China Loves Giant Robots, Too

In Japan, one of the most well-known anime featuring robots of all time is Macross, which featured jets that transformed into robots and a huge alien invasion. (I talked about it somewhere...)



It was dubbed (by the infamous Carl Macek) and merged with several other series into a series called Robotech, which Americans may be more familiar with.



Entertainment in China is heavily modelled after that of Japan; Japan is something of an entertainment juggernaut, and its works are imitated to some degree in pretty much every country in the world. China's proximity means it imitates Japan pretty heavily.

Thus, "Astro Plan," which is frequently known as "Chinese Macross."



I showed this to my sister a few days ago, and she remarked casually "So the main difference (between this and Macross) is that these have magical girl attacks?"

I sat there for a second, thinking about it, and because I'm used to her off-the-wall comments, I shrugged and said "Well, you certainly could put it that way."

The other significant difference is that Macross never featured lightsabers/beam sabers... (Close-quarters combat was relatively minimal in Macross. The only incident that occurs to me was an image of a Zentradi being slapped by a police mech in an animated GIF on the Robotech home page somewhere...)

-Signing off.