Man, Macross as a franchise just keeps making me do this: it's classic and did a lot for the industry but the truth is that the majority of its constituent series have been kinda meh. I want to like Macross 7 for a number of reasons, and it's OKAY, it's just not GOOD.
Macross 7 is a mid-90s sequel to the early-80s original series that maintains a number of aspects of the original series: a definite sense of space opera rather than science fiction, transforming mecha, a love (sort of) triangle among the central characters, music being used as a weapon in self-defense and the singers doubting the purity of the military's intentions. Macross 7 changes the formula in a number of places, though, our love triangle has a girl as the central point, and she ultimately comes across as our main character, the story very much revolves around her growth and growing up (She begins the series at 14, which you need to constantly remind yourself of, since she's not in school, drives a sports car, plays in a popular rock band and her two romantic options are both clearly in their late teens or early twenties). Also, the series turns up the 'magic' quotient considerably, with the villains draining human life force and weaponized music being able to turn into energy beams.
Very underaged heroine and ridiculous laser rock music are forgivable, though, but what I couldn't stand was the male protagonist, the front man of the rock band our heroine plays in. Here, I have to admit that my prized reviewer neutrality breaks down, because he slides into Mary Sue territory for me: people almost universally like him and those that don't tolerate him despite him being moody, self-centered and self-righteous. He never suffers any serious setbacks, is never given cause to doubt himself or his choices, and is essentially an invincible, unstoppable ace pilot rock star in a super-mecha who is so awesome he doesn't even need to fight to win. As the series progresses he becomes slightly more tolerable, but not due to changes in him, mostly due to his superpowers becoming recognized and useful, therefore justifying his attitude better. Through 49 episodes and 8 bonus episodes, Basara receives absolutely no character development.
I like most of the rest of the cast, and while the story (humans fight demonic life-force eating god-aliens with giant robots and the power of rock) isn't as interesting as the original series' (humans fight giant battlesuit-wearing aliens with giant robots, love and pretty girls), it holds together well enough and maintains a 90s JRock-ish charm. I can't honestly call it BAD, but when one of (if not THE) main character consistently aggravates you, it's difficult to recommend a series.
If you're curious about Macross and like early 90s JPop and transforming robots and have an extreme amount of patience for lack of character development, Macross will give you quite a few scenes to make you smile and plenty of characters to love. If you're looking for anime that gets to its point quickly, has an intelligent, deeper meaning, or if you just want a series that comes close to comparing to Macross Plus, Macross 7 will leave you frustrated, bored and possibly hating the whole franchise.
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