I’m a Macross fan who didn’t hate Macross 7
Aside from the parallel/non-canon Macross II, I have now completed every major installment of the legendary Macross franchise. I saved Macross 7 for last because I’d heard absolutely dreadful things about it. The fandom collectively proclaims it as the worst series in Macross’ entirety and it only took me one episode to realize why.
Let’s talk about clothes for a minute; A fashion collection is supposed to be cohesive. Each individual outfit is different, but whether it’s the color or style or something else, all of them manage to flow and look like they fit in a single body of work. If Christian Siriano stuck a bright pink dress in a black and neutral colored collection, the show would be completely thrown off. It doesn’t fit. Macross 7 is that bright pink dress.
The tone of Macross 7 is significantly less serious and less mature than everything else. The franchise has always been cheesy to various extents, mainly due to the fact that alien wars can be stopped thanks to the power of J-Pop. But all the installments except for 7 have a more serious and mature tone to them. Macross 7 however embraces the cheese and runs with it.
The reason why Macross fans hate this is completely understandable, especially to those who, like me, love the franchise. Its immaturity makes it appear dumb, Basara can become an extremely irritating character, and the animation is rather atrocious. And for the twenty episodes or so, I was in the Hate Camp with the majority of Macross fans. But around the halfway mark, I started embracing Macross 7‘s stupid but sort of innocent charm. It began to grow on me and I stopped hoping that it would become all serious and shit. Otherwise it just would’ve come off as contrived. Its sappiness is why so many people hate it, but that’s what makes it special from all of Macross’ other installments.
There are shows like Moretsu Pirates that are also extremely cheesy and campy, but I didn’t enjoy that anime because until the final four-five episodes, nothing that was happening was interesting, nor did I find its brand of cheese amusing or entertaining. With Macross 7, this wasn’t an issue. Concerts, alien fights, and of course love triangles made the show a campy, eventful, though often annoying, but pretty fun.
I really like M7 in full awareness of its pretty glaring faults simply for the bits where it calms down and lets the good parts shine. Milia turning into the mother from hell, the funny awkward scenes with Mylene and Gamlin, the daft bit part characters and visual jokes like the flower girl. They’re the really enjoyable parts of the series I think, although the main plot certainly has its moments (Gigil singing Power to the Dream, most of the final battle, stuff like that). By any stretch it’s a show for fans of cartoons for all their idiosyncrasies. But considered as a cartoon – and indeed a relationship comedy about blockheads and fools but in space – it works.