Comments on: Macross Frontier: Alto-hime is the Best Mecha Pilot Eva!

By: THAT Animeblog - Macross Frontier 12: Front Shifted, Ranka’s coup de main

THAT Animeblog - Macross Frontier 12: Front Shifted, Ranka’s coup de main — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:01:12 +0000

[...] to their confident songstress. My suggestion is to join the fence sitters and broken folks at Ai Ai Alto-hime, that way there is no way you can possibly lose unless Kawamori turns emo for no good reason. There [...]

By: D.J

D.J — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 16:52:46 +0000

I’ve been sick so have been slacking on watching anime recently.

But this post and Hoshi’s over at our place finally convinced me I HAD to make time for it sick or not.

I wasn’t disappointed, I definitely recommend you watch it A Day Without Me. If you don’t watch it for the prettiness of Alto-hime, or the great music, then watch it for the pretty mecha’s!

It kind of makes me want to dig up Hubby-sama’s VF-1 toy (I always have to laugh at it though, because although it was marketed as a Macross toy as Hubby always points out, basically its a re-painted Starscream! ^-^)
But I am liking the new VF-25, I seem to be particularly fond of Michel’s VF-25G Sniper model. ^-^

So I did a marathon of it, I finally finished watching Episode 11 a little while ago. And have to say I can’t believe I haven’t been watching this from the beginning.

Which is funny, because I have always enjoyed Macross.

But I have to agree as a pilot I’m really liking Alto-hime. Yes part of it is that he’s pretty, but the other part as you have pointed out, is that he’s kind of refreshing.

Its nice to have a pretty boy sort of non-emo pilot. I mean sure he has his family trouble, but he doesn’t spend too much time angsting over it.

If you compare him to Shin from Gundam Seed Destiny (Who I wish had been shoved out of the nearest airlock almost every episode)or Shinji from EVA who I can’t watch more than thirty seconds of before I start to get a headache then Alto-hime really isn’t even in the same league of emo. AND I LOVE THAT!

Like you said its nice that his driving force is a little bit different too.

So far I am really enjoying Macross Frontier its very entertaining.

Thank you and Hoshi for blogging it and helping me find this little gem.

By: Grammar

Grammar — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 22:29:05 +0000

You have to work on punctuation and please, please, please stop reiterating the story line. Your article/analysis/random-gittering is very boring. It’s like reading the episodes over again. The voice of a critic/writer is in this “article”–I think this is what it is–but the ideas just aren’t there (or it’s just not voiced properly). Nonetheless a fair effort, you should try to put more substance into the writing aka draw references from sources beyond the episodes themselves such as author/writer history and motive. Also, connect tot he themes associated with the storyline and you should draw some very thought provoking ideas that will leave readers going: wow i defintely didnt see that part of this.

By: codename:v

codename:v — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:00:00 +0000

Shoji Kawamori is only going with the flow as today’s market mainly made up of bishie-loving emo teens who always indulge at homosexual boy/girl love stories and crossdressing attics, but somehow he still able to play the cards well by setting things in a more culturally solid manner like the kabuki theme.

It’s hard to see maturity in today’s anime-manga as most authors and producers tend to go way overboard without concrete ideas and concepts as they screw around with more unnecessary emotional outbreaks and nonsensical philosophy. Like soap operas, dramas sell and viewers are more attracted to the worms spilling out.

I would say that Alto Saotome is pretty much a well balanced character and I can agree with your point of views based on that. But I find that it’s just pretty regular as so far it seems to be replaying the Hikaru-Misa-MinMei love triangle being Frontier is a 25th anniversary work from DYRL and there’s been a lot of similiarities between these 2. Still, it’s been quite a good watch for the past 10 episodes.
Looking forward to the rest.

By: dreamweaver13

dreamweaver13 — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:57:52 +0000

nice article! good points. before reading this, i had a vague idea that alto was not your typical mecha pilot. but this article explained it in a very concise, yet exhaustive way.

and by the way, great pic of alto as sara!! haha. where did you find it?

By: Crusader

Crusader — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:20:55 +0000

@Swampstorm
Alto-hime will find his destiny, he is still young after all…

It’s the journey not the destination that matters most.

@Shin
Alto-hime is the perfect pilot. I hope that Alto-hime will remain famous for generations to come. Thanks for reading. So I guess that is why Alto-hime is so moe…

By: Shin

Shin — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:33:31 +0000

I love you Crusader. My ideals for the perfect pilot has forever been changed.

By: Swampstorm

Swampstorm — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:53:48 +0000

Oh, man. I can’t believe that I missed both those points completely. Nice work.

I feel like I understand his motivation to fight even less, though. I sort of get that he’s trying to take control of his life and find his place in the world, but he would have had that as a civilian pilot as well. The issue has been brought up a couple of times, but the answer seems to be left hanging.

By: Crusader

Crusader — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 04:29:21 +0000

@Swampstorm
I think Ranzo is keeping his distance in public, but still supporting his son. After all he did not seem angry to see his son, rather his first image was of something different altogether…for he too remembers his son as a legendary oyama.

When everyone was about to sortie Alto-hime wanted in on it too, this was before he melted Sheryl’s cold exterior, and before he really got to know Ranka in episode 2. Hence I am pretty sure Alto-hime wanted to fight as well.

@Luke
Alto-hime is a Pilot Princess he deserves some recognition for not being a douche.

It’s only two weeks and hopefully by then the ep will be up to snuff quality wise.

By: Luke

Luke — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:46:19 +0000

Excellent post Crusader, I never really put too much thought on Alto but after reading this I gained more respect for Alto. These two weeks are going to kill me

By: Luke

Luke — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:44:07 +0000

@ A Day Without Me

you should really watch the series, so far its more than I have ever expected and even though I found Alto annoying, he grows on to you. Sherly and Rankas music is amazing and the VF-25 Squadron Commander with full armor is amazing. Only thing that bugs me like no tomorrow is Leon’s mushroom haircut.

By: Swampstorm

Swampstorm — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:27:22 +0000

Was Ranzo paying for Alto’s pilot training? During the Miss Macross competition, Alto saw his father and called out to him, but his father said that he didn’t know him. I had the impression that he’d been disowned. Either way, Alto doesn’t seem to hold a grudge, which speaks well for his character.

When you say that Alto pilots out of a sense of duty, what is his sense of duty towards? I wouldn’t say that it’s duty in the broad sense of ’society’ or the ‘greater good’, but perhaps more specifically to the people immediately around him. Whether it be to jump into a VF to protect Ranka, or to fix Sheryl’s earring in his cockpit as he heads off to defend Galaxy, Alto’s actions usually have a personal slant to them. If he does end up doing something grand like defending ‘all of civilization’ from harm, it’ll probably be the unplanned result of just trying to look after the people closest to him.

By: Crusader

Crusader — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 05:56:42 +0000

@Epi
Perhaps Alto-hime is similar to Max Jenius, but I hope that if it is true then alto-hime will not get nerfed in the next series.

@rev
Ah another confused person, just let me say that you have now caught the gay. Lastly there is NO cure!

By: rev

rev — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 03:12:52 +0000

Again, G-G-G-GAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

hahah whats with the musicals…

By: Epi

Epi — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 02:08:20 +0000

Great post. I agree that Alto is one of the best mecha characters in a very long time. But then again Shoji Kawamori has a long history of making interesting mecha pilots, from Escaflowne to the original Macross. Perhaps the character most similar to Alto was Max Jenius, who like Alto was also the object of desire for women and had long blue hair, and signed up to fight war because it was what he had to do, and he never had any reservations or illusions about his job.