Around the beginning of the 80's, western TV started being exposed to a genre of cartoon we'll call 'mecha'. Most of these shows were Japanese-American hybrids (i.e. Japanese series bought up and re-dubbed, often with little regard to the original story, by US producers.)

I should start by saying that I have never been a fan of this giant robot type stuff. I remember 'Starblazers', and it left me cold. Anyone who lived through the 80's remembers the Transformers craze, and I thought 'Voltron' was absolute rubbish.

So by 1988, when I was working in a video store, I wasn't terribly excited by the range of 'Robotech' videos we had. It looked like more of the same. But I got bored one night and took the first few tapes home.

After the first few episodes I knew this was something different, and after the first few tapes I was hooked.

Ok, what was different? Sure, there were still fighter planes that transformed into giant mecha robots and such things - however these weren't the be-all and end-all of the story. The thing had characters who were actually interesting, who interacted in emotionally engaging ways. Furthermore the show had an SF plot which was a lot more sophisticated than "Form Blazing Sword!". An alien spacecraft crashlands on Earth in the middle of a global war. The various countries come together to study it and rebuild it, unlocking its technological secrets - which is just as well, because ten years later another alien ship comes to invade Earth and recapture the 'battle fortress'. It was a bit whacked-out, but it was quite original and well-told enough to have held its head in the pages of a hard SF magazine in the golden era of the 40's or 50's.

Finally, rather than being a bunch of standalone episodes, 'Robotech' was an 85 episode series (albeit cobbled together from three separate Japanese series). Watching episode 17 by itself wouldn't make any sense. You had to start at the beginning. In this sense it had more in common with something like 'Babylon 5' than the average kid's cartoon of the 80's (and even 'Babylon 5' had standalone episodes).

Of course this type of format was completely normal in Japan, and still is, but at the time it was something new in the west. Essentially, the three parts of Robotech comprise a 'space opera'.

Watching it again 16 years later, with a lot of tiresome anime under the bridge, I'm still impressed by it. Sure the animation is weak, the narrator sounds corny, and you couldn't accuse it of being the most adult entertainment in the world, but the thing still sucks you in. Particularly the central romantic triangle in the 'Macross' season.

In fact the Macross Saga is the only of the three seasons that I got to see, and I understand that the the two later ones aren't as highly regarded by some fans, but on the strength of those first 36 episodes alone, I'm giving this a score which I wouldn't dispense to any other 'mecha' series I can think of.

Don't be put off if you are bored with giant robots. So am I. This one is a lot more rewarding than that. 'Robotech' has a cult following today, and there are gazillion Robotech DVD's and VHS's out there. I can understand why.

Although there had been anime series before 'Robotech', this is really the one that started the genre in its modern form in the west, as well as turning anime into a toy merchandising goldmine. We're still seeing series today which reek of Robotech - yes 'Neon Genesis Evangelion', I mean you!

Did I mention that 'Robotech' is also good, old-fashioned fun?