What is it about love and alien invasion anyway? There is a rush to be part of someone’s life every time mankind finds itself in the throes of war. At least, that’s what most alien invasion stories are about. Macross tells the story of the Humans vs. Zentraedi warfare. It is more than just star-crossed lovers taking the star bit a tad too seriously. It is also about culture and every race’s idea of superiority, and the desire to impose the said superiority, imagined or otherwise, upon the other race using the mandatory jet fighters, tactical pods, combat pods, high-tech weaponry and what not.
The recurring theme both in the original Macross and the subsequent spin-offs is a love triangle, mostly about a skilled fighter pilot who has a turbulent relationship with a singer while finding the bridge commander who is getting more and more attractive each day. The real star is actually the Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, a huge vessel-slash-warship that can house an entire city. This vessel was owned by the aliens – the Zentraedi, until it crash-landed on Earth and discovered by humans, and henceforth utilized by humans.
Instead of politics, the focus of the story is on the individual and how each one deals with warfare, which added warmth to a story that would have been all about robots and equipment. The anime was created in 1982 by Shoji Kawamori and has spawned numerous spin-offs, the most recent of which is the Macross Frontier, set 50 years after the age of the first space war.
