nomadicism:

Oh Anon. Bless you. You have no idea what you’ve just asked of me.

I’ve been sitting on a few drafts of “Every Robotech/Macross Reference in VLD” meta post for awhile now, and S7 really gave up the goods (end of S6 too…). The references are many, and what follows just barely scratches the surface, but are the most relevant to that mysterious blond officer. I’ve posted about a few of them in the past too.

The blond officer in E1S1 is an Easter Egg of Roy Fokker from Robotech (whom the EPs are big fans of).

Roy Fokker is the ace pilot and leader of the Skull Squadron. He is the mentor and big brother character to the main protagonist, Rick Hunter (Hikaru Ichijo). In other words—She/ith aside—Roy is to Rick as Shiro is to Keith. Seriously.

Roy is one of my all-time favorite anime characters, and his relationship with Claudia (my actual favorite character from Robotech) was the first time that I ever saw an interracial romance in a cartoon (e.g. 1985). That’s a big deal. Macross (and thus Robotech) was ahead of its time. Serious feels for these two.

Roy tragically dies during a big battle against the Zentraedi, and Rick goes on to lead the Skull Squadron. I am 100% convinced that in the original draft for VLD, the decision to introduce Shiro as a mentor and big brother character to Keith in addition to the original plans to have Shiro die at the end of S2 were informed by Roy’s death in Farewell Big Brother.

Worth noting, that the Zentraedi are the blue-to-gray-to-purple war-like aliens who come to Earth to find the SDF-1 and the Protoculture Matrix. In Robotech, Protoculture is basically Quintessence. In VLD S7, the IGS-Atlas is an homage to the SDF-1, which can transform into a giant robot (in addition to having its own fleet of transforming jet fighters, aka the Veritechs/Valkyries).

As for Rick Hunter, well, I can’t post about Roy without posting about Rick at the same time.

Rick is a pretty standard shōnen protagonist. Wears red, has a mullet, can be a little hot-headed, is introduced on the young side, and his prodigy-like piloting skills have him leading a squadron of his own in no time. Sound familiar? He glows up over the course of the series too.

In subsequent Robotech sequels, Rick goes on to lead the SDF-3. His most recent incarnation is seen in Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles, where he’s now an older man (54), has all white hair and has acquired a curious scar along his left right cheek and jaw.

ミ(✿ʘ ᴗʘ)っ Remember how Keith was originally supposed to have white hair?

Finally, in the Robotech/Voltron cross-over, Rick is lead by the ghost of King Alfor to find and pilot the White Lion. This the only time in the Voltron mythos that the White Lion appeared as an actual mecha (we’ll see if S8 brings us one but I kind of doubt it).

Also, the Robotech/Voltron cross-over is also the first time that a comet with the ability to cross universes (cough REALITIES cough) has appeared in the Voltron mythos as well. So there’s that as well. (ʘ‿ʘ✿)