Original Post: Macross is a Story of Space Whales, or, Macross Is a Space Whale (Let’s Also Love Macross Dynamite 7)!
squaresphere says:
October 21, 2011 at 2:43 pm (Edit)
The whole concept of the “in the belly of the whale” as a jumping off point for character narratives is pretty interesting. Breaking it down, it’s basically the , “I know I’m gonna die, but god help me, if i make it through it, things will be different.” It could also be seen as the characters are now isolated and whatever “petty” outside story lines that were messing with them are now gone finally allowing their introspection to change their character and be shown as growth.
Just thinking about MF there were a couple scenes like this. The obvious one are the ones featuring escape pods/shelters. There are interesting in that unlike most “in the belly” there a lot of other people in the same area but for all intents and purposes our heroes/heroines are alone with their thoughts or the scene shares them with a select few. My favorite one is when Sheryl decides to finally sing her song for those in despair.
But the two others that jumped out at me that I hadn’t notice before actually feature Alto. The first one being when he goes all GAR and actually “enters the belly of the beast” to save Luca. This was when we see Alto’s first change as a professional solider albeit still a bit headstrong. He comes out of it with a bit more confidence in his newly chosen profession. Later, the next Belly scene is Michel’s death. All the little side stories fall to the way side when he and Michel talk about love while blasting the corridors of death. When he dies, everything drops away leaving only Klan and Alto screaming at the darkness. This right here is where we see Alto make up his mind to defend the colony no matter what and by extension want to put “roots” down.
But back to M7 and space whales, Angel Voice is a great song but my favorite version of it is the Basara+Minmay duet version along with the extend karaoke guitar solo that positively SINGS TO MY SOUL. And that’s how I saw Basara play it. He was singing to his soul making the mountains move with his voice. I suppose it could be said that the Space Whale is really just a “dark moment” narrative that either gives an opportunity for the despair to consume them or for them to spark a light in the soul that fights the darkness and lets them shine.
Lucky for us Marcoss is a mix of both. At the best of times, lets us see our heroes hit the lowest of lows but come shining back with the force of a thousand Itano circuses and Macross class speaker pods set to 11.
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