Let's Watch Southern Cross! Part 1
Well, I've taken several vacation days between Christmas and the New Year so I can just sit at home and do nothing. The other night I decided to watch all of Mazinkaiser, because I figured, "Eh, it's just seven episodes, so I could finish this tonight." Then I got to thinking... I have all of these shows lying around that I went through the trouble of buying but never watched. I could finish a 26-episode show in a day if I decided not to do anything else.
So here we go. Watching all of Southern Cross, also known as the second season of Robotech. Reaction timeline after the break.
1:04: Aaah, that glorious 80's animation, but the opening theme takes awhile to get going. It starts out as some sorrowful ballad and eventually picks up, but the scenes of robot carnage and fleet action in the background seem less appropriate for the music than later shots of the main character flying across the screen in an evening gown. Well, the show takes place on a colony planet called Gloire, which sounds French. So an evening gown sounds about right...
1:08: Said main character is Jeanne, a troublemaking tomboy/girly girl hybrid who starts the show in a detention cell after causing some mischief. Her main concerns, though, are getting a shower and some makeup, which doesn't please Lt. Alan in the least, since she doesn't appear to show any remorse for her actions. But she ends up getting away with a week of parole, while squadmate Charles enters the cell in her place. He's apparently guilty of messing around with a superior officer's woman. Alan, like the rest of us, can't figure out what the hell is wrong with Squad 15.
1:17: And once she gets out, Jeanne decides to take the squad on a training exercise which amounts to little more than a joyride through the city out to a remote base. There, she meets up with Lt. Marie, the "Cosmo Amazon," who is a tough-as-nails officer who takes things far more seriously than Jeanne... but it seems like they have something of a friendly rivalry. The two squadrons get into a fight which hurriedly breaks up when the military police arrive. Jeanne speeds off -- and at this point, Squad 15 more resembles a biker gang than a military unit -- while Marie wishes her luck on their next encounter.
1:26: Someone is picking off communications satellites in orbit. Could it be the people who destroyed Aluce Base? The ship descends onto Gloire but the army is given orders to attempt contacting them instead of attacking. They're not to fire the first shot, but will the field officers follow through? Turns out, the answer is no.
1:32: Lt. Alan's right hand, Lt. Lana, finds Jeanne sleeping in an alley and hauls her in for punishment. But when the alien attack begins, Jeanne runs off and steals a bike so she can return to her team. So far, initial missile attacks have proven ineffective, and Jeanne mobilizes Squad 15 to fight the enemy mobile units.
1:38: Jeanne's squad arrives just as the enemy is nearly finished wiping out the garrison, and a short mech battle begins. Jeanne's team is riding these huge hoverbike things which transform into -- for lack of a better term -- Gerwalk and Battroid modes. Squad 15 is able to hold off the enemy even though their ace appears. Of course, he's flying a red mech and is extremely fast. After the enemy retreats, Lana informs Jeanne that Charles, the former leader of Squad 15, has been let out of detention but has also been demoted to private... leaving Jeanne officially in charge.
1:40: The episode ends with some Jeanne fanservice... and more alien carriers approach Gloire! So apparently pausing the video to blog it adds overhead. This is sad. I need to type faster.
1:46: It's determined that the aliens are from Zor, and with communications with the homeworld cut off, the Southern Cross Army is on its own. The next operation is to attack the original Zor carrier to try and gather intelligence, bearing in mind that the fleet orbiting the planet could wipe them out if they wanted to. Jeanne, of course, is reading a fashion magazine throughout the meeting, hiding it in her planning documents. Marie has a good laugh afterwards once she finds out, saying Jeanne will never get to 2nd Lt. that way.
1:54: The base launches fighters which begin the attack, but it goes more or less the way the fights did in Independence Day. The fighters are too small to cause any real damage to the massive ship, and they take more of a beating once AA fire starts. Eventually, the carrier deploys a single ship, and the fighters break off to pursue it. The mission is capture. But all of the fighters are eventually shot down, and the ship is able to deploy its mechs -- including the red one!
2:00: Marie's squadron gets a crack at them as the Zor approach the space center, but once again, they're outmatched. The enemy mechs tear it apart, although Marie at least manages a single kill -- the only one recorded so far in the battle. From the outskirts of the city, Jeanne decides to charge in and help rather than stick with her original orders to protect the city. Only Andrejz, a by-the-book junior officer who has foiled Jeanne so far, refuses to go. But when Lana rides up in a hoverbike threatening the entire squad with jail time for disobeying orders, Andrejz decides it would be more prudent to join the battle.
2:06: Jeanne arrives just in time to save Marie from the red one, and Squad 15 again turns the tide of the battle. Perhaps her squad's unorthodox behavior can explain their near-perfect teamwork so far. They're able to cover for each other easily and the combination attacks help Jeanne land a few hits on the red one. It remains in the fight, but once Jeanne attacks the dropship hovering overhead, the Zor retreat.
2:10: Jeanne's report is delivered to headquarters, making them believe that the Zor -- furthering the Independence Day analogy -- operate in a rigid command structure, and severing the head throws the units below into disarray. For her efforts, Jeanne is awarded a promotion to 2nd Lt., which surprises everyone. At the promotion ceremony, she rides up in her mech and transforms into Battroid mode... inflating a set of pink bunny ears on the unit's head. What the hell, Jeanne. What. The. Hell.
2:22: And after a short break, we're back. The next mission is to try and get a communique out to the homeworld, Liberte -- they're SO French, you guys -- by flying into space and past the Zor net of ships. It reminds me of the episode of Mobile Suit Gundam where Amuro had to do the same thing with his Core Fighter. Marie volunteers for the mission, and not to lose ground, Jeanne follows suit. She hand picks Andrejz and Bowie for the mission. I will resist calling Bowie this team's token black guy, because so far he's been an effective soldier and brave to boot. Andrejz isn't thrilled with the mission, exasperated that Jeanne claims that she just wants to ride in a spaceship. Jeanne, meanwhile, has some shopping to do -- a new issue of her magazine is out.
2:31: The operation is off to a poor start. Jeanne is late getting back, so they miss their launch window and have to navigate manually once they take off. To make matters worse, the escort ship malfunctions and crashes into the Zor cruiser which has stayed at a constant 10,000 kilometers above the surface, killing the crew and its intrepid commander Borg. As it turned out, resistance WAS futile. Jeanne is visibly shaken by the suddenness of the disaster.
2:37: The ship comes under attack, and Jeanne's side takes heavy fire. She's still shell-shocked and unable to fight back, so Marie is forced to literally slap some sense into her. The attackers eventually surround the shuttle and give it a beating, but they back off once they approach the main fleet stationed at 36,000 kilometers. Now it's a beam cannon run, and Marie figures that it would be safer to skim the surface of one of the massive Zor ships to avoid taking fire. It resumes once they get past the ship, as enemy mechs -- dubbed bioriods -- resume their attack.
2:43: Marie heads out in her mech to defend the shuttle as Bowie brings up the communications antenna, and for awhile, she lays waste to the enemy bioroids. But then the red one comes out and damages her mech, forcing her to land on the shuttle and serve as an additional turret. Seeing the red bioroid snaps Jeanne out of her funk, and in a rage, she heads out to fight it while Bowie sends the emergency broadcast.
2:47: Liberte responds and promises reinforcements, so Marie decides not to stay any longer than they have to. The ship pulls away from the battlezone at full speed and somehow manages to survive atmospheric re-entry despite entering steeply, nose first, with several holes shot through their hull.
2:51: All right, episode four! At last, the Zor are revealed! On a routine patrol, Jeanne and Bowie discover that the Zor have established a landing site on Gloire. They spy the red bioroid and its cockpit hatch opens, revealing... a human-looking guy who bears a resemblance to ZZ Gundam's Mashymer Cello. The two are surprised to see that the enemy looks just like them, and it's enough to get them spotted. Red Leader -- as I'll now call him until we get a name -- begins pursuit as Jeanne and Bowie scramble away on their hoverbikes.
2:55: Jeanne recklessly attempts to fight off her pursuers with a rifle. Needless to say, that fails. Her hoverbike is destroyed and she is assumed to be dead, while the Zor capture Bowie and take him back to their camp alive.
2:57: Jeanne pressures the base commander to attack as part of a rescue operation, revealing that he is Bowie's father. But the commander balks, stating that the first priority is to learn about the Zor, and issuing the order would put many other sons in danger. And he takes a shot at Jeanne, asking what kind of commander leaves a man behind to return alone. Burn.
2:59: And she counters by ordering a special nighttime training mission for all of Squad 15, a thinly veiled measure to rescue Bowie on her own without waiting for orders from above. For one, Andrejz is keen to break protocol and head out. They prepare to attack the next morning after lying in wait.
3:10: Jeanne and Squad 15 enter a battle with the enemy garrison, with Andrejz and the rest creating a diversion so Jeanne can enter the base and find Bowie. She encounters Red Leader, but after shooting away his gun, she takes the advantage. Although he initially gains an edge in hand-to-hand combat, she eventually takes down his unit with a headshot, which appears to be the location of the cockpit. Bowie is freed and he runs for cover... just as Red Leader rises back up to finish the fight with Jeanne!
3:15: Lana arrives with the main force, which had been dispatched that morning on a recon mission. But before they can clean up the remaining Zor, their reinforcements arrive, as well. A massive ship drops down and deploys landers to cover the garrison's retreat, and then they fire a massive beam cannon into the ground... but refrain from annihilating the army. Maybe they're also playing it safe and trying to gather intelligence on the humans...
3:22: Squad 15 is on patrol in the city, meaning of course that they're off doing random stuff. Andrejz is the only one taking it seriously, while Charles goes off to hit on women and Jeanne decides to try on some dresses. She brings Bowie with her, and the poor lad is embarrassed when he wanders too close to the lingerie section. Marie enters the store and tries on the same dress that Jeanne discarded, leading to a little banter between them, and eventually Lana enters the store and chases them both out... so she can have her turn with the dress.
3:28: A Zor squadron attacked a base and apparently took two dozen men hostage, so the Supreme Commander of the Southern Cross Army demands that they come up with some strategy to bring down the Zor carrier which has now descended to 5,000 kilos above the surface. Their strategy was to throw a crapton of fighters and shuttles at it so they could all be shot down. Brilliant. The attack is aborted and they still don't know what the Zor are after. My guess is that they're either capturing humans to learn about them or to use as hosts/mind slaves, a la the Protodeviln in Macross 7.
3:32: An investigation of a downed Zor bioroid reveals organic components in the design, and from that, researchers are able to extrapolate DNA which matches humans. So they conclude that the Zor are actually biohumans. Perhaps they can now account for 300 missing persons from an incident which occurred before episode 1...
3:37: Louis, Squad 15's resident technical expert, comes up with a theory that the Zor carrier hovering over Gloire, does not have any explicit propulsion system because it operates by balance. If they can disrupt that, they can bring it down. Jeanne convinces Bowie to ask his father, General Rolf, to approve the operation despite their earlier failure.
3:44: And here we have Southern Cross' version of the trench run. Squad 15 disembarks on the surface of the Zor carrier and look for the power core. They're met by a mess of bioroids, but they're able to hold them off until Jeanne finds the rather large thermal exhaust port. She fires a single round into the pit and the resulting explosion sends the ship crashing to the surface. Success entitles Jeanne to an advanced payday, meaning she can buy the dress she had her eye on earlier... just moments before Marie and Lana show up to get it. But as Jeanne rides off triumphant, part of her dress gets caught on a fire hydrant and it rips as she accelerates away, giving Marie and Lana the last laugh after all.
So here we go. Watching all of Southern Cross, also known as the second season of Robotech. Reaction timeline after the break.
1:04: Aaah, that glorious 80's animation, but the opening theme takes awhile to get going. It starts out as some sorrowful ballad and eventually picks up, but the scenes of robot carnage and fleet action in the background seem less appropriate for the music than later shots of the main character flying across the screen in an evening gown. Well, the show takes place on a colony planet called Gloire, which sounds French. So an evening gown sounds about right...
1:08: Said main character is Jeanne, a troublemaking tomboy/girly girl hybrid who starts the show in a detention cell after causing some mischief. Her main concerns, though, are getting a shower and some makeup, which doesn't please Lt. Alan in the least, since she doesn't appear to show any remorse for her actions. But she ends up getting away with a week of parole, while squadmate Charles enters the cell in her place. He's apparently guilty of messing around with a superior officer's woman. Alan, like the rest of us, can't figure out what the hell is wrong with Squad 15.
1:17: And once she gets out, Jeanne decides to take the squad on a training exercise which amounts to little more than a joyride through the city out to a remote base. There, she meets up with Lt. Marie, the "Cosmo Amazon," who is a tough-as-nails officer who takes things far more seriously than Jeanne... but it seems like they have something of a friendly rivalry. The two squadrons get into a fight which hurriedly breaks up when the military police arrive. Jeanne speeds off -- and at this point, Squad 15 more resembles a biker gang than a military unit -- while Marie wishes her luck on their next encounter.
1:26: Someone is picking off communications satellites in orbit. Could it be the people who destroyed Aluce Base? The ship descends onto Gloire but the army is given orders to attempt contacting them instead of attacking. They're not to fire the first shot, but will the field officers follow through? Turns out, the answer is no.
1:32: Lt. Alan's right hand, Lt. Lana, finds Jeanne sleeping in an alley and hauls her in for punishment. But when the alien attack begins, Jeanne runs off and steals a bike so she can return to her team. So far, initial missile attacks have proven ineffective, and Jeanne mobilizes Squad 15 to fight the enemy mobile units.
1:38: Jeanne's squad arrives just as the enemy is nearly finished wiping out the garrison, and a short mech battle begins. Jeanne's team is riding these huge hoverbike things which transform into -- for lack of a better term -- Gerwalk and Battroid modes. Squad 15 is able to hold off the enemy even though their ace appears. Of course, he's flying a red mech and is extremely fast. After the enemy retreats, Lana informs Jeanne that Charles, the former leader of Squad 15, has been let out of detention but has also been demoted to private... leaving Jeanne officially in charge.
1:40: The episode ends with some Jeanne fanservice... and more alien carriers approach Gloire! So apparently pausing the video to blog it adds overhead. This is sad. I need to type faster.
1:46: It's determined that the aliens are from Zor, and with communications with the homeworld cut off, the Southern Cross Army is on its own. The next operation is to attack the original Zor carrier to try and gather intelligence, bearing in mind that the fleet orbiting the planet could wipe them out if they wanted to. Jeanne, of course, is reading a fashion magazine throughout the meeting, hiding it in her planning documents. Marie has a good laugh afterwards once she finds out, saying Jeanne will never get to 2nd Lt. that way.
1:54: The base launches fighters which begin the attack, but it goes more or less the way the fights did in Independence Day. The fighters are too small to cause any real damage to the massive ship, and they take more of a beating once AA fire starts. Eventually, the carrier deploys a single ship, and the fighters break off to pursue it. The mission is capture. But all of the fighters are eventually shot down, and the ship is able to deploy its mechs -- including the red one!
2:00: Marie's squadron gets a crack at them as the Zor approach the space center, but once again, they're outmatched. The enemy mechs tear it apart, although Marie at least manages a single kill -- the only one recorded so far in the battle. From the outskirts of the city, Jeanne decides to charge in and help rather than stick with her original orders to protect the city. Only Andrejz, a by-the-book junior officer who has foiled Jeanne so far, refuses to go. But when Lana rides up in a hoverbike threatening the entire squad with jail time for disobeying orders, Andrejz decides it would be more prudent to join the battle.
2:06: Jeanne arrives just in time to save Marie from the red one, and Squad 15 again turns the tide of the battle. Perhaps her squad's unorthodox behavior can explain their near-perfect teamwork so far. They're able to cover for each other easily and the combination attacks help Jeanne land a few hits on the red one. It remains in the fight, but once Jeanne attacks the dropship hovering overhead, the Zor retreat.
2:10: Jeanne's report is delivered to headquarters, making them believe that the Zor -- furthering the Independence Day analogy -- operate in a rigid command structure, and severing the head throws the units below into disarray. For her efforts, Jeanne is awarded a promotion to 2nd Lt., which surprises everyone. At the promotion ceremony, she rides up in her mech and transforms into Battroid mode... inflating a set of pink bunny ears on the unit's head. What the hell, Jeanne. What. The. Hell.
2:22: And after a short break, we're back. The next mission is to try and get a communique out to the homeworld, Liberte -- they're SO French, you guys -- by flying into space and past the Zor net of ships. It reminds me of the episode of Mobile Suit Gundam where Amuro had to do the same thing with his Core Fighter. Marie volunteers for the mission, and not to lose ground, Jeanne follows suit. She hand picks Andrejz and Bowie for the mission. I will resist calling Bowie this team's token black guy, because so far he's been an effective soldier and brave to boot. Andrejz isn't thrilled with the mission, exasperated that Jeanne claims that she just wants to ride in a spaceship. Jeanne, meanwhile, has some shopping to do -- a new issue of her magazine is out.
2:31: The operation is off to a poor start. Jeanne is late getting back, so they miss their launch window and have to navigate manually once they take off. To make matters worse, the escort ship malfunctions and crashes into the Zor cruiser which has stayed at a constant 10,000 kilometers above the surface, killing the crew and its intrepid commander Borg. As it turned out, resistance WAS futile. Jeanne is visibly shaken by the suddenness of the disaster.
2:37: The ship comes under attack, and Jeanne's side takes heavy fire. She's still shell-shocked and unable to fight back, so Marie is forced to literally slap some sense into her. The attackers eventually surround the shuttle and give it a beating, but they back off once they approach the main fleet stationed at 36,000 kilometers. Now it's a beam cannon run, and Marie figures that it would be safer to skim the surface of one of the massive Zor ships to avoid taking fire. It resumes once they get past the ship, as enemy mechs -- dubbed bioriods -- resume their attack.
2:43: Marie heads out in her mech to defend the shuttle as Bowie brings up the communications antenna, and for awhile, she lays waste to the enemy bioroids. But then the red one comes out and damages her mech, forcing her to land on the shuttle and serve as an additional turret. Seeing the red bioroid snaps Jeanne out of her funk, and in a rage, she heads out to fight it while Bowie sends the emergency broadcast.
2:47: Liberte responds and promises reinforcements, so Marie decides not to stay any longer than they have to. The ship pulls away from the battlezone at full speed and somehow manages to survive atmospheric re-entry despite entering steeply, nose first, with several holes shot through their hull.
2:51: All right, episode four! At last, the Zor are revealed! On a routine patrol, Jeanne and Bowie discover that the Zor have established a landing site on Gloire. They spy the red bioroid and its cockpit hatch opens, revealing... a human-looking guy who bears a resemblance to ZZ Gundam's Mashymer Cello. The two are surprised to see that the enemy looks just like them, and it's enough to get them spotted. Red Leader -- as I'll now call him until we get a name -- begins pursuit as Jeanne and Bowie scramble away on their hoverbikes.
2:55: Jeanne recklessly attempts to fight off her pursuers with a rifle. Needless to say, that fails. Her hoverbike is destroyed and she is assumed to be dead, while the Zor capture Bowie and take him back to their camp alive.
2:57: Jeanne pressures the base commander to attack as part of a rescue operation, revealing that he is Bowie's father. But the commander balks, stating that the first priority is to learn about the Zor, and issuing the order would put many other sons in danger. And he takes a shot at Jeanne, asking what kind of commander leaves a man behind to return alone. Burn.
2:59: And she counters by ordering a special nighttime training mission for all of Squad 15, a thinly veiled measure to rescue Bowie on her own without waiting for orders from above. For one, Andrejz is keen to break protocol and head out. They prepare to attack the next morning after lying in wait.
3:10: Jeanne and Squad 15 enter a battle with the enemy garrison, with Andrejz and the rest creating a diversion so Jeanne can enter the base and find Bowie. She encounters Red Leader, but after shooting away his gun, she takes the advantage. Although he initially gains an edge in hand-to-hand combat, she eventually takes down his unit with a headshot, which appears to be the location of the cockpit. Bowie is freed and he runs for cover... just as Red Leader rises back up to finish the fight with Jeanne!
3:15: Lana arrives with the main force, which had been dispatched that morning on a recon mission. But before they can clean up the remaining Zor, their reinforcements arrive, as well. A massive ship drops down and deploys landers to cover the garrison's retreat, and then they fire a massive beam cannon into the ground... but refrain from annihilating the army. Maybe they're also playing it safe and trying to gather intelligence on the humans...
3:22: Squad 15 is on patrol in the city, meaning of course that they're off doing random stuff. Andrejz is the only one taking it seriously, while Charles goes off to hit on women and Jeanne decides to try on some dresses. She brings Bowie with her, and the poor lad is embarrassed when he wanders too close to the lingerie section. Marie enters the store and tries on the same dress that Jeanne discarded, leading to a little banter between them, and eventually Lana enters the store and chases them both out... so she can have her turn with the dress.
3:28: A Zor squadron attacked a base and apparently took two dozen men hostage, so the Supreme Commander of the Southern Cross Army demands that they come up with some strategy to bring down the Zor carrier which has now descended to 5,000 kilos above the surface. Their strategy was to throw a crapton of fighters and shuttles at it so they could all be shot down. Brilliant. The attack is aborted and they still don't know what the Zor are after. My guess is that they're either capturing humans to learn about them or to use as hosts/mind slaves, a la the Protodeviln in Macross 7.
3:32: An investigation of a downed Zor bioroid reveals organic components in the design, and from that, researchers are able to extrapolate DNA which matches humans. So they conclude that the Zor are actually biohumans. Perhaps they can now account for 300 missing persons from an incident which occurred before episode 1...
3:37: Louis, Squad 15's resident technical expert, comes up with a theory that the Zor carrier hovering over Gloire, does not have any explicit propulsion system because it operates by balance. If they can disrupt that, they can bring it down. Jeanne convinces Bowie to ask his father, General Rolf, to approve the operation despite their earlier failure.
3:44: And here we have Southern Cross' version of the trench run. Squad 15 disembarks on the surface of the Zor carrier and look for the power core. They're met by a mess of bioroids, but they're able to hold them off until Jeanne finds the rather large thermal exhaust port. She fires a single round into the pit and the resulting explosion sends the ship crashing to the surface. Success entitles Jeanne to an advanced payday, meaning she can buy the dress she had her eye on earlier... just moments before Marie and Lana show up to get it. But as Jeanne rides off triumphant, part of her dress gets caught on a fire hydrant and it rips as she accelerates away, giving Marie and Lana the last laugh after all.