I half agree with you. Delta was, for all its faults, pretty good. Probably one of the better Macross soundtracks as well, IMO.
G Reco though, we must agree to disagree.
The reactions I see for Macross Delta overseas is hilarious with how much they hate it, versus how it's received and how popular it was in Asia. I found them throwing away the love triangle for a very cute and grounded romance and relationship nice because you didn't have the same amount of dwelling on the annoying angst and love triangle garbage. If you've been in a relationship before, you appreciate the kind of relationship Hayate and Freyja have a lot more with how endearing it is, versus the dynamic you had with Alto/Ranka/Sheryl. The highs in Macross Delta was also very high, and it sadly suffered from pacing issues and production as well. Something that Thomas Romain could probably explain better as he worked on it, if he chooses to do so in the future.
Reconguista better than Orphans...? Damn, what did you like about Reconguista?
UC has always been the most popular kind of Gundam, it's all their biggest demographic ever buys and consumes. And for good reason because that's what they like most.
The only comparable universe that is alternative is the SEED universe, which is the second biggest universe in the franchise and is still running and serialized in ACE for more than a decade. Nothing else compares in sales and popularity to UC.
Bandai has tried with 00, AGE, Wing, and even Orphans, the new and current demographic just want UC and SEED. It's hard creating and committing to a new series long term, without the explosive initial popularity. They get expanded and serialized for a while, nothing much after that. In many cases, their universe expansion just doesn't pan out and suck, 00 is the worst with that with the 00P/I/etc novels.
I'm not going to throw any coworkers or superiors under the bus, but like some of Tomino's other past works like with F91, Reconguista had a very troubled production period throughout the broadcast where the sponsors and producers impose strict limitations on Tomino and Reconguista, cutting out and condensing a large chunk of the story to fit the scheduling, and cut a lot of key frames for animation to maintain budget.
Even with the release of the Blu-Rays, Tomino and the production staff weren't able to get and finish all the original cuts and frames to meet the Blu-Ray release deadlines. Even with clean ups the Blu-Ray still wasn't able to realize Reconguista for how it should have been.
I don't blame any of Reconguista's faults on Tomino at all as he and the team was fighting against limitations the entire time. Tomino's vision of the world of Reconguista is actually very layered and nuanced, meant to target a current audience, but also draw in UC fans with a lot of easter eggs. A lot of the world works as a criticism for the issues that we face in modern society today with renewable energy distribution, space exploration and the viability of a space elevator, discrimination and suppression of human rights groups, the list goes on with Reconguista.
For all the issues it had, Tomino and the staff did the best they could and provided a very deep and layered universe, beautiful animation, some of the best Ippei Gyoubu robot design, a good outline of socioeconomic conflict, and I actually had fun with the characters and cared about them. You had tribalism, racism, economic conflict with photon batteries, a protagonist that really struggles to come to terms with his first murder and how it affects him and his battles throughout the rest of the series. He faced the same issues with trying to sell people on F91. I love F91 and the universe that Tomino tries to tell with it and it's expanded material in Formula Wars and Crossbones Gundam.
With all that in mind, a lot of stuff was cut out and there were pacing problems as multiple plot points would be addressed at the same time, or briefly mentioned to work within the limitations given. Reconguista's broadcast had to suffer for that and at times would be difficult to follow if you aren't keenly paying attention, which is where a large majority of the complaints came from.
It by and large manages to be a beautifully animated work, and a fun one to watch as well and I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the amount of detail and care that was put into it. I enjoyed Orphans week on week, but the emotional investment wasn't there and the amount of plotholes as well as how the plot was paced made Orphans fun to joke about and follow, but not fun to watch because the execution wasn't good. I appreciate the different dynamics it tries to tackle, subverting Gundam tropes, but it ultimately strays too far away from what it means to be a Gundam series and becomes more of that modern, flavor of the week robot anime that people like now.
I get why people have issues with Reconguista, but knowing the troubled production cycle and the amount of passion Tomino had for Reconguista made my appreciate all the little details and how fun the series was after going through it a second and third time.
Reconguista isn't dead, and Tomino still wants to give the series a high quality, theatrical release it deserves. Alongside with being able to revisit and realize past drafts that were cut from some of his past works that I will not mention any further.
/Changes Twilight Axis from "Must watch" to "See first two episodes"
Twilight Axis is streaming for Gundam Fan Club members on the smartphone app in a couple months, IP locked, and it's subscription at 600円 a month based for those who want to watch at release rather than wait a couple weeks per episode.
Overseas is not able to watch it until Bandai chooses to stream on youtube or whatever platform they choose to instead.
The source content itself is serialized on the same platform, so you need the app to be able to read the chapters as they release anyway.
It's part of a new budgeting strategy as we shift towards higher quality and budget products rather than stressing out our staff on the strict weekly broadcasting requirements and producer demands.