A friend of mine, a police officer, reminded me to watch the Super Dimension Fortress Macross, when he changed his Facebook avatar to that of iconic helmeted head of Hikaru in Valkirie. The man is not a closet anime fan: such is the popular appeal that the real Macross exerts into the mainstream. Although, if I get him to watch Macross Frontier, then...

Apropos which, the SDF Macross and Frontier are blantantly similar in the way they set up: the hero is enlisted under the ridiculous circumstances, and then there's a girl, and another girl, the singing, and so on. Something makes them different, however. Different enough that I felt uninterested in the modern rendition, while the original seems like a fun romp nonstop, a DBZ in space. And it's not like I have anything against Alto's metrosexual ass or Shery's moon boobs, like I did against the across-the-board unattractive cast of Macross Plus. My assessement was even formed before the bridge cougar Hayase kicked major butt 6 episodes down the road. Complete mystery, really.

Although the 80s were the best with the corny anime entertainment, things were far from perfect, and Hulu makes it worse. The video is upscaled VHS, animation is rife with errors. I saw a great mirror reflection of Minmay once, but otherwise it is DBZ in both good and bad. There is even a whole bunch of Toriamesque character designs. But it is a part of the experience, like a silent and monochrome film by Charlie Chaplin.

UPDATE: Evirus is trying to split the difference by questioning the VHS. True, Hulu streams at 480p, which is of course not VHS. Except that it may be digitized off one. Or, off a DVD, which comes from a Beta tape master, which is still NTSC. One way or the other, it looks authentically bad. It is, however, better than Toei's Pretty Cure which is the authentic VHS, since those morons lost the master tapes.

More importantly, however, how can I tell if I am watching Robotech or Macross? Hulu listed the two separately, so I should be safe. But the video is dubbed on Hulu. Was there such a thing as a dubbed Macross?