Continuing from my review of the light novel Misa Hayase: White Reminiscences, I’m turning my attention to the Hayase family – Misa’s father, Takashi, and her mother, Sakiko. The starting point for this multi-part analysis is Matteo Watzky’s 2020 article “Gender roles in Gundam and Macross” (also archived here) on his blog Animétudes. In his article, Watzky argues that Macross tries to somehow “teach” its heroine, Misa Hayase, how to conform to a certain standard of femininity – soft, romantic, loving, mated to a man – in order to be validated as a person. My reading of Misa and her arc differs greatly from Watzky’s for a number of reasons, methodological and interpretive. The most important of these reasons is that no character, especially one as carefully constructed and as fundamental to the series as Misa, exists in a vacuum. Therefore, to understand her emotional restraint, her attachment issues, her adherence to her military duty, and her narrative arc, we must examine the family she grew up in.

A Flawed Data Set

Watzky works off a limited and incomplete data set that misleads and misinforms his analysis. He doesn’t benefit from the crucial context provided by canonical ancillary and animated material like the Best Hit Series: The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Macross Graffiti mook, the Misa Hayase: White Reminiscences light novel, the side story “The Lost Two Years”, the Distantly Fading Memories audio drama, and the OVA Flash Back 2012 (FB2012 for short). Instead, he bases his analysis solely on the TV series and the theatrical adaptation, Macross: Do You Remember Love? (DYRL? for short).

I must note here that, despite the well-documented legal wranglings surrounding the Macross franchise and its availability in the West, people like Gubaba spent years translating these canonical ancillary works, helping break the language and availability barrier for us gaijin.¹ Since these translations are readily and freely available online (also archived here), Watzky could and, in my opinion, should have sought them and made use of them. Ideally, of course, he would have sought the original, untranslated material.

This brings us to the second problem with Watzky’s data set: while the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross (SDFM for short) TV series is indeed recognized as canon, it’s much harder to make the same claim for DYRL?, because the latter is considered an in-universe propaganda movie like Eleni (long weaponized by Greek conservatives against the Left), Top Gun, Rambo III, and Pearl Harbor. We must take note of the laissez-faire approach series creator Shōji Kawamori applies to what’s canon and what’s not (archived version here): he treats each Macross installment as a fictional retelling of the Macross universe’s “real” events.

In that sense, SDFM is a fictional retelling of the “real” Space War I and, in turn, DYRL? is a fictional retelling of SDFM, filmed for propaganda reasons, adding at least one more layer of fiction. But since fandom generally accepts SDFM as canon for the sake of the fans’ own sanity, then DYRL? can’t be canon. Thus, treating it as an in-universe historical source is akin to using The Three Musketeers as a real-life historical source in an analysis of the exploits of the real Cardinal Richelieu – or, in more modern terms, treating Saving Private Ryan as an accurate historical source.

Family Matters

I gave my analysis this somewhat provocative title for two reasons. Before I explain them, I must say I drew inspiration from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ book The Holy Family – Critique of Critical Criticism, where Marx and Engels target Bruno, Edgar, and Egbert Bauer who positioned their ideas as a sacred doctrine beyond questioning.

However, in the ancillary material, the Macross creative team indulges in heavy-handed emotional and perceptual manipulation of the reader through coercive writing. Kawamori, Hiroshi Ōnogi (in White Reminiscences, reviewed here), and Sukehiro Tomita (author of the Distantly Fading Memories audio drama and the DYRL? novelization) all tell the reader how to read each scene, what to make of it, what to think of it, even what to feel.

Ōnogi in particular attempts to give the Hayase family a “holy” and “untouchable” character by going to absurd lengths to frame what we read in White Reminiscences about Misa’s family as virtuous, tragic, or even heroic. Decades later, the Macross Compendium and the Macross Wiki (archived here and here, respectively) – describe Takashi Hayase, Misa’s father as “protective” (Compendium) and “loving and protective” (Wiki). This view, however, is not universally accepted. For instance, on the r/macross subreddit, a Macross fan nicknamed “Mona-Doll” challenges the Compendium’s and the Wiki’s interpretations and wonders if he’s really a “fearful, dull, and detached apparatchik.”

As I explained in the introductory paragraph, I believe it’d be wrong to view Misa as existing in a vacuum – just as we are formed by our childhoods and youths, so is she. Thus, I think that the only analysis that will enable us to fully understand why she is, who she is, how she is, and – most importantly – who she becomes in the TV series is one that has a close look at her upbringing. Wikipedia describes her family as a “rigid military household,” a description fully supported by White Reminiscences – despite Ōnogi’s “instructions” to the reader.

However, both canon material and discussions within the fandom have historically overlooked the impact Misa’s parents had on the development of her personality. Perhaps this ought to be attributed to the fact that both are minor characters. Takashi Hayase’s screen time and dialogue in the series were very limited (he only appears in five episodes: 15 and 24 through 27). Sakiko, her mother, had died years before the beginning of the series and wasn’t even given a name until the publication of Macross Graffiti and White Reminiscences. Still, Misa’s parents play – directly and indirectly – a significant role in shaping who Misa becomes by the end of the novel and what “baggage” she carries with her in the TV series.

Methodological Approach and Roadmap

My examination of Misa’s family will focus on its two main pillars – her parents. Initially, I’m going to look at her father, Takashi Hayase. Afterwards, I’ll attempt to examine her mother’s characterization and role in Misa’s upbringing. Please note that, in my analysis, I’m not taking the official or community-accepted descriptions of the characters in question at face value; to me, what’s actually being depicted on the page or on screen is the most reliable material, and I will draw my conclusions based on what I see there. Additionally, I’m using the White Reminiscences timeline regarding the death of Sakiko Hayase (Misa’s mother), rather than the Macross Compendium’s. Therefore, I accept December 2005 as the time of her death, whereas the Compendium tells us that Sakiko was hospitalized on May 20, 1997, and passed away “later”. The reason for this choice is that White Reminiscences provides a detailed narration of Sakiko’s hospitalization, death, and funeral, while the Compendium extrapolates from 1983’s Macross Graffiti, p. 72: the caption in that page tells the reader that Misa, aged seven on that day, performs a piano recital and that “[h]er mother Sakiko enters a hospital due to illness and later passes away.” However, none of the subsequent pages in Macross Graffiti that narrate her life specifies when her mother died, and the reference on p. 72 only mentions hospitalization, not death.

After the analysis of the role Misa’s parents play in the formation of her character and mindset as she appears in the first episode of SDFM, I’ll examine Misa herself and her trajectory from White Reminiscences through the TV series, wrapping things up with her non-verbal portrayal in FB2012, taking care to diligently reconcile chronologies where conflicts occur. Additional context will be provided by canonical ancillary material, namely “The Lost Two Years” and the Distantly Fading Memories audio drama. For obvious reasons, I’ll disregard DYRL? and, of course, its novelization by Sukehiro Tomita.

Bibliography

1. Akita Shoten (1983). Chōjikū Yōsai Makurosu Besuto Hitto Shirīzu: Makurosu Gurafiti [超時空要塞マクロス ベストヒットシリーズ; Super Dimension Fortress Macross Best Hit Series: Macross Graffiti]. Tokyo: Akita Shoten, pp. 71–77. (In Japanese.)
2. Minori Shobo (1984). Macross Perfect Memory. Tokyo: Minori Shobo, pp. 60–68. (In Japanese.)
3. Ōnogi, H. (1984). Hayase Misa: Shiroi Tsuioku [早瀬未沙 白い追憶; Misa Hayase: White Reminiscences]. Animage Bunko. Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten. (In Japanese.)
4. Tomita, S. (prose) and Akane, A. (lyrics) (1983). Chōjikū Yōsai Makurosu Vol. IV: Harukanaru Omoi [超時空要塞マクロス Vol. IV 遥かなる想い; The Super Dimension Fortress Macross Vol. IV: Distantly Fading Memories] (audio drama). Tokyo: Victor Musical Industries. (In Japanese.)

Acknowledgments:

Kudos and thanks must be extended to Gubaba, author of the Gubaba Blog; without his hard, diligent, and meticulous work, what I’m doing here wouldn’t have been possible. The entire Macross community owes him a lot.

This post was edited on May 31, 2026 to add my thanks to Gubaba for his work that enabled my analysis and for his long-lasting contribution to the Macross community. It was also edited on July 16, 2026 to add a footnote on what the word “gaijin” means.

1. Non-Japanese ↩︎