Macross

Introduction:

One of the greatest Japanese anime TV shows of all time, Macross hit the TV screens on October 3rd, 1982 and ran till June 26th, 1983 with a total of 36 episodes at around 24 minutes a peace. Giving viewers a glimpse of a future world that has come into contact with extraterrestrial technology and later on life itself.

Plot Summary:

In 1999, an alien ship crashes on South Atalia Island and makes the human race aware of other life in space. Ten years later, the ship is reconstructed and christened as the SDF-1 Macross. However, on the day of its maiden voyage, an alien race called the Zentraedi make their appearance on Earth, beginning the UN Spacy/Zentraedi war that would change the history of both races forever.

Characters:

For the most part the characters are the same as in the Robotech version with the exception of the Chief Engineering Officer, Dr. Lang. In the original Macross this character has no name and no real role aside from the few times he is shown informing the captain of the situation on the SDF-1.  In Robotech the Dr. plays a more importent role, also later on for those of you who have read the Novels or have seen the Robotech II episodes/movie.

Here are the Character names as fallows, also with the names of the voice actors who have played them, along with some other shows that they have worked on. Note that not every single show will be listed, just some of the popular ones.

Production Staff:

Here is a list of the people who make the show possible.

Chief Director: Noburo Ishiguro   

Scenario:
Ken'ichi Matsuzaki
Noburo Ishiguro
Sukehiro Tomita

Episode Director: Noburo Ishiguro

Character Design: Haruhiko Mikimoto   

Art director:
Kazuko Katsui
Kikuko Tada

Mechanical design:
Kazutaka Miyatake
Shoji Kawamori

Key Animation: Hideaki Anno

Music Composition: Kentaroh Haneda

Producer: Akira Inoue

Project Planning: Yoshimasa Ohnishi

Series Script Supervisor: Ken'ichi Matsuzaki  

Theme Song Performance:
Makoto Fujiwara (OP & ED)
Mari Iijima (as Lynn Minmay)

Production Companies:

Here is a list of the companies who spend the money that make these shows possible.

Animation: Anime Friend, Artland

Broadcaster: Mainichi Broadcasting

Distributor: Bandai Visual   

Story Concept: Artland, Studio Nue

Production:
Big West
MBS
Tatsunoko

Episode Titles:

  01. Booby Trap       02. Countdown           03. Space Fold
  04. Lynn Minmay      05. Transformation      06. Daedalus Attack
  07. Bye-Bye Mars     08. Longest Birthday    09. Miss Macross
  10. Blind Game       11. First Contact       12. Big Escape
  13. Blue Wind        14. Global Report       15. Chinatown
  16. Kung Fu Dandy    17. Phantasm            18. Pineapple Salad
  19. Burst Point      20. Paradise Lost       21. Micro Cosmos
  22. Love Concert     23. Drop Out            24. Good-bye Girl
  25. Virgin Road      26. Messenger           27. Love Drifts Away
  28. My Album         29. Lonely Song         30. Viva Maria
  31. Satan's Dolls    32. Broken Hearts       33. Rainy Nights
  34. Private Time     35. Romanesque          36. Farewell to Tenderness

Key Differences:

Many people may wonder what's the difference between original Macross here and the Robotech version of Macross Saga. Well as I've stated above, one difference is the character of Dr. Lang in the Robotech version. This character doesn't exist in Macross by name, he is just some no name person from engineering we see a few times.

Also, and the most important of differences is that of protoculture. In the  Robotech version protoculture is a type of new matter which can be used to produce energy, and it also drives the SDF-1's Fold drives amongst other things basically it's a super fuel source. In original Macross though, the idea of protoculture is totally different breaking down the word into to you get 'proto' which is Greek, and 'culture' which we all know already. The word 'proto' in Greek means first, so if we combine the words together we get first culture. In Macross that's more or less what protoculture is,  not some sort of magic fuel source that powers everything like in Robotech.

In Macross the Protoculture was a very old and very advanced race that is thought to have created humans and Zentradi, since in Macross and in the Robotech version we find out that humans and Zentradi are more or less 100% compatible genetically, Original Macross plays on this plot twist to give you a different story then what you get with Robotech's version.

Other changes are in the episodes themselves, as you note above the last two episodes have different titles then their Robotech versions. This doesn't mean that they show different things animation wise, that's far from it,  the changes that they do have are on the dialogue side of things. Also in the Robotech version there is talk of an SDF-2 which is then shown to be destroyed by Kyron's ship. In original Macross this isn't the case at all,  the ship shown is the same old SDF-1, there is no SDF-2 at all, nor talk about building an SDF-3 like in Robotech.

There is also no talk about an expeditionary force to be led by Lisa, (Misa in original Macross)  like you get in Robotech. These few changes in the plot towards the end of the show in the Robotech version is so that it can better fit along with the next saga of the story, Southern Cross, and also with the 3rd, New Generation. In order for these 3 different stories to fit together, a few changes had to be done to each story wise or else you just wouldn't get a match going.

Aside from these changes the majority of the story still holds true in both shows, both are 36 episodes long and show the same thing frame for frame,  more or less anyways. A few of the names are different but not all that much,  Macross is Japanese to begin with.  The mecha in both are the same, from the Zentradi ships to the SDF-1 and it's VF-1's etc. And last but not least is the love story, that great love triangle is the same in both, and wasn't changed at all.