality is what it is, I have to adapt. When neither the Macross nor the Robotech franchise alone can give me the basic whole of authenticity, quality, perpetuation, and pleasing treatment of my favourite characters, I have to choose both in the end. Despite the difficulty this causes, I do truly enjoy what I did get out of the experience.

Reflections on Macrophilia Part 7: General Portrayal of Post-SDFM Zentradi

When considered beyond the annoying treatment of my favourite characters, the status of the Zentradi in the post-1982 Macross productions looks like a gift: they live human lives, with human bonds, and none of Robotech’s messiness. Yet despite the race’s general happiness, I just don’t find much that is compelling about later Zentradi characters, and there are a few additional difficulties I have with it. In this discussion I include hybrid characters, though some of those characters of course are portrayed as more “Zentradi” than others.

At this point in the timeline, the thematic appeal of the Zentradi passes on to other characters and antagonists. It up only to the characters’ individual appeal to create an interest in them, which they can’t seem to do. Instead, Zentradi introduced after 1984 trigger a variety of responses in me: they are mildly objectionable, or good for a few laughs, or fulfill my personal ideals for Zentradi-dom but without much characterization. I don’t want to take up a great deal space in this essay discussing them; I do genuinely like a few of the newer Zentradi characters, but not as deeply as I did the original ones, not enough to have any strong emotional investment in their respective anime.

Human characters remain the primary driving force of all new Macross narratives, with full-blood Zentradi as secondary, tertiary, and background characters who may or may not be treated poorly by the plot. Sometimes part-Zentradi characters receive major roles, but they also never turn out to be very gripping, and their heritage has superficial or negative relevance.

That’s not to say I’m not cheered by Macross 7 and Macross Frontier depicting crowds of Zentradi (now distinguished by their retconned pointed ears) dressing and acting just like modern humans, because that represents their freedom in the most obvious, immediate way. However, there are more complex possibilities than choosing between an image like that and a monotonous life of war.

Another bugbear is that strong double standard of characterization when it came to the Zentradi genders, going right back to the original series and then extending it. Male and female Zentradi are treated very differently by the narrative, and seem to both fit into separate but dubious moulds.

Male Zentradi characters are usually depicted in either a purely military or a purely pleasure-seeking/civilian context, and are side characters without much development. When they are full-blood male Zentradi, there is also a tendency to recycle or riff on their predecessors’ obsession with female pop stars, as if being a pop star fanboy was part of the Y chromosome.

Minmay was important to Zentradi, yes, but it’s strange to think that her image still dominates their lives to that uniform a degree. For one thing, it seems to suggest that male Zentradi characters are underdeveloped and unchanged, instead of being the product of generations of societal change. That they'll always look at her the same way.

It further suggests these characters are not to be taken seriously, as the writers reference the older “Minmay cult” but take away the heart in it, leaving just the comedic aspects. The original Minmay fanboys balanced being goofy fanboys with some characterization, and the high command had different reactions to her. The newer characters do not possess this range, and seem to be acting like fanboys because the writers want a homage, never mind how little sense it makes. There were reasons why male Zentradi loved Minmay, but they just don't apply anymore, and shoudn't transfer to any pop star.

One of the worst examples is probably the episode Fastest Delivery of Macross Frontier, which reduces the Zentradi characters appearing in it to grim threats or ineffectual “good guys”, almost all of whom are total fanboys anyway, and swiftly killed even after they avert a crisis situation. It looks like they're not "real" characters and don't matter.

In the same series there was also Richard Bilra, whom, despite his name, was a full Zentradi and a powerful mogul in his own right. He also had a dream to create a galaxy-wide communication network, showing just the kind of ambition, intelligence, and initiative that I wanted to see out of the latter-day Zentradi characters.

However, the end of the series shows that Bilra may have wanted this only as a method to find Minmay, who in the Macross continuity was literally lost in space. It is never made clear if this really was Bilra’s only reason for wanting what he did, and I’d really like to believe it wasn’t, because it makes him defined solely by Minmay, and not as a character himself.

Whenever there is danger from rogue Zentradi, it is usually from males. And it is Guld Goa Bowman, a male part-Zentradi character, whose heritage is shown to make him tragically dangerous; viewers are obviously meant to sympathize with Guld, but judging him as a character rather than being under the “fault” of anything, I disliked him intensely. Later male hybrids such as Michel Blanc or Brera Sterne at least mitigate this by having some Zentradi blood but being heroic and likeable, but their heritage gets less of a mention at all.

It often seems like male Zentradi characters can be slotted into a few character types, with difficult implications throughout, and are usually not given as much prominence as characters. Yet for all this, the series also depicts them in a wider variety of occupations and character types than female Zentradi.

In contrast, female Zentradi characters are often part of the main cast, and have lives with both military and domestic aspects. Nonetheless, most female characters that have Zentradi blood are either “perfect” hotshot warriors, happy, bouncy cute girls, or some fusion of the two types. Exceptions are rare: Milia certainly fit this mould in her youth, but her older self is a different sort of character. Stoic, muscular Veffidas Feaze of Macross 7 is a more notable exemption, but she is a character who rarely speaks and is not well-developed.

Danger from female Zentradi is also rare; when they display wrath, it is usually righteous. Most part-Zentradi characters are female, but they are all tractable as well. “Fleet of the Strongest Women” provides some exceptions to this trope, but it’s not enough.

Both of these portrayals have their bad points. On the male side, I wish that the Zentradi gender populated by what is in some ways a more varied range of characters would get more prominence, and that there would be some challenge to certain memes about male Zentradi. On the female Zentradi side, while “strong female characters” are a good thing, here such portrayals seem driven by a desire to idealize women instead, and you get a sense of dull standardization rather than something worth cheering. Female Zentradi characters are not interchangeable, but they often seem very close in looks, personality, and roles, which makes them uninteresting.

Ultimately, the best thing would be for a range of Zentradi characters of either gender. There would be some room for aggressive male hybrids, shameless Minmay fanboys, sexy female pilots, and adorable hybrid girls. But I just wish that they did not dominate Zentradi portrayal. They are restrictive images, and some of them were expressed better in the original series.

The issue of internal danger from seemingly assimilated Zentradi was also a difficult thing in itself. I do not want the Zentradi to be portrayed as saintly, but I want characters to be responsible for their actions, instead of making them out just poor things that can’t help it. If the Zentradi are always dangerous, never able to overcome their warlike urges, why tell a story of their escape? It’s just as bad when Macross implies it as when Robotech states it.

I interpreted Super Dimension Fortress Macross’ depiction of some Zentradi turning on humans to be attributable to the Zentradi’s personal failures to adjust to a new world, something that humans would have experienced in similar situations of radical transformation. However, later Macross works seem to spin it into a “natural” Zentradi predisposition towards aggression that makes them dangerous. An uncomfortable subtext, it undermines the optimistic themes of the TV series, not to mention the complexity when Exsedol once implied that humans and Zentradi may be more alike than they thought. This phenomenon’s virtual restriction to male characters also damages its credibility.

I could tolerate these things much better if I had strong emotional investment in later Macross productions. I simply don’t enjoy anything as much as I did Super Dimension Fortress Macross. Yet the strongest reactions I have to anything post-SDFM, positive or negative, frequently end up tied to my pet interests from the original series, with my being largely superficial or spiteful towards anything else.

Some might attribute it to hurt feelings over how the franchise handled my favourite characters, and that is part of it. Yet it is not the only reason I feel detached from the Macross franchise as a whole. To detail more would go beyond the Zentradi parameters of this essay, but there are many issues related to individual series that all accumulate together and make me “less” of a Macross geek than I should be. I just gotta think that it's not me, it's them.

However, in more recent years, I at least found some interest in the Macross Frontier films, which were more enjoyable than the TV series. Not for the Zentradi characters, but for presenting the storyline out in a more palatable way, with some amazing concert visuals and triggering a liking for Sheryl Nome, who is now my favourite human character in the franchise. It wasn't a matter of being open to liking different things, but for something just coming out that I happened to like. None of my opinions have actually changed.

And, though I didn't get to see it, Macross: the Musicalture, an original Macross story represented as a stage musical, sounded like it offered up some of the diversity for Zentradi characterization that I was looking for. It makes me hope that more interesting and different things will come out in the Macross franchise in the future.

Reflections on Macrophilia Part 6: Regarding Neo-Exsedol

Yet the biggest shock when venturing further into the Macross universe was the apparent retconning of Exsedol Folmo into a completely new personality and design, which in the process removed many of the qualities that had captured my interest and seemed to terminate his character arc, transforming him into little more than a device.





Neo-Exsedol appears as a minor character in the sequel to the original TV series, Macross 7; physically, he is essentially his DYRL design, though with some minor colour differences. At full Zentradi size, he sits (?) underneath the bridge of a ship, his giant (in more ways than one) head sticking up Whac-A-Mole style through the floor to be beside the captain’s chair, a captain who just happens to be Max Jenius from the original series. Later episodes show Exsedol leaving the ship and moving around, but he remains in that certain position until more than halfway through the series, and even then usually does not go anywhere much.

This depiction confused some anime fans in 1994, with them demanding to know how he had gotten that way. These days, most Macross fans seem to accept Neo-Exsedol as a matter of course, with the confusion being instead over why he is still an issue. However, Neo-Exsedol is a major snag for me, a major reason why I can't view Macross as a "complete", ordinary media franchise, but always look at it with some twitchiness.

I’ve already made my preference for Classic Exsedol’s physical appearance clear, and that’s certainly one of my issues with Neo-Exsedol. But Neo-Exsedol also has a new, less appealing personality, with a reduced emotional range, limited mobility, and just a different texture. On top of that, there’s no explanation as to why he is virtually a new character.

 In addition to barely moving, his bearing is flat and deadpan, and he sports a nearly perpetual frown. Sometimes this is broken by sudden comical fits of terror, but overall Exsedol remains at this one level setting. When the fleet is in crisis, he also has a tendency to fall into bleak pessimism. Though still voiced by Japanese actor Ryunosuke Obayashi, in Macross 7 Exsedol even has a different voice: deeper, slower, more resonant, and, contradictorily, younger-sounding.

Neo-Exsedol also often seems more like a device than a full-fledged cast member. He is too big and too stationary to have much of in the way of meaningful interaction with the other characters. Even when he is showing some kind of friendliness towards them, there is a sense of distance because he is merely a Big Talking Thing in the Background.

The promotional art for Macross 7 also suggests this remoteness, because Exsedol is usually absent from these images, even in shots that are otherwise crammed with rest of the cast. Though his size would prevent appearance in some of the more standard group shots, some acknowledgement of his existence would be welcome.

(An “extra” episode of Macross 7, "Fleet of the Strongest Women does show a slightly more involved Exsedol. He isn’t that large a departure from the way he is in the rest of the series, but slightly more appealing nonetheless.)

Now, none of his traits would be objectionable on a completely original character, but they are a tremendous departure from the reasons I was drawn to Classic Exsedol. Neo-Exsedol may have that same basic role of “geek on the bridge”, but that is only a small part of what endeared the character to me. The design and personality of Neo-Exsedol are much less fascinating than the original, and all we see is that he is static.

His physical inertness is partially out of necessity, because of he is a giant character in a place built for humans, but there’s no explanation as to why he remains in that state, and his emotional inertness remains. I’m also put off by his blanket pessimism, since crises in the fleet always prompt him to lament that none of them are going to succeed, in contrast to his quick response to the looming threat in SDFM.

Nevertheless, one of my major interests in Exsedol was his potential character development. In Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, there were brief hints dropped about Exsedol’s interest in Earth culture, and these fuelled my interest in his character growth. On hearing the spy trio’s first testimony of human life, Exsedol expresses an interest in going to Earth. He finds the drinks served at the peace talks to be surprisingly delicious, and seems to adjust well to being at human size for the remainder of the series.







At that time, I could picture Classic Exsedol becoming part of the human world to a degree on par with Milia and the spies, an image that was essential to giving him that complete arc. As I’ve admitted, the writers did not need to show this completeness, but it was a potential possibility.

With Neo-Exsedol, however, I have no room to play, since he is the absolute antithesis of his original portrayal. Though Macross 7 took place thirty-three years after the original series, my instinctive response was that Neo-Exsedol does not seem to follow logically from the TV series even if I looked at his characterization and not his body…unless you wanted to be really dark and think that the events of “Satan’s Dolls” drove Exsedol into that static, distant position, and I’m not willing to go that far.

Now, I’ve relented slightly on this position, at least when I’m in the mood to. One could say that Neo-Exsedol’s characterization is the product of a more realistic aging process than consumers of popular entertainment are used to. While most series try to keep aged characters familiar, in real life people can change radically over their lifetimes. So Exsedol, though he showed some interest in human culture in 2012, might have by 2045 been more comfortable just sitting somewhere, especially since he refers to himself as an “old man”. Theoretically, this leaves thirty-three years of a “blank” period in which I could have my own fun.

However, I can’t do this, for several reasons That Exsedol is a fictional character makes all the difference; I cannot shed that expectation of consistent depiction across a character’s lifespan, making it hard to try to make the most of what I’ve been given in replacement. A fan grows attached to what a character is as they first see them, and is less willing to
follow along with radical change than they would be with a real person.

Neo-Exsedol is too different, and whatever happens to him, he would arrive at that position where he had been drained of almost everything interesting. Besides, Macross, as a universe, did not set up any expectation of realistic treatment of anything else, so was might have been a realistic attempt at aging characters comes off as jarring.

An additional problem is that the past events of the new Macross canon can never be truly known, and hence neither can Classic Exsedol’s existence. Later Macross anime make references both to the TV series events and to the events of Do You Remember Love? by turns, with DYRL being an in-universe movie on top of that. There has never been any outline published of what exactly is canon and what is not.

This created a specific dilemma for me. While with most other characters, they could have their same events with their retconned designs, with Exsedol it left some huge questions open. Have the appearance and traits of Classic Exsedol been lost with time or had they never even been present? Did he have the personality of Classic Exsedol, or of Neo-Exsedol? Any of these prospects would radically change the way Exsedol worked in SDFM. You cannot simply replace Classic Exsedol’s scenes with Neo- Exsedol and have them come off the same, and therefore more specific details are required.

Furthermore, because Macross and Exsedol are someone else’s creations, my own imaginings can never substitute for an official word from on high. I don’t expect one anymore, but it is the ideal circumstance; being left to figure out things on my own is disorienting, not because I’m stupid, but because I usually try to respect the boundaries and authority of creators. I might be able to make up theories about Neo-Exsedol, but will never actually know if that was the intent. I may complain about Neo-Exsedol, but I could never just dismiss his existence because I didn’t like it; he’s canon, and I must engage with his portrayal rather than pretending he never happened.

Neo-Exsedol’s body is even harder to explain away. I did not like the way he looked in comparison to the original form, but things were worse because I then had to contend with several red herrings regarding his current state. Early on, I was willing to assume that there was some in-story explanation involved, that Classic Exsedol had somehow become Neo-Exsedol. It looks absurd to be now, but I was operating on expectations formed by the majority of popular entertainment, where radical changes were explained in-story. I still prefer their methods over Macross’ ambiguity.\





One possible explanation for Neo-Exsedol involved a quote from the Macross 7 DVD liner notes: “Although he [Exsedol] was Micloned at one time, he purportedly returned to his former Zentradi size and realtered his body makeup for fear of losing his cerebral capacity and memories.” While my automatic response (and those of other fans years before), was to interpret this as meaning that Exsedol had been modified in-story from the TV series design, maybe due to some dreadful illness, I slowly realized that this didn’t work as an explanation for several reasons.

First, nothing else was ever said to supplement or clarify this lonely liner note, either published or inside the stories. Exsedol also appears with the DYRL design in flashbacks in Macross 7, and is part of a larger display of DYRL aesthetic in later Macross anime. Because of these last two things, it is impossible to believe that there was anything “special” about Neo-Exsedol’s physical appearance. And in the next TV series, Macross Frontier, an apparent clone of Neo-Exsedol’s Zentradi type was seen, finally killing the modification theory that was already gasping for breath.

 In the face of all this, I decided to assume that Classic Exsedol never existed in the current Macross continuity, and that Neo-Exsedol in Macross 7 is consistent with whatever came before him, having never acted or looked like Classic Exsedol in the past. Of course, this didn’t go down easy: on top of essentially erasing that character and necessitating new and likely less-compelling versions of his primary scenes, it was still an informal, unofficial explanation.

Sometimes I wish instead that Do You Remember Love? was established as the official background for all new Macross anime, since it would have neatly solved the Exsedol Question. The result would not have been pleasing but it would have been clear, for the Macross 7 version of Neo-Exsedol works much better as a continuation of his DYRL self than of Classic Exsedol, and not only on physical terms. DYRL Neo-Exsedol has nothing that creates the expectation that he’ll do anything else beyond transferring his current role to the human army, and the Macross 7 version seems like a much more pleasant individual in comparison to him, making for adequate character development when the character wasn’t all that fleshed out to start with.

Another, more recent theory, was that Neo-Exsedol somehow takes the shape of Classic Exsedol when micloned, which would allow his scenes from the original series to remain intact at least in terms of physical action. From here, we could go back to the infamous liner note and assume that Exsedol chooses the impractical condition of remaining at his natural size because he has some physiological difficulties with being micloned. The theory of a more realistic aging process would then be employed to explain his new personality. His “new” voice may even be what he sounds like when at his natural size, and so on and so forth.

But it is still not good enough. This is just the imagination of fans, which is not the same as something official. I resigned myself to never being able to get anything more, just before finding out that Shoji Kawamori, one of the men involved with Macross, went on record as saying that since all Macross works were fictional, they could be treated as altering takes on a non-existent “real” event, similar to how all WW II movies were different from the real war. Hence, perhaps, Neo-Exsedol and Classic Exsedol were to be perceived as two different actors playing the same role in different versions of a war drama. Or, more simply put, there was no need to worry about stability when it was all fictitious anyway. There was no “real” Zentradi war, so why stress consistency?

Yet it is not too much to expect stability and clarity from fiction, instead of going off and doing anything because it’s “just fiction”. Even if very few viewers were as invested in the portrayal of Exsedol as I was, they were still left confused and for no good reason, so I failed to have much sympathy for Kawamori. This “official” response also had me thinking that Neo-Exsedol was a writer’s whim and not “meant” to be thought about in the same manner that fans did.

Writers can have their whims, of course, but it all bothers me anyway. Exsedol was my favourite character in the series, and virtually replacing one character with a new one is an unpleasant thing, no matter how minor he is. Some clarification on how much of his original SDFM appearance and portrayal were still canon to the mainstream Macross would have eased my difficulties, but I realize that that is not going to happen. Ultimately, Neo-Exsedol cannot be explained in terms of anything but fan theories: he simply is.

This extreme case of retroactive continuity and its related lack of “growth” is especially conspicuous when weighed against the portrayal of Mila Fallyna Jenius in Macross 7. I did find Milia a problematic character in that series because she often comes off as a petty, petulant harpy who is comic relief because she is an older woman who is sexual and outspoken. But it is also clear that Milia has lead a rich, full life, taking a variety of jobs and moving about freely in the human world.

She also looks almost the same as she originally did, apparently ageless, with only cosmetic differences in dress, hairstyle, and modernized art design. While Exsedol and Milia were obviously different in how prominent they are in the story, it still stings a bit. It is not that Milia’s life is more directly explored (that is to be expected), but that she has one, while Exsedol is written in a way that cuts off the possibility of being anything more than a big talking head, when both embodied the changes in the Zentradi.



Besides being so different from what I enjoyed, Neo-Exsedol also seems to be a largely useless character in Macross 7, to the point where I find it hard to imagine why he is part of the cast of at all. Allegedly, his purpose is to inform the characters about the enemies in the series, called the Protodevlin: energy vampires in the bodies of humans and genetic constructs, who are ancient enemies of the Zentradi. Exsedol, being a veteran Zentradi, lends the enemies’ existence some gravitas, for he can tell you just how badass they are, though largely through his own terror.

Exsedol’s vast knowledge appears to be largely useless. He has a few scenes of translation and analysis, but they seem like things that other educated scientists and personnel could have done by themselves (though perhaps accessing databanks filled with knowledge he gave them), and Exsedol and the other scientists are usually one step behind the truth, too.

Exsedol is also terrified of the Protodevlin, an apparently reflexive fear that drives him to retreat into his floor opening for several episodes, crying “Protodevlin!” The image of Exsedol sinking away, only his shivering braincase visible, doesn’t feel right either. The character has never been macho, but the Protodevlin turn out to be such ridiculous villains in their goofy appearance, cheesy personalities, and method of defeat (being repelled and then pacified through rock music) that his paroxysms seem unjustified.



Click to enlarge image

The way that Exsedol expresses fear makes him look even more comedic, without the integrity and the vivacity that Classic Exsedol had to balance out his humorous moments. Furthermore, because there are other reasons to fear the Protodevlin besides Exsedol’s own terror, his looking ridiculous is unnecessary to drum up fear of those enemies, either.

Otherwise, Neo-Exsedol’s role in Macross 7 consists largely of needless exposition or pointless dialogue. It would be easy to “stitch up” the scenes where he is supposedly needed and then to cut him from the series. There would still be enough offhand references outside of Macross 7 to suggest that Neo-Exsedol had been retconned, but it would be better if he was not put through the rigmarole of Macross 7. Why make him a cast member, and re-create him as a new character, if you are going to do nothing with him?

Yet I suppose I ought to be clean about it and say that, despite all this, I do have a certain love for the Macross 7 version of Neo-Exsedol. I find him to be rather likeable, and take more of an interest in him than anything else in the series. He’s also a nice contrast to just about every other giant-brained character in fiction, looking like a B-movie monster but actually a nice guy, if rather deadpan. It is only the knowledge that he is “replacing” a much better character, with little interest in explaining how or why, that agitates me. At best, Neo-Exsedol is a guilty pleasure, and at worst, he is the main reason why I cannot become a pure Macross fan. What is a minor quibble for most viewers is a deal-breaker for me. Not only was his design changed, but his entire personality and manner, too.

This handling of Exsedol, Warera, Rori, Konda, and Britai was a real kick in the ovaries, especially when it was reasonable to expect that the Macross universe would be nothing but superior to Robotech when it came to handling the characters who originally came from it. Unlike many other fans, I do not feel the urge to “protect” my favourite Macross characters from representation in Robotech, because Macross has already done a fair job of screwing up these characters on its own.

I’m aware that these five are secondary characters, but it doesn’t follow that I should expect them to change at the drop of a hat, and never grow attached to any aspect of them since it may all disappear.

The question about my favourite Zentradi that always lingers in my head is, “What about afterward?”  It is essential to be able to picture those characters experiencing the fruits of human culture, finding broader experiences, greater emotions, and new successes. Unfortunately, this is not what happened.

When such things are only restricted to Milia, I get the nagging feeling that the human-friendly male Zentradi from the original TV series end up forgotten by the Macross universe: written poorly, drastically altered, and never allowed to develop fully. Set against this, the happy fate of the majority of Zentradi becomes a little more of a distant interest, though I have some problems with that portrayal as well.