Macross Frontier (2008)

[マクロスF (フロンティア)]

Volume 1

Author/Artist: Hayato Aoki
Publisher: Kadokawa Comics A

Synopsis:
A pilot candidate and an aspiring singer cross paths amid an attack by an unknown alien menace.

Story/Characters:
I'm a fairly big fan of Macross Frontier, so when I saw the manga adaptation in a secondhand bookstore, I was quick to pick it up. Macross the First is solid as an adaptation and even though I had a lot of complaints about Macross 7 Trash, the visuals were a treat if nothing else. What can I say about this? It hits the major story beats, but botches the handling of the supporting cast rather hard. While I suppose focusing on the core trio of Alto, Sheryl and Ranka isn't a bad choice if you're dealing with space limitations (and this series is only five volumes), the richness of the cast is one of the series' strong points. Honestly, even with all the material available, the plot and the characters aren't translated that well to the page. It does a passable job, but that's well short of the bar set by the source material.

Art:
Just by looking at the cover, your expectations get deflated. As near as I can tell, this is the first series headlined by Hayato Aoki. I'm surprised Kadokawa would give a rookie a project like this. The mech artwork is solid and the combat scenes are decent, but the character art is generally sub-par. Of course, the character art is the most important part in my opinion, so falling short there really hurts the overall impression. Perhaps we'll see the art improve as the series progresses. Everyone has to start somewhere, after all.

Other:
We get some color pages in the beginning (with a two-page spread that's far superior to the cover) and a bonus comic for manga-original character Eriela, who complains about her lack of screentime along with the bridge bunnies of the Macross Quarter.

Conclusion:
Compared to the source material, this adaptation falls well below the mark. If you didn't compare it to the TV series, it'd just be a fairly mediocre story. I can't really recommend it, but it doesn't do anything so dramatically bad that I feel the need to tell people to stay away. Watch the TV series. As for this, take it or leave it.

Rating:
50/50