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.
Many years ago, I’d started a fanfic inspired by the disappearance of the SDF-2 Megaroad-01, the super-long distance space colonization vessel captained by Misa Hayase, with Hikaru Ichijyo as leader of its Valkyrie contingent, and cultural icon Lynn Minmay by her side. To say certain extremely vocal and obnoxious gatekeepers on the Macross World forums were less than encouraging would be an understatement. Besides their blanket anti-fanfic stance (as if Macross hadn’t originally started as a Gundam fanfic), they were adamant that no one is allowed to feature Hikaru in any story after the tragic suicide of his voice actor – the criminally underrated Arihiro Hase.
Over the years, though, as new installments were added to the franchise and as I started viewing the whole mecha anime genre more critically, I decided that, for myself, I’d make different decisions as to many plot elements. Having been cut off (for political reasons) from Macross World for more than two decades was both a curse, as I lost touch with friends and creative collaborators, and a blessing in disguise: I can now do my thing, on my own terms, and without rabid gatekeepers or power-tripping, “the USA can do no wrong” moderators breathing down my spine.
My novel is titled Asterion, from the mythical king of Crete. As I mentioned earlier, it keeps the core plot elements, but emphasizes political and military intrigue, and I’m leveraging my own hands-on procedural knowledge. Of course, this doesn’t mean I’m going to neglect my ongoing analytical work on Super Dimension Fortress Macross.
Good luck on this novel! If it’s anywhere near as well-written as your essays, I’m sure it’ll be a very enjoyable read! On another note, what were the political reasons you’re referring to?
Thank you for your kind words and wishes. I’ll start posting it this week. As for the political reasons… Well, it’s as I’d written on Bluesky. Back in 2003, with the United States’ “War on Terror” bullshit, I was one of the few on Macross World who were against it. What sealed my fate was my “anti-American views”, i.e. my telling them in their faces that 9/11 was a consequence of their bonds with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. When Osama Bin Laden was fighting the Soviets, he was their guy. Later, he turned against them. Needless to say, I ruffled a lot of feathers with this. This was back in the days when MW still had a section for political discussions. Plus, in the wake of the release of the AnimEigo subtitled DVD release of SDFM, Shawn and Graham tried to be on Harmony Gold’s good books as much as possible, and allowed its worst execs to come in and flame-bait everyone like there’s no tomorrow.
Them banning you for being Captain Obvious on 9/11 is funny. What you told them proved to be 100% accurate. But really, if they couldn’t handle an actual political discussion, where the government’s narrative was fair game for scrutiny and even dismissal, why did they even have such a section in the first place?
Heh. I don’t know what they expected. They run a site that allegedly tries to appeal to fans across the world, but they expect all of these diverse people to only agree with US foreign and military policy and be “respectful” towards the US. The idiocy is palpable.
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as someone that loves this franchise, especially the original Macross storyline, I wish you the best of luck with your writing. I also write fanfics (and do some drawings) based on the characters of Rick and Lisa and I get the hostility towards the fans that “dare” to use the story as their sandbox.
Hi, thank you for your comment and your kind words. I remember the Hikaru-Misa/Rick-Lisa (depending on your chosen timeline) pairing being a fertile ground for fanfics of all kinds – from romantic to military, all the way to… yaoi. Yes, you read that right. Yaoi. I suppose a reason behind this pairing’s popularity among fanfic writers is the male protagonist’s handling of the love triangle. As for the hostility directed at fanfic writers, what can I say? I remember some self-professed gatekeepers in the Macross community, the most notorious being Keith and Windjammer of the “New Macross Mechanical Archive” (NMMA). The former was an obnoxious, abrasive, and extremely rude (but enjoying complete immunity) Macross 7 fan. The latter was the kind of person who basically claimed ownership of SDFM mechanical designs because he scanned them and cleaned them up from the original source material. Whereas the former is still teflon-coated and gets away with being a complete and utter jerk, the latter fell from grace. If my experience with this sort of people is worth anything, don’t bother with them. Do what you like, but don’t limit yourself to fanfics. Remember, the Fifty Shades franchise started out as a Twilight fanfic.