Macross Plus #1 Manga 90 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 10/12/1999

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Sometimes I get little inklings of ideas when I'm listening to the radio about what would make a badass soundtrack to my motion picture, and believe you me someday I will have a motion picture, a big Hollywood movie if you will. The only problem is most of the songs I choose are so ridiculously out of place it's not even funny. So the other day while I'm walking to Jerry's I'm listening to Do You Believe in Love? by Huey Lewis and the News and I'm choreographing a gunfight to go along with it in my head. I guess in that way I'm kind of like a modern day Stanley Kubrick, though my dick isn't quite as deep in the peanut butter. Because let's face it... that guy was fucking nuts. Yoko Kano seems to have done a better job with the Macross Plus soundtrack than I would've. You can bet if I was sound director I'd be throwing in Pete Townshend's "Let my love open the door" while the main character contemplates a rather messy suicide. This is probably why the production houses favor people like Ms. Kano while I'm left to fester in the art house circuit. And I'll be big and admit that she went a damn long way in doing this four part OVA right. From the whistling tune Jade to psycho violin beats of Halifax (or as everyone but Greg knows it, Information High) this soundtrack does a robot fan proud.

But soundtrack isn't all Macross Plus has to offer. It's a story that relies more on the strength and interaction of its characters than the sheer destruction that can be caused by a transforming robot. This is quite unfortunate for me, but I'm sure others will be quite grateful for a show that doesn't involve people screaming super moves and battles that last for six or seven episodes. After the conflict in the first episode combat is basically nonexistent in the next two. However, they keep the line baited with plenty of hints of giant robot fighting to come to make sure viewers like myself don't get disinterested. Isamu Dyson is something of a bad boy, he's one of those fellows who's constantly getting demoted because he doesn't want to get pushed up the ranks so high that he'll never be able to pilot again. So when he's sent to the planet Eden to work as a test pilot with what may become the new standard in Valkyrie transforming fighters, he couldn't be more pleased. Later we find out that Eden was his home... and that he's got some things he'd left unresolved there.

One of them is likely the burning desire to bang the hell out of the hot animated chicky you'll see to your immediate right, one Miss Myung Fang Lone. But since he's a bit tied up at the moment with all the testing, it seems he's very willing to do what busy men do... sleep with those they work with. Luckily for him Eden's got a pretty sweet affirmative action plan. And if you refer to the blonde cutie up there, you'll understand what I mean by afFIRMmative. She might not be an ultra-hot Chinese girl in a business suit, but he ain't exactly looking for Misses Right. Just Misses Rightnow... dig? Seems Myung has her own reasons for returning to Eden. The former singer is now producing for the most complex AI ever made. It just so happens that this AI, Sharon Apple, is the biggest thing since Milli Vanilli... and she lip synchs even more than they do. I'm not entirely sure who decided that a singing AI is more important than something that could protect humans from evil alien invaders, but they must've been the same people who forgot to update Norton Anti-Virus because it soon becomes evident that Sharon Apple is one crazy bitch.

Add into this mix the fact that Isamu's competition on the courts is a Valkyrie fighter that's controlled entirely by the pilot's mind and basically outperforms his crappy non-mind one in all the ways that count. To top it off, it's being piloted by his "friend" and longtime rival Guld Bowman. Seems Guld had a thing for Myung back in the day so there's plenty of conflict on and off the testing grounds as our little love triangle developed. Did you know that back in the day I thought "love triangle" meant "three way"? I was a dumbass kid, but it certainly made the Final Fantasy VII instruction manual a bit more of an exciting read. So while there isn't enough robot on robot action for me, and there's next to NO mention of missiles, which is like the staple of everything Macross, it's still a damn fine work. There's nothing not to love, except when Pete's dumbass friend Leon bursts in when I'm watching it and starts an argument about how computer games are better than console games. The worst is he's one of those people that continues an argument even though you've stopped talking to them fifteen minutes ago. In closing, watch your back Yoko Kano, you'll get yours. Nobody's going to turn down a script that starts out with someone getting assassinated to The Beastie Boy's Whatcha want?.