* AmericansHateTingle: The show is really popular in Japan, where it spawned two [=OVA=]s, one movie and one crossover movie with ''Anime/MacrossFrontier''. Outside of Japan, a lot of people dislike it due to its ridiculous premise and somewhat lower production values compared to the previous entries in the franchise. However, the series does [[BrokenBase have fans]] and most agree that the music is simply ''badass''.
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: A whole soundtrack built around this. Totsugeki Love Heart, Try Again, Angel Voice...take your pick.
** Let's face it, if it's by Fire Bomber, it automatically qualifies as this.
** Special mention definitely goes to [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=eAc9X-F_j9U Holy Lonely Light]] however. Pure, concentrated hard rock hot blooded ''badassery''.
** If you want good hype, then [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=8kP52iSirTI Try Again]] is for you. Slightly less metal than ''Holy Lonely Light'', but still a really good song that will make you want to kick ass alongside Sound Force.
* BrokenBase: There's a group of fans who dislike the series for its SuperRobot feel, reuse of StockFootage and {{Padding}} but there are those who like the LighterAndSofter atmosphere and the awesome rock songs.
* DesignatedHero: It's hard to see why, if he weren't a MessianicArchetype, anyone would put up with Basara at all. He's continually blowing out the rest of the band, and, indeed, their fans, for his own reasons. He endangers the lives of military and civilian personnel by turning up in combat and getting in the way, and is completely insensitive to the feelings of pretty much everyone around him. He is right that singing is the answer to their problems, but since the logic behind it isn't discovered until much later in the show, it comes across as him being RightForTheWrongReasons, yet everyone acts like his behavior's been completely vindicated when he saves the day, no questions asked.
* EpilepticTrees: For years, this series has been dogged by fan theories that Basara is the illicit love child of Minmay and Hikaru Ichijyo, exiled from his parents to escape the wrath of Misa. There is exactly zero official corroboration of this notion, only the circumstantial evidence that he is a [[SpikyHair spiky-haired]] MartialPacifist prodigy in both [[ThePowerOfRock music]] and [[AcePilot piloting]], with a hazy origin story. As far as facts are concerned, Minmay, Hikaru and their colony ship mysteriously disappeared 8 years before Basara was born ([[OlderThanTheyLook allegedly]], he *is* an orphan, after all).
* HilariousInHindsight: Basara's custom Valkyrie piloted with a guitar is this now that [[http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/8/6120417/dark-souls-rock-band-guitar-controller playing normal games with a Guitar Hero controller is a thing.]]
* HoYay: Acknowledged in-universe with Basara and Gamlin by a gossip magazine, much to Basara's chargin.
* MemeticMutation: The scene where [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYps5fUrAWs Basara randomly eats a floating leaf.]]
* NarmCharm: The lyrics to Totsugeki Love Heart are ludicrously cheesy, yet it is sung in such a HotBlooded and inspirational way that it loops back to awesome.
** Hell, you could perfectly say that about the whole series itself.
* SlowPacedBeginning: The first 17 episodes are seen as an absolute slog, being pretty much StrictlyFormula. It does slowly start to ramp up the stakes once the City 7 abduction occurs in episode 12, but after Syvil is introduced in that same episode 17, things start to become interesting. By episode 22 and the introduction of the Sound Force, the show never looks back, and it all culminates in the [[BigBadassBattleSequence spectacular battle above Lux]] in episode 26. It is this exact point where the show really [[GrowTheBeard grew the beard]] and became a must-watch for fans of HotBlooded mecha action.
* {{Squick}}: Mylene being 14 while in a love triangle with two adult men is unpleasant to say the least.
** The new producer of Mylene's songs in ''Dynamite'' is very creepy, what with locking her up and [[spoiler: trying to rape her]]. Thankfully [[spoiler:Ray and Veffidas come and bust her ass before she does the appaling deed]].
* ViewerGenderConfusion: Geppelnitch is a ''dude''?
** [[http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/701488-lolfansubsfailsubs To the point where the fansub version of the anime had to point this out in his first appearance]].
* VindicatedByHistory: This is slowly getting some love after the release of the 2012 crossover movie with ''Anime/MacrossFrontier''.