Though I like Sheryl much much more than Ranka, I think the midget’s gonna get the guy (no offense, as I’m short as well). I mean, remember the scene on the roof, with Klan and Alto discussing about Ranka?

**hint, hint*

Most animes have the cuter girl go with the main guy. It’s almost stereotypical. Hopefully, the movie will be different, though I’m not holding my breath. :<

And btw – anyone else think the ‘sudden Sheryl revival’ lame? I personally would have preferred Sheryl dying and causing a mourning scene. Instead, she’s saved by la Galactic Cinderella~ Psh. They could have done so much better.

But episode 25 was awesome. Lots of explosions and music overload—oh, yes.

And apparently, I either lacked credits or the epicness totally passed over my head and prevented me from looking at them, because I had no idea that beautiful rendition of AIMO was by Maaya Sakamoto. I will love it forever. (But that makes about five versions of AIMO, now? Talk about exploitation.)

and the ending credit featuring the macross movie ad clearly shows a sketch of ONLY Sheryl and an ambiguous Alto sketch/figure in the middle

On a more serious note…

Macross Attack – It actually makes sense given the setting’s basic rules. Using the Quarter’s “arm” to punch a hole in the enemy ship means that you get to shoot up all of the unarmored internal bits as opposed to needing to blow your way through the ship’s armor. Keeping the destroids (the humanoid non-transformable mecha) inside means that you don’t risk damaging them with incoming fire or while punching the hole in the enemy ship. And we saw waaaaaaaaaay back in episode 7 that all of the “anti-mecha” emplacements on Quarter are destroids as opposed to turreted fixtures. On the one hand it’s probably more expensive to set up with than a set of turrets (since turrets don’t have legs). On the other hand, you’ve a little more flexibility moving them around (don’t need to keep them in the arm, for instance, if you’re not going to perform a Macross Attack) and repairing them consists of walking them to the hanger instead of sending out guys in space suits. So there are trade offs.

The triangle – imo, the statement of the two girls at the end means nothing. Ranka was gone during episodes 22 and 23, and so has no idea what happened. Sheryl’s been denying to herself that Alto actually was interested in her (having convinced herself that he’s only being nice in episodes 22 and 23 because he feels sorry for the dying woman) and refused to let him say anything in episode 24. Logically, the triangle is over at this point. The only question is which female Alto actually prefers. If he was “being nice” in episodes 22 and 23, then Alto prefers Ranka but she’s not around then. If Alto was not just being nice, then he prefers Sheryl. You’ll note that Alto himself doesn’t get a chance to contribute to their conversation.

For myself, I’m inclined to believe that Alto’s decision was made clear back at the end of Ranka’s concert moments before the Vajra attacked. When Alto didn’t run after Ranka, that for me pretty much said everything that needed to be said.

Bilrer – neat seeing the picture of Minmei hidden underneath the stone on his ring. imo a lot more could have been done with this character, and he’s probably the most underdeveloped character in the series.

On a side note… as I write this, an advertisement for Robotech: Shadow Chronicles is visible at the top of my screen.

:P