Macek and Harmony Gold promised a resolution.Īttempts to expand the Robotech franchise proved of limited success. However, despite this success the show’s ending, which sees the human survivors score a major victory over alien invaders whilst waiting for the Macross characters to return to Earth, but does not resolve any of the major storylines, was heavily criticised for a lack of closure. The generational shifts between the constituent Japanese series were both praised (for continuing to shake up the show) and criticised (particularly the Southern Cross segment, which was never rated as highly as the others). Shortly after this Earth is laid waste by the alien Zentraedi, resulting in a dramatic shift to a post-apocalyptic setting. The show then becomes a space opera until they return to Earth. The first few episodes are a war story, until the main cast of characters are accidentally transported into deep space. The series was also praised for being “gritty” compared to American cartoons, most notably in its willingness to kill off a large number of the main characters (by the end of the series only a few major characters are left standing) and radically shake up the setting every few episodes. This is sometimes held to be similar to the “Marvel effect” of the 1960s, which presented superhero stories as action-adventure stories but with significant time spent on the characters’ love lives and family backdrops. The series was notable for attracting both adult and younger fans, who enjoyed the mixture of action and soap opera. It is credited, with varying degrees of plausibility, with helping to instigate the original anime craze in the United States. Robotech was a massive success on its original airing in the USA in 1985, attracting a strong following thanks to its iconic mecha (human-piloted war machines, some capable of transforming into other forms, most notably the Veritech fighter), strong characterisation and its often ruthless, sprawling storyline. Given that Southern Cross took place on an alien planet and the three series had completely different characters and enemies, this was some feat but he just about managed to pull it off (to the understandable disdain of anime purists ever since). He then wrote new dialogue and voice-over narration claiming the three stories were taking place in the same universe across three different generations of characters. To overcome the problem, he bought three completely unrelated shows – Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada – whose combined runtime came to 85 episodes. Harmony Gold wanted to air a Japanese anime show running to around 100 episodes, but Macek couldn’t find a suitable show that lasted that long. The relationship between the American and Japanese versions of the franchise (and, to some respect, their fans) has been highly contentious. ![]() ![]() Robotech is a multi-generational science fiction franchise created in 1985 by Carl Macek and Harmony Gold, an American animation company, based heavily on the earlier 1982 Japanese animated series Macross, created by Shōji Kawamori for Studio Nue. Originally an animated television series, it has also produced comic books, novels, video games, wargames and a tabletop roleplaying game. Robotech is a science fiction franchise that combines elements of space opera and post-apocalyptic fiction.
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