Short Synopsis: The Zanbani is attacked by a number of humanforms.
Highlights: Only 11 episodes and the cast is already developing.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
I must say, I’m very impressed with this episode. The cast is already connecting to a level that takes most series at least five episodes longer. This episode was really meant to develop the cast of the Zanbani, to push them to their limits and use time that the previous episodes spent on fleshing them out, with some awesome results. I think that from now on, we can expect this series to really get fired off, and I’m really curious whether the creators are able to get the best out of this series’ potential.

This episode confirms what I’ve been suspecting: the Zanbani isn’t just a regular postal ship with a bunch of strange members on it. It makes perfect sense: why else would a postal ship carry guns and a Hiruko-priest? It’s the same as Eureka7, where the main characters pretend to be a bunch of trendy people on surfing mecha, while they’re in fact an underground rebellion. The question now remains: who is Benikawa, and why is she carrying out her mission with a bunch of children on board? It seems to suggest that she has a lot of personal issues in whatever she seems to be trying to do, if she really wants her friends and loved ones to accompany her.

I really loved the situations the creators put the characters in in this episode, every single character was awesome in this episode, and especially Benikawa got a lot of depth, as she started yelling at Yunbo because her motherly worries annoyed her. It’s also typical for her gun to suddenly stop working after two shots. She never striked me as the type to take good care of her guns, so it’s natural for them to get clogged up once in a while. Nakiami also completely lost it, after seeing so many killed Humanforms. We still don’t know exactly why she takes them so personal, but my guess is that she once lost a loved one, who became a humanform.

Kisel-jii also shined as he tried to perform maintenance on the ship (a role often neglected, but at the same time very important). Meanwhile Akiyuki and Raigyo played a surprisingly small role in this episode, and this episode mainly showed Akiyuki was he continues to grow and learn to control his powers. There’s also a strange chemistry between Ahm and Hinokimaru, as in a strange father-and-son relationship while they’re actually not related.

What I loved about this episode was the creator’s amazing ability to make every character count. Most of the time in anime, you see the focus falling on one or two characters, and the other characters could just as well merge into one big character, without much of a difference. In Bonen no Xamdou each character has his or her individuality. There were no two characters who did the same. It may be a pet peeves, but I love it when a series manages to accomplish this. I can really see Bonen no Xamdou turning into my favourite series, once all spring and summer-series finish airing. It all depends on what path Porfy no Nagai Tabi decides to choose, and whether or not some amazing short series pops up in the upcoming fall-season.

Having never seen anything of Macross, the arrival of the new Macross Frontier, airing more than twenty-five years after the original Dimensional Fortress Macross, seemed like a good place to check out what the hype about the franchise was all about. What I got was probably the biggest-budgeted series of the year, with grand visuals and soundtrack. However, I do hope that this isn’t the best that Macross has to offer.

Overall, Macross Frontier is a very accessible series, as long as you know that in the Macross Universe, songs can be used as weapons. It tells about the love triangle between one guy and two different idols, while evil aliens called the Vajra are trying to invade and need to be stopped. While the romance is rather questionably introduced, it does develop enough to keep the viewer busy. The characters are overall nicely fleshed out, sympathetic and nice to watch.

The problem with this series is that I don’t really think that the creators really knew what they wanted with this series. It jumps from one thing to the others, introduces things that turn out to not matter at all in the end, while rushing the development of the things that do, some moment sparkle with brilliance, while others bore with dullness. The result is a beginning that goofs off a bit too much, and a finale that feels superficial, and where nothing really comes together like it should be.

The series has a cast of very interesting characters, but they’re not always used well. The series has a nasty tendency sometimes to put them into predictable situations, that don’t really allow them to fully develop their characters, with the prime example being Ranka, one of the main characters. She has some excellent moments, but she too often just plays the part of a damsel in distress. There’s only one character that’s really uninteresting to watch, and ironically this guy ended up being the main character of this series: Alto. His character isn’t bad, but he pales in comparison to the other characters, and because of that it’s so frustrating that the creators keep focusing on him.

Thankfully, this didn’t stop this series from having an excellent middle part, which lasts from around episode 10 till 18. It’s here where both the characters and the characters manage to show their best sides, which makes for a bunch of awesome action-packed episodes. Unfortunately, the series quickly dulls in again as it approaches its climax and finishes with a decent but inconclusive ending.

In terms of production-values, this series is also awesome, but unfortunately not without its flaws. Even though this series has a huge budget, the character-designs often look inconsistent and rushed, and unfortunately this just looks out of place a bit, unlike what Satelight managed to do with Noein. Yoko Kanno’s soundtrack also has a few very good pieces amongst it, but it’s nowhere near her best work.

Overall, I just feel that the creators could have done much more with the potential of this series. They should have taken more risks, they should have made more effort to flesh out some of the neglected subplots and side-characters, instead of goofing off with Alto, Ranka and Sheryl. Macross Frontier had the potential to bake a delicious cake, and instead just came with a fried egg. And while the egg is nice and good and all, it could have been so much better.

Short Synopsis: The final episode: Save Ranka and destroy Grace.
Highlights: Pretty, but a bit too keen on creating a perfect ending.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
Ugh, okay, so Alto didn’t die; I should have known. I’ve been too spoiled by series as Ultraviolet and especially Himitsu, where people actually DIE when they’re killed. This episode proved the fears I originally had for this series, by keeping the death-count embarrassingly low. If I recall correctly, the only one who dies is Grace, apart from that everyone survives. Yes, even Sheryl who was supposed to have a deadly illness.

Overall, it was a decent ending. It wasn’t the worst I’ve seen this season, but nowhere near the best. The graphics looked really nice as expected, but it didn’t help that some of Ranka’s songs were incredibly cheesy. Her voice worked great with those synthesizers, like in the previous episode, but in my opinion it sucks when she attempts to sing pop tunes on her own. Although her voice is a great one when she sings together with Sheryl.

In any case, Grace indeed turned into the final boss of this series, and the Vajra suddenly turned into the good guys because of this. I didn’t quite pick up why she suddenly turned herself against the Frontier-fleet if her goal was to eliminate all the Vajra. I also feel that Leon’s arrest could have been a bit more subtle. It’s over, just like that? It makes me wonder what his entire purpose in this series was. The purple-haired girl whose name I forgot at the moment also woke up a bit too conveniently.
My main problem with this episode was the way the creators decided to close off the love triangle between Alto, Ranka and Sheryl. After 25 episodes, we’re entirely back to square one: Ranka and Sheryl are friends again, they both still love Alto, and they both still have equal chances to get his love. I mean, PLEASE, bring some conclusion for these people! Let one of these girls get Alto and the other move on, for Christ’s sake. I guess that the creators would use the love-triangle for the movie, but something tells me that even THAT won’t have the guts to give this triangle a proper conclusion.

Overall, I pretty much blogged Macross Frontier on a whim, making use of the opportunity that I could blog a lot of different series for the past spring-season. The results were a great middle part, with a disappointing start and ending. This series lost a lot of its magic after it revealed all its mysteries about Sheryl, and never really made up for it. While it definitely had the biggest budget of the past half year, I just can’t label this series as the one with the best graphics. Birdy the Mighty had the best animated fights in terms of 2D, and Blassreiter had the best 3D fights, and the best insert song was from Kaiba. Macross Frontier really is a series that went for the quantity instead of the quality, and that’s why its individual moments lost a bit of impact.