I recently posted a long-form, stream-of-consciousness series of thoughts from a rewatch of The Macross Saga.

It was fun to get my thoughts out in writing, and engage with fellow Robotech fans in the subreddit, especially since in the circles I run in in "real life" I don't have other sci-fi/anime/Robotech enthusiasts to engage with. So this is a follow-up, getting my thoughts out on the sequel chapter, "The Masters."

Warning: this is a long-form, stream-of-consciousness post. So be wary if that type of post irritates you. 🙂Sharing thoughts with others with similar interests is just one of the last few small, humanistic sources of pleasure in a life that's otherwise just the monotony of servitude and subservience to our corporate overlords.

Spoilers aplenty. Please don't read anything below if you consider any plot points from The Macross Saga, The Masters, or The New Generation to be spoiler territory.

Since the series has been posted on YouTube, it's been super convenient to watch, and after finishing The Macross Saga, I immediately moved on to The Masters Saga (I will buy the series eventually, just for the moral satisfaction from financially "supporting" good entertainment).

From my first post, a couple of commenters shared their feeling that The Macross Saga is truly iconic to the point that it alone almost equates with "Robotech," and the subsequent chapters are held in lesser esteem. I am generally of the same opinion. I remember on my first viewing of Robotech, when I was somewhere in the 8 - 10 range, I was surprised/unhappy/irritated by the switch from The Macross Saga to The Masters saga, I think mostly because of the sudden loss of that core group of characters that we'd grown to understand over a long stretch of time. I rewatched the series somewhere in my mid-20s...but I don't have any particularly strong memories from that watch. So I wanted to give a go at an earnest, from-scratch, unbiased watch of The Masters saga.

Now having watched the whole chapter, how do I start spilling my guts about The Masters Saga...

Overall, I feel that The Masters was a disappointment.

I can earnestly say that I went in with the intent to watch this chapter with fresh eyes and an open mind. But I very quickly came to those same feelings of dislike that I remember from my first childhood viewing. And that's a real shame, because I think the larger Robotech mythos that it's trying to reveal is quite interesting.

I wish that my review could be purely logical; I wish I could be strictly rationale in constructing my arguments, like a Vulcan, but I can't. So let me get this out of the way early: Dana Sterling's voice really, really irritated me from the get go. It was not a great way to start. I tried hard to put aside that instinctive irritation her voice triggered in me...something about literally the pitch or tone of her voice just rubbed me the wrong way. I am just not a fan of the direction that her voice actress chose to go with this character. I know in Japan, there is subtle social pressure for women to speak in high-pitch voices, and I wonder whether there was some "carryover" expectation to continue that even in the American dub.

But in my defense, I don't think it wasn't Dana's voice alone why I disliked her. To me, the combination of her voice, but more importantly, her flippant attitude, and her ditzy personality just mixed into a sour combination for me.

There's an oddly specific recurring theme in the first several episodes of Dana telling her squad that they are "getting out of practice" and need to "go out and get more practice," which leads them to going out on patrol, then adventures ensue. Something about those phrases: "getting out of practice" and "getting more practice" just feels very contrived and unrealistic for some reason...and I understand this is all kid/teen-oriented, so obviously things are simplified...but those phrases in particular somehow stand out to me as noteworthily unrealistic and awkward.

Episode 1 was the writers attempt to bridge between The Macross Saga and The Masters. I'm sure it was well-intentioned, but it just didn't work for me. It came across as just a reminder of how much I missed my beloved Macross Saga characters, and I didn't feel like it did anything (that worked) to endear the new cast to the viewer, other than ham-fistedly trying to impress upon us that this blonde, bouffanted nitwit is Max and Miriya's grown-up daughter.

I noticed somewhere in the first few episodes, they play fast and loose with ranks. Somewhere in the early episodes (sorry, I'm too unmotivated to go back and rewatch to find out specifically which episode(s)), Angelo Dante is referred to as corporal, then later as sergeant. I suppose there could have been an off-screen promotion...maybe a cut scene where he was promoted...but the cynical side of me thinks this was just the writers being careless.

As politely as I can say this, so as not to be crass, I will admit that I'm an admirer of the female form. In several episodes, we see Dana Sterling's actual boobage and nipples in a shower scene! 😳 I do not object to this. But I will confess that Dana had already just irritated me so much - for the reasons I mentioned above - that it didn't come across as enticing or titillating. Very unlike Minmei's shower scene and Lisa Haye's blouse-unbuttoning scene. 😳

Speaking of Lisa Hayes, I wondered if I would find anyone on whom I would develop an anime-crush. Certainly not Dana. Nova Satori was cute, but her character wasn't much developed in a romantic direction. Marie Crystal piqued my curiosity at first: she was kind of cute, and a straight-laced, serious military woman, which harkened back to Lisa Hayes. But ultimately her character development was also very sporadic and inconsistent. She did flash very impressive cleavage, though.😳😁

Goddamn, Marie Crystal!

Musica is definitely cute. But with her, again...somehow her character development just didn't go in directions where I got a real feeling for who she is. And without that depth of character, at least I was unable to form any particularly strong feelings or affection for her. She is super cute, though.

The girl you take home to meet the parents

I think that general problem I had with this chapter of Robotech is that character development is, in general, shallow, sporadic, and inconsistent. There are no character development arcs that are sufficiently sustained and consistent to develop much in the way of affection or attachment. Certainly nothing to match how expertly main and supporting characters' characters were explored in The Macross Saga. The closest character, I think, who was given sustained and consistent character exploration in The Masters was Rolf Emerson: somewhat considerable time was spent showing him explicitly expressing his anti-war/pro-negotiation sentiment, or internally monologuing about it. I don't think the same could be said for any of the main characters, though.

At first, I was intrigued by Bowie Grant's character. In this modern era of contrived "diversity" in entertainment, I like that Robotech effortlessly, realistically, and unobtrusively represented diversity in its cast. But sadly, I felt that in the end Bowie's character was completely wasted. For me, he joined Dana Sterling as a character who just irritated me. With Bowie, also, it was also partly his voice, and partly his voice actor's line delivery. I felt like he inappropriately delivered his lines with a "aww shucks, golly gee, well gollee, I'm just glad to be here" inappropriate naivete that just irritated the hell out of me. I wish I could cite specific episodes/lines to back up what I'm saying, but I wasn't exactly taking notes as I was watching, and I didn't mean this essay to be a serious/fully cited type of work...and I'd consider it a form of mild torture to have to go back and re-watch any of these episodes from The Masters. 🥺

Dana Sterling is just...I don't know what to make of this character, what the writers did with her. I get that she's set up as this brash, rides-against-the-grain, doesn't-like-to-follow-rules, everything-is-a-lark character. But there's usually a redemption arc, where that type of character is thrust into situations that force them to rise to the occasion and assume the responsibilities of their position. Either that, or that character's rebelliousness is essential to subverting outdated ideas/traditions. I didn't see any of that with Dana. She was just this odd combination of defiant but ditzy. Out of the blue, she had a crush on a GMP undercover agent that lasted an episode or so until he died, in response to which, she mildly moped. Then out of the blue, she had a crush on Zor. Slightly embarrassingly, it was the narrator who first injected the notion that Dana was developing feelings for Zor, rather than the episodes themselves allowing this to be organically revealed. What I'm getting at is is that Dana is perpetually a blank canvas, on whom the writers continually foist uncharacteristic behaviors and plot points. There's nothing wrong with the opposites attracting plot, or characters who are initially antagonistic towards each other becoming close - I would argue that those are almost as deeply-held storytelling tropes as the famous "hero's journey". In fact The Macross Saga implemented both these tropes with the Rick/Minmei and Rick/Lisa relationships. But the key difference was that The Macross Saga took the time to let those relationships percolate...it put the characters in situations where they would realistically have to come together, find common ground, and therefore ignite the initial sparks of comity, then love. With The Masters, it seemed more like the writers went, "Oh hey, we need to throw in a romance subplot to keep the same vibe as The Macross Saga, let's make Dana have a crush on this character." Dans's romantic relatioships/crushes felt contrived and unearned. She was an interesting premise with an insufficient payoff.

On a similar note, it was oddly abrupt how it was revealed that Marie Crystal and Sean Phillips were an item. But in fairness, their relationship was used to good effect in a couple of episodes when Marie and Sean had to say potentially-final farewells before they went off to battle. But here, again, I felt this was another interesting premise with an insufficient payoff: Marie and Sean's relationship was not a dominant or recurring plot point, so I felt limited "investment" in them.

Ugh...what can I say about the Captain Komodo/Nova Satori subplot with Dana playing matchmaker? This just felt embarrassing. On the one hand, it could have been very interesting to have promoted a very background character, like Captain Komodo, to a secondary or maybe even main character because of this romantic/matchmaking plot. But ultimately, it was like, this Komodo character was briefly elevated to B-character, for what, like one or two episodes, only to slink back to background character (was he ever seen again?). The whole affair was handled in an irritating, slapstick manner. What the hell was the point of it all???

I was irritated how The Master played fast and loose with the notion of androids and the Zentraedi. Around episode 8/9, Dana and her squad have a discussion where they refer to the Zentraedi along the lines of "not being real/alive/having souls" because they're androids, when it's already been established that they're genetically identical to humans, so they're obviously "real" living things, not androids. I get it, though: it was the 80s, and behind the scenes, kids TV show writers had differing levels of regard for the show's bible and established canon, and their audience's intelligence, and ability to grasp things like continuity and a consistent narrative. So they played fast and loose with terms they possibly didn't themselves properly understand, like "aliens," "clones," and "androids." It was irritating, though, because I don't think the writers revealed this level of casual carelessness or disregard in The Macross Saga.

In Episode 9, "Metal Fire," the Robotech Masters make this completely baffling, out-of-left-field statement that they "have no desire to harm the humans and only want the protoculture," and "why don't the humans understand this?" To me, this was baffling, because it's completely incongruous with all their prior behavior! They've basically sent out their bioroids, guns blazing, at every opportunity. Moreover, in episode 12, they are back to saying that they want to destroy humanity. One of the Masters even says something to the effect "humans are so stupid, the universe wouldn't mind if such a stupid species was eradicated." What on earth made the writers think their audience would accept this back-and-forth attempt at reframing the Robotech Masters' character and motivations?

I can't remember the specifics, but I seem to remember at some point, Bowie went off to play piano to vent his frustrations, and I seem to recall Bowie angrily playing piano coming off as unintentional comedy.

I was unimpressed with The Masters' attempt at making "cool" armor.

Unimpressed

I get what they're going for: it's a play on the valkyrie type of stylized helmet. To me, though, there's a fine line in this dance between form and function, and to me, this just failed. In The Macross Saga, the military uniforms were quite credibly function over form, and because it was the first chapter in Robotech, it set the tone, and the ground rules and the premise for the franchise, so the jump from a world where function took precedence over form, to a world where form took precedence over function is jarring at minimum. I do appreciate that this could all be justified in-universe, because, e.g., during an extended period of peace, it is quite reasonable that a society might transition from function-over-form to form-over-function. But ultimately: these "feathered" helmets just didn't do it for me.

There were a handful of moments/episodes where there were awkward jumps in tone from serious to slapstick. This tonal inconsistency added to my difficulty liking The Masters. I can't remember every incident, but just as one example are those moments when Dana kicks the feet out from under one of her crew's (I think Sean Phillips and Angelo Dante) legs, leading to a "hilarious" anime-esque fall-on-back/butt.

The Masters' transforming veritech hover tanks just didn't quite do it for me. Their fighter jets are also just fine, but in a "meh" way. The "AJAX" transforming assault chopper was marginally more interesting, but ultimately still very "meh." The Masters' mecha simply don't touch the baddassery of the Macross Saga's transforming veritech fighters.

There are cringey moments of unintentional comedy, for example when, I think, Dana is supposed to be expressing sincere heartbreak, but does it with cringey, awkward lines like, "Oh Zor, you two-timing alien," or "Oh Zor, you stupid alien." 🤦‍♂️

Rolf Emerson's "relationship" with Bowie was weird. I suspect that the American dub introduced a relationship (godfather/godson) that might not have existed in the original, so there was insufficient material to portray this relationship onscreen. As a result, there were just weird moments when out of the blue, Bowie gets angry when the rest of his team talks about Emerson...and Emerson stalks his godson, listening to him play piano while sitting outside his dorm. Just weird.

Speaking of weird, what the hell was with that ultra short, poorly-explained subplot of Zor revealing Musica to the GMP? Like Zor stands there smirking when Dana confronts him about it...there's just no credible build-up to this behavior/action from Zor, and there's no payoff explanation for why he does it, either.

The triumvirate relationship is poorly explained. I thought it was implied that the three individuals who constitute a triumvirate are clones. Certainly the "main" three Robotech Masters all look like one another. Musica, and her sisters, and Carno and his brothers, and random guards and citizens, etc. all physically appear to be duplicates of each other (the only difference being hair color and clothing). But then there are other triumvirates where they are obviously not clones: the clones are two dudes and a woman. What exactly is the deal here?

One of these things is not like the others...

I feel like I've been shitting on The Masters quite a lot in this rant of mine.
I'm tired.
I think I need to rest, reset, and calm down a little.
Let me pivot now, to some of the positives.

I do think the writers/artists/etc. were quite successful in portraying the "alienness" of the Robotech Masters' culture. Over the course of the show, we see of the Robotech Masters, this weird, odd, cloning/triplet aspect to their culture/biology. Musica's music also feels nicely "alien" and "otherworldly," while somehow also oddly alluring. It was also quite an interesting conceit that Musica's music was used to regulate the mood of the masses. Overall, I felt that the Robotech Masters' culture was portrayed in a satisfyingly "uncanny" manner. Because they are physically human, as viewers, we naturally latch on to that...but the "alienness" of their cloning/music/culture/etc. puts them right on the border of what can find common ground with.

The alien voice effect of members of the Robotech Master's race is kinda cool.

In all fairness to Dana, whom I've shit on a lot in this essay, there was an episode, maybe somewhere around episode 12/13, where Dana doubles-back in the middle of heated battle to back up or retrieve one of her crew who's been trapped or left behind. Honestly, that went a long way to me warming up to Dana, but unfortunately, the bad writing for Dana's character simply outweighed the good, and I still ended up with a net negative impression of her.

The antagonistic relationship between Commander Leonard and Major General Emerson was the closest I think I could find to being a compelling relationship. Leonard was credibly built up as an antagonist because of his blustery, aggressive, attack-first, and come-back-dead-or-don't-come-back-at-all demeanor. And Leonard was credibly portrayed as conflicted military man: his personal honor and code of conduct forcing his commitment to the military and fidelity to duty, even when he personally disagreed with it.

For the brief, very brief, time that Marie Crystal's and Sean Phillips' romance took center stage, I must admit, I quite enjoyed their flirty, feisty banter.

Close to concluding here, I have to return to negative aspects of the show, because, ultimately, the overall impression that The Masters left on me was negative:

A sign of the poor writing, poor direction, or poor something about The Masters, I was left completely confused about the nature of protoculture and the Invid Flower of Life.

Explanation of protoculture and the Flower of Life goes back and forth between the narrator and in-episode revelation. Between the two, I feel that this crucial aspect of Robotech mythos is repeatedly rewritten, retconned, and self-contradicted. This, ultimately, I think is the most central, most fundamental, most critical failure of The Masters.

Arguably, the main job of The Masters -- the middle act that must credibly connecting the introductory and concluding chapters that we know are taken from unrelated original Japanese anime -- is revealing the relationship between protoculture and the Flower of Life. Protoculture was one of the main plot threads/mysteries from The Macross Saga, and the Flower of Life (per my vague memories) is one of the main plot threads from The New Generation. But what a terrible mess it makes of this important responsibility. Over the course of The Masters, I heard protoculture described as the Masters' power source, as mutating the Flower of Life, as being mutated by the Flower of Life, as being what the Invid were after. I heard the Flower of Life being described as feeding on protoculture, as needing it to grow, as being poisoned/corrupted by it, as being mutated by it, as being what the Invid were after. I could be wrong and just venting out of frustration, but I think there might have even been a line that the protoculture created the Flower of Life. What the actual hell???

So, in the end, my overwhelming feelings from watching The Masters was disappointment and frustration. A lot of promising premises wasted with poor, sloppy, slaptstick execution, and insufficient narrative payoff. Many things were improperly, or contradictorily explained. Characters had inconsistent characterization. The most core, most central McGuffin was poorly explained. Inappropriate/out-of-place slapstick comedy. The romance subplots didn't really stick. Not even the mecha were cool.

Overall, what a disappointment it was. It just didn't "work" for me. How differently I felt about The Masters versus how I felt about The Macross Saga. I was glad when The Masters was over; disappointed at the many underwhelming payoffs to promising plot points, and glad to not have to tolerate so many irritating characters. Whereas with the Macross Saga, I was narratively satisfied when it ended, and emotionally gutted at not spending time with the cast of characters I had grown to love.

To be honest, the experience of watching The Masters has somewhat taken the wind out of my sails, and I'm not sure how enthusiastic I am about watching The New Generation. I probably will, though, and I do seem to remember liking The New Generation significantly more than The Masters, but not quite as much as The Macross Saga, and The New Generation's overall plot hasn't "stuck" with me through the years in the same way that The Macross Saga's plot has.

...And with that, I think I might have finished pouring out my thoughts on The Masters. Thank you to those who tolerated and read another of my little rants! 🙂