Concerts in the Macross universe are, naturally, out of this world! Nothing in real life comes close!
Using a combination of giant displays, holograms, robotics, and her own person, Sheryl Nome puts on one of her exciting, slightly risqué pop/rock concerts for the populace of the Macross Frontier colony ship. Even the main stage is projected at full scale in multiple locations in the amphitheater so everyone in the wrap-around audience has a great view!
Symphogear GX is dang good. As the show's third season, it balances a larger cast of six heroines against a new world-ending threat.
It features a dangerous cast of enemies, a rollercoaster of a plot filled despair and awe in equal measure, and a surprisingly hard hitting message of providing forgiveness to those very much in the wrong.
Add in the series' normal bevy of action sequences, mid combat songs, and absurdly cute moments, and the season really hold up well!
Nina Iseri makes a shocked face as reflected in the blank, black screen of her cellphone after its battery has run dry.
While fighting to save her family from a deadly betrayal, Mobile Suit test pilot Elnora Samaya watches in horror as her young daughter Ericht becomes the only person to successfully form a stable GUND-Format Permet link with a prototype Gundam.
This link allows Ericht to instinctively command the Gundam's numerous offensive and defensive systems all without suffering the painful, debilitating nerve damage that lead humanity to outlaw such direct control.
Nana Diaba (read Japanese style Diaba Nana, aka Dia Banana, "Big Banana") has a great year at Seisho Music Academy, and has the most wonderful time putting on the musical stageplay "Starlight".
When her second year rolls around she is chosen by the Giraffe (the spirit embodiment of stageplay audiences) to compete in a magical winner take all competition where she could steal the her friend's talent.
Highly talented but possessing a kind soul, Banana initially refuses.
With knowledge from the future, Diva, an artificially intelligent theme park songstress, was able to pull off the rescue of an important assemblyman and make a daring escape saving both her and her time traveling companion Matsumoto, currently occupying a stuffed bear, from armed terrorists and a collapsing building.
Finally, after much squabbling between them, they agree to formally work together to both save humanity and make sure Diva will have people to sing to.
Karen Aijo, rambunctious as she is, is also kinda a simple girl. When she fulfills her dream of acting alongside her best friend Hikari Kagura in the musical stageplay "Starlight" she realizes that she never planned what to do afterward.
All her life, Karen worked and studied and practiced for that one short moment on stage. But it takes Hikari to really clue her in to her future among new stages and new plays.
Here, Karen starts again at Position Zero.
Every once in a while an #anime puts forth a frame so perfect I just have to capture it and add it to my #RandomAnime desktop background collection.
May I Ask For One Final Thing did so twice with its latest episode!
I love #RevueStarlight so much!
Yes, you have to be receptive to its odd mix of acting school and magical, metaphorical, musical theater stage battles... but if you are, the #anime and the followup movie are something very special.
The cinematography on display in the movie is routinely breathtaking! Take this first fight where Nana Daiba (Banana) is trying to beat it into her fellow actresses heads that one good or bad performance or production is not an end but a beginning!
For Tsubasa Kazanari, going back on stage means more than she can express after the tragedy that proved to be the last concert of her partner Kanade Amou.
FLIGHT FEATHERS, the new song Tsubasa sings as a now solo act, is one of remembrance and miracles in tribute to Kanade's heroic sacrifice.
This concert, interspaced with Tsubasa's new rookie partner Hibiki battling nearby monsters so Tsubasa could have her moment of restoration, is one of my favorites!
In Vivy -Flourite Eye's Song-, the advancement of humanoid AI doesn't always go well for humanity or the AIs they create. The show follows the first fully independent AI, a songstress named Diva, as she uses knowledge brought to her from the future to alter multiple key events that lead to an apocalyptic AI uprising.
One such event revolves around a shy, struggling AI android singer named Ophelia whose timid, insecure nature hides a much darker tragedy.
Tuesday Simmons and Carole Stanley sneak into the stunning Mars Immigration Memorial Hall to play their first co-written song together.
"The Loneliest Girl" is a sad, slow number dominated by Carole's piano with the accompanying strums and squeak of Tuesday's guitar creating a solid, organic foundation for the two's heartfelt emotional lyrics.
The pair's longing ache for connection is what brought them together in the first place and it's what drives their debut song.
Kaoru Hoshino in her full musical theater stage outfit.
Although Kaoru's mother and grandmother were both popular Kouka Revue actresses, Kaoru herself struggled to get into the incredibly restrictive Kouka School of Musical and Theatrical Arts. It took her all three of her allowed attempts.
Kaoru was one of my favorite characters in Kageki Shojo!! because of the way her story defied expectations. Many thought she was being forced into acting when that wasn't the case!
Sheryl Nome and Alto Saotome sit and talk near one of the ponds at the Saotome family home.
The push and pull between these two doesn't get enough recognition. Sheryl's strength and insecurities along with her progressing illness are matched by Alto's steadfast "with you till the end" nature and the way he is one of the few people that treats her as an actual person, often butting heads with her, rather than treating her as glamorous perfect pop idol most see her as.
After seemingly sitting on the sidelines for quite some time, Banana (real name: Nana Diaba) enters the competition atop the magical Stage of Fate to defend her ranking as a Top Star.
Where the other stage girls at Seisho Academy have their entrances accentuated by brilliant spotlights, Nana's enters with discordant music and focused laser light.
"Because even if it is taken, it's not the end! Even if I lose it, my Shine won't disappear! Every time I stand on stage, no matter how many times, I burst into flames and am Remade anew.
I AM REMADE!!"
One of the core themes of Revue Starlight is that a stage actress may lose an audition or miss out on a role, but with passion and hard work, they can try again to claim their place in the spotlight.
When the world burned her helpful, peace-loving father at the stake hundreds of years ago for using science to cure a local sickness, young Carol Malus Dienheim resolved to see the world burn in return.
With the advanced power of Alchemy, she sets in motion a plan that will not only dissect our world into its component pieces, but also one that will ultimately erase and burn away her own memories of that fateful day her father was taken from her.
Pictured here is the sprawling NiaLand theme park where Diva, the world's first fully autonomous artificial intelligence in an android body, grapples with her mission to "sing from the heart" and make everyone happy with her songs.
Behind NiaLand, dominating the skyline, is the still under construction but already functional Arayashiki tower that serves as a wireless communication hub and online backup storage for AIs across the world.
What's more powerful, a state-of-the-art, 472 meter long Macross-class transforming attack carrier that combines overwhelming firepower, impressive mobility, and squadrons of humanity's latest fighter aircraft, or a couple of J-Pop songstress standing on a ruins of a music venue stage?
In the 68 year continuity of #Macross? The songstresses, by far!
Here, Sheryl Nome and Ranka Lee stand before the Macross Quarter where their voices, not its firepower, will win the day!
A beautiful sunset lights some mountains, some clouds, a body of water, and a fateful Train to the End of the World.
