Macross 30th Anniversary Emergency Live Broadcast!

A Macross 30th Anniversary Emergency Live Broadcast was aired on Niconico Live from 21:00~22:50 on Sept. 13.
Guests included: Megumi Nakajima (Ranka, Macross Frontier), Shion Tsuchiya (Ash Anderson, MUSICALTURE), Kanae Yoshii (Sakura Crawford, MUSICALTURE), Sayaka Kanda (Charlotte Marion=Glass, MUSICALTURE), and Chiaki Kyan (MC).

The bulk of the show was split between three segments – Musicalture, Macross FB7 and a Macross Trivia Quiz.

The Musicalture segment consisted mostly of the actors talking about themselves, their history with Macross and their roles in the upcoming musical (Shion is apparently a die hard Macross 7 fan and even played Fire Bomber songs in a high school band. Sayaka, believe it or not, is a major Sheryl freak). The director of the musical was also interviewed (while standing off-camera).

The FB7 segment unfortunately did not reveal any new footage of the upcoming theatrical release, however the trailer release was announced – the first trailer for Macross FB7 will debut on September 22 on both the movies official website and other venues around Japan.

A prerecorded message from Aya Endo (in full Sheryl mode) was also played, along with a 30second clip from a new upcoming Fire Bomber song (Basara/Mylene duet). The song will be featured in the trailer on Sept. 22).

The trivia quiz had the cast test their knowledge and compare it to viewers who were also answering (multiple choice) as they watched. Shion did fairly well but..well…. a lot of these newbloods obviously needed to brush up on their knowledge a bit. Questions included the year the Macross crashed on earth, the name of the ensuing war, the name of the island in Macross Zero, etc, etc.

The broadcast finished up with information about the upcoming Tokyo Dome theme park event and a prize draw where viewers could win autographed posters and pillows.

Overall it was a fun show, and Megumi even did a few Ranka lines, much to everyone’s delight (her interactions with Sayaka in particular were hilarious to watch since, while Megumi was Sayaka’s senior when it came to Macross, in reality Sayaka is older and Megumi actually bought one of her albums when she was still in school. This REALLY messed with the typical Japanese social dynamics of – who should be deferring to whom). Apart from a few FB7 tidbits though, it was mostly a promotional piece for the MUSICALTURE – there wasn’t anything particularly ‘Emergency’ about it.