Twelve Moments in Anime 2010 No. 8 -- Remembering Love

Along with being the year of Imagawa, 2010 was also the year of Macross for me — specifically, it was the Summer of Macross, seeing as I blew through the entire Macross canon that season. Of them all, I loved and appreciated the original series the most, but I do have a special place in my heart for Macross: Do You Remember Love?

The story is rather skimpy and doesn’t make sense in certain places unless you have seen the TV series (which gives DYRL something in common with 99 percent of TV anime –> movie adaptations), but as pure, awesome visual spectacle? My god, it is glorious. It is also glorious in giving the audience a Minmay everyone can get behind, which makes the titular sequence all the more affecting.

This scene is crafted to be as melodramatically ironic as possible — Minmay sings a heartfelt, somewhat cheesy love song from long ago to bring opposing sides together (in kicking ass); she pours her heart into this song after gracefully stepping aside when Hikaru and Misa get together. A heartbroken woman singing a simple love song on a galactic scale. Definitely the kind of scene Shoji Kawamori must have had in mind when he conceived of Macross as “a love triangle set against the backdrop of great battles”. Minmay loses her battle and sets out to win a war.

Only Macross could dare to do something as cheesy as this and pull it off. And for that, I love it.

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