Macross Plus: The Movie

This is the theatrical recut of Macross Plus, the OVA series released in four parts between 1994 and 1995, with roughly twenty minutes of new animation added and a different final scene. It is set in 2040, thirty years after the original Macross, on the colony of Eden, where a program to select the next generation variable fighter pits the reckless Isamu against Guld, a Zentradi human hybrid, rivals who are also childhood friends. Their third childhood friend, Myung, has returned as the producer of Sharon Apple, an artificial intelligence hologram singer. When Sharon develops a malign consciousness and seizes control of military systems, the pilots have to set their feud aside. The film's real significance is its crew: director Shinichiro Watanabe, writer Keiko Nobumoto and composer Yoko Kanno worked together here for the first time and would make Cowboy Bebop three years later, with Watanabe and Kanno meeting on this very project. Kanno's first anime score, it was recorded with the Israel Philharmonic in Tel Aviv, with one piece taped with the Czech Philharmonic in Prague. Sharon Apple, an AI virtual idol, was designed thirteen years before real world virtual idols arrived. Who it's for: Anyone drawn to 1990s anime aesthetics, Yoko Kanno's music, and the origin of the Cowboy Bebop team. Who it's not for: Not for those who have seen the OVA, since the film reuses most of the same footage and has been criticized for its pacing.