Macross Frontier 19 – Triangular

hime, Hime, HIME! Its always with the Hime, when will they realize my awesomeness? (Gratuitous Mikail shot of the week)

Triangular indeed, since the first opening theme is used as the ending this theme this week. When you watch the ending it makes sense. If you weren’t aware there was a major love triangle going on, well then its probably a good thing they are about as subtle as jabba the hutt, because what the hell have you been watching?

I don’t usually say much about the animation for this show, since its usually pretty good. But someone really wasn’t keeping an eye on the quality this week, there were a multitude of shots which just looked really craptastic.

*Cries* they made my Mikhail-kun not pretty! Somebody should be punished for this crime. And as if Sheryl hadn’t suffered enough indignities, they made her look pretty awful in a few shots too, one can only hope this is rectified next week. Sheryl and Alto can find some solace in the fact that both Ranka and Brera both also suffered from the evil bad animator.

Clean up needed over at THAT, their TRAP of a leader has collapsed from a major nosebleed (will make no sense unless you know Impz, but I get a kick out of it)

The episode opened with Ranka having a strange dream, in a grassy field her young self cries because her mother isn’t with her. A young boy (who is obviously Brera-nii) tells Ranka they won’t let her come because she is busy with work. Then it gets confusing, he asks her if she is lonely, and when she affirms that she is, he says he knows a good way. The scene changes and we see many images of Ranka on what looks like the eye of a fly.
Out of the dream, we hear Ranka say Ma ma; Ai-kun glows and escapes through a vent in the room.
Sitting on a ledge outside playing Aimo, is Brera, using his cyborg vision he can see Ai-kun’s tracks, but doesn’t do anything about it.

I have to say the more I hear the new opening Lion and watch the accompanying animation the more I absolutely LOVE IT!

Hime! Crawling through the bushes is not good for your hair!

Thanks to his brothers plotting, Alto sneaks into the Saotome mansion to see Sheryl, which is quite a big deal considering he had vowed to never step foot inside the place again.
But for all of you wishing for a romantic Sheryl X Alto reunion I’m sorry to say you’ll all be very disappointed. It was also really dirty pool of his brother to have Sheryl wear a kimono that belonged to Alto’s mother.

As if Alto wasn’t confused enough about his feelings…

When the shoji screen is pulled back and Alto first sees her, its his mother he sees and not Sheryl. So I’d say the odds of anything romantic happening here was pretty slim from the get go.
And with Sheryl acting less than happy to see him, it seems inevitable that they would fight.
Right from the start she is snippy with him, asking why he came, he asks if she is alright and she snaps that she’s in tiptop shape.
Alto gets very irate at Sheryl when she says she has decided to quit singing. Lying to him and herself she says that she feels she has done all she wanted to do with songs and is tired of it and will do something different.
Alto reminds her that she told him she got where she is not through luck, but because she worked hard and did her best, she took fate into her own hands. He starts to say something about both Ranka and himself but Sheryl cuts him off, saying that all she said was a lie.
This makes Alto really angry and when he says but aren’t you Fairy of The Galaxy Sheryl Nome, she angrily replies that she is Sheryl Nome whether she sings or not.
But, don’t lose hope for these two just yet everyone! Before leaving Alto tells Sheryl that, he’ll be performing stunts at Ranka’s concert at Mihoshi and she should make sure she is there.

The only guy on board is Bobby, we are NEVER getting laid…

The bridge bunnies are unhappy that they’ve been stuck on duty whilst everyone else gets to have fun. But someone has to keep an eye on things, since the forced fold put them ahead of their planned destination, and who knows what lurks out there in uncharted space. Although it seems Kathy managed to get the day off and she and Ozma look pretty cute together whilst they are out there investigating.

And later they’ll be going back to Cathy’s place for ahem ‘Pineapple Cakey’ which is Cathy’s code word for some Ozma smexing.

To celebrate the success of the 7th Ultra Long Fold and the fact they have ’left the Varja’ behind them, The Frontier is holding a parade for Ranka, with the day being declared a holiday, named Aimo Memorial Day.
However, the fans are disappointed at seeing just the President in the car, Ranka isn’t even present at her own parade!

That’s the last time Ranka takes fashion advice from Superman!

She is too busy wearing stupid glasses to disguise herself, I guess if it works for Clark Kent though right? She and Brera are looking all over for Ai-kun and Ranka gets a nice laugh out of Brera’s surprised face when he finds a startled cat rather than the little Varja larva, they’ve been looking for.

In fact, the whole thing with Brera to me is just a little bit ick, since the day seems very much like a dateto. Ranka does tell Brera however, that he feels like an older brother and she asks him if he has a sister. He replies that he wouldn’t know and Ranka says that they are the same since she can’t remember her past either. I guess I would find it a lot less creepy if she hadn’t proclaimed to see him as a brother, yet she gets all blushy around him all the damn time!

Klan gets her man, sort of, so back off ladies, RAWR!

One couple I don’t find creepy however are Klan and Mikhail, although considering her appearance you’d think I would have issues with it. Mikhail doesn’t seem too happy at having her cling to him however, but since he promised to do as she said in return for the research, she gathered for him, he’s pretty much stuck being her dateto.

She gets serious for a moment though and asks if Alto made a move and Mikhail says that the indecisive guy finally got off of his fat ass. When Klan says that indecisive guy is probably better than an unfaithful guy who can’t keep his hands to himself, Mikhail agrees with her much to her annoyance. Don’t worry Klan, the reason he pushes you so far away is because he cares so much about you, trust me on this.

Hmm if just mentioning Ranka gets her to talk to you this much, maybe she’d put out for racy pictures of her beloved green haired girl. Just sayin Luca…

Luca gets some time with his beloved Nanase, who tells him that Brera is helping Ranka search for her pet. She felt that Ranka needed some time off since she’d been down in the dumps recently. Luca says he will also help search for Ai-kun but needs to know what it looks like. He gets called away before he can see the picture Nanase draws, but when he gets a look a little later, he recognizes Ai-kun to be a Varja larva!

And now the reason for that ridiculous hair style is finally revealed! In the right lighting it makes him look even more malevolent.

The evil machinations of Leon and Grace continue with the production of a bomb made from analyzing the pulse characteristics of Fold Quartz. It apparently acts as a miniature version of the dimension eater Grace used on Gallia 4, so they call it the MDE. Leon seems very happy that they should be able to hold the Varja off with the bomb and asks how mass production is coming along.

Grace replies that it will take a while, but deems it irrelevant anyway since she has solved the mystery that Dr Nome and Ranshe Mei couldn’t, the mystery of the Varja Queen… And we see something varja like in a big tank in the room with them.

Leon then asks if she minds if he sends out the go head for ‘that’ plan, to which Grace replies they picked the location specifically for it, these two are seriously getting creepier and creepier.

I have only one thing to say, awwwwwww

Back at the Saotome mansion, Sheryl gazes at a picture of a young Alto and his mother and Alto’s brother gives her a little background on Alto’s past. It seemed Alto’s mother Miyo had always been frail and he implies that she passed away when Alto was 12. He says he remembers them sitting out on the porch, with Miyo combing Alto’s hair (Ranka did this for him too on Gallia 4) they were a picture of bliss.
Sheryl says that if his purpose in bringing her to the Saotome mansion was to persuade Alto to go back to acting, then she won’t be of much help to him. But Alto’s brother says he hasn’t yet lost hope.
While his efforts to get Alto back to performing Kabuki might not prove fruitful, I think in the end his words will have an effect on Sheryl and she’ll sing again, despite what she told Alto earlier.

This one’s for you Crusader, criminally he’s prettier than both Ranka and Sheryl…

Alto’s brother tells her that “performing one’s art before a crowd is sweet, a poison too sweet. Garnering the attention of every spectator. Stirring them up, enticing them… That wildness… That excitement… The omnipotent feeling of controlling everything. Once you’ve tasted it you will not easily forget.” He says that she too knows that feeling.

Back on the weird sort of dateto with Brera and Ranka he asks her why she sings. He says lately she hasn’t been happy when doing so, he wants to know for whom she sings. Thinking back all she sees is Alto, and she realizes though she thought she had been singing for everyone, she was in fact singing for him. She seems to finally realize her love for him, but wants to be sure.

Mikhail gets two gratuitous shots this week, because well, he’s fracking awesome and totally worth it.

With the concert in full swing, Alto and guys take to the skies to perform. Mikhail says that Ranka is amazing today and Alto agrees, saying that they can’t screw up either and he tells Luca not to fall behind.
He asks them how long he’s been flying with them and Mikhail tells him not to sneak off on his own, they’re a team and then he winks (fan girls) saying crap like that makes me worry for you Mikhail. I do hope that pudding Klan fed you whilst you were recuperating wasn’t pineapple in nature…

Rabu Rabu Ranka-chan?

Alto then says to himself, watch this Sheryl as they create Ranka’s name in the sky with a heart above it, for the finishing touch Alto puts an arrow through the heart. Ranka takes it as a sign that Alto returns her feelings, and it looks like Brera has a sad expression on his face as he watches her…

Sheryl did go to watch the concert and after seeing the air display seems to have taken it the same way Ranka did, she turns to leave but is stopped by Klan, who tells her not to run away.

While it could be taken that the heart was meant for Sheryl, since Alto asked her to be there and said to himself, “watch this Sheryl” in reality I don’t think anything romantic was meant by it at all. As for Ranka it was simply something cool for her concert and in regards to Sheryl, Alto merely asked her to come watch them both, to show that he and Ranka were both still trying their hardest and so should she. Because quite frankly, he’s too thick in the head where romance is concerned to have come up with such a cool romantic gesture.

Mikhail is with Alto and asks him how Sheryl was. Alto gets fired up and sarcastically replies that she was “disappointingly in tip top shape.” and “As fickle and abusive as ever.” He says if anything she’s powered up.

This really pisses Mikhail off and he says that being as dense as Alto is should be criminal. Mikhail tells him to hurry up and give her an answer, to which Alto asks an answer to what? But it seems that Mikhail isn’t talking just about Sheryl right now but Ranka also.

He tells Alto not to be stupid and that even he must realize that the song she’s singing and the one before that. Ranka is singing for him, only for him and Sheryl is the same. He says that right now Sheryl is going through a hard time, but when she found out, she thought about him right away.

Alto asks Mikhail what he knows, but he says nothing, so Alto shoves him and says like a two-timing, three-timing bastard can lecture him about women. Mikhail says he is too much of a coward, and thinking of his sister says that, you can never tell when people will die. He says especially because they are pilots his matches are only ones he doesn’t care about, because getting serious is too frightening. He tells Alto that he is different and then notices Sheryl who is walking towards them, and Klan who hanging back, so Mikhail leaves them together.

Cathy and Ozma confront Leon about him staging a coup d’etat, but he tells them its too late, just as we see the President lined up in the cross hairs of a sniper.

I think you can actually hear her heart breaking right before the music starts up…

At the same time, Ranka runs to tell Alto how she feels, only to find him hugging Sheryl…

I have to say I was really impressed by Klan and Mikhail this week, they were simply awesome! And to all of those speculating whose side they were on the answer is no-ones, they just feel that a decision should be made about somebody!

But I love how Mikhail finally said what we’ve all been thinking, its high time Alto made a choice. So by hugging Sheryl can we take it to mean he’s already made his decision?

Maybe we’ll find out next week, or not, considering I’m sure we’re about to get another Varja disruption! 😛