Macross 7

""Listen to my sooooooong!""

Anime Transforming Mecha, Fake Band

Sequel series to Super Dimension Fortress Macross, in which a rock and roll band living on a flying city in space fight evil space vampires, using The Power of Rock and Transforming Mecha controlled with guitars.

No, really.

The show prominently features an outstanding soundtrack from a real J-Rock band ("Hummingbird") hired to double as the fictional band "Fire Bomber." Very popular in Japan, though controversial among hard core Humongous Mecha fans. Unlikely to appear any time soon in North America, due to the untranslatability of the song lyrics, the fact that the animation and music rights are owned by different companies (and the fact that getting the music rights costs more than getting the rights to the series), and because it's Macross and several companies can all get involved in any English releases.

Compare and contrast G Gundam in terms of a franchise sequel that differs greatly from the source material.

This show provides examples of:
 * The Ace (Max. Downplayed since he's in charge of the battleship, but when he goes out to fight, he proves that he's still got his touch.)
 * Ace Custom (The Sound Forces Valkyries are modified versions of existing fighters.)
 * Actual Pacifist (Basara. The guy gets massively pissed if he's forced to attack someone, regardless of why he had to.)
 * Against the Setting Sun (subversion: it's a fake setting sun projected against a huge screen to make the colony ship feel more like home)
 * Anime Theme Song
 * Arc Number (7)
 * Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever (Some of the Protodeviln. In the movie, Emilia featured a somewhat funny side-effect of being giant-sized; namely, bigger body means louder voice. She couldn't sing in a populated area while full-sized without disrupting the peace.)
 * Authority Equals Asskicking (Max and Milia. Max is the Macross 7 battlefleet commander, and Millia is the Mayor/President of Macross 7's civillain government. Justified Trope in that they were Ace Pilots before reaching their positions of authority.)
 * Autobots Rock Out
 * Beach Episode (mildly subverted: they nearly freeze to death)
 * Beam-O-War
 * Betty and Veronica (Gamlin as the Betty and Basara as the Veronica)
 * Blue and Orange Morality: The Protodeviln aren't really evil, They just view other lifeforms as food sources.
 * Bridge Bunnies (multiple sets on multiple ships, all of which have male captains)
 * Broken Aesop (lampshaded: at the end of one episode, Basara remarks how the lesson would not have been learned had he not cause the problem in the first place)
 * Calling Your Attacks (in the beach episode Basara yells out "Pinpoint Barrier Punch")
 * Catch Phrase ("LISTEN TO MY SONG!" and Max's less used "Don't take your eyes off that monitor!")
 * Also "I am Gepelnitch", EVERY time he addresses anyone who isn't a Protodeviln.
 * Chick Magnet (Basara. On top of fan girls, he's got Biker Babe Rex, the Flower Girl, Sivil, Mylene and Mylene's older sister.)
 * Also Max. No, really. It makes you wonder about the real reason the Bridge Bunnies signed up...
 * The Chosen One (Anima Spiritia)
 * Combined Energy Attack (a big one in the Grand Finale, involving just about everybody)
 * Continuity Nod
 * Max and Milia serve as the Captain and Mayor of the fleet- and both are shown to still be Ace pilots.
 * 2 of their daughters show up in the series.
 * The Do You Remember Love? movie is literally a movie in-canon. Some people claim the movie is just a movie and has no historical value despite the fact that the aforementioned two are veterans of the incident.
 * The movie (or in-universe movie) is about the events from the original Macross series, in which both Max & Milia served in, (their marriage being one of the other culture shocks); so, that wouldn't affect either interpretation.
 * A Destroid Monster shows up in the Festival. Milia's Red VF-1 shows up as well.
 * Sharon Apple's music is still frequently played on the radio.
 * During the tabloids episode, the reporter is listening to Information High.
 * Some Lynn Minmei songs are still played/used, (notably Do You Remember Love in the Strongest Women episode)
 * Cool Ship (a rock-and-roll band is equipped with customized versions of the most advanced mecha available)
 * Cool Old Guy (Max Jenius. Milia may also qualify, but she's more of Hot Shounen Mom, though, despite being in her fifties. Meltlandi must age like fine wine.)
 * The director stated age is a state of mind, and Max is a Genius.
 * Crapsack World (Guvava's homeworld.)
 * Cute Little Fangs (Gavil, Sivil)
 * Delinquents (the Rex gang)
 * Determinator (Basara. As a kid, he'd sing songs to a mountain everyday in an effort to literally move it by singing alone. Even in a wind storm. While playing a guitar that was almost as big as he was.)
 * Did You Just Teach Cthulhu To Sing
 * Ditto Aliens (averted: except for one matched set, no two Protodeviln even vaguely resemble each other)
 * Dreadful Musician (Never EVER make Gamlin Kizaki sing)
 * Which is wierd, because Koyasu, Gamlin's VA, has shown in other roles that he is capable of singing quite well.
 * Probably a character-specific thing. Also irony points as Gamlin can't sing in a series where music is possibly the most powerful force in the universe.
 * To say nothing of
 * Drill Sergeant Nasty (Milia was this, as revealed in Gamlin's backstory omake)
 * Eldritch Abomination (All the Protodeviln in their true forms except Sivil.)
 * Establishing Character Moment (Basara has three. The first one involves him singing at a bunch of thugs to make them stop fighting. The second (same scene) is when he gets mad at Mylene because him trying to protect her ended up making him attack the thugs. The third is him going out in his Valkyrie into a battlefield to try and stop it by singing.)
 * Facial Markings
 * Fake Band
 * Fan Girl (While Fire Bomber gets to be pretty famous, the Flower Girl is definitely Basara's Number One fan. One episode focuses on another fan, though this one's a boy on Mylene. Also, the Fleet of the Strongest Women episode; must be seen to be believed.)
 * Festival Episode (another mild subversion: it's a Humongous Mecha festival)
 * Fetish Fuel Station Attendant: Emilia in The Movie gets a scene where she's used as blatant cheese for all of the giantess fans in the audience: she gets an Almost Kiss with Basara (she's macronized, he's not), interrupted by a kid accidentally jumping into her mouth, and when she pulls the kid out he lands on her breasts and bounces around.
 * First Kiss
 * Friend to All Living Things (even aside from his absolute refusal to attack people, Basara also loves animals of all shapes and sizes)
 * Genki Girl (Mylene)
 * Grand Finale
 * Grandma, What Massive Hotness You Have! (Both Max and Milia. Their first daughter is about 34 years old, meaning they could be grandparents by this time.)
 * Hair Colors
 * Half-Human Hybrid (Mylene. Eventually proves pivotal in learning some important information.)
 * Heroic Resolve (Basara in the finale )
 * Honorifics
 * Hot Blood (Basara is to Hot-Blooded singing as Gai Shishioh is to Hot-Blooded courage.)
 * Hot Shoujo Dad and Hot Shounen Mom (Max and Milia. Made more amazing considering Milia's given birth 7 times. Word of God says Max has stopped aging by sheer force of being a genius.)
 * Improbable Species Compatibility (In the short movie, Emilia tries kissing Basara. While she's a giant-sized Meltran and he's human-sized. Yeah...)
 * Humongous Mecha
 * Identical Grandson (Emilia, Mylene's older sister, has long green hair like Milia.)
 * It's even worse with oldest daughter - on family picture she looks like twin of her mother. See here. Mylene is the baby.
 * Improbable Weapon User (Two Words: Speaker Pods)
 * In the Name of the Moon ("Listen to my song!")
 * Japanese Vampire　(Sivil fits this the most.)
 * Jerkass (It's hard to see why, if he weren't The Messiah, anyone would put up with Basara at all. He's continually blowing out the rest of the band, and, indeed, their fans, for his own reasons. He endangers the lives of military and civilian personnel by turning up in combat and getting in the way, and is completely insensitive to the feelings of pretty much everyone around him.)
 * Kaiju (Gabil)
 * Karma Houdini
 * Ki Attacks (...through the power of rock and roll)
 * Kotono Mitsuishi (Voices Clore in the "Fleet of the Strongest Women" episode.)
 * Life Energy (Spiritia)
 * Lighter and Softer
 * Let's Get Dangerous: Max does this twice. The first time it's when he decides to stop playing with the Varauta and thus declares it's time to show them their real strenght before firing the Macross Cannon, wiping out most of their fleet. The second time it's during Operation Stargazer, when the pilots got stuck with Varauta's defenses... And he jumps in his fighter, breaks open the defenses and reaches the mission target before anyone can understand where all those explosions came from.
 * Love Triangle (at the center of a Love Dodecahedron)
 * Macross Missile Massacre
 * Meaningful Name ("Nekki" means "enthusiasm")
 * Mecha Expansion Pack (the Sound Boosters)
 * The Messiah (Basara is a twisted version of this.)
 * And this isn't limited to the series itself, because he fulfills this role in Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 too!
 * Mid-Season Upgrade (going from one VF-19 with speakers to a whole custom squad of musical Variable Fighters)
 * Motorcycle on the Coast Road (...IN SPACE)
 * My Brain Is Big (Exedore's new design)
 * My God, What Have I Done? - The expression on Sivil's face shows this when she realizes she's almost completely drained Basara.
 * Myth Arc (the whole Macross saga)
 * No Export for You (Even aside from the usual licensing issues surrounding Macross, no anime translation company could afford the music for Macross 7, which is held under separate license from the series.)
 * Mainly due to the fact that Fire Bomber has let out 13 albums so far, and the record company has them under an "all-or-nothing" usage deal. This is also the reason why Super Robot Wars wasn't able to get full voiced versions of Fire Bomber's songs in Alpha 3, even though the director really wanted to.
 * No Name Given (The "Flower Girl" who always turns up around Basara, never has any lines, and, aside from the last episode, never actually succeeds in getting her bouquets to him.)
 * Non-Human Sidekick
 * Non-Singing Voice: As mentioned above, Fire Bomber's songs were performed by the real-life J-Rock band, Hummingbird.
 * Not Himself (When the Protodevilns start bodyjacking people.)
 * Nuke'Em (Basara lampshades this.)
 * Oba-san (Serves as a mild Berserk Button for Milia, who is strikingly similar to another green-haired woman in space whose rather snappy)
 * Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo This is not the seventh Macross series, but the number 7 is a recurring motif in it.
 * The Ojou (Mylene, although she subverts large parts of the trope; hilariously her "bodyguards" call her "ojou" even though Macross Seven is a democracy)
 * It's the fact that she is the daughter of a high-ranking official AND their boss' daughter. They do so out of politeness and their desire to keep their jobs.
 * One-Man Army (The Protodeviln. A single Protodeviln was able to take out an entire Zentrandi fleet. Remember the original series and how there were so many battleships? That was a fleet. The feat was so impressive that Zentrans have an innate fear of Protodeviln built into them.)
 * Our Vampires Are Different
 * Parental Abandonment (Borderline with Mylene. While both of her parents are alive, they're also the commander of the fleet and mayor of the city and, for obvious reasons, extremely busy with work. One recurring bit in the story is her improving relationship with her parents.)
 * Perpetual Frowner (Exedore)
 * The Power of Rock (big time)
 * It causes orgasms in Protodevlin and heck, saves the entire universe from having its Life Energy sucked out
 * Puppeteer Parasite
 * Proud Warrior Race (the Zentradi)
 * Real Robot
 * Redshirt Army (led by Emerald Force. Diamond Force and, later, the Jamming Birds get a pass by occasionally proving their worth.)
 * Retcon (The designs from Macross: Do You Remember Love? have mostly replaced the original ones)
 * The Rival (Gamlin)
 * Robo Speak (vending machines)
 * Running Gag (Diabolus Ex Machina stalks the Flower Girl, thwarting her every chance to give Basara her bouquet.)
 * Short Anime Movie (just half a hour)
 * Sitting on the Roof
 * Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism - Starts off neutral, and gradually shifts more and more to the idealistic side of things.
 * Sneezing
 * Stripperific (Sivil's outfit, with tight leather and what can only be described as stylized breast-baring.)
 * Mylene's outfits are pretty bad too, but then again she's a female rock musician.
 * Sorting Algorithm of Evil
 * Space Is an Ocean
 * Space Is Noisy (although the show justifies the actual "singing at your opponent through a vacuum" bit as well as it can)
 * Spandex, Latex, or Leather (Basara and Mylene's clothes)
 * Spell Protodeviln With An Iln
 * Spy Speak - Used by Ray in episode 10 when he makes a phone call.
 * The Spock (Exedore, again)
 * Stock Footage (Many battles have mostly the same recycled scenes.)
 * Super Robot Wars (Debuted in D, later appeared in Alpha 3, and is going to appear in Z2: Saisei-hen, with Dynamite 7 debuting in the same game.)
 * Take That (the Jamming Birds fail to have an effect on the Protodeviln... because, in a Discontinuity Nod, they're singing the music from Macross II)
 * Technical Pacifist
 * Team Pet (Guvava, Mylene's pet furball-thing who looks like a Tribble with eyes and legs.)
 * Transforming Mecha
 * Tsundere (Mylene)
 * Unfortunate Names (Ray and Lt. Kinryu's former elite fighter group. I don't care how badass a fighter squadron you guys are, )
 * True- on the other hand, hearing that the Pink Pecker squad is coming to F*** You Up might make some opponents extra nervous- or laugh- either is a good advantage in a split-second contest
 * Verbal Tic (Gavil and "beauty" involving tagging a "-bi" at the ends of important nouns.)
 * The Voiceless (Veffidas, Flower Girl)
 * Wave Motion Gun (which proves useless against the Big Bad)
 * It kinda...stuns him. That counts for something when said Big Bad is about to bring the universe to its potentional end.
 * X Meets Y (Dynamite 7 can be summed up as Moby Dick meets Macross IN SPACE )