Reinventing a series for a new generation is nothing new. Star Trek does it once in a while, Star Wars did it and is continuing to do it, and Gundam manages to crank out a new series every couple of years. So it shouldn’t be a surprise when Macross, as popular as it was so long ago, tries to reinvent itself. Hell, even Voltron’s getting a movie, right?

Macross, for those not in the know, was brought to North America as part of Robotech. It’s kinda complicated, and also not the point of this article.

With few exceptions, remakes tend to be a terrible idea. For every “The Next Generation”, “The Empire Strikes Back” or John Carpenter’s “The Thing” we get dozens of Gundam SEEDs, Star Wars Prequels or, well, Macross Frontiers.

Now, Macross has had sequels before. To be honest, if you weren’t a fan, nothing outside of Macross Plus was probably going to do it for you. Heck, even if you were a fan, it was hard to like Macross II, or Macross Zero.

Macross Frontier, however, is a manufactured series. It wasn’t created, it was assembled, in a lab, of parts that were calculated to milk the maximum amount of money from fans. It uses familiar little things to try and lull us into a sense of oblivious nostalgia, like the garbage machines scuttling down the street, or the VF-1 Valkyrie on the roof of the school (because all animes after 2000 are required to feature a high school).

The attempts are blatant, and it becomes increasingly obvious that the production team isn’t content with just a wink and a nod, but are driven to cram as much fanwank as they possibly can down your throat. Some scenes and events are even shot-for-shot reconstructions of scenes from the original series, which is either dedication to the source material, or a sign of creative bankruptcy.

As for characters, lets start with the protagonists. In the original Macross, we had Hikaru, a young man with a passion for flying. In Macross Frontier, we have Alto, a young man who’s trying to escape his past as a princess in his father’s kabuki plays. I just want to make this perfectly clear: the writers of Macross Frontier thought the best way of making their male lead relatable to other teenage boys was to make him a Kabuki Princess.

Then we have the main character’s wingmen, a shameless parade of fanwank. There’s the “big brother” sort of character, the glasses-wearing and highly skilled best friend, and the useless one that wears green. Of course, since this is the 21st Century, the characters get updates. The “big brother” becomes less of a mentor and friend and more of an angry yet incompetent babysitter. The most skilled pilot becomes a sniper because skill = sniping, am I right FPS players? And the oafish and friendly giant in green becomes a tiny, effeminate and obviously bi-curious flake. Progress, ladies and gentlemen.