Beautiful Anime (Macross Plus (DVD))

Member Name: latino reheat

Product:	Macross Plus (DVD)
Date:	04/07/02 (149 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Inspired story, Perfect eye-candy

Disadvantages: Too short, Sometimes it's hard to catch up with

Theres not been many times you can say that an anime film/program is beautiful.

Well, all anime is detailed, well animated and fluid, but this can often be over shadowed by all the sex, blood and violence, like Genocyber and Urotsukidoji (the latter having a very good plot and story, but the explicit sex and gory violence put alot of people off).

Macross Plus is another kettle of anime, it is beautiful. The locales being the best, from the bleak deserts and grassy hills of the country, to the rocky cliffs and cityscapes.

Each is detailed down to a very fine line, with the Macross building on Earth being very impressive.
The dream world the best part of the story is set upon is known as Eden.
Eden is a human colony, with Earth being over populated and spreading towards the stars. The Humans haven't destroyed Eden, the power supply is drawn from windmills on top of a cliff, a popular tourist spot. Theres no pollution and very little unrest/crime.

On this planet, a story of friendship, love, jealousy and espionage unfold.....
The year is 2040, the Ministry of Defense is testing and developing a super stealth aircraft, capable of transforming into a humanoid robot, this is to counter any alien attacks.
A hot headed and out of control pilot, Isamu Dyson is assigned the task of testing one of the two aircrafts, competing for the MoD's approval and use of the winning air craft.
The other pilot, much to Dyson's dismay is his arch-rival Guld. These two were once friends, but one thing stood in the way, a woman named Myung. Guld scared Dyson off and the two instantly became bitter enemies.
Their test flights of their respective crafts end in conflict when the two argue their way into aerial combat.

The dog fights are pretty spectacular, fast and furious, with plenty of explosions and noise !

Then Myung arrives from Earth and sends the rivalry soaring through the roof.
Myung is with G
uld and Dyson has trouble accepting this and makes matters worse.
Myung is having her own problems, as her meeting with Dyson for the first time in years throws her emotions off balance, she is torn between the two men.

Myung is now the manager of the first robotic pop-star, Sharon Apple, completely computer generated, with various programs controlling her voice, emotions and behaviour, a miracle of Artificial Intelligence, or so everyone believes. In actual fact, Myungs hooks herself to all sorts of thingymajigs that use her voice and emotions to create the music that is so very very popular.

Myung and the team have arrived on Earth to prepare for Sharon Apple's sell-out concert in Edens oddly shaped, but superb looking stadium.

Little does anyone know that Sharons AI has recorded Myungs feelings and memories and fallen in love with Isamu. She won't let anyone stand in their way.....

Now, I said earlier that the animation and backdrops were amazing, well so is the music.
The music plays a huge part in Macross Plus, setting the mood, conveying emotions and Sharon Apple's performances.
Most are orchestral or harmonious/ballads, whereas Sharon's songs include a hint of trance in them.

Macross Plus comes in 4 parts, lasting around 35/40 minutes each. There is also a MP movie, but thats just all 4 episodes edited together into a 2 hour movie. This series was made in 1994/95, and includes a certain amount of CGI (as was the trend of the time (see Ghost in the Shell) but it's used wisely).

I own the DVD set, recently released in the UK for quite cheap, it contains all four episodes (subtitled and dubbed) and the movie (subtitled). Be warned though, Manga entertainment have screwed up and the discs are mislabelled. Don't worry it's all there, but the movie is actually episodes one and two. I panicked when I first found this out, but I can live with it.

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