Robotech, with its huge, sprawling storylines and its complex production history, remains one of the most important animes in the west, one of the first Japanese animated television shows to be broadcast nationally across the USA, igniting a new fandom that would pave the way for the explosion in name releases at the end of the 1980s. Composed of three entirely separate Japanese shows, it’s success in the States led to innumerable spin-offs that continue to this very day and it achieved the seemingly impossible – it managed to keep much of the original drama while twisting the series into a new shape for an eager young audience who had never seen anything quite like it before.

In 1984, Harmony Gold snapped up the rights to Chôjikû Yôsai Macross/Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982-1983), originally intending to screen it in a straight translation. But they but they hit an early snag – American broadcasters were demanding 64 episodes, and Macross consisted of just 36. So they decided to buy two more anime shows, Kikô sôseiki Mospeada/Genesis Climber Mospeada (1983-1984) and Chôjikû kidan Sazan Kurosu/Super Dimensional Cavalry: Southern Cross (1984), which were all entirely unrelated to each other, planning to simply release them as a package that could be shown back to back. But the company had recently employed producer Carl Macek (either one of the great figures in anime in or one of its most despised, thanks to his cannibalisation of Hayao Miyazaki’s Kaze no tani no Naushika/Nausicaa in the Valley of the Wind (1984) for release as Warriors of the Wind) and he had a better idea. He suggested that Harmony Gold should use the animation from the three shows but combine them into a new, over-arching storyline.

With a team of up to nine other writers, Macek worked flat out to hammer the three series into a single continuity. The title for the new show came from world famous plastic model kit makers Revell – they had signed a deal with Harmony Gold to license a series of models based on the hardware in Macross and Southern Cross, a line they were marketing as Robotech Defenders. Harmony Gold persuaded Revell to become official sponsors of the new show and they in turn insisted that it be titled Robotech. To get Revell on the hook and test the waters, Macek created a dub of the first four episodes of Macross and released them on videotape available through the famous comic book Heavy Metal. Harmony Gold also took episode 14 of Macross, Gloval’s Report, a flashback episode recapping the previous action, re-edited it, added some additional footage and offered it to prospective broadcasters as a pilot film, Codename: Robotech (1984).

Trying to reduce the vast storyline, that plays out over 85 half hour episodes, is no easy task. Super Dimension Fortress Macross makes up Robotech‘s first season, beginning with the discovery om the Pacific island of Macross of a huge crashed alien spaceship which Mankind manages to repair, rename the SDF-1 and send into space only to run into what we initially believe to be its original owners, the Zentraedi who will stop at nothing to retrieve the vessel as it’s the last known source of “protoculture”, a rare energy source. Using technology salvaged from the ship, an army of young pilots have been equipped with robotic fighting suits and are the front line in what becomes known as the First Robotech War. Series two is culled from Genesis Climber Mospeada and is set a generation later and marks the arrival of the Robotech Masters, another alien race who were the real designers of the Macross that sparks the Second Robotech War, attracting the attention of yet another species (try to keep up at the back there…), the Invid. In the final season, taken from Super Dimensional Cavalry: Southern Cross, the Invid invade the Earth and the only hope are the descendants of the original Robotech heroes who left the planet in search of the Robotech Masters, and whose descendants are now returning for the final showdown.

It’s complicated stuff, such that the show unexpectedly attracted older children rather than the younger audience it was originally prepared for, an audience that were less interested in the range of toys prepared to go alongside the original broadcasts which may have contributed led to the cancellation of the proposed sequel, Robotech II: The Sentinels (all that remains is a film version of the only three episodes made). But the original series was a huge hit. Today, the anime looks crude and simplistic, but the non-stop action, the ever-evolving storyline and the sheer scale of the series proved irresistible and Harmony Gold were only too keen to capitalise on its success with a huge array of books, records, comics and other merchandising, though the show itself wasn’t about that – it was a rare beast at the time in that the merchandising came later, after the show had found its audience Its largely youthful heroes appealed to kids across the States, and the more complex storylines, characters that were more interesting than usual for this sort of thing, and the eye-watering space battles ensured a wider appeal among younger teenagers too.

However, things soon started to get a little confusing for those trying to trace the complex Robotech lineage. As the first Robotech episodes went to air, the Japanese were preparing an English language translation of the Macross spin-off movie, Chôjikû yôsai Macross: Ai oboeteimasuka/Macross: Do You Remember Love? (1984) which had proved a massive box office draw at home. Shortly afterwards, the entirely unrelated Megazone 23 (1985) was released as an original video animation (OVA) series. 1987 was the crucial year in the continuing development of the Robotech legend. The release of Chôjikû yôsai makurosu furasshubakku 2012/Macross Flashback: 2012 gave Japanese viewers the chance to catch up on what had happened to the characters from Super Dimension Fortress Macross as well as reliving some of their finest moments.

Back in the States, Macek and co were approached by Cannon Films who wanted to release a theatrical spin-off from the increasingly popular show. Expected to work to a ludicrously tight deadline, Macek raided Megazone 23 for footage, removed all its sex and violence and drastically re-edited the remaining footage. Canon weren’t happy with the results and insisted that Macek use additional footage from Southern Cross to up the mecha quotient. Macek was unhappy about the decision as Megazone 23 had been shot on 35mm and Southern Cross on 16mm and the footage didn’t match at all. He was even less happy when he found that Canon hated the ending of the film and paid for an additional 12 minutes of newly shot footage to be pasted onto the end. The result, Robotech: The Movie, has since been disowned by Macek and was a disaster in its four-week preview run in Texas.

But that couldn’t take the shine of the success of Robotech and it remains a firm fan favourite even now. The feature film Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles revived the franchise in 2007 after several previous attempts had either faltered before they got going or had been abandoned during production. Robotech: Love Live Alive (2013) remade the OVA Genesis Climber Mospeada: Love Live Alive (1985), again twisting it to fit the ongoing storyline) and a live action remake has been in the works since 2007. Which seems pointless as Robotech was one of a kind and remaking it would be almost a dictionary definition of trying to catch lightning in a bottle. The original series arrived at a time when few western viewers had seen anything like the involved and spectacular Japanese animated series – now we’re used to them and it would take something very special indeed to be able to repeat its success in a market saturated with expensive, CGI enhanced action film franchises.

The crudity of the original series’ animation may be a deal-breaker for some but get past the limited movements and melodramatic dubbing and there’s a lot to enjoy here for fans of epic space opera and Japanese fighting robots alike. Its place in the history of anime in the west is certainly assured – without it, the market may not have existed for that title wave of animated films and TV series from Japan that arrived only a few years later. It remains a classic of its kind.