Macross Frontier 23 – True Begin

Take my hand and your journey to the darkside will give you more power than you can possibly imagine.

Yes I’m well aware this is very late since 24 is already out. I will say this about Episode 24, I will NOT believe it until I see a body, he ejected before the explosion or folded out thanks to the earring. SOMETHING BUT HE IS NOT DEAD! So until I do the summary that is all I have to say on the matter, so back to episode 23

So Ranka’s memories are coming back thick and fast as she remembers Grace and her mother Ranshe fighting. It seems that Grace wanted to merge the Varja’s zero-time fold communications with her implant network theory. Ranshe didn’t want Grace to use them like that and Grace can’t understand why Ranshe would defend them when they have infected her.

“Its a long way to Tipperary, its a long way to go.”

Back in the present Frontier is having issues; they have to abandon two more islands, which pushes it past the point of self-renew ability and people are having to carry around oxygen masks. Apparently, news of SMS’s defection is making the rounds and being likened to rats leaving a sinking ship. He of the monumental haircut seems non-plussed though, since he apparently has a plan in the works.

Hime tells the best Ghost Stories.

And Alto mutters under his breath, “Don’t call me Hime in front of the lads please!”

Things are a little bit more lighthearted where Hime is concerned though. His wingman pump their taichou for information on the latest rumors regarding Sheryl. Apparently, everyone is saying they are together and that is the reason he didn’t leave with SMS and well they aren’t wrong…

Ahh domestic bliss.

A bit TOO blissful

Seems like our Hime and Sheryl have been shacking up together although Alto is trying to keep that a secret from everyone. The atmosphere is really cute as she and Alto make dinner together and enjoy an evening in.
It gets a little bit sad as Sheryl reminisces about the past and how she had always dreamed about this kind of thing. She drinks a little bit too much and ends up getting Alto to carry her and asks him not to leave her ever.
As she falls asleep he remarks to himself that it isn’t like her to fawn for attention although looking at her bottle of pills he decides it can’t be helped.

Good intentions don’t always guarantee a good outcome…

Onii-chan!

Drool… Grace has the sweetest looking ride.

Chibi Brera’s appearance in Ranka’s earlier trip down memory lane prompts her to ask him about Aimo and how he knows it. Brera tells her that it’s the only memory left within his empty insides. They encounter the Varja defense force and Ranka begins to sing to calm them. Her song his noticed not only by the Varja but also by the SMS who know the enemy will also have noticed it and now lay in wait for them to take the bait.

Brera gives Ranka his harmonica tell her it’s a protector so that her wish may be heard. Since Ranka has stopped singing the Varja attack and Ranka tries to reach out to Ai-kun only for him to kidnap her.
Screaming out for her Nii-chan, Brera tries to get to her but is overwhelmed and rescued by Grace who informs Brera that Ranka is indeed his sister before she puts him back in slave mode.
Grace can hear the little Queen and is delirious with excitement, one wonders if the Borg Queen really can be stopped!

Tool of the Varja?

Alto is called to a meeting with Bilrer and Leon who inform him that Ranka’s song was detected and that they now know the location of the Varja planet. Bilrer tells Alto he expects great things from him in their current fight and wants him to be able to do his job without any reservations.

Alto says he is fine with fighting since its what he stayed for anyway, but he wants to know if the whole thing is about obtaining fold quartz.

Bilrer says it is true that the Varja seem to gather material from the universe to produce it. But Leon says the fight is about survival and to do that they have to exterminate the Varja.

Leon goes on to tell Alto a little bit about the Varja and his theory as to how Ranka is involved, putting his own spin on it of course. Saying that the Varja are out to destroy everyone using Ranka to do so.

The Varja themselves communicate by transmitting information through a network of intestinal germs that can emit fold waves and that network is spread across the organism,. Rather than having a brain of their own each Varja acts like a single synapse of the network.. Being such a network organism they have no sense of self and so communication and reasoning are not something that can be applied to them.

Leon theorizes that the Varja respond to Ranka’s song because she must have been infected in the womb and chosen symbiosis with them. He says that is why they target her, she will connect them to humanity and bring about their destruction.

So that bottle of pills we saw earlier looked rather full and Luca takes Sheryl to task about the fact she isn’t taking them. But since she feels stronger when she doesn’t and better able to perform she tells him that if they are going to use someone they should be selfish until the end.

OI stay away from my Hime creepy, squinty Yasaburo.

Yasaburo also takes Alto to task, asking him once again to return and getting angry with him this time, since Hime refuses saying that he is a pilot and people will die if they don’t find. Yasaburo asks Alto if fighting and killing is what he really desires. In his view he says Alto only fights because he got swept up in events and asks if he would have become a pilot whether there was an enemy or not.

Ahh Ranka, Angel of Destruction. Don’t believe me? Watch 24 😛

Following his conversation with Yasaburo Alto goes to visit Nanase whilst there he remembers more of his conversation with Yasaburo, he had also told Alto that he is an actor through and through, performing the role that is expected of him at each moment. He tells Alto to think carefully about what his desires are, what he seeks and why. Alto then gazes upon Nanase’s portrait of Ranka.

Why, why must you keep making Klan cry?

Now its Sheryl’s turn to walk in half-way through a conversation!

Later up on the hospital roof with Klan Alto pours out his heart, saying that as Klan joined the military because it ran in her family and seemed the thing to do, that is why he became an actor. But he had always longed for the sky and so left home to become a pilot and then he met Ranka.

He says he chose to join SMS to protect her, to fight. Hime starts to get really deep, saying that he may have been running away, pretending not to notice things as unbeknownst to him Sheryl arrives and listens in on the conversation.

But he says that is over now and in a world where the slightest imbalance could destroy it, people are trying to live, to survive and so if Ranka will be made a tool for the Varja. If they will use her song to destroy those trying to live, then he will kill her.

Klan cries asking Alto if that is his love and Sheryl cries saying that she knew it all along “but just for now, just for a little bit longer…” She throws a paper airplane that looks like it might not make it.

Leon gives the order for a fold jump and the battle for their lives will begin next episode!

I like it when Hime means business

And of course your Michel-kun tribute shot of the week.

If “they” are both dead Kawamori I’ll hate you forever… Or at least until the next great Macross show 😀