Macross

Did You Know?

• The original project name was Battle City Megarōdo, but a sponsor who was a Shakespeare fan wanted the name Macbeth; the compromise was Macross due to its similar Japanese pronunciation.
• The word Macross combines the prefix "macro" (referring to the ship's massive size) and the distance they must cross.
• A Takatoku Toys handheld electronic game and a Banpresto arcade game were among the few Macross video games released outside Japan.

Themes

The U.N. Spacy is the space military arm of the Earth Unified Government, formed to defend Earth from hostile aliens and later expanded into interstellar colonization and peacekeeping. The term "Spacy" is a portmanteau of Space and Army or Navy. Valkyrie fighters are transformable aerospace craft that can shift among jet/space fighter, Battroid (humanoid robot), and Gerwalk hybrid modes. Music is integral to nearly every Macross title, influencing antagonist behavior, and music idols often occupy central roles in the stories, frequently involved in love triangles with protagonists. Space folding enables nearly-instantaneous ultra-long-distance travel by swapping a spacecraft's location with super dimension space. According to U.N. Spacy First Lieutenant Hayase Misa, an hour in super dimension space equals about ten days in normal space. Later series introduced fold faults that retard travel and interfere with communications, and noted that energy requirements for folding increase geometrically with mass, limiting the size of objects that can be folded across vast distances.

Series chronology

Several sequel series and one prequel have followed, most using a chronology by Studio Nue; those with different chronologies are regarded as parallel storylines. Production since 2002's Macross Zero has been handled by Nue and Satelight. The 1984 film Do You Remember Love? was later described as a historical drama within the Macross universe. Macross II, the only animated project without Studio Nue's direct involvement, was declared by the studio to be a parallel-world story.

Legal complications with international distribution

Harmony Gold purchased international distribution rights for the Macross series and filed trademarks on merchandise and media outside Japan between 1999 and 2003. These rights are under dispute because Harmony Gold bought them from Tatsunoko Production, which a Japanese court ruled had only the rights to international distribution of The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, not the rest of the franchise. Harmony Gold claims the ruling does not apply to them. They continued to send cease and desist letters, preventing later Macross series from being distributed outside Japan. On March 1, 2021, Big West, Studio Nue, and Harmony Gold agreed that Harmony Gold would no longer hinder Big West's distribution outside Japan and could release its Robotech film in Japan.

Legacy

Macross was the basis for the Robotech franchise in North America, with Super Dimension Fortress Macross adapted into the first saga of Robotech, which helped introduce anime to the Western world. The franchise popularized transforming mecha, a concept Shōji Kawamori introduced with Diaclone in 1980 and then expanded with Macross; he later designed transforming mecha for Transformers. Unlike earlier mecha anime focused on combatants, Macross portrayed conflict from the perspective of non-combatant civilians, such as singer Lynn Minmay. Voiced by Mari Iijima, Minmay was the first fictional idol singer to achieve major real-world success, with the theme song "Do You Remember Love?" reaching number seven on the Oricon charts. This was later explored in Macross Plus with the virtual idol Sharon Apple and in Macross 7 with the band Fire Bomber, setting a template for later virtual idols like Hatsune Miku and Kizuna Ai. Another innovative character concept was Misa Hayase, a main commander of the Macross battleship and commanding officer of the protagonist, a scenario Kawamori had not seen in Hollywood films before; similar elements later appeared in Top Gun. A geological feature on Charon, a moon of Pluto, is informally known as the Macross Chasma.