Macross Zero
It is a rare giant robot show that can penetrate the Bethel Anime Club President’s Snob Field, but the Macross OVAs are near-perfect mixtures of action, adventure, and (above all) genuine emotion. In keeping with our theme of the circularity of time, we will kick off the semester with this 5-episode prequel–the most expensive OVA ever produced in Japan.
The Earth has received a unfortunate blessing (or perhaps a fortuitous curse) in the form of an enormous extraterrestrial spacecraft packed with unknown technology, which crashed unguided into the planet in the year 1999. Now it is 2008, and the world is engulfed in a war between the forces of the New United Nations (a worldwide government formed in response to the perceived alien threat) and the anti-UN rebels, who believe that a monolothic government could signal ruin for humanity. Caught in this battle of ideologies is Shin Kudo, a UN pilot who is shot down onto the mysterious Mayan Island. There the peaceful but mistrustful inhabitants introduce him to a new way of life… but might this island paradise hide a secret more terrible than the fight in the skies above?
This OVA is five episodes long.