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| Stig, Ray, and child sidekick Mint are led into a trap! |
Genesis Climber Mospeada: The Broken-Hearted Girl's March.
Original Air Date - Genesis Climber Mospeada: Oct. 9, 1983. Writer: Sukehiro Tomita. Director: Masayuki Kojima, Katsuhisa Yamada.
Robotech: The Lost City.
Original Air Date - Robotech: May 28, 1985.
Story Editor: Steve Kramer. Supervising Director: Robert V. Barron.
PLOT - MOSPEADA:
Stig and Ray draw close to a city, where they hope to find information about other survivors from the attack along with food and supplies. They are greeted by Ken, a young man who is in the process of exiling his (much) younger girlfriend Mint for being an "outsider," something Mint is refusing to accept.
When Ken realizes that Stig is a soldier, he eagerly offers to take him and Ray to "Lonely Land," the island across from the city where he indicates other soldiers have gone. He also tells Mint to come along, a sudden change of attitude that neither she nor the two new arrivals question.
To the surprise of not a single viewer over the age of five, this is a trap. Those surviving soldiers who did find their way to this city were taken to Lonely Land, only to find the Inbit lying in wait and the bridge withdrawn behind them. Now Stig and Ray are left to fight for their lives, a fight that isn't made any easier by the need to protect Mint!
PLOT - ROBOTECH:
Scott and Rand draw close to a city, where they hope to find information about other survivors from the attack along with food and supplies. They are greeted by Ken, a young man who is in the process of exiling Annie, a girl with a crush on him, for being an "outsider."
When Ken realizes that Scott is a soldier, he eagerly offers to take him and Ray to the island across from the city, where he indicates other soldiers have gone. He also tells Annie to come along, a sudden change of attitude that neither she nor the two new arrivals question.
To the surprise of not a single viewer over the age of five, this is a trap. The Invid are lying in wait, with the townspeople withdrawing the bridge behind them. Now Scott and Rand are left to fight for their lives, a fight that isn't made any easier by the need to protect Annie!
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| Robotech makes clear that Annie's crush on Ken is unrequited. Mosepada is uncomfortably fuzzy about that. |
CHARACTERS:
Maybe this is a case of modern attitudes interfering with older entertainment, but I found the portrayal of Mint in Mospeada to be a little disturbing. She is clearly drawn as and behaves like a very young girl, and yet she insists that Ken (drawn as a young adult) lied that he loved her and wanted to marry her. Um... okay, the implication there has me wanting to scrub out my brain with a wire brush, thanks.
The Robotech writers evidently agreed that this was a problem even at the time, as they do a fair bit of clean-up. It is made very clear that Annie (Mint's counterpart) has an entirely unrequited crush on Ken. He's still a terrible person, but at least the implied pedophilia has been (mostly) removed.
Even putting to one side the character's distasteful sexualization... Does the series really need a comedy child sidekick? I'll be very surprised if I end up liking either Mint or Annie, as such characters tend to mostly provoke annoyance from me.
Advantage: Robotech.
NARRATION:
Mospeada has no recap narration, instead opening on the introduction of Mint and the city where Stig and Ray will soon find themselves. Robotech accommodates viewers who may have missed the previous episode by giving a detailed recap.
The in-episode narration actually works well in building the sense of the trap closing around Scott, Rand, and Annie. Given how often I've criticized the narration, I think it's only fair to acknowledge that the steady, ominous description of the bridge they must cross to the isolated island is well-written and gives a lift to an already pretty good scene. The narration also takes the opportunity to nod at the previous series, with mentions of Zentraedi technology from The Macross Saga along with downed bioroids from The Masters.
Advantage: Robotech.
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| Stig confronts the leader of the collaborators. Robotech's Scott ends up making a speech out of this. |
CUTS AND ALTERATION:
Annie's Crush: In the opening scene of Mospeada, Mint wails at being kicked out of the city because Ken promised to marry her. Robotech pares back on any hint of Ken having shown interest, with Annie's feelings portrayed as a child's crush. Even when she cries that Ken told her they'd get married, it sounds more like her making something up. Given that Mint/Annie is drawn as a child, I cannot overstate how much I approve of this change.
Annie Does Not Pull Up Her Shirt: Mospeada's Ray initially mistakes Mint for a young boy. She does not react well, pulling up her shirt to show her breasts. Robotech removes those shots, with Ray instead offending Annie by calling her "kid."
No Flashback for Rand: When Stig offers to show Ray how to transform his Mospeada vehicle, Ray briefly flashes back to the battle from the previous episode before turning him down. The scene plays out the same in Robotech, but the flashback has been removed.
Mint's Tantrum: After Ray stops Mint from running out into the open, she spends a couple of lines pretending that Ken's betrayal didn't hurt her before erupting into a tantrum, grabbing guns out of a pile of discards and shooting them randomly. Robotech removes the pause, cutting straight to the tantrum. In Mospeada, Ray wonders if she's always "getting dumped." Robotech instead has Rand snarking that he can't take Annie anywhere.
Mint's Disrobing: At the end of the episode's big battle, Mint is subject to a "comedy" disrobing, with Ray clocking the color of her underwear and with an extended shot of her trying to hold her shirt up around her. Robotech de-emphasizes all of this. Annie still has the back of her pants cut open, but Rand is too busy worrying about the killer alien robots to care about her underwear; and the end shot of her holding her clothes together is only on screen for about a second.
Words for the Collaborators: Stig keeps his disgust with the city's collaborators brief. After he restrains himself from giving the head townsperson the beating he so soundly deserves, he tells them that there are other people out there fighting before leaving. Then Ray gives his equally concise summation: "I don't want to fight either, but I don't want to do something dirty like selling people out to protect myself." This is all much clunkier in Robotech, with Scott giving a full monologue and Rand's parting words coming across as less pointed, in part because there's less contrast between his words and Scott's. Ah, well - I suppose there had to be one change for the worse.
Advantage: Robotech.
INCIDENTAL MUSIC:
Mospeada's score is reasonably well applied, even if I'm not yet feeling much direction from it. At least it doesn't call attention to itself the way the Robotech score does during the battle scene. By this point, Robotech's tracks are a little too familiar, and their application here ends up taking me out of the action instead of drawing me into it.
Advantage: Mospeada.
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| Mint bids farewell to the town. |
OVERALL ADVANTAGE - ROBOTECH:
This mainly comes down to my distaste at the treatment of Mint, from indicating that there may actually have been some sort of romantic relationship between her and Ken to lingering on her being disrobed for laughs. Robotech turns down the dial on this aspect, making Annie's fixation on Ken into a one-way crush and mostly cutting around the disrobing. Since the episode plot (which is good) is unchanged, that means that it's basically the same viewing experience minus the distasteful elements.
OTHER MUSINGS:
Even acknowledging my issues with Mint/Annie - particularly in Mospeada - I still found this to be an improvement on the first episode. The story is basic: The first half sets up the characters falling into the trap, with us receiving plenty of indication of this even as the characters remain clueless; the second half sees them fighting their way out. The sense of desperation among the townspeople is well portrayed, mostly through artwork showing their suspicious/guilty glares, and the final words from Stig and Ray are effective (though the same scene in Robotech is less so).
All told, it's a pretty good second episode, one that raises my hopes of enjoying the series. I just wish the show didn't feel the need to introduce a child sidekick... and I particularly wish that Mospeada didn't feel the need to sexualize her.
Overall Rating: 7/10.
Previous Episode: Prelude to the Offensive/The Invid Invasion
Next Episode: Showdown Concert at High Noon/Lonely Soldier Boy
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