Mirage finds Hayate alone on one of the Macross Elysion‘s carrier decks and informs him that Messer’s remains have been brought back. During the funeral, Ernest orders the crew to salute Messer’s coffin. Makina runs tests on Freyja and Mikumo after their strange experience at the Protoculture ruins on Al Shahal. Mikumo reveals that it was the Singer of the Wind who intruded on their thoughts. Kaname reports to Arad that the Protoculture ruins caused both groups of singers to interfere with each other. Arad asks Kaname if she needs time off, but she tells him that she’s fine. She asks how he’s doing, and he tells her that he’ll manage. In the hangar, Hayate, Mirage and Chuck look at the cockpit of Messer’s Siegfried and see that Keith targeted him directly and shot him through the heart. On Windermere, Bogue dismisses Messer’s skills, so Keith pulls a knife on him and asks if he could take such a wind. Heinz rests in bed and thinks about a vision of flames, and Roid tells him they don’t understand everything about Protoculture technology. After he leaves, Roid thinks to himself that the resonance of fold waves is increasing. Berger tells Roid and Grammier that his people are 60 percent through their analysis of Sigur Berrentzs, and Grammier orders an immediate deployment. Roid tells Grammier that he shouldn’t go in his condition, but Grammier insists on controlling their forces and fighting Walkure. Outside, Keith asks Roid why he’s so concerned for Heinz’s health even against Grammier’s wishes, and Roid answers that it’s his duty as a retainer because Heinz is the Singer of the Wind. Roid thinks that Heinz could become the king of all the Protoculture, but Keith reminds him that their lives are short and they only have limited time to enact their promise to make Windermere strong. Roid thinks that soon time will not matter. Arad tells the team that they will probably get someone from Alpha or Beta Flights to replace Messer. Hayate storms off in anger, and Arad tells Mirage that it’s probably the first time he lost a comrade. Walkure train in the mud during a rainstorm. Ernest shows Arad a map of the Protoculture ruins captured by Windermere and the places without ruins where the song of the wind was heard. The ruin locations create a field that encompasses every planet in the globular cluster, allowing all of them to hear the song. Ernest states that if the ruins on Ragna and Al Shahal are captured, the Windermerians could put all eight billion residents of the globular cluster under mind control. Arad says they need reinforcements, and Ernest answers that he’s already asked Lady M, but he doesn’t know if they’ll arrive in time.
Grammier addresses his people and tells them that they will take create the Domain of the Wind and free everyone in the Globular Cluster. An entire mountainside opens to allow for the launch of the Protoculture battleship Sigur Berrentzs. Grammier tells Heinz that the fight will not be over until they reclaim everything that Windermere lost. Later, Hayate joins Walkure and Chuck’s family on the beach, and Chuck explains that Ragnans believe the spirits of the dead return to the see and turn into jellyfishes. Their pain eases over time, and eventually they are reborn. Hack and Zack made a ship so they could send Messer’s soul off to the ocean to turn into a jellyfish. At the same time, people eat and drink in remembrance of the dead. Arad and the rest of the ship’s bridge crew arrives, so Chuck proposes that they have a drink for Messer. Hack and Zack play an acoustic version of Fire Bomber’s “Remember 16” on guitar. Hayate asks Mirage what’s wrong, and she answers that if they’d told others about Messer’s condition, maybe he could’ve been transferred earlier and avoided all this. Freyja blames herself for telling Messer that she never thinks about the future. Arad thinks he shouldn’t have let Messer fly again, but Ernest notes that Delta Flight wouldn’t have gotten as they did without him. Mechanics deliver a tablet with Messer’s flight logs, which contain detailed notes on his teammates’ performance. Freyja comments that Messer loved flying and must’ve liked watching them all fly the same way she likes to watch others sing. Mirage comments that Messer’s flying was beautiful and had them all enthralled. Hack and Zack mention Messer’s compliments of them, and Hayate says this is the first he’s hearing of that. Arad thinks that Messer wanted to keep a distance from his teammates so that they’d be able to shoot him down if necessary. Hayate puts Messer’s little ship in the water and gives it a push to send it off. Mikumo starts singing “Giraffe Blues” and is joined by the rest of Walkure. Hayate tells Arad that he was scared by Messer’s death and the thought that there was someone out there stronger than Messer and that he couldn’t do anything about it. He decides that they don’t need a replacement because he’ll also fly Messer’s share. Mikumo comments that Messer and Kaname shone brighter than anyone else on that day. Kaname tells Mikumo that Freyja isn’t her only rival because she’s going to sing at her best now. The Windermerian fleet, led by Sigur Berrentzs, de-folds near Al Shahal and comes under fire from a NUNS fleet.
Delta Flight deals with the death of Messer, who in this episode comes across as a more interesting character while dead than when he was alive. Messer was always by the book and came off as completely contemptuous of Hayate, but in reality he kept ultra detailed notes on everyone’s piloting performance. It’s a testament to how skilled he was, but his death proved that there was someone even better out there. We of course see characters blaming themselves for his death, but I don’t think there was anything that Hayate, Mirage and Freyja could’ve done. Arad offers up the theory that Messer was emotionally distant so that his teammates would be able to kill him if he was ever taken over by Var again, which if true is a sad way to have to live. The party for Messer is a nice, quiet moment, and it’s neat to have a Macross 7 cameo in the form of a Fire Bomber song. On the Windermere side of the story, we’ve heard multiple references to Sigur Berrentzs, but now we know that it’s an ancient Protoculture battleship that Roid excavated and has been studying. Given that all the descendants of the Protoculture are just scratching at the surface of what the Protoculture’s technology could achieve, this is a huge development in the history of the Macross world. Unfortunately, the Windermerians are monumental jerks bent on conquest, so it’s probably not best for the galaxy that they were the ones to find this thing.
Macross Delta Info
Director(s):
Kenji Yasuda
Shoji Kawamori
Writer(s):
Toshizo Nemoto
Tatsuto Higuchi
Ukyo Kodachi
Touko Machida
Mechanical Designer(s):
Shoji Kawamori
Hidetaka Tenjin
Stanislas Brunet
Character Designer(s):
Chisato Mita
Majiro
Masaru Shindo
Musical Composer(s):
Saeko Suzuki
TOMISIRO
Mina Kubota
Format:
26 episodes
Airdates:
Japan 04.03.2016 – 09.25.2016
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