"Memories, memories, sweet, sweet memories...."

Sorry, but I couldn't help singing that song when popped the first disc into my player. Even fifteen years after watching it on TV, ROBOTECH holds a special place in my heart, as it's what made me (and many other fans) look at animation differently. Now, the current generation of anime fans can see, in the modern format of DVDs, what got many of the veterans addicted.

The show starts up in 1999, when an alien ship crashes on Macross Island during a time of global war. Fearing the ship's owners might be coming, humanity unites to learn the alien technologies. Ten years later, on the day of the restored ship's christening, an amateur pilot named Rick Hunter visits his brother Roy Fokker on the island.

During the ceremony, the ship (dubbed the SDF-1) suddenly activates and fires into space, destroying two warships. Signaling an enemy attack, Roy and his squadron scramble to the air. Meanwhile, Rick is dozing in a training fighter when a female voice orders him to take off and join the fight, so he does. Rick is traumatized by the battle, so the woman tells him to pull the plane's "B" lever, which changes the fighter into a humanoid mecha and it lands him safely on the island.

There, Rick meets a Chinese girl named Lynn Minmay and ends up having to rescue her during the attacks. Later, he faces an enemy pod and his mech is disabled. Suddenly the alien pilot gets out of his fighter and reveals himself as a 50-foot humanoid giant. Roy rescues Rick and tells him that's the reason for the transforming plane. Rick blames the "old sourpuss" woman for getting him into this mess.

Soon, Captain Gloval orders the SDF-1 to launch into space, but the enemy is too strong there. So he has the crew descend to Earth, and activate the untested hyperspace system at 2000 feet over Macross Island, in order to re-appear on the dark side of the moon. The system works too well, as they wind up orbiting the planet Pluto. Also, the system accidentally takes Macross Island, the surrounding ocean and a couple sea vessels with it. Gloval is hit with more bad news as the hyperspace engine disappeared during the jump, entitling everyone to a long journey back to Earth.

Rick initially hates combat flying, but Minmay and Roy talk him into joining the military. He does pretty well, and Roy introduces him to a woman named Lisa Hayes. However, both realize they've talked before, as Lisa turns out to be the "old sourpuss" Rick was complaining about. This is not too good for him since Lisa is the SDF-1's second-in-command.

These events lead to some rather interesting happenings in the ROBOTECH story, as over the first twelve episodes Rick is forced to grow up rather quickly. However, this was mostly a joy to watch since the video is pretty good. I didn't find quite as much grain as I thought I'd find given other reports I'd read. The two DVDs look about as good as a VHS from FHE. Actually, they look a little better with slightly sharper colors and lines.

Also, when I heard ADV was doing these discs similarly to the FHE releases, I was afraid these would be DVD versions of the 100-minute, severely edited tapes. Thankfully, each disc has the episodes totally intact, and even contains the commercial bumpers. Every time those came up, I kept wishing for Transformers and Voltron ads.

The audio came in crystal clear, but it leads me to one gripe I had with the discs: the music. As I watched the show, something was bugging me like a nagging memory and I finally figured out it was the amount of background music, which had been increased in each episode. Just to be sure I wasn't imagining things, I whipped out the episodes I taped from TV back in 1986 (cough!... dust) and, sure enough, there were more quiet scenes. I guess the additional music was done to move things on the DVDs along. I personally liked the quiet dialogue moments since they added an element of realism to the general atmosphere, but I guess I can deal with it.

Also, I still enjoy the voice acting and maintain it's one of the best dubs of anime ever done because the performers sound their ages. Instead of 30 year-olds squeaking to sound like teenagers, everyone sounds pretty natural here. (Granted more anime titles were made with adult sounding characters in the 1980s than the 90s, but still you get my point.) The dialogue's still pretty decent, though a little rushed in a couple areas.

After checking out the TV discs, I looked at the extras DVD called Elements of Robotechnology, and started with "Codename Robotech." This is the recap episode "Gloval's Report" extended to a 75-minute movie. Harmony Gold sent it to TV stations in order to give programmers and audiences an idea what the show would be like. Keeping that in mind, the movie itself is okay (though I'm still wondering how Gloval knows about the alien spies at that stage.) However, there were some after-image problems with this DVD, which did not occur on the TV discs.

Codename Robotech also has the optional commentary track by Carl Macek. Although I'm grateful he developed this series, I have to say he's a pretty dull speaker. Listening to the commentary track reminds me of certain college lectures: you know you really want the information being given, but the presenter's voice puts you in a state of hypnosis or unconsciousness. So if you want to check this part out, which is pretty educational, I suggest taking No-Doz.

Other cool items on this disc include a character library, which looks like it was taken straight from the books Robotech Art 1 or Macross Perfect Memory. There's also international clips section where you can watch portions in English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. Both of these options were fun to play with.

Also, I liked the menus on all three DVDs, which had looping clips on the side and vertically aligned links. Pretty straightforward.

In closing, I have to say this has been a very enjoyable experience. If ADV and Harmony Gold had given this series low quality work, I'd have been enormously ticked, even with the much-touted upcoming MACROSS DVDs from AnimEigo. I know newer fans have scoffed at the name ROBOTECH in favor of other MACROSS related projects not assimilated by Harmony Gold. However, I think it should be remembered this series was shown at a time when no other cartoons on U.S. television had any adult elements or continuity, save perhaps STAR BLAZERS several years before. Even without that knowledge, I've found this collection very enjoyable to watch and highly recommend it to any anime fan.