Thoughts Renewed Harmony Gold’s Control on Macross

Hi everyone. As I said on Twitter this week, I didn’t originally plan on having a post today. With the combination of the Fourth of July celebrations and having family over the weekend, I just wanted to take this week a little slower and easier. That was until some news came from Anime Expo 2019. Harmony Gold renewed their license with Tatsunoko for rights to continue to hold the Macross franchise and some other series hostage under the label of Robotech. I know that Robotech is important for Anime’s earlier audience, but Macross blew up in popularity after that deal and has many installments. While the original Macross is entirely watchable on Amazon right now, the entire franchise isn’t legally available anywhere and it’s annoying.

So the first thing that people are going to say is that one can just pirate Macross’ various shows and you know what? That’s absolutely true. All my needs and wants involving the Macross franchise could easily be solved in that way. Still, that doesn’t solve the problem of Macross NEVER EVER gaining new fans here. Since no installments, except one, aren’t available legally anywhere else and can’t for about 35 years, then it isn’t even possible for companies to advertise the show and/or put it on it’s streaming service. Because of that, there is an almost zero chance that people will ever find out about this series so they won’t watch it. I doubt this short term Macross advertisement from the angry Macross fans during this announcement will help it to gain much traction either. It’s all just sad and disappointing, so I can’t stop being angry at it. Macross deserves so much more then this cultural death at the hands of one shady company.

The best case scenario would be if Harmony Gold ever thinks about looking into selling bits of the Macross franchise itself in order to gain an audience. That wouldn’t just help Macross gain more of a fan base and allow Macross fans to watch shows they haven’t before, but Harmony Gold would be able to gain a tidy profit off of it as well. Unfortunately, I can’t see that happening anytime soon. In 35 years when the license is up for renewal again, I doubt there will be enough Macross fans to have enough energy to care about who the rights go too. It’s completely possible that there won’t be anymore Macross after this either. It’s just too sad. A series that explores the effects of popular culture on society shouldn’t suffer from an ironic sort of death.

I’m sorry for my mad and thoughtless ravings everyone, but I couldn’t help it. I haven’t watched all the Macross series out there, but I’ve watched enough to fall in love with the franchise, so I can’t let this go. Hope you guys have a good rest of your weekend.