Super Dimensional Fortress Macross and Good Luck Yukikaze are two offerings in the diverse and well-trodden region of speculative fiction in which humanity tries to come to terms with, and survive, an alien invasion. Although they have not directly influenced one another as far as I know, they do share a similar level of care and attention devoted to showing how the events affect individuals.

Macross is renowned for being a character-driven romance rather than a political space opera; for all the loving detail lavished on the hardware and military tactics Yukikaze still has plenty of time for humans and their relationships (even when the relationships are with machines!). The war is of course for the whole of humanity, but often for the combatants very personal issues are what matter.

Looking at the archives of my old blog, I described the approach of the Macross: Do You Remember Love? retelling as “innocent clumsiness”, which I think applies to the original TV show too: many of the tropes, character archetypes and plot devices that we take for granted now are still present there but in a more primitive form. A case in point is the slapstick and lighthearted way in which the Zentradi first encounter human culture, in the form of intercepted signals and a bunch of ill-prepared spies who infiltrate the Macross itself. Although they are mostly serving as comic relief, it’s not a bad way to highlight how strange our culture is from an outside perspective.

The first taste of Earth that extraterrestrial life will encounter is likely to be that of radio and TV signals; we can only speculate how their own civilisation might be set up but in terms popular media, fashion, human relationships and the like, what sort of conclusions would aliens, who have no grasp of such things, draw? At some points in Macross the misunderstandings are hilarious but at the same time this outsiders’ view casts our world in a refreshing, new light.

The JAM of the Yukikaze universe is/are even stranger than the Zentradi: in the first two Yukikaze novels the alien threat is very nebulous indeed. This even reaches the point at which it is suggested that the JAM are either hallucinations amongst the Faerie military or a fabrication to fuel someone’s own agenda; they are so alien that humanity has trouble believing they exist at all.

What really fascinates me about these two works is this: the JAM and, to a lesser extent because they are relatively easier to understand, the Zentradi are the antagonists of the story but also form a means by which the characters learn more about each other and indeed themselves.

Macross frequently highlights how the events of the Zentradi invasion have changed the characters’ lives forever. It’s possible that Minmay would’ve ended up as a professional entertainer but it’s far more likely that she would inherit the family’s restaurant or live some other normal life; confining her talent in the closed world of the exiled Macross, her true talents are plain for all to see and her career takes a different turn. Ichijyo is initially a civilian pilot with no direction in life either until he decides that the military is the best option for him.

In Good Luck, Yukikaze it’s frequently reiterated that the character of Rei Fukai has changed a lot since the opening chapter of the first novel. One of the major moments for that takes place during his leave on Earth, which gives him a sense of perspective that he never had before; I haven’t a clue what sort of life he had before his service fighting the JAM, but I suspect it would not have been a particularly fruitful one judging by the scant background info that Kanbayashi provides.

In his current situation, an A.I. is perhaps the only sentient being that Fukai feels comfortable with. There’s Major Booker of course but it’s fairly clear that Fukai is far more at home interacting with his plane than fellow humans, even those who are supposed to be friends and coworkers.

The JAM themselves are so shrouded in mystery that the characters question whether even waging war with them is the appropriate course of action. This does however mean that the results of the contact between two (or three, if you count the human computers!) sentient forms of life throw up many profound personal questions.

Macross tackles the alien threat with conventional tactics and intentions, the only concession to the alien-ness of the situation being the adoption of over-technology to enhance the Earth’s military force. The tale of Yukikaze on the other hand is set at a strange interface between Earth and something totally unknown and unrecognisable -  since it’s difficult to discern how to approach the JAM, humanity creates numerous high-performance computers and brings in very strange examples of human beings who would not work together (or function at all) under normal circumstances. Foss’s theory is that this unique environment has given rise to a new human/machine symbiosis to survive in this environment, in the form of Yukikaze’s A.I. and the airframe’s human pilot.

The idea that a human could love and trust an A.I. on a deep emotional level and place his life in its hands might sound preposterous (Foss says as much when she suggests it) but in the context of the story it’s actually quite believable. It’s something new and would never have come to pass had the JAM not invaded, A.I.s fitted to fighter jets and had one lonely misanthrope not taken the pilot’s seat of one of them.

Good Luck Yukikaze is more concerned with the military and psychological angles than cultural ones; Macross works on a broader canvas with human and Zentradi civilisations blending together as a result of their contact. Although the aliens’ advances are supposedly contained in terms of geographic conquest, there is a lot of change amongst both the humans and the aliens; there are a lot of lines and boundaries that get blurred, and ‘invasion’ as a concept encompasses more than just fighting an opposing military force for survival.

The alien invasion in Macross is that of the more tradition variety, highlighting to its characters the importance of those closest to them, and what are worth fighting and risking their lives for. There’s plenty of room within that premise for heroism, drama, angst and so much else but Good Luck Yukikaze is more experimental and, perhaps, a more introspective and world-weary take on the idea.

Fukai, Booker, Cooley, Foss and the others involved with the fight against the JAM are facing such an enigmatic adversary that they have to first stop to think why they’re fighting at all. There’s also less of a clear division between them and the enemy since the humans’ side is so reliant on A.I.s whose thought processes and even motives(!) are unknown. Wrestling with human conflicts and political red tape is par for the course even in the world of Macross, but the nature of the JAM further stretches the definition of war.

Ultimately the two stories are conveying slightly different messages: heroism and understanding can save the day and bring out the best and worst in us as humans in Macross. In Good Luck, Yukikaze it takes an enigmatic threat to push some very unusual people who lack humanity into defining what they’re fighting for – and against – before they can save the rest of us. It’s a distinction between remembering love and discovering who you are, but both are great.

Further reading

I’ve never done this before, but I’ve seen some other bloggers do this and I really appreciated it.

China Mieville’s Embassytown is an inventive and thought-provoking examination of how humans might interact with an alien civilisation, albeit in a more peaceful setting. It makes a lot of nods to classics of SF but also goes into the subtleties of language and culture.

Childhood’s End by Arthur C Clarke is an essential piece of classical alien visitation SF and one I feel I ought to include.

Lord of the Sands of Time and All You Need Is Kill (I wrote about the latter a while back) are both concerned with personal relationships amidst alien invasions and both are available through Viz in the same way the the Yukikaze novels are.

Finally, the whole alien invasion theme is absolutely enormous and covers the full gamut from genre-defining to deathly dull, so I’d love to hear your recommendations!