THE SUPER DIMENSION FORTRESS MACROSS
INSIDE STORY
MACROSS CLASSIC

Victor Entertainment
VICL-801
21 August 1996
Y3000

by Egan Loo

Liner notes: 8-page color booklet with song lyrics and 52-page booklet with complete script.

Total Length: 63:19 (4 tracks)
1. Day After (18:35)
2. Lonely People (14:01)
3. Fighters' Spirit (14:57)
4. My Life (15:46)




Of all the MACROSS drama works, this may prove to be the most bittersweet. For years, MACROSS enthusiasts have clamored for a return to the original Macross and its memorable characters. The music video Flash Back 2012 came close to realizing those hopes, but for a dozen years, most of the original voice ensemble itself has never come together again for such a project. Sadly, this drama will be the last; Hase Arihiro passed away after voicing Ichijyo Hikaru one final time.
MACROSS CLASSIC originally aired on four late summer weekend nights on Macross World, the radio program which began this year with DJs Koyasu Takehito (MACROSS 7's Gamlin) and Nakagawa Akiko (MACROSS 7's Flower Girl). As he himself noted before the drama began, director and creator Kawamori Shouji had never dramatized the two years between episode 27 and 28 of the first television series until now. (Although Tomita Sukehiro's Macross Vol. IV audio drama did rely on and make references to this period.) The fans had to be content with "The Lost Two Years," a short story Kawamori penned for the volumious reference tome MACROSS PERFECT MEMORY.
While not a straight adaptation of this short story, the MACROSS CLASSIC audio drama depicts the same mind-numbing devastation in the wake of Space War I, the gradual comeback Earth made from the apocalypse, and the Human-Zentradi cooperation essential to the healing. All this, though, are mere backdrops to the slowly evolving relationship between Ichijyo Hikaru and Hayase Misa (Doi Mika). Before the episode "My Album," the two had two years to test their bond as Misa oversaw the UN Spacy's reconstruction and Hikaru began patrols of the scarred earth. The story may seem compressed and the pacing clipped, but the results compare well to the last half of Macross Vol. 5 audio drama, the rushed summary compacting the event-filled Space War I into one hour.
With the notable exception of Lynn Minmay (Iijima Mari), almost everyone from Ichijyo Hikaru to Captain (now Supreme Commander) Bruno J. Global (Hazama Michio) and even the Zentradi return for this event. Lest Lynn Minmay not apppear at all in this drama, Minmay vocal numbers bookend the chapters and permeate the background. (Iijima Mari did visit the Macross World radio program a few weeks after MACROSS CLASSIC ended, but she was unavailable to Victor Entertainment for the drama recording.) Fortunately, Kawamori's original short story and this audio drama emphasize the Hikaru-Misa relationship so the loss is regretable, but not total.
Take note of cameos by such characters as Macross Plus's Millard Johnson (Utsumi Kenji) when he served under Ichijyo's command and even Flower Girl (Nakagawa Akiko), even though she is not quite who MACROSS 7 enthusiasts may remember her. In a body of works that spans two decades, these cameos provide an much-needed bridge between the classic and the new.
With numerous manga compilations, audio CDs, and CD-ROMs still coming through the pipeline almost every month, the MACROSS story has hardly attained its final resolution. However, for those who seek one more nostalgic return to the characters who first endeared us to MACROSS, this drama provides a fitting closure to the original MACROSS.