It’s not every day a Macross movie comes out, so my son and I headed down to our local theatre to check it out. It was the theatrical release of the Macross Frontier series, which tells the story of the 25th colonial fleet to depart after the final Zentraedi battle of 2009. The movie was great, with new animation , many changes to the story and characters, all the requisite “fan service” scenes, and since it’s Macross, lots of new songs. (If it had been Star Trek, there’d be lots of new space anomalies.) As usual, it was fun to compare movie theatres in Japan with the ones back home. The theatre we were at was new and clean, and they offered little extras like lap blankets for customers who got cold in the theatre, and Yebisu beer at the concession stand, bless them. Japanese movies are expensive, however, costing $20 for an adult ticket at the current exchange rates, and the last showing is usually around 9:00 pm, since Japanese never got the habit of going to movies late at night. If you’re the kind of person to laugh heartily at jokes, you might find yourself laughing alone, since Japanese are generally very quiet while viewing a movie.
The new Macross Frontier movie is great, with 90% all new animation compared to the series.
