Asterion – Chapter 2: Derelict

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Grainy black-and-white image of a long spaceship with a hull consisting of long, flat sides and facets. Its engines, placed at its stern (on the left side of the image), emit hot plasma; its bow seems narrower and pointier.
Grainy radar image of object C/1998 M7.

The four-hour drive back to Kiso was an opportunity for Ichirō to finally get some much-needed rest. Watching C/1998 M7 for two weeks day and night and anxiously calculating its possible trajectory time after time was exhausting. He was in no mood for discussing the meeting at all. He only wanted to close his eyes for a few hours and clear his head.

Inoue, sitting next to him, was no less weary, but sleep just evaded him. The horrible thought that this thing – whatever it was – would fall on Earth, possibly wiping entire cities off the map, haunted him. His mind constantly conjured pictures of apocalyptic devastation. Where would it fall? His beloved home city, Yokohama? Then he remembered cities he’d visited in his travels, academic or not – Edinburgh, Rome, Paris, Athens, Seoul, Barcelona… Even if it fell into an ocean, the resulting tsunami could wreak havoc upon seaside communities.

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Asterion – Chapter 1: The Visitor

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June 30, 1998. The ninetieth anniversary of the Tunguska event.1 At the University of Tokyo Kiso Observatory, Ichirō Maeda, a young graduate student of astronomy, spotted a new diffuse source and turned his attention to it. “Hmmm… Could this be a new comet?” he thought, and immediately told his professor, Akira Inoue.

“Inoue-sensei,2 I think I’ve spotted a new comet. Could you please have a look at it?”
Inoue walked over to his student’s side and had a look at the screen. “Yes, it does look like a comet,” he said, nodding approvingly. “Notify CBAT,3 Maeda-kun.4”
“Right away!”
“Meanwhile, keep tracking it.” Ichirō gave him a nod of affirmation.
Inoue kept his gaze fixed on the screen, smiling at the thought of this new discovery. He and his student would get an IAU5 Circular and a comet named after them. Ichirō interrupted his thoughts to inform him that the CBAT had acknowledged their telegram.
“Well done, Maeda-kun.”

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Asterion – Introduction

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Ninety years have passed since the Tunguska Event, the mid-air explosion of an asteroid or comet near the Podkamennaya Tunguska river in Russia. Ichirō Maeda, a graduate student of astronomy at the Kiso Observatory of the University of Tokyo, observes an object which he initially thinks is a new comet.

It is nothing of the kind. Instead, it turns out to be a massive alien starship decelerating toward the Earth. It crashes on Sakhalin Island, just days before Russia’s financial collapse. Humanity absorbs the shock of confirmation that aliens do exist and wage war in space, and sets out to study and rebuild the derelict ship, naming it after the mythical Cretan king Asterion.

But conflict soon erupts and escalates over ownership and control of what can be salvaged and understood from the hulking wreck.

A Creative Detour

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The Macross community knows and understands that we owe this franchise to the love Kawamori et al had for Gundam – after all, what they originally set out to do was make a parody of Gundam, but it eventually became the groundbreaking original TV series we know and love, with its innovative plot, dramatic battles, and relatable characters.

For many years, though, I was toying with the idea of a more “hard sci-fi” story based on the core premises of Macross: the crash of a runaway alien starship on Earth; its subsequent reverse engineering and refit by the humans and a global bellum omnium contra omnes over ownership and control of it; its rediscovery by the aliens it was trying to evade; an existential space war between the Earth and these aliens; and, finally, the dipole between culture, love, and coexistence on one side and blind, blunt militarism on the other.

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The Holy Hayase Family – Part 11: Plan B (IV)

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Manga-style watercolor three-quarter profile of an elegant woman with long brown hair and green eyes, looking to the left of the image. Tears are flowing from her eyes.
Misa Hayase crying. Drawing by Haruhiko Mikimoto. © Studio Nue / Big West.

In the previous part of this analysis, I examined the impact of Melissa’s attack on Misa when she related her two losses, the absence and coldness of her father, and her second thoughts on her choice to join the military. Here’ I’ll discuss how Misa’s emotional and mental state impacts whatever plans her father may have had for her future.

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The Holy Hayase Family – Part 10: Plan B (III)

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Manga-style watercolor drawing of a young, slender woman in a white military uniform with a yellow turtleneck shirt and green accents saluting.
Misa Hayase saluting. Drawing by Haruhiko Mikimoto. © Studio Nue / Big West.

In the previous part of this analysis, I examined the circumstances of Sakiko’s death and how they, combined with the circumstances of Riber’s death, triggered a cascade of events that demolished Misa’s perception of her enrollment in the Far East Officers’ Academy. Here, I’ll discuss how the effects these events had on Misa impact whatever plans her father may have had for her future. This post will be one of the longest in this series, because it discusses one of the most pivotal parts of the narrative in White Reminiscences, where the foundations for the uneasy relationship Misa has with her father in SDFM.

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The Holy Hayase Family – Part 9: Plan B (II)

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A dark-haired young officer receives a surprise kiss on the cheek by a girl with long brown hair.
A teenage Misa Hayase kissing Riber Fruhling. Drawing by Haruhiko Mikimoto. © Studio Nue / Big West.

Both White Reminiscences and the TV series make it abundantly clear that Riber’s death was absolutely devastating for Misa and that she carried her grief over his death well into the series. In the previous part of this series, I mentioned that she couldn’t help noticing her father’s emotional absence during Riber’s loss. This, I think, contributes to the formation of a first “crack” in her perception of him and even her relationship with him. Takashi’s behavior during Sakiko’s last days and the period after her death does nothing to repair this harm. What makes the reader question the salvageability of his relationship with Misa, however, is what these events trigger in the academy.

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The Holy Hayase Family – Part 8: Plan B (I)

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A brown-haired girl in a red dress and a boy wearing a formal suit run among the guests of a party.
A teenage Misa Hayase playing tag with Riber Fruhling at her father’s party. Drawing by Haruhiko Mikimoto. © Studio Nue / Big West.

Ōnogi provides strong hints that Takashi had a positive opinion of Riber and that he, at the very least, didn’t object to the idea of a possible marriage between Misa and the young Fruhling. One could plausibly wonder if the idea of facilitating a marriage between Misa and Riber had the additional appeal of a formal Hayase-Fruhling connection. This, however, was not meant to be, as SDFM and White Reminiscences narrate.

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Master List of All My Macross Reviews and Analyses

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Dramatic illustration of a massive blue-and-white space battleship, the SDF-1 Macross, launching above a mountainous area, escorted by several fighter planes.
Illustration by Yoshiyuki Takani. Originally published in “Super Dimension Fortress Macross Original Illustrations — Mechanics Edition” by Shogakukan. © Studio Nue / Big West.

This master list will be updated regularly as new posts on Macross are published.

Reviews

Super Dimension Fortress Macross Era (TV Series – DYRL? – Flash Back 2012)

Analyses

Super Dimension Fortress Macross Era (TV Series – DYRL? – Flash Back 2012)

Many thanks to Gubaba for his hard and diligent work on translating essential Macross ancillary material such as Dreaming Prelude ~ My Fair Minmay~, Misa Hayase: White Reminiscences, Macross Outside Story, Miss D.J., and Distantly Fading Memories, which provide essential context for the understanding of the original series’ plot and the personalities of the main characters. You can find all his translations here (also archived here).

Last updated: June 28, 2026