Robotech

The 1980s produced so many classic cartoon series. In fact, I would even say that great cartoons were still being produced all the way through the mid 90s, before the Pokeman era became prominent. One of the very best cartoons of this era was a little show called Robotech. Robotech, if you do not know, is an adaptation of three separate Japanese television series. A company called Harmony Gold bought the rights to all three and reedited them in to one coherent story line. The three shows were The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada. Robotech aired in 1985.


One of the reasons that I like Robotech so much is that it was one of the first cartoons of that time to have heart, drama, and a sense of realism in the midst of implausible settings. It was one of the first cartoons in which major characters where allowed to be killed off (You know you were all fighting back the tears when Roy Fokker bit the dust). Up until Robotech, what did we have? Rocky and Bullwinkle? Johny Quest? All we had were cartoons that were emotionally void of any kind of character depth and the issues in which we real humans deal with on a daily basis. Even the fantastic Transformers, which I really like, didn't really have stories and elements that really dug deep into its characters. Each story basically had the same outline: autobots protect earth, decepticons attack and try to steal or use earth's source of energon as a weapon, autobots fight back and win. No character ever got badly hurt and no one ever died. There was no sense of cause and effect. It wasn't till Transformers the Movie, in 1986, that the Transformer's started to depict the heart and true consequences of war. Sadly, transformers went downhill since then in both quality of animation and story (Transformers Armada).

I remember the first time I saw Robotech. I saw it once and got hooked. The story telling was terrific and the animation was really good. Well, not as good as the animation that is produced now days, but still good nonetheless. The show, for continuity reasons, was divided into three chapters:

• 
  The Macross Saga (humanity's battle against the Zentraedi, a race of giant warriors who are sent to earth to retrieve the flagship of the Robotech Master Zor. The ship contains the last known source of Protoculture in the universe).



• The Masters (the creators of the Zentraedi, the Robotech Masters, attempt to take up where the Zentraedi left off, and capture the protoculture held within the remains of the SDF-1).



• The New Generation (the alien Invid have been alerted to the existence of Protoculture on Earth by events that transpired at the end of the Second Robotech War. The planet is conquered, then enslaved, and it is up to the Robotech Expeditionary Force to retake their ancestral homeland).

Besides great story telling and drama, what else was good about Robotech? Oh yeah, the mecha. To this day, the Skull one remains, in my opinion, the coolest airplane/mecha on the planet.

Here are two very good Robotech vids.

Robotech The Series

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