Art of Super Dimension Fortress Macross
/Super Dimension Fortress Macross is an animation series produced by Studio Nue, Tatsunoko and Artland. It was directed by Noboru Ishiguro in 1982. Macross is a science fiction series that combines transformable mecha, apocalyptic battles, wartime romance, and music. It features mechanical designs by Kazutaka Miyatake and Shoji Kawamori (both of Studio Nue) and character designs by Haruhiko Mikimoto of Artland. Macross also created one of the first anime idols Lynn Minmay, turning her voice actress Mari Iijima into an instant celebrity, and launching her musical career. The series title uses the name of the main spacecraft. The original name for the Macross project was Battle City Megaload (or Battle City Megaroad). However, the director of Big West, one of the later sponsors of the project, was a fan of Shakespeare and wanted the series and the spacecraft to be named Macbeth. A compromise was made with the title Macross due to its similar pronunciation to Macbeth in Japanese and because it still contained connotations to the original title. Most of its animation (with edited content and revised dialogue) was adapted in the US for the first saga of Robotech. The pictures on this page are a collection of artworks created for this series.
THE STORY
In 1999, a city-sized alien spacecraft crashes in South Ataria Island on Earth. Over the course of 10 years the military organization U.N. Spacy reverse-engineers its technology and rebuilds the spacecraft, naming it the SDF-1 Macross. In 2009 at the launch ceremony of the Macross, a young civilian pilot, Hikaru Ichijyo, comes to visit the Macross upon U.N. Spacy pilot Roy Focker's request. During the launch ceremony, a space war fleet from an alien race of humanoid giants arrives into the solar system and identifies the Macross as a former battleship used by their enemies, the Supervision Army. As the aliens, known as the Zentradi, approach the Macross, the original systems override the crew's commands and fire its main cannon, wiping out the advance alien scouts and starting a war. While Hikaru takes the new VF-1 Valkyrie on a test flight the aliens retaliate. He then encounters Lynn Minmay and rescues her from the aliens. The Macross crew attempts to use the experimental "Fold System" (Faster-than-light drives) to escape to the Moon's orbit, but instead it accidentally takes the Macross and South Ataria Island to the edge of the solar system…
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