Search - Southern Cross/Genesis Climber Mospeada Double Pack on DVD

Source for 2nd and 3rd Robotech Series

Benjamin James Lomax | Riverside, CA USA | 05/02/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Having watched the American Robotech series as a youth in the very early 80's. I was not aware at that point that these were lifted (with credit given# from three different Japanese animation series. Years later with this remaining my favorite Japanimation I dug into it a little and found this out, but never really cared too much, having been exposed to plenty of anime since that point and not being a devoted fan. I assumed that in the Americanization of Robotech, Carl Macek found the sweet spot for this American kid #among many others#.

As an adult with access to virtually everything through Amazon and E-bay, I tracked down the original series for the first Robotech cartoon, called Super Dimensional Fortress Macross. That version had alternate dialogue, both English and Japanese on the DVD. I was transfixed, finding not only everything I loved about Robotech, but actually preferred the original Japanese series!

That said I could not pick up the other series quickly enough. Conveniently I found these two in a beautiful boxed set Double Pack. The series animation #particularly Super Dimension Fortress Cavalry Southern Cross# is a bit less crisp than Macross and the dialogue tends to be a little heavy on silly teenage rivalries and romance, etc. But the action is not interrupted with narration every two seconds for the ADD fan #as Macek had apparenty understood about American kids even back then#, which I found to be a strong improvement.

There is a very little bit of tame nudity #a bit more in Mospeada# in shower scenes, but nothing to upset any but the remaining Puritans who become morally outraged about such silly things. Notably this box set does not have English dialogue, but the subtitles are comprehensive, even including the music #which is generally more diverse in these than in the American cartoon, but if you don't like Japanese music, you won't like it here either)

In adapting the three series and forcing them together with the adjoining them of protoculture, Macek gave away some of the most interesting and creative aspects of all three series, but particularly the latter two. This makes it well worth your time if you are a fan of the American series.

Neither of these series gets a tremendous amount of praise from hard-core anime fans for the most part, but they stand along even if you haven't seen the American series and they are very enjoyable with solid action sequences and prototypical characters put in interesting situations. All in all these are highly recommended, but particularly if you are a big fan of the American series this will be fascinating for you."