>>9989649Oh yeah, it blows 99% of Western shows out the fucking water. I think the reason Robotech even has a following anymore is that whilst Harmony Gold is utter poison, IIRC they did genuinely want to do a reasonably faithful dub at the time and got fucked over by executives forcing in Orguss and Mospeda, hence the reason the Macross portion is the part people still remember. Sure it suffered 80s anime import syndrome but for the time it wasn't awful (Minmay aside), and given that the story- and the TONE- was mostly the same as Macross itself, it would have blown kids' minds back then. Even aside from being an anime fan, it makes me sad HG is HG, because if they had any scruples at all then them going "Remember that kinda rough but ambitious job we did on Macross back in the 80s? Well this time we're bringing it to you as the creators, and we, intended, but with the benefit of hindsight and no network meddling!" and airing a new, fully faithful dub of Macross would have been an absolute chad move. Alas, HG is HG, and IIRC the original creators are so pissed off at them they've openly said "Just pirate it, they won't let us sell it to you and we'd rather you watched it as we intended for free than give money to those douchebags for an inferior version". And considering that even in today's age of anime studios interacting directly with fans and sharing their disdain for localizers they still ask you at least buy the Japanese BDs, the Macross guys were outright saying "pirate our show" much earlier is a sign that they fucking HATE Harmony Gold (Cacophony Lead?).
Re: the Japanese original, it has still held up pretty well on the whole and is iconic for a reason. Some of the animation is still top shelf. It just has a few bits that are kinda funny in retrospect, notably the infamous knife fight and subsequent marriage. Still a fantastic show though, I'd recommend it to anyone.
