Coming to DVD; Robotech the Complete Original Series

In case you were either dead, not born, or too young during the 80’s (when the original Robotech TV series was aired in the US) or were not around or a fan during the mega release of the Harmony Gold Robotech anthology (Macross Saga, Robotech Masters, and Generation) Robotech will begin its DVD re-release October 18th.

I will admit I am not an expert at Robotech. I defer that honor to our mighty shogun, Xopher. But I am no novice. I have the ENTIRE Harmony Gold release from the early 00’s, sitting on a shelf in my basement. It encompases some 85 episodes across nearly 20 disks, all neatly boxed up in their respective cases. I watched the show originally during the 80’s, and was glad to make the investment 10 years ago in the DVDs.

With a new release, Harmony Gold is again releasing these largely unrelated series in mid-October. I say unrelated, because the series is actually 3 different and unrelated mecha series, tied in to look like one contiguous series. Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada. The series were re-dubbed so that they could all revolve around a core concept “protoculture”.

Overall, the series is pretty good. The original Macross portion is excellent. Southern Cross itself is also a good series, although the Mospeada portion I really didn’t get into. But still, with a pre-sale price at amazon of $61.99 for the entire series, that’s a marked reduction from the $200 or so that I spend, not 10 years ago. Am I upset? Not at all. Well, unless the new release has the original Japanese dialog. Then I might be a little upset.

If you are new to Robotech and Macross (Japanese common name for the series) then perhaps try “Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do you Remember Love?” which was a theatrical abridgment of the entire first 35 episodes, compressed into 2.

by James Helsby

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