Short Synopsis: Ranka’s popularity has skyrocketed as she gives a concert at Alto’s school.
Highlights: Back to the love triangle again, animation was a bit off at times.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
In this episode, the plot took a step back (all we saw of it is build-up for the next episode, in which we’ll see whether Leon’s coup will succeed and the mysteries behind Ranka’s fluffy partner will be revealed) and instead this was all about developing the love-triangle between Ranka, Sheryl and Alto. A good love-triangle should be like a good tennis-match, and not with one of the players grabbing the ball and running off with it, and the creators have done an admirable job to keep it a bit ambiguous about who Alto will end up with.
This episode ended with Sheryl in favour, but the question of course remains whether Ranka will give up or not, after having seen the two together. I hope she doesn’t spend the next few episodes angsting over what to do, though. This episode kept hinting at how Alto is the big reason for Ranka to keep singing, and Ranka has never had the courage to take Alto away from Sheryl in front of her.
There were unfortunately a few scenes where the key animation frames and especially the characters looked off again. Like, Ranka’s face was too stretched out, etc. Normally I don’t have a problem with that, but this is Macross Frontier, with its huge animation budget. Most series don’t have an unlimited budget, so it’s only natural for the animation to be rather inconsistent, but Macross Frontier doesn’t have this excuse.
“There were unfortunately a few scenes where the key animation frames and especially the characters looked off again.”
Um yeah they’ve had whole eps look off, pretty sure the budget is spent on music and CG and they out sourced a lot of the animation.
Actually, Sheryl spent the episode deliberately trying to push Alto away due to her illness, in an attempt to protect his feelings. The moment that Ranka interrupted was NOT a romantic confession, but rather Sheryl preparing to tell Alto the truth about her impending death. She had more than likely just collapsed when Ranka walked in on them.
Now that Ranka reacted the way she did, I’m positive that Sheryl will go back to pushing Alto away without explaining why, thinking that by pushing Alto to Ranka she can save him a lot of grief.
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I’m pretty sure too that Sheryl probably collapsed. Alto’s and Sheryl’s arms aren’t around each other, so Ranka’s probably over reacting. I wished that Sheryl told Alto about her condition, but Ranka had to intrude.
I’m wondering if the quality has anything to do with something like the movie Equilibrium, where the quality was pretty low through most of the movie and it seemed like everything was saved for the final epic battle. (quite worth it)
I hope that the quality goes up as the episode count continues.
was that a vajra that was joining the crowd?
I think Alto likes Ranka because why does he needs to feel nervous or surprised if he doesn’t like her and he likes sheryl? There’s a few misunderstanding in this episode. I wonder where Ai-kun went. The graphics of this one doesn’t look too good and by the way I agree with jacobian’s comment^^
Alto has always liked Ranka, he just isn’t aware of it that’s why he doesn’t know how to respond. He comes to her on his own free will (she doesn’t have to be dying too) and Brera ticks him off whenever he protects Ranka in his place. After witnessing the ending scene, I’m happy because Ranka’s going to win Alto. I can say that straight up now. That scene is so cliche if you watch a lot of romance shows.
Not running off with the ball indeed. xD
I wonder if you’re so confident after episode 20 aired Madonna. I don’t know where your confidence comes from, considering Ranka has shown very little growth with Alto compared to Sheryl. Sheryl knows the most about him, she’s interacted with him at his own home, she’s not afraid to stand up to him, and make him treat her as an equal…
In the adult world, Sheryl x Alto is far more realistic and likely. If you’re still in school, and crushing over the HS Quarterback, then I could see how you’d still be pulling for Ranka at this point in the story…