Name(s): Super Dimension Fortress Macross Flash Back 2012 / Choujikuu Yousai Macross – Flash Back 2012 / 超時空要塞マクロス FLASH BACK 2012.
Format: Original video animation [OVA] (1 episode).
Studio(s): Tatsunoko Production.
Related: Super Dimensional Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? (1984).

SPOILERS—DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE ORIGINAL MACROSS SERIES OR MOVIE.

Super Dimension Fortress Macross Flash Back 2012

Fuck me. It happened. I teared up. It was at the exact moment I knew it would happen, when the song “Do You Remember Love?” climaxed this special. This is a half-hour music video of Minmay’s songs accompanying footage of the series and movie, alongside some original animation.

Minmay is performing her final concert to commemorate the departure of Misa Hayase’s ship, the Megaroad-01. This is as glorious a recap special could be, a bittersweet reminiscing over the lost romances and partings of Macross. I love the music, and it runs through the emotional gambit of the show, albeit not entirely.

The imagery focuses a little too much on the romance at points and misses some other emotional beats, but for the most part, the accompanying video is perfectly in sync with the songs. There’s occasionally strange editing choices, like a grunt’s face being blasted off during a love song because a taken scene went on too long. Also, some spoken audio can be a bit out of place, but they’re rarities in what’s overall a great execution of its concept. As a huge Macross fan, I feel like I could’ve mixed it all to be even better, but oh well. The absence of “My Boyfriend Is a Pilot” is also bizarre.

Macross Flash Back 2012: The Last Goodbye

“An Angel’s Paints” opens and closes the OVA as Minmay waves a fond farewell to Hikaru and Misa, the song expressing how she can face her sullen heartbreak with the colors of her music. She’s finally free, and now that she can say goodbye to everything that happened aboard the Macross, so can we. The seemingly-destined love between Hikaru and Minmay grew inverse of each other, just passing each other by, and at last, they’re both out of sight.