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「追憶 ジェリーフィッシュ」 (Tsuioku Jerīfisshu)
“Jellyfish Reminiscence”
And so, the curtain rises on Messer’s farewell, and it’s an episode made interesting by the decision not to show the immediate aftermath of last week’s fight. Instead, it’s all about our characters gathering their resolve to stand up once again, and for all the controversy surrounding Messer’s death, the episode does at least succeed in demonstrating how much of an influence he’s had on our characters and the preparations he’s been has been making in the case of his untimely demise. It’s doubtful he ever saw himself dying the way he did—shot straight through the heart with a pinpoint energy burst—but everything (from his meticulous notes to his preparations) he did were things we’ve come to expect from Messer, and the end result is him trying to cover the angles in a way only he could.
Ultimately, his death serves as a humble reminder of how time waits for no one, and it’s something that goes for both the Delta Platoon and the Windermeres—with the former finding themselves without adequate time to mourn before shifting back to the potential need for a replacement pilot and the latter trying to accomplish their goals before their rapid aging catches up to them. The fact that Heinz’s health is up in the air adds further to the desperation of the Windermeres, and the fact that they’re willing to utilize something they only understand 60% of makes you realize just how quickly things are escalating now that they have a clear way to controlling the entire global cluster around them.
Interestingly enough, Gramia himself is taking the reigns—this seems all but certain to result in his demise at this point—and the deployment of “all” of their forces gives an almost final battle feel to the festivities of the coming week. The question that remains is if it actually IS the final battle, and the lack of broadcast information post episode 12 makes you wonder whether or not there’s going to be a second-cour at all. At this point it’s almost unfathomable that there won’t be another season of Δ given how many things they still have left to resolve, but stranger things have happened before, and here’s hoping that this is just a climactic finish to the first-cour rather than the series’ actual finale—lest there be not enough words of disappointment.
Looking forward, it’s all hands on deck as Hayate resolves to fill the gap left by Messer, and honestly there’s nothing else to say until we see how next week works out. Those who have watched other series from the Macross franchise know what exactly to expect when it comes to large scale, end of the cour climactic battles, and I fully expect next week’s battle to at least match the excitement and chaos we’ve come to expect from moments such as this.
ED4 Sequence
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ED4: 「GIRAFFE BLUES」 by ワルキューレ (Walkure)
Preview
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Gonna be honest, this episode was pretty weak. Hayate being stupid and saying he’ll cover the slack when he’s not even any better than Mirage is just vain. It’s one thing to mourn the loss of a comrade, it’s another to not learn any of the lessons he tried to impart. Likewise I resent the push to say “no really Messer was a good guy after all”. Just because he took a bunch of notes he shared with no one does not make him a good person. He didn’t give any of these notes to anyone, and he probably never would have if he hadn’t died. And we still don’t have any clue why the Windermeres are so butthurt. Don’t think I didn’t notice the ‘nazis and a-rabs werkin together’ motif going on there.
Yeah I thought the end there was stupid too. Arad explicitly made the point that none of them, let alone Hayate, could make up the loss of Messer without adding another pilot back in. Resolve isn’t worth 37% of Delta Platoon’s combat potential. XD
Perhaps he’ll learn that the hard way next week? Cause from Messer’s observations, it seems like the only ones who can fill up for him are Arad and Mirage. Chuck and Hayate haven’t even got the basic energy management up to standard yet.
Ultimately I believe it’s safe to say that Hayate’s supposed covering of the slack is more words in the heat of the moment rather than something that’ll actually work out. He and Mirage could undoubtedly improve, but there’s no actual substitute for the overall numbers and the talent, especially with more Windermeres coming than ever before, which makes a good thing that they at least made the comment that they’ll be requesting reinforcements from the other Platoons regardless. Delta Platoon’ll probably still be a bit short handed regardless, but they should get back some numbers back with extra help assuming the request goes through.
As for Messer, he wasn’t the best of guys to get along with and he didn’t really leave the typical impression “good guys” do, but I do believe he tried his best given his circumstances, and he did at least start to impart some words of wisdom and compliments toward the end as he loosened up somewhat. The fact that he took the brunt of the White Knight during their sorties is another potential example of how he looked out for people in his own way, and prior to that, one can argue even his antagonism toward Hayate and Mirage were built on the view that the battlefield isn’t a joke and that he truly believed that the best way to ensure Hayate’s survival for example, would be to either get him to leave or at least reconsider the way he flies (which he did afterwards).
I can’t say it’s the best way of doing things and it doesn’t make him a good guy in the sense of someone who’s more straight forward, but don’t know… doesn’t seem like they were really pushing it. There were signs in the earlier portions, even though they certainly could’ve executed better overall.
Problem is, if the series does have the captain refuse new reinforcements, it will say that they are taking Hayate’s words seriously and not as the heat of the moment.
Now that the Windermere have mobilized a protoculture warship, I’d think that would get NUNs to begin fielding multiple quarter class ships (as they’re already in limited production as seen in Wings of Goodbye)
Also makes me wonder how strong is an actual protoculture warship actually is. (We know that the SDF-1 was a reverse engineered supervision army warship and the protoculture relied on Zentraedi/Meltrandi to do the fighting for them)
The kids’ rendition of Remember 16 made my day.
Also Heinz vision of everything burning would probably mean that Winderemere’s activities would mean NUNs are now justified in leveling the planet? Would seem possible as they have a tendency “to shoot first ask questions later” if the situation escalated to them mobilizing Macross/Quarter class ships into the fray
Technically, aren’t Zentradi ships protoculture ships?
Yeah but Zentraedi ships are low maintenance low tech (For protoculture anyways) ships designed to overwhelm enemies thru sheer numbers. I’m curious as
to how a proper Protoculture warship would perform
As I recall they don’t even have access to reactive warheads If I recall my Original MAcross correctly and also if I’m correct the Supervision Army couldn’t field the large numbers of ships to counter Zentraedi fleets so they went for quality with smaller, but harder hitting ships like the SDF-1
Sorry not weeping over this. Again, they gave Messer TWO episodes of development and then killed him. It doesn’t help that he barely had any personal connection with the cast until those episodes. So spending all this screentime of them grieving just feels like padding because it hasn’t earned this kind of tragic tone. This is not like Roy who was and established to be one of Hikaru’s closest friends since the first episode.
Also what the heck happened on the battle? Did the Aerial Knights just get bored after killing Messer and decided not to finish off the crippled Delta and Walkure? They did not even bother to explain what happened so it leaves this huge gaping plothole.
I’ll say that there’s more than one part of this that felt rushed in one way or another, which is why I’m worried about next week potentially being the series’ last.
As for the latter, I would like to see a bit more about how they got away as well, but I’d suppose you can probably just knock it off to the usual “alright, we’re done here now that we activated the ruins” or “OK, we took down their Shinigami so we can move on to the next objective “explanation.
Funny, the Winderemer are really desperate or the “friend” of them tell him things, so that they are now afraid and go all out
but…
They only have Heinz, and he is about to blank out
Walküre alone has 2 ones that do not need the Boosters and could overpower the Relics or take them back, and these 2 are supported from 3 with Boosters..
So this all out attack is there to “kill” the Walküre to hold control, and hope that they accomplish that before heinz is not able to sing anymore
this act is also there because of Hein running out of time..
but why is there only 1 windsinger and Freya? is this genetic stuff?
Honestly, I feel nothing watching their reactions and resolves in this episode. I don’t feel the emotional gravitas that should’ve come from episodes like this one. It truly feels like the creators try their best to make it a tearful episode, but it just come as bland to me.
Also, i’ll be pissed if suddenly Hayate can give Keith a challenge the next time he encounter him with so little time for development (at least if the pace is any indication) just because of, you know, *resolve power*. And if they try to convince me that Hayate alone can fill a 30% gap left by Messer, they failed miserably.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it just boils down to him being able to synchronize with Freyja and ride the wind like Keith and Messer did two weeks ago. That or he AND Mirage up their game to create a partnership good enough to cover the gap. Given their opposite tendencies, it’ll certainly cover both of their weaknesses immediately, and could very well make up a large chunk of overall combat potential.
The question I’m wondering more so is how exactly they’ll address the overall decrease in numbers to account for Bogue and the other guys. Even assuming that Hayate does what he says he will, it won’t change the fact that him (and Mirage, if she’s tagging along too) attempting to 1v1 the White Knight leaves a void in the rest of the formation, as no one’s taking the spot he’s leaving behind if he’s taking Messer’s spot.
Yeah, i call that synchro stuff *resolve power*. At this point maybe it’s just me being nitpicky but i honestly think that if the writers do make Hayate able to fight keith because of…”song”, that just demonstrate to me their lack of ability to make coherent storytelling and able to follow the rules of the world that they have set-up (Macross delta is not the only show guilty of this).
Worked for me. Got weepy.
A supposedly mourning episode for Messer yet all i could care about is the banana sake. Seriously, why didn’t anyone ever come up with this fancy stuff before?
So nice to hear Basara’s “Remember 16” sang by others. Whenever Basara was sad he would play that song.
Who is Lady M that the Captain mentions?
More than the attempts to force emotion, I was jarred by the animation quality this week. Most times I can give it a pass if it’s occasional, but damn.
That makes at least 2 eps in a row.
Wow, the captain is such a smooth criminal.
I want to believe we’ll get two cours
Aquarion Logos got two cours, and if the latest entry of Aquarion can get 2 cours, I don’t see why Macross can’t
They have already announced 9 BDs/DVDs with 3 eps each. So at worst it will be a split-core or 25 eps with 3 editions of ep. 1 like it was with Frontier.
If LOGOS (oh Aquarion franchise…what happened) can get two I don’t see why the much higher profit maker, Macross cannot get it.
OK Hayate since you’re going to fly Messer’s share, next battle you gotta shoot down two Aerial Knights or STFU and also no disabling shots you go for the kill.
Am guessing Instructor Knight and Quiet BLack haired knight are the ones going down. Could also be the twins. DOubt it’s going to be Bourge as they’ll need annoying hot blooded guy to pull some low blow stunt. 😕
Can’t really see the next episode as the series finale. I don’t think there is anyway it would be satisfying. Personally speaking, I believe the more likely scenario is Murphy’s law taking effect. Especially with that other 40% they know nothing about.
Btw, did they rush the last part? Firing first without hailing the incoming ships sounds like a bad idea. Don’t think that’s the SOP they currently use. The least they could do was send a recon drone to check it out first.
Except NUNS know they are Windermere ship and they know thanks to Kaos what they are planning. The stakes are the freedom of 8 billion people. The biggest number of known civilians in the galaxy.
Episode 12 is NOT the series finale. As mentioned in the bottom post(Well as of writing this LOL).
Well, creating emotion for an Lone Wolf for us viewers is hard. Perhaps the Anime cast now him longer, but we only know him 1-2 episodes, when he show more then just his cold side. But i do not thing that this 2 little episodes could move our hearts, what will happen if Mikumo would die? 1 week national mourning period?
Remember, you need make US (the viewer) to have some emotions for them. But if you just show us the cold shoulder of someone in reality best lover, then we know him only as mr. Cold as Ice…
Not really sad about Messer’s death. Just when he’s starting to be likable, he dies.
Giraffe Blue give me chills especially Freyja’s version.
Just gotta wait another 3 weeks for the Walkure album to come out with it.
Just mirroring everyone’s sentiment that Messer was killed way too early. I mean, for starters, the Black Knight vs. Shinigami rivalry was one of the points of emphasis in the plot, and then, they just end it?
There was some speculation that this episode would be a recap, but I’m glad it wasn’t. While I think Messer could have stuck around for at least a few more episodes, I’m happy he got a proper send off. Most Macross related deaths can be quite sad, but they never get a proper send off. So good on Delta for fixing that. The kid’s cover of Remember 16 was quite touching and as a fan of Macross 7 it was well placed. One thing I’m not a fan of is how we end on a cliffhanger from episode 10 and then episode 11 cuts to everyone back on Elysion. While I can fill in the blanks with the fact that Keith’s valkyrie was quite damaged, other knight’s ghosts were destroyed, maybe a tactical retreat would be necessary, I think it would have flowed better if they continued right where they left off in episode 10. Episode 11 was a fine setup episode so maybe they diverted more of their animation budget towards episode 12 since it looks like a big one with the Windemeres going all out. I greatly look forward to next week.
And that little red dot on the model the kids made of Messer’s valkyrie is pretty hilarious in a morbid kind of way. Sure, that red dot is done by design from their cultural perspective, but man it sure does look like a hole with blood splatter.
When you take off in a ship that evil looking on your voyage to brainwash an entire globular cluster there has to be at least one person on board who stops and thinks “Oh shit, are we the bad guys?”
I wonder if most of them aren’t just being carried by fervor of the few guys up top due to their runes making them apparently more susceptible to emotional reactions.
When will they release the song they sang at the end? I really like it. 🙂
https://randomc.net/image/Macross%20Delta/Macross%20Delta%20-%2011%20-%20Large%2002.jpg
RIP Messer
https://randomc.net/image/Macross%20Delta/Macross%20Delta%20-%2011%20-%20Large%2015.jpg
Wonder who will replace Messer
https://randomc.net/image/Macross%20Delta/Macross%20Delta%20-%2011%20-%20Large%2019.jpg
Well…shit they are totally screwed if they don’t do something
https://randomc.net/image/Macross%20Delta/Macross%20Delta%20-%2011%20-%20Large%2020.jpg
Most badass ship ever
https://randomc.net/image/Macross%20Delta/Macross%20Delta%20-%2011%20-%20Large%2034.jpg
I really like this. A proper send off to Messer
It’s good that they gave proper time to Messer’s farewell, but seriously: how did they escape from the previous battle? The lack of explanation may be “interesting”, but it’s also a huge cop-out.
Last time I checked it, it was Messer’s timely appearance which stopped the Aerial Knights from shooting down Hayate and Mirage (whose planes were already breaking down) and bomb the idols. Heck, they could have done the latter if everyone didn’t just stop to look at how cool the duel between the Shinigami and the White Knight was. I can buy it as some kind of honorable respect for the enemy, like a WWI warplane fight, but once Messer was killed? The Windermereans could and should have finished the job. What stopped them?
Meh. Messer was a dick. I’m disappointed Macross. No pineapple references or anything! Nor was it a likable character. C’mon, have these people not done their research? Roy? Michel?? I want to be attached and moved by a characters sacrifice. But now that he is gone, the story can move on to the love triangle and protoculture history.
I Don’t understand whats wrong with you guys? Can you all be so jaded that you can not feel the emotion here?
I thought it was a great episode to help strengthen the resolve of delta platoon in the face what could be impossible odds.
Delta Platoon know him better then the viewers. His Lone wolf role was to strong, and this little time of showing him as an “human” was to short to raise emotions
Thats it in a nutcase, to little time for Messer playing the “Hard shell, soft core” part
or in a picture try: Delta Platoon know him from the Kitchen, we only know what came out to eat
well apart from the lack of empaty for messer is the stupíd thing with hayate cover up his spot, i remember that in the original macross they get Max after Roy dead
Why do you people act like every character went “That’s a great idea! We won’t call for a replacement!” just because Hayate made his proclamation? The point of the sentence is to have Hayate decide to live up to be like Messer, that’s all.
Where’s this series finale talk coming from? Macross Δ has 9 pre orderable Blu Ray volumes on Amazon Japan. The first volume continues three episodes. This series is 24/26 episodes long not 12/13.