Macross 7 Trash (1995)

[マクロス7 トラッシュ]

Volume 1

Author/Artist: Haruhiko Mikimoto
Publisher: Kadokawa Comics A

Synopsis:
A pilot leaves the military to coach the airblade sport Tornado Crush with her eye on developing the potential of a star player.

Story/Characters:
If you were expecting a story closely connected to the events of Macross 7, you're going to be disappointed. The setting's the same, but aside from a few brief cameos, there's not much connection of any significance. It's hard not to look at the initial setup without thinking of the payoff in the end, but I'm going to try to focus only on what this volume has to offer. We introduce our love triangle that's meant to evoke the original Macross with Shiba for Hikaru, Maharu for Misa and Enika for Minmei. We also get our rival and a shadowy conspiracy operating in the background. There's enough here to pique your interest and get you wanting to know more.

I will say that I'm not a fan of Shiba given how immature and abrasive he is. It might be one thing if this was the starting point for a character arc where he matures (much like what Hikaru did), but, spoiler alert, he's not going to change that much. Enika is fairly bland, but I do like Maharu well enough. She actually seems to be the protagonist at first, but once Shiba is introduced, she becomes more of the deuteragonist and we also get the start of Enika being set up as the less interesting tritagonist.

If there wasn't the conspiracy in the background, the whole Tornado Crush thing wouldn't be all that interesting. (As I'm not a sports person, it's not all that interesting anyway.) It might be one thing if there was some development to the concept and play with the team dynamics, but we're not going to get any of that. In fact, the game is presented as a sort of futuristic roller derby here, but they're going to be abandoning it later, so it feels like even more of a waste.

Art:
While I'm not bowled over by the story or characters, I can at least praise the art. I really like Mikimoto's work, especially with character art. There's good dynamism to the action scenes, too, so you're not going to feel short-changed by the visuals by any stretch.

Other:
We get character sketches with notes for Shiba and Maharu.

Conclusion:
Looking at this volume by itself, it's a decent start to the story that gets enough plates spinning to have your interest, though it's not nearly as compelling as any of the main Macross stories. I'd say give it a read and if you like it, you might want to keep going.

Rating:
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