Back from vacations and watched the episode. Overall it was great, except by the forced romance and Mirage. Seriously, why did we stuck with her and lost Messer for? Killing her and keeping Messer alive for a real love triangle with Arad and Kaname would have been more interesting than her jarring attempts to be "cute" or "pitiful" (or rather pathetic, IMO) while possessing little discernable redeemable qualities on her own.
Freyja feels sadness and sorrow when she thinks about war and people's suffering. Her entire motivation to sing is because she was able to cheer up her townspeople when they needed it. Even as a struggling orphan girl, she thought about other people with love in her heart, which led her to stretch her wings to join Walkure and continue to bring smiles.
Let's see her rival. Mirage only displays self-pity and maybe. worries... about what affects Hayate and those she's close to? The more I watch about Mirage, the less I like her or about the forced attempts to make me feel sorry because of her "romantic struggle" which scream a white man's first world trouble if you catch my drift: she's from a huge, famous family, has money if she wants, relatives to turn to and all her issues are because she's either immature or a coward to find her own path unlike Freyja and Hayate, or because her crush doesn't like her back. Poor Mirage! Let's pity her!
Yeah no. I laughed at the ending scene, zero compassion from me. I couldn't care less about her. Such hardship she carries. Pffftt.
Done with the ugly.
The bad is the formerly great friendship between Freyja and Hayate becoming slowly romantic. Well, I prefer them as friends, but I guess the transition wasn't done so awfully, even if I don't necessarily like it. There's also the whole sharing emotions moments which gave me a flashback of certain
Frontier movie scene.
The good is everything else. The plot is starting to move with Hayate getting a potential future dilemma. Mikumo's and all people's appreciation of Freyja (who deserves all that love and support). Arad somehow becoming a more defined character. Likewise Mikumo who I'm more interested to learn more and more (and while, I do ship her with Freyja, I think she's supposed to have a mother-daughter like dynamic unfortunately
). The crack between the Aerial knights is clearer too. I feel bad about Cassim who is trying his best to not throttle the twins and Bogue. Freyja. Hayate. Hayate's gift. It was great, pity it was framed as romance, but kudos to him.
I also found the bumbling attempts to ship Mirage and Hayate by the trio as hilarious too, I guess they can only work as couple if they become OOC comic relief? Because every time they are brought up as a potential couple it's played for laughs with imaginary scenarios that hardly happen (mostly, they talk about other people Hayate cares about, be Messer or Freyja. Heck, Messer would have served as a better main triangle member, male or female, than Mirage). I was thinking Mirage was going to easily win the love triangle, but it's becoming pretty hard when your pairing is mocked while the rival is painted in a serious romantic light. Including in the 'jealousy' scenes. Freyja's concerned about Mirage/Hayate = comic scene because it's not real. Mirage's jealousy over Freyja/Hayate = actually serious and substantial scene takes place. Who knows, though, maybe Hayate will think that "steady and dull" character is the one he'll gun for because that's "mature" over "excitement and inspiration" to difference love vs infatuation. Honestly, I think Macross couples can be understood in this way: they are pair of people who can reach out and understand each other, and sometimes (if not most times), they were people who struggled first to reach an understanding (which mirrors the resolution of war) which could fit on Hayate/Mirage. On the other hand, the potential role Hayate's father played in Windermere during the war may just play against it. Freyja and Hayate might be the next "Milia and Max" just as Mirage foreshadowed episodes ago (and she's the red Walkure and he's the Blue Delta, ace-in-training of their respective groups, and they do actual team work). If Hayate's father indeed bombed the place, them as pair would be showing everyone love forgives the sins of the father and become a strong symbolism of coexistence. Either way, I can't see Mirage ever becoming more important than Freyja in his heart. The best Mirage can hope for is that Freyja chooses not to be with Hayate or that her feelings aren't love, for him to settle down with her (like happened with Misa in SDFM and whatever hope Gamlin had with Mylenne since Basara wasn't interested) at this point.
And here I
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