Robotech was my first taste of anime.
All I had known, prior to that, was
G.I. Joe and
Thundercats, where no one died and things like plot progression and character development was virtually nonexistent. Then I accidentally stumbled across Robotech, which pretty much changed how I looked at television, insofar as anything animated.
I actually cared about the characters because they actually had lives outside of endlessly shooting at stuff, and shouting cheesy war cries. Rick had issues with adjusting to life in the RDF, while trying to sort out his issues with Minmei and how her sudden rise to stardom was causing them to drift apart. Lisa struggled between wanting to be seen as a respectable member of the SDF-1's bridge crew, her hidden feelings of inadequacy, and her growing attraction to Rick. Captain Gloval warred between being the pillar of strength for the men and women who served under him, and his own moments of frustration, fear, and uncertainty. And that was just three of the main cast.
In short, the characters felt like real people. They weren't just the heroes you saw looking brave and fearless, who's only existence was fighting the badguys.
Moreover, Robotech presented a war that was
exactly that, and it didn't shy away from showing you the harsher sides of it, and I'm not simply talking about characters dying. It showed you just how much war can effect people, not just the ones fighting it. Seeing families learning about friends and loved ones who had been lost, the near total devastation of the planet Earth, and the way it ofttimes brought out the petty uglier sides of humanity, both among it's the citizens and the military. Yet, it also showed humanity's will to endure and persevere, in the face of adversity; giving the series a feel that was somewhere between a wartime chronicle, and a period piece.
Prior to that series, I had never cried at a character's death, because that sort of thing didn't happen in cartoons, at that time. The good guys always lived to fight another day. Robotech didn't play that. It didn't matter which side they were on, or whether they were military or civilian. It was a war, in war there's bound to be casualties. People died. There were no do-overs, or 'it was just a dream'. And when it happened, it hit you.
To this day, I still remember tearing up when
Roy Fokker died. I mean, the guy was a main character. More importantly, he was
the man, the RDF's very own Red Baron. The decision to kill him off was one of the gutsiest, resulting in one of the most emotional moments in the show.
It went further by showing the badguys really weren't all that bad. They were genetically bred to fight, but not so much that they were without redeeming qualities. Many even came to denounce their old way of life to embrace the ways of the Micronians, their former enemy. Yet, it wasn't all rainbows and sunshine, since old habits die hard, and a fair number of converts grew disenchanted with living in peace and joined Kyron's renegade faction.
And the conclusion,
when Kyron rams his ship into the bridge of the SDF-1, killing Captain Gloval, and the entire bridge crew, along with himself. Leaving Lisa as the lone survivor, since Claudia and the others had forced her into the bridge's lone escape pod., dayum. I doubt anyone saw that coming; much less, in the final episode.
I honestly didn't mean for this post to be this long but, suffice to say,
Robotech really made an impression on me. After that, I was basically sold on anime.