History YMMV / Robotech

* OvershadowedByTheControversy: Creator/HarmonyGold's stranglehold on the license absolutely dominates any discourse of ''Robotech'' in the west, with the discussion of the legal snarl inevitably sucking up all the oxygen in the room whenever ''Robotech'' gets mentioned in most scenarios. There's a reason so much of ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'s page description has to be devoted to simply spelling out the rights issues.

** Kyle too: right after his ''worst'' moment (leading a group of civilians in stopping Rick and the military from removing a size-changing Protoculture Chamber from an exposed position after a group of Malcontent Zentraedi tried to steal it), he has a MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment when he sees the consequences (Khyron coming in force and stealing it, allowing him to get an army of full-sized Zentraedi), and in the next episode he takes his kidnapping at Khyron's hands as a chance to tell Global to ''let him die'' if it meant that Khyron wouldn't get his way and call Khyron a coward to his face (while still being a jerk when Rick rescues him). And, finally, in episode 34 ''calls Minmei out on her own selfish act''. The comic books, in a plot point confirmed as canon by ''[[WesternAnimation/RobotechTheShadowChronicles Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles]]'', has him admit he was wrong in the most drastic and clearest way he could come up with: [[spoiler: joining the military as part of the Robotech Expeditionary Force]].
** Dana Sterling: childish attitude, thoughtless, only gets a slap on the wrist for mistakes, etc. Kyle and Dana don't fare too well in the originals either, where Kaifun is seen as a hypocritical, narcissistic SoapboxSadie, and Jeanne Francoise is pretty much Dana Sterling in the original Japanese.

** Annie in ''New Generation'' can have this effect on people.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Yeah, they changed the names. Yeah the voice acting is sub-par by 21st century standards. Yeah, they took three unrelated series and spliced them together for the sake of a TV deal. But they left many of the more mature story elements (such as character death) intact along with an arc-driven story line, and as stated on the main page, the only real changes to the ''Macross'' story come at the very end when they are fitting it together with the other shows. Considering this was TheEighties, this was groundbreaking.

* FirstInstallmentWins: There's a reason the ''Macross Sag''a is usually the most popular out of all three.

* NightmareFuel: Quite a lot. Most, such as the OrbitalBombardment known as [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Rain of Death]], the unwitting genocide of the Robotech Masters or the destruction of Mars Division, come from the original animes, but we have some original material:
** The Regent's Invid. They're weakened by centuries of war, they're running out of fuel, but with the Masters away from Tirol [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLzlwR2z4yE this happens]]. And then we have the [[MechaMooks Inorganics]]... And now you know why the REF believed the Invid to be absolute evil.
*** [[FridgeHorror Not immediately obvious]]: whatever got the Robotech Masters to hide so many guns in their old capital so long ago the civilians don't know about them and made them maintain the guns efficient.
** The Children of Shadows, AKA [[spoiler:the Haydonites]]. They have destroyed the Invid original homeworld before Optera, and indirectly caused everything by driving them where Zor could find the Flower of Life. The Invid are still ''terrified'' by them, even after centuries of war with the Zentraedi and having apparently wiped them out, and, as shown in ''WesternAnimation/RobotechTheShadowChronicles'', they're right about it.
** The Disciples/Children of Zor. Due to ''Robotech Academy'' (where they should have appeared) not getting developed we know very little about them, except for one thing: at the start of the Second Robotech War the Masters considered the Invid little more than a nuisance even after the loss of the Zentraedi (it would take the losses caused by the Armies of the Southern Cross for the Masters to take the Invid seriously), but the very idea the Children of Zor could get to Earth before them was so scary they didn't even dare to ''discuss'' it after one single mention.
** As shown in the canon comic "From the Stars", the Anti-Unification League. While the facade was nice enough that hardcore pacifists like Kyle were members of it and even called it "Peace Movement", the truth was of a force hellbent to conquer the world that uses terrorist tactics, and even hijacked the starship Armor-1 and used her reflex warheads to destroy the Southern Grand Cannon and would have destroyed Alaska Base and the SDF-1 and blackmailed the world into surrender had Roy not stopped them. But that's not the scary part, that comes with the names of their two most important known members ([[KarmaHoudini who were never exposed]]): [[spoiler:T.R. Edwards and ''Anatole Leonard'']]. Yes, that means that [[spoiler:[[TheBadGuyWins in the end they succeeded]]]].
** A very creepy AdBumper has a vague deformed clay face of what looks like a Robotech master transforming into a giant zombielike hand reaching out to grip you. As usual, a character for the show does the voiceover in his or her own style, but this voice is hard to place as it is not of a named character that is often heard. It is believed to be a character that the toy line calls the Bioroid Terminator (those being the armored Robotech Master's guards). The voice was creepier than the usual clone voices as this one sounded ghostly. Appropriately enough, this scene came from one of Zor Prime's nightmare's.
--> '''Pre commercial:''' "Robotech will return...and so will you."
--> '''And now back to our show:''' "Robotech is back...''and I'm watching you.''"
** Seen from the POV of little Annie, when Annie is lured into a dark house for a surprise birthday party, being suddenly alone in the dark, and the danger music kicks in, so the audience truly beliefs something bad is about to happen. Of course it's then inverted when the lights come on and and Annie is wished a happy birthday by the Robotech Rebels with cake and everything.

* {{Macekre}}: Though effectively the TropeNamer, it was probably one of the ''better'' [[CutAndPasteTranslation Cut and Paste translations]] of its time (contrast, say, ''Anime/{{Voltron}}''), being unafraid to cut out things like character death, remaining relatively faithful to the ''Macross'' part of the storyline and even, allegedly, ''improving'' upon the original ''Anime/SuperDimensionCavalrySouthernCross''. Nevertheless, stuff like the adaptation introducing more [[AdaptationInducedPlotHole plot holes]] than a piece of Swiss cheese towards the end of the ''Macross'' saga onwards, the awkward narration and Minmay's ''terrible'' singing voice compared to the original do still give this impression to people.

* WhatAnIdiot:
** Rick Hunter for thinking he could manage a date with both Minmei and Lisa in "Private Time" (after initially making a date with Lisa only to have Minmei guilt trip him into coming to see her first). At least he's smart enough not to be surprised when it blows up in his face.
** Sean Philips for thinking it was a good idea to keep Marie Crystal waiting for him in "Love Song". It didn't work out so well for either of them.
** Sean hitting on a trio of Tirolians. Angelo instantly calls him out on it.

* AdvertisingOnlyContinuity: The commercials for the Matchbox toyline gave Breetai and the Robotech Masters some cheesy dialogue that was not in the show. There was also no effort to make the voice sound like Breetai. Additionally, the commercials have an IAmNotShazam moment with their cheesy made up catchphrase: "Robotech...to the rescue!", ignoring the fact that Robotechnology is used by both sides of the conflict.
--> '''Breetai:''' "I'll get you yet, Rick Hunter!" (for the ad with the Rick, Roy, and Lisa action figures.)[[note]]In the show, Rick Hunter and his buddies weren't known by name to Breetai until they were allies.[[/note]]
--> '''Robotech Masters:''' "The Bioroids have just begun to fight." (for the ad with Dana, the hovertank, and Bioroid figures)
** The commercial also makes it appear that Roy Fokker is Rick's sidekick.
--> '''Narrator:''' "Rick Hunter's racing to the scene. Roy is by his side. First they save friend Lisa, then send the aliens home for a ride!"

* AwesomeMusic: [[https://youtu.be/hUZaI7Twtqc Way to Love]], from the final scene, which carries the feeling of EarnYourHappyEnding.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: The Minmei/Rick/Lisa triangle may provoke this after a while (see StrangledByTheRedString).

** The 'deviant' Tirolian from "Dana in Wonderland", who despite only appearing there and never being mentioned again or even having a name, manages to be a very tragic and sympahtetic character who gets a couple epic moments and a DyingMomentOfAwesome.