Chôjikû Yôsai Macross II Lovers, Again

Trying to be a follow-up to the original Macross series, this instalment was basically an expanded copy of the 1984 "Macross: Ai, Oboete Imasu Ka?" movie, with a few gimmicks thrown in. It was done without Shoji Kawamori's collaboration.

The mecha style isn't too bad, but lacks some of Shoji Kawamori's finesse (expectable). The plot is sub-par and doesn't rise to the challenge. The animation, on many occasions, is disappointing. The English dub is BAD. The Japanese voice acting is ok, but still, Macross II can't quite hold a candle to the original Macross.

It eventually became an "alternative universe" story and is rightly looked down upon by Macross fans everywhere.

ok, here we go. you have an alien singer, a miltiary stricken female hot shot pilot, and a tv news reporter who's shy. can you say, robotech? this movie is the macross series from robotech with a new conflict. i thought the battle scenes were cool, but that's about it. and the dubbed singing?? ugh!!! SUBTITLED FOR LIFE!!!

I rate this one pretty high even though it's not official Macross Canon. It was made without Shoji Kawamori for Macross's 10th anniversary. When they finally were able to get Kawamori back to work on Macross Plus and 7, He was kind enough not to dismiss this thing's Canon and instead place the Canon in that of an alternate universe that takes place after the events in Macross: Do You Remember Love? Now quite literally this OVA is an almost carbon copy of "Macross: Do you Remember Love?" with the way it's story goes. Just without any of the characters we known and love (other than the Macross Ship.) Instead it gives us 3 new characters and a new Love Triangle to deal with ,and a new Race of Zentraedi controlled by Aliens known as the Marduk.

Are main characters consist of Hibiki, a reporter for SNN and wants to bypass the military to make ratings and get the truth out to people.

Silvie, An Ace pilot for UN Spacy and already caught up in the SNN news with a scandal.

Lastly Ishtar, an emulator for the Marduk who sings to control the Zentraedi soldiers.

The story is fun and quite detailed to it even without Shoji Kawamori's involvement but without going into to much detail, to say it is a carbon copy of "Do You Remember Love?" holds true to it.

Animation wise though it is quite nice and the animation style is that of early Ninties OVA's which have well detailed characters, backgrounds and sharp lines. And the Mecha's used in it are rather nice Though the UN Spacy mecha's are not a Kawamori design so design wise it's different and has a few flaws in it. But you get over it after you continue watching the OVA.

Music, while the music is a good complement to the OVA, it's nothing really that memorable like Macross Plus.

The voice acting in Japanese is quite good like most Japanese audio tracks are. Where as the English Track coming from the movie version... It's more meh than anything else.

Overall? Macross II Lovers again (OVA and film) is a fun anime. It is a carbon copy and not official Macross Canon. However If you look away from these and more consider it a parody of Macross, it's pretty fun and enjoyable.

Not everyone will like it, not even die hard Macross enthusiasts are happy about it. (because in the states, it gives the very bad impression that it look like the end of the Macross Franchise which isn't true at all since it continued on with Macross 7, Zero, and Frontier.)

A new splinter race of the Zentraedi show up: the Marduk. While the Zentraedi were defeated by Lynn Minmay's music, the Marduk have their own singers (emulators), spur their soldiers into battle. A reporter name Hibiki Kanzaki captures a Marduk emulator, Ishtar, while reporting on a battle, and proceeds to teach her of the happy-happy fun-fun nature of peace & love, which she shares with the rest of her people.

While I do like the Macross franchise I did find this OVA to be very boring. And I feel the story does seem to drag on for longer then it supposed to be.

Compared to some of the other Macross protagonists such as Osamu, Shogo, Hikaru and Eiji. Hibaki was just very uninteresting as a protagonist.

Ishtar while she was hot I do feel that she was just plain fan server for the series and her development was just a complete waste.

I do think the art style/animation, music, voice acting and visuals were also good. I did also like the fact we got to see Lynn Minmay in this but only for a brief scene.

Overall it's okay to watch on a lazy Sunday but I wouldn't recommend it if your just get into the Macross series.

For those of us raised in a western society, our first experience with the Macross Saga was more than likely with Robotech, the 1980's animation produced by Harmony Gold, linking 3 separate Anime from Japan into 1 long saga.

The Best of the three stories was the fist part "The Macross Saga". For those of you hoping that this would be a continuation in some way of "The Macross Saga", forget it. You wont find out any further information on what happened to any of the previous characters from the original Macross Saga what so ever. What we have here is nothing more than a pathetic love story set in space with a lot of unnecessary singing. I forced myself to watch it all, even though I had to take regular breaks to relieve my boredom.

For those of you who loved Robotech but have never taken the time to view "The Macross Saga" in its original form from Japan, I strongly recommend you take the time to try and watch it. Although it wont make Macross II any more enjoyable.