Anime / Macross 7

"Listen to my sooooooong!"

The second full series of the Macross franchise and sequel to Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Macross 7 originally aired from 1994-1995. It's about a rock and roll band living on a flying city in space who fight evil space vampires using The Power of Rock and Transforming Mecha that are controlled with guitars.

No, really.

The show prominently features an outstanding soundtrack from a real J-Rock band ("Hummingbird") hired to double as the fictional band "Fire Bomber." Very popular in Japan, though controversial among hardcore Humongous Mecha fans.

Besides the 49-episode TV series, there's also a short film (The Galaxy's Calling Me!), two OVA series (Encore and Dynamite 7, with the latter taking place one year after the end of the TV series), and a compilation film (Macross FB7: Listen to My Song!, which is also something of a Macross Frontier crossover).

Compare and contrast Mobile Fighter G Gundam in terms of a franchise sequel that differs greatly from the source material.

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This show provides examples of:

• The Abridged Series: Has one made by Macross Abridged.
• The Ace: Max. Downplayed since he's in charge of the battleship. But when he goes out to fight, he proves that he's still got his touch.
• Ace Custom: The Sound Forces Valkyries are modified versions of existing fighters.
• Ace Pilot: Max and Millia are former Aces from the original series. Gamlin is stated to be one, and Basara counts; Max himself states that Basara is pretty good, although not as good as himself in the past.
• Actual Pacifist: Basara. The guy gets massively pissed if he's forced to attack someone, regardless of why he had to.
• Against the Setting Sun: Subversion: it's a fake setting sun projected against a huge screen to make the colony ship feel more like home.
• Almost Kiss: When Emilia is just about to kiss Basara she is interrupted when Pedro actually jumps into Emilia’s mouth, much to their surprise and confusion.
• Anime Theme Song: Given that the main characters are rock musicians, their music forms a major part of both the score and the plot.
• Artistic License – Linguistics: There is a suggestion that the words evil and devil originated in the Protoculture's conflict with the Protodeviln. However these words were derived from older languages in which the words sounded considerably different (devil started out as diabolous, for instance). Then again, if you consider the fact that Protoculture is a civilization many times older than humanity itself...
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Some of the Protodeviln. In the movie, Emilia featured a somewhat funny side-effect of being giant-sized; namely, bigger body means louder voice. She couldn't sing in a populated area while full-sized without disrupting the peace.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: They even have the Transforming Mecha part down.
• Beach Episode: Mildly subverted, they nearly freeze to death, because an enemy attack damaged the environment control systems of the Macross 7.
• Beam-O-War: Pulled off in episode 27 between a Protodevlin and the Basara/Mylene duo. The twist? The latter use The Power of Rock as their beam - literally.
• Betty and Veronica: Gamlin as the Betty and Basara as the Veronica when Mylene's the Archie. For Basara as the Archie, Mylene as the Betty and Sivil as the Veronica.
• Big Brother Instinct: Basara shows this towards Mylene several time throughout the story, to the point that if someone attacks her, he'll break away from being an Actual Pacifist and punch whoever attacked her. Of course, afterwards he'll yell at her for having made him attack someone, showing how much he hates violence.
• The Big Damn Kiss: What happens when Sivil finally decides to kiss Basara unfiltered. The kiss isn't the problem. It's the Clothing Damage when they're literally blown apart.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Protodeviln aren't really evil, They just view other lifeforms as food sources. Once they learn how to produce Spiritia for themselves, they immediately stop being hostile.
• Breather Episode: Episode 35 is this, sandwiched between the rather intense Evil vs. Evil conflict of episode 34 and The Reveal of Protoculture ruins in episode 36. It also features pretty much no appearances from the Protodeviln either, barring an injured Gigil singing at the end; the main "enemies" of the episode are a pair of native lifeforms, specifically a mother and a child that didn't even intend to attack Gamlin and Mylene.
• Bridge Bunnies: Multiple sets on multiple ships, all of which have male captains.
• Broken Aesop: Lampshaded: at the end of one episode, Basara remarks how the lesson would not have been learned had he not caused the problem in the first place.
• Bullet Catch: Sivil.
• Calling Your Attacks: One early episode and in the beach episode Basara yells out "Pinpoint Barrier Punch".
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "LISTEN TO MY SONG!" and Max's less used "Don't take your eyes off that monitor!"
  • Also "I am Gepelnitch", EVERY time he addresses anyone who isn't a Protodeviln.
• Chick Magnet:
  • Basara. On top of fan girls, he's got Rex, the Flower Girl, Sivil and Mylene. Encore has him attract Cholore, Emilia and an entire Zentradi fleet.
  • Also Max.. It makes you wonder about the real reason the Bridge Bunnies signed up...
• Combined Energy Attack: A big one in the Grand Finale, involving just about everybody.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Max and Milia serve as the Captain and Mayor of the fleet- and both are shown to still be Ace pilots.
  • Besides Mylene, another one of their daughters shows up in The Galaxy's Calling Me!, and a family photo shows the other five.
  • Macross: Do You Remember Love? is literally an in-universe movie, with some characters even claiming that it's just a movie with no historical value, a likely nod to DYRL? being a very loose adaptation of the original SDF Macross (though Max and Milia are both veterans of the incidents it depicts, they don't clarify which version, if either, is the true one).
  • A Destroid Monster shows up in the Festival. Milia's Red VF-1 shows up as well.
  • Sharon Apple's music is still frequently played on the radio.
    • During the tabloids episode, the reporter is listening to "Information High".
  • Some Lynn Minmei songs are still played/used, (notably "Do You Remember Love"" in the Strongest Women episode)
• Cool Plane: As always.
• Cool Old Guy: Max Jenius. Milia may also qualify. Meltlandi must age like fine wine.
  • The director stated age is a state of mind, and Max is a Genius.
• Crapsack World: Guvava's homeworld. Had it not been for Max, Guvava would have been a nom for a dinosaur-like creature.
• Description Cut: In one episode, Basara throws an apple to Mylene as she's heading out for a date with Gamlin. Mylene tells Basara that there's no way Gamlin would take a bite out of a whole apple. Cut to Gamlin taking a bite out of the aforementioned apple.
• Determinator: Basara. As a kid, he'd sing songs to a mountain everyday in an effort to literally move it by singing alone. Even in a wind storm. While playing a guitar that was almost as big as he was.
  • Not to mention the fact that he absolutely refuses to let anything, and I mean anything, stop his singing. Someone's trying to punch him? He keeps singing. Someone is actually using him as a punching bag? He keeps singing. He gets ordered to do something else? He keeps singing. Alien vampire about to attack you? He keeps singing.
    • "Shut Up" Kiss: Admittedly, Sivil does know how to stop him singing. And it works very well.
• Did You Just Teach Cthulhu To Sing: The Protodeviln eventually realize that singing allows them to produce their own internal Spiritia, and no longer need to steal human Spiritia.
• Ditto Aliens: Averted: except for one matched set, no two Protodeviln even vaguely resemble each other)
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Fire Bomber LITERALLY perform their own songs. So literally, Yoshiki Fukuyama is consistently seen on stage with a guitar during the concerts IRL.
• Dreadful Musician: Never EVER make Gamlin Kizaki sing.
  • Which is weird, because Koyasu, Gamlin's VA, has shown in other roles that he is capable of singing quite well.
    • Probably a character-specific thing. Also irony points as Gamlin can't sing in a series where music is possibly the most powerful force in the universe.
    • Which is ironic, since his singing is still enough to wake up Basara from critical Spirita drain, with help from Mylene.
  • To say nothing of Gigil, or for that matter, Gepelnitch.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Milia was this, as revealed in Gamlin's backstory omake.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Gepelnitch, who sounds like one too.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Diamond Force's Commander Kinryu got one. The Battle 7 was in the middle of transforming when one of the Protodeviln ships was about to fire at it. Even though he was in a VF-11C, Kinryu had it purge its armor, charge into the Protodeviln ship, and fire at its core after he got inside in a Taking You with Me. Oh, and he did all this when by all rights, he should have been in a hospital bed. The scene can be seen here.
  Kinryu: What is Diamond Force if I can't bring down one battleship?!... Here's your love heart!
• Eldritch Abomination: All the Protodeviln in their true forms except Sivil.
• Empathy Pet: Guvava.
• Establishing Character Moment: Basara has three. The first one involves him singing at a bunch of thugs to make them stop fighting. The second (same scene) is when he gets mad at Mylene because him trying to protect her ended up making him attack the thugs. The third is him going out in his Valkyrie into a battlefield to try and stop it by singing.
• Evil-Detecting Semi-Sentient Furball Thingy: Guvava.
• Facial Markings: On Sivil and Gavil.
• Fake Band: Besides Fire Bomber, there's also the Jamming Birds, a failed attempt to replicate the former's success against the Protodeviln.
  • Defictionalization: Fire Bomber's songs are done by Hummingbird, and Basara Nekki's seiyuu happily does covers. Admittedly, he is experienced with that kind of thing...
• Fangirl: While Fire Bomber gets to be pretty famous, the Flower Girl is definitely Basara's Number One fan. One episode focuses on another fan, though this one's a boy on Mylene. Also, the Fleet of the Strongest Women episode; must be seen to be believed.
• Fantastic Arousal: ANY time Sivil hears any of Basara's singing, even a recording, she can't stay within a few feet of the source without going from arousal all the way towards near-orgasm.
• Festival Episode: Another subversion — it's a Humongous Mecha festival.
• Friend to All Living Things: Even aside from his absolute refusal to attack people, Basara also loves animals of all shapes and sizes.
• Friendly Rivalry: Gamlin and Basara's relationship, though initially antagonistic, evolves into this as the series goes on. Partly due to the fact that both are friends of Mylene's, and partly because Gamlin has come to genuinely respect and like Basara, who returns the sentiment.
• Genki Girl: Mylene
• Half-Human Hybrid: Mylene. Eventually proves pivotal in learning some important information.
• Heroic Resolve: Basara in the finale. I'M GONNA MOVE IT TODAY. THE MOUNTAIN. THE GALAXY. LISTEN TO MY SONG!!!!
• High-Altitude Battle: Unusually enough, the most Super Robot-ish Macross anime has one of the more realistic (ignoring the setting trappings of Transforming Mecha and the Sound Force) examples in the franchise: the surgical strike on Varauta IV in episode 45. Pretty much everyone (including Sound Force, who have their arguments why the attack won't work) distracts the Protodeviln/Supervision Army while Max flies in a VF-22 to deliver a reaction warhead to the Protodeviln cave. To everybody's horror, things go from bad to worse in seconds: not only has the task force been decimated but Gamlin appears to have perished, the Stargazer is destroyed by Geppelnitch folding the warhead back to the ship and the few remaining survivors get captured.
• Hot-Blooded: Basara is to singing as Gai Shishioh is to courage.
• Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: In The Galaxy Is Calling Me!, Emilia tries kissing Basara. While she's a giant-sized Meltran and he's human-sized. Yeah...
• How We Got Here: The Galaxy Is Calling Me! starts with Basara crash landing on an unknown planet before being confronted by the planet's inhabitants. After the opening credits, it then flashes back to show how Basara ended up there.
• Human Aliens: Besides the Zentradi, there's also the Zolans of Dynamite 7, who look very much like humans, except for pointy ears, two-toned hair, and prominent fur on the forearms of the men. They're also implied to be marsupials.
• Humongous Mecha: Most notably the Battle 7, which like the SDF-1 can transform from a giant spaceship into a giant robot.
• Identical Grandson: Emilia, Mylene's older sister, has long green hair like Milia.
  • It's even worse with oldest daughter - on family picture she looks like twin of her mother. See here◊. Mylene is the baby.
• Improbable Weapon User: Two Words: Speaker Pods.
• In the Name of the Moon: "Listen to my song!"
• Kaiju: Gabil.
• Karma Houdini: Despite repeated unprovoked attacks on the Earth Forces, kidnapping an entire colonization fleet, sucking the life force out of anyone whom he didn't kill, and nearly wiping out all life in the galaxy, Gepelnitch gets to fly away to live peacefully somewhere else... in the body of the dude he jacked before the series started.
• Ki Manipulation: ...through the power of rock and roll.
• Life Energy: Spiritia.
• Lighter and Softer: Compared to SDF Macross's Real Robot military drama, 7 has a much more lighthearted Super Robot Genre vibe to it.
• Living MacGuffin: Basara is the key to the Protodeviln's plan for an infinite source of energy and food.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Max does this twice. The first time is when he decides to stop playing with the Varauta and thus declares it's time to show them their real strength before firing the Macross Cannon, wiping out most of their fleet. The second time is during Operation Stargazer, when the pilots get stuck with Varauta's defenses... And he jumps in his fighter, breaks open the defenses and reaches the mission target before anyone can understand where all those explosions came from.
  • Not to mention he performs a fold into a planetary atmosphere, a move that would cause basically anyone else to crash immediately due to sudden incoming gravitational force.
• Loophole Abuse: In episode 6, Gamlin was out on patrol when he found a disguised enemy craft. He chased it for a little while, but it got away. When he asked for permission to search for it, he was told that it fell out of the range of his duties, and that he should let an investigative team search for it and enjoy the vacation time he would be getting the next day. His response was to say that his vacation time started in one hour, and that he wanted permission to continue searching in his free time. Needless to say, he got permission.
• Loud of War: Speaker Pod Gamma, the mecha-sized shoulder-mounted missile launcher. The two times that it is utilized, it's so loud that the sound waves push back the inhabitants of whatever room it enters, and even knocks down three-dimensional computer-generated holograms.
• Love Triangle: Basara, Sivil, Mylene, and Gamlin are at the center of a Love Dodecahedron. The more obvious ones include that Sivil finds literal orgasmic pleasure from Basara's Spiritia, Basara and Mylene are bandmates, Gamlin is in an arranged relationship with Mylene...
  • In Super Robot Wars, Basara/Sivil and Mylene/Gamlin are the accepted pairings...
• Ma'am Shock: Being called oba-san serves as a mild Berserk Button for Milia, who is strikingly similar to another green-haired older woman in space who's rather snappy.
• Mad Doctor: Gadget M. Chiba wants to cure the patients attacked by the "vampires". One of his experiments is strapping pilot Gamlin to a chair and forcing him to wear earphones with Basara's music playing at a really painful volume.
• Macross Missile Massacre: A sequel to the Trope Namer.
• Marshmallow Hell: Happens to Pedro in The Galaxy Is Calling Me! when he falls between Emilia's breasts before she plucks him out of there.
• Mathematician's Answer: Basara angrily asks Ray why his Valkyrie is armed with missiles. "Because they fit." (i.e. they were missiles intended to be fired by a Valkyrie.)
• Meaningful Name: "Nekki" means "enthusiasm", and "Basara" translates roughly to "crazy/stylish/over the top". Both fitting of a rocker.
• Mecha Expansion Pack: The Sound Boosters.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: Going from one VF-19 with speakers to a whole custom squad of musical Variable Fighters.
• Motorcycle on the Coast Road: In Space!
• My Brain Is Big: Exedore's new design, based on his Do You Remember Love? one.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The expression on Sivil's face shows this when she realizes she's almost completely drained Basara.
  • Gepelnitch once he realizes he'll drain the entire universe of Spiritia.
• Myth Arc: The whole Macross saga.
• No Name Given: The "Flower Girl" who always turns up around Basara, never has any lines, and, aside from the last episode, never actually succeeds in getting her bouquets to him. Even the credits just call her 'Flower Girl'.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Mylene's Gyararashi, Guvava.
• No-Sell: Gepelnitch is immune to pretty much anything you throw at him, including the macross cannon and most of Basara's music. It takes Basara's final song to do the trick.
• Not Himself: When the Protodeviln start bodyjacking people.
• Nuclear Weapons Taboo: The show continues the Macross tradition of referring to their nuke stand-ins using the ambiguous term 'hannou heiki' or 'hannou dan' meaning 'reaction weapon'. Word of God states that these weapons are pair annihilation devices.
• Nuke 'em: Basara lampshades this.
• Oddly Named Sequel: This is not the seventh Macross series, but the number 7 is a recurring motif in it.
• The Ojou: Mylene, although she subverts large parts of the trope; hilariously her "bodyguards" call her "ojou" even though Macross Seven is a democracy.
  • It's the fact that she is the daughter of a high-ranking official AND their boss' daughter. They do so out of politeness and their desire to keep their jobs.
• One-Man Army: The Protodeviln. A single Protodeviln was able to take out an entire Zentrandi fleet. Remember the original series and how there were literally millions of battleships? That was one fleet. The feat was so impressive that Zentrans have an innate fear of Protodeviln built into them.
• Our Vampires Are Different: The Protodeviln are unable to generate Spiritia on their own, and therefore have to absorb it from other species. Their thralls can also do this, to the point where City 7's citizens actually start calling them "vampires" in-universe. ^note  The thralls aren't actually born vampires: they are instead equiped with a special Spiritia absorbing beam and an matching Spiritia tracker that allows them to absorb the soul energy. The Protodeviln variable fighters also come with the same equipment per default.
• Parental Abandonment: Borderline with Mylene. While both of her parents are alive, they're also the commander of the fleet and mayor of the city and, for obvious reasons, extremely busy with work. One recurring bit in the story is her improving relationship with her parents.
• Perpetual Frowner: Exedore
• The Power of Rock: Big time. It causes orgasms in Protodeviln and heck, saves the entire universe from having its Life Energy sucked out.
• Puppeteer Parasite: The Protodeviln can possess the bodies of others, with some preferring to stick with a single host for an extended period of time.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Proud Warrior Race: The Zentradi.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Max and Milia. Max is the Macross 7 battlefleet commander, and Millia is the Mayor/President of Macross 7's civilian government. Justified Trope in that they were Ace Pilots before reaching their positions of authority.
• Real Robot Genre: Despite all the fantastical elements, the mecha themselves stay in this area (Fire Bomber's Valkyries' Unusual User Interfaces aside).
• Redshirt Army: Led by Emerald Force, Diamond Force and, later, the Jamming Birds who get a pass by occasionally proving their worth.
• Retcon:
  • The designs from Macross: Do You Remember Love? have mostly replaced the original SDF Macross ones.
  • Chiba Music Units go by a completely different name when they're brought up again in subsequent Macross entries from Macross Frontier onward: Fold Resonance/Receptor Factor.
• Robo Speak: Many devices, including vending machines and the bridge tannoy.
• Running Gag:
  • Diabolus ex Machina stalks the Flower Girl, thwarting her every chance to give Basara her bouquet.
  • Veffidas using just about everything like a drum.
  • Basara's frustration at the way the Protodeviln never stick around long enough for him to finish his songs.
  • Sivil's whole attempt to study the effects of the Anima Spirita are thwarted by the fact she can't control her raging hormones...
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Gamlin does this in episode 32. The military has impounded Basara's Valkyrie, and the Protodeviln are curb-stomping the new Jamming Birds unit. Gamlin then proceeds to take his Valkyrie over to where Basara's Valkyrie was being kept and helps Basara take it out so he can save the day.
• Short Film: Just half a hour.
• Shout-Out: The Macross 7 has everything on board, even a fountain with a Manneken Pis!!
• Silver Fox: Both Max and Milia. Their first daughter is around 34 years old, meaning they could be grandparents by this time.
• Sitting on the Roof: Basara likes to play and sing on the roof from time to time.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Starts off neutral, and gradually shifts more and more to the idealistic side of things.
• Sneeze Cut: When Basara and Gamlin are arguing about Mylene, the last shot of the episode is Mylene giving a cute little sneeze.
• Stripperific:
  • Sivil's outfit, with tight leather and what can only be described as stylized breast-baring.
  • Mylene's outfits are pretty bad too, but then again she's a female rock musician.
    • And even then, it's only her stage outfit that really Shows Some Leg and is rather skin-tight; her "everyday" outfits are perfectly sensible (and more jaded viewers/anime veterans would say "almost puritan", compared to what her successors and other characters like her wear today).
• So Last Season: Inverted. When the new Emerald Force is commissioned, even though they have the latest model Variable Fighters, they have trouble with Gigil of the Protodeviln. When one of Emerald Force's members gets so obsessed with shooting Gigil down that his shots hit City 7, Gamlin gives him a What the Hell, Hero? before telling the other two members of Diamond Force to use a series of formations against Gigil, completely kicking his ass and shooting down his Ace Custom Transforming Mecha.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: For the most part, the baddies get progressively more dangerous through the course of the series, as more and more Protodeviln begin awakening.
• Space Is an Ocean: To the point where Dynamite 7 adds in space whales.
• Space Is Noisy: Although the show justifies the actual "singing at your opponent through a vacuum" bit as well as it can.
• Space Whale: The Galactic Whales of Dynamite 7, though their design also has a touch of Starfish Aliens.
• Spandex, Latex, or Leather: Basara and Mylene's clothes.
• Spell My Name With An S:
  • Should there be a vowel between the "L" and "N" in "Protodeviln"?
  • It's also possible that Mylene has been hit with this; especially given how it's pronounced (mee-leh-neh), there's a reasonably good chance that it's actually supposed to be Myrene, an alternate spelling of Myrina attested by Servius in his telling of her legend, and the character simply ran into one of the most classic examples of this phenomenon.
• Spy Speak: Used by Ray in episode 10 when he makes a phone call.
• The Spock: Exedore, again.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Sivil is into Basara. Basara appears to be into Sivil. But Sivil has very nearly killed him already, and it might happen again. Sivil leaves, Basara decides he'll travel the Galaxy too...
  • Subverted in Super Robot Wars, where Sivil doesn't leave, and instead is portrayed as a key member of Sound Force.
• Stock Footage: Many battles, particularly in the show's first half, have mostly the same recycled scenes in the same order, and several scenes have blatant use of methods like endless corridor shots. The second half gets somewhat better about this, but it's still there.
• Take That!: The Jamming Birds fail to have an effect on the Protodeviln... because, in a Discontinuity Nod, they're singing the music from Macross II.
• Team Pet: Guvava, Mylene's pet furball-thing who looks either like a Tribble with eyes and legs or a Kuriboh.
• The Stoic: Veffidas, Fire Bomber's drummer, barely gives any indication of fear, happiness, or surprise.
• Transforming Mecha: It wouldn't be Macross without them.
• Trash the Set: Basara and Sivil's first non-battle meeting. Sivil attempts to pounce on Basara, only for The Power of Rock to trash several smaller items. They kiss, and the energy release causes Basara and Sivil's clothing to be heavily torn apart, and Basara's giant mecha to be toppled, as well as the other members of Fire Bomber to feel a small quake.
• Tsundere: Mylene.
• Unusual User Interface: Basara's Valkyrie (variable fighter) is piloted by a guitar. The rest of Fire Bomber also pilot their Valkyries with instrument-based control schemes.
• Verbal Tic: Gavil and "beauty" involving tagging a "-bi" at the ends of important nouns.
• The Voiceless: Veffidas, Flower Girl.
  • Veffidas does speak, though it's only once or twice in the whole series. The first time she talks, nobody is expecting it even in-universe as Ray and Mylene both just kinda of stare at her in shock.
• Walking the Earth: Implied with Basara as seen in the opening and ending of Dynamite 7 where after Fire Bomber's final concert, he travelled across the galaxy, still singing songs. The FB7 crossover movie revealed that the Frontier characters were unaware of the band's disbandment until they received videotapes from Gavil regarding the fate of the 7th fleet.
• Wave-Motion Gun: ...which proves useless against the Big Bad.
  • It kinda...stuns him. That counts for something when said Big Bad is about to bring the universe to its potential end.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Interestingly, this show answers one. Remember the Supervision Army, that ancient enemy of the Zentraedi from the original series that we never see, with the original Macross being one of their ships? Macross 7 explains that they were Zentraedi that had been brainwashed by the Protodeviln.

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