The Super Dimension Fortress Macross - Vol-1 (1982)
Animation Production: MBS & Tatsunoko Productions
Released by: ADV Films
Episodes: 1-6
By Jeffrey Couto

Introduction

This afternoon having taken a vacation day from the office I sat in my living room playing with my daughter when the mailman came to the door, in his hands a package addressed to yours truly, the contents…Macross! ADV Films' new version of the show with a re-dubbed English track that has Mari Iijima reprising her role as Lynn Minmay!

As one of my friends can corroborate this is quite an event considering that just this past week I managed to catch the very highly recommended OVA Macross Flashback 2012 and today hours before the package arrived I had actually watched Macross: Do You Remember Love, (and no I’m not making this up) it’s true! Today is the day Macross was destined to arrive once more onto the JH Anime labs!

Join us as we take a look at ADV Film's release of this legendary anime heavyweight and see how their version compares to previous ones.

Story

“2009. Ten years of furious conflict and frenzied construction have turned an alien wreck into a human triumph: the colossal space battleship Macross. On the day of the ship’s launch, the world waits with bated breath to witness mankind’s next giant leap. Hovering above the planet though, the Zentradi, a merciless warrior race, seek to advance their agenda of destruction and conquest.” -DVD box

Review

The first volume in ADV Films' release of Macross features the first 6 episodes in the series. These include:

Episode 1: BoobyTrap
An extraterrestrial spaceship crash lands on Earth, catapulting humanity into a new age of scientific and political progress unlike any in history. Now 10 years after the ship fell from the heavens a new threat appears. Will humanity, now armed with the Macross spaceship be able to fight back against these alien invaders?

Episode 2: Countdown
Hikaru was saved from a certain death by his fighter’s transformation into robot form, but now will he be able to control the giant mechanical wonder’s systems and escape the extraterrestrial invasion that has taken over Macross’ island?

Episode 3: Spacefold
An untested space folding system is the Macross’ only hope to escape the invading alien threat, but when the ship ends up in Pluto and it brings with it the entire island where the Macross crash-landed 10 years ago and everyone in it things suddenly take a terrifying turn for the worse. Can our heroic crew and everyone onboard the Macross cope with the present situation and somehow make the trip back to the Green Earth!?

Episode 4: Lynn Minmay
Stuck inside an unmapped area of the Macross, Hikaru and Minmay make the best of their situation. Will anyone in the giant space fortress find them before it’s too late?

Episode 5: Transformation
With 50,000 civilians now onboard the stakes are a lot higher than the Macross crew could have ever imagined. Surprisingly everyone is making the best of their situation and the people onboard begin the arduous process of rebuilding their lives and their city, inside the Macross. In the meantime the Zentraedi begin preparations for a new attack.

Episode 6: Daedalus Attack
Hikaru has joined the military forces and become a full-fledged Valkyrie pilot. How will he fare in his first battle against the Zentraedi?

As I was telling my wife late this evening I think I’ve seen these episodes of Macross probably a good 50-60 times now because when I was a younger lad I was obsessed with the video release Harmony Gold put out before it came up with Robotech. This release, which came with an American Theme song (the music for it is track #2 in the Robotech BGM CD collection, sadly the version with the lyrics was not put out on CD) and included the original Japanese BGM as opposed to the score used in Robotech. Having grown up with so many of the Super Robot shows, this show proved to be something completely unique at the time with its realistic depiction of a war situation and the beautifully designed Valkyries, which to this day I hold up as some of the best “realistic” mecha designs of all time alongside the Labors from Patlabor.

So as can be gathered from the above and the intro to this review I am a gigantic Macross fan, and have in my long career as an anime fan collected many versions of the show, from the original Harmony Gold video release, to the Robotech videos and Laserdiscs, and even many of the Japanese soundtracks and song collections, which I listen to quite a bit nowadays thanks to my Ipod. I hold this show in very high esteem and any re-release of it will get my attention in full, no matter what else is going on with all my JH projects.

So this brings me to the latest Macross product set to hit the shelves ADV Films’ re-dubbed and re-translated Macross! That’s not all folks, ADV Films actually went all out for this one to make this release something beyond a simple re-release and more of a full fledged event for fans of the series as they have secured the voice acting talents of Japanese singer and song writer Mari Iijima, who reprises her role as Lynn Minmay for the new English dubbed track ADV has commissioned for this release. In addition this first DVD set ships with two interviews, commentaries and several other extras that make this the definite edition of Macross for fans to own. BTW Check below for more info on those extras.

As far as the episodes in this DVD go, they are unedited and pristine-looking thanks to the restoration that was performed by Animeigo/Harmony Gold on the original film in 2001. Simply put this show has never looked this good, not even when it was first released. The one new addition that caught me by surprise here though was the inclusion of 5.1 Surround sound for the new English dubbed track. This addition was very noticeable, especially if you’ve seen the show before and surprisingly it added immensely to the experience, making my 50+ run-through of these episodes an aural delight.

So speaking of the new English-dubbed track, how does it sound? Does Mari Iijima live up to expectations? Having heard the old English voice recordings for so many years it took some time to get used to the new ones, but by episode 3 they really started to feel right and like a good fit all throughout. Misa’s voice probably took the longest to get used to since it sounds so different from the previous VA's voice., but as with the others it just falls into place once you’ve heard the character speak several times onscreen. Mari Iijima in her role as Minmay at first sounded a little off, but as the show progressed she really started nailing the role and despite sounded older she managed to portray the youth and spirit of Minmay 100%, an important thing if you want this dub to succeed! Now, I’m curious to see if she actually re-does all the songs in the show in 5.1 Surround sound. That would add tremendously to this effort.

As far as extras go, this first DVD set is a dream come true for all Macross fan. In fact they probably could released all the extras as a separate-stand alone DVD and sold it successfully, that’s how good a package it is. These include the following: linear notes, a becoming Minmay feature, an interview with Mari Iijima, translator notes, commentary for episodes 2 and 3, a copy of the original Harmony Gold English dub of episode 1 (I can’t believe they included this!! Wow! The only downfall to it…they didn’t include the original theme song they recorded for it!! Ah well, it’s a nice little surprise in any case), a clean copy of the opening sequence, a side-by-side comparison of the restoration process (amazing what was done here!) and finally there are previews for other ADV Film’s releases also included. Not THAT’s what anime extras should be all about! ADV has certainly set the bar high, so it’ll be fun to see what they do with the rest of the volumes in this release.

Final Thoughts

As a Macross fan I have to say that this is THE version of Macross to own. I loved Animeigo’s release of it, but when you take into account the new dubbed track, the 5.1 surround sound, Mari Iijima’s reprisal of her role as Minmay and the extras included you’d be hard pressed to find anything that even comes close to what ADV Films has done with this show.

Macross has never looked or sounded this good! This is the edition to own my friends! Make sure to pick this one up!

Jeffrey Couto