It was fun to watch the Ranka camp and Sheryl camp of fanbois attack each other with gusto and vigor as much as watching Battle Frontier pwn Battle Galaxy. Honestly speaking, there wasn’t going to be any resolution of the so called love triangle. Kawamori was being a tease. Alto already said that his love is the endless blue sky.

This discussion could become an episode by episode thesis about character construction but the summary is:
Ranka raburabu Alto is more one way. R–>A Alto acts more like an onii-chan. So does that mean that Ranka now has 3 onii-chans? (ABORT! ABORT! ABORT THESIS MODE!)
Sheryl raburabu is still fairly a one way street although traffic does come back.

But the key point is that both see Alto as the man who changed their lives. Alto sees them more as friends because…

HE CANNOT F’KING GET HIS LOVE OF THE STUPID ENDLESS BLUE SKY OUT OF HIS MIND!

Look at how he guides his VF-25 to him… in the middle of an allout war!

So, in conclusion, Alto’s Preference chart:
SKY >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Sheryl > Ranka

PS. Personal opinion is Klan is better for anyone. You get a choice between huge mammaries and pettanko!

Damn.

Ending is meh, rushed and from as many standpoints as possible just terrible. Open endings suck.

So yes, I really enjoyed Macross F., not only because I’m an “old cake” (Cantonese Slang), but I thought it was good on it’s own. While Ranka’s character development really stalled, I thought all the other character developed rather nicely. Even Lucas developed a spine. My favorites are still Sheryl and Grace in character development.

For the ending was not unexpected, but like Crusader, I think Sheryl have a much much better chance of winning in the end. After all, she has a much stronger personality and affinity with Alto-hime. Also, I think Ranka will have a hard life ahead of her, with a lot of people kill while she was “brain-washed”. I somehow don’t think people will forgive her so quickly.

Anyway, I will stop over thinking this series and wait for the movie.

As for shipping, I started as a Ranka fan, but as everyone pointed out, she really didn’t develop at all! So as the series progressed, I became more and more of a Sheryl fan.

However, I really didn’t think Macross would be a “shipping” series (other than those awesome, did I say AWESOME? cap ship battle). The original didn’t turn into one until the last 12 episodes, and it was more focused on people rebuilding their shattered life. Same thing for Macross Plus, Macross 7 (urgh), or Macross Zero. I think the only one that is really focused on love story was DYRL.

So yes, I really enjoyed Macross F., not only because I’m an “old cake” (

The fan camp war was more like the Somme, the actual love war between Sheryl and Ranka was more like Leyte Gulf since we had a Turkey shoot, Shibyuan Sea, Surigao Strait, Samar,and an Engano. I don’t know but my gut tells me that Kawamori just didn’t feel like shitting all over Ranka even if she deserved to see more consequences of her actions in favor of making mecha fans happy with big ships going at it. Still I have faith that Alto-hime will up hold his oath to be with Sheryl until the end, the end just got extended by many years. Still since Ranka has not been developing that much we shall see if she can dig Sheryl out of hime’s home and seize that room for herself. Still hime did like that earring a lot so I guess Sheryl did find it useful as a hime tag too.

I liked all of it for the most part watching Sheryl grow from diva bitch to a wonderful woman was enjoyable. Heck all the SherylxAlto-hime moments did look awfully yurilicious to say the least… ;)

I get my ending!

Ranka x Sheryl!
Alto x Brera!

Also, SUPERGIANT ROBOBATTLE is teh win!

Personally, it’s no biggie that he doesn’t chose anyone in the end. His love was ALWAYS the endless blue sky from the very first episode, not any of the girls.

:3

Sheryl’s slap returned 10 fold….pun not intended. XD

But meh on the ending…shipping wars continue.

Space Marines don’t specialize in ship-to-ship battles (boardig actions yes), so you can understand why I never really gravitated to the Ranka vs Sheryl fleet maneuvers. :p Oh boy, the animosity between camps makes the Battle of Leyte Gulf that was fought in my father’s province of origin seem like a bath-tub quarrel.

Besides, my mecha fangirling pretty much made me tune out the episodes that highlighted the triangle instead of expanding the Macross universe.

At least Ranka did something towards the end… even if she had to be rescued first. Still, Grace was tied into Vajra-net and was doing real-time communications enough to direct Vajra to Earth, which suggests she MIGHT have had a chance to upload to the Resurrection Ship before the end, if there were any Macross Galaxy ships which weren’t with Battle Galaxy and which had a ‘terminal’ to receive her.

And poor Mr. Bilrer - he really is a devoted fan. Almost fifty years after she vanished, and he still pines for her. Poor guy.