THE WHOLE STORY OF MACROSS AND ITS RIGHTS

One cannot understand the story of Battletech rights and the last lawsuits without understanding the story of the rights of Macross. So I decided to go after it, and this is what I found.

• April 7, 1979 Gundam (by Sunrise) was premiered. It was a revolution.
• Wiz Corporation saw potential and wanted to enter anime. They created a sketchy idea of a story called "Battle City Megaroad". A giant ship had a city inside and came back to Earth. But this concept needed development and an anime needed to be made.
• Wiz Corporation choose the cheaper prestigious studio, specialized in mecha designs. Studio Nue. Shōji Kawamori worked there. The story would have 48 episodes. When developing the story tere were disagreements. Wiz Corporation wanted space comedy. Kawamori wanted a serious epic story. The story kept developing despite disagreements between producers and creatives.
• 1980 Wiz Corporation went bankrupt. Studio Nue had a half made project. They made a daring move. They bought the rights to sell them to a new sponsor. Big West Advertising showed up. Big West was a small advertising producer company that wanted a chance to get into the anime mecha business. The agreement cut the number of episodes to 36. Then 27 becuase of cost reasons. It would end with the battle against Dolza.
• Studio Nue could not handle the workload and asked cooperation of another studio. Art Land Animation Studio where Haruhiko Mikimoto, a friend of Kawamori, worked. They developed the human characters, especially Lynn Minmey. Big West saw that the economic demands of sponsoring the newly called Superdimensional Fortress Macross were too big. So they looked for another company to share the future losses. Big West was the owner of the whole property.
• They signed a pact with the devil. Tatsunoko productions joined the party and found some studios that would deal with the workload. In practical terms Tatsunoko was given the rights to distribute to local TV stations and foreign media companies, and this is exactly what they just did.
• October 3rd, 1982. Macross was premiered. It was a forced premiere because Tatsunoko wanted to know how good was the project. It was a nuclear success. Big West was surprised.
• At the time they only had 3 episodes. They would struggle to make 1 episode per week, as it was usual in Japan. All 36 episodes were approved. Studio Nue and Art Land started to work around the clock, to deliver. But workload was so high that they needed the help of other studios like AIC and Gainax that were just starting. As usual, instead of helping the interference of the producers became an obstacle, but they managed to get the job done.
• Tatsunoko as the holder of distribution rights, started to distribute in Portugal, France, Italy and then the rest of Europe. In Italy there was an American called Farouk "Frank" Agrama watching Macross who saw a gold mine there. When he returned to USA, he and his sons founded Harmony Gold in 1983.
• In the meantime Big West became bigger and more ambitious and they even made movies, like Super Dimension Century Orguss. That year, Tatsunoko launched Genesis Climber Mospeada that later would be the 3rd season of Robotech.
• April 15 1984, Big West's Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross was premiered. This would be the second season of Robotech.
• July 7th, 1984. Big West and the original team of Macross premiered the movie Super Dimension Fortress Macross Do you remember Love without participation of Tatsunoko. It was a box office phenomenon. That very same year Harmony Gold buy distribution rights of the original version of Macross. Producer Carl Macek would adapt it to USA market.
• September 1984 they released a VHS promoted by Heavy Metal magazine to test and it was widely accepted. Harmony Gold negotiated with Revell to make models from the movie. Harmony Gold did not have the rights but they always thought about launching their own toys and models. This is where true profit was. They convinced Tatsunoko so they would selle them the distribution rights of Macross and other materials. What Harmony Gold did not know is that Tatsunoko only distributed and was not the full owner of Macross. And Tatsunoko dos not know that Harmony Gold was buying not just the distribution rights but they were appropriating the whole product. The real owners of the product were Studio Nue and Big West.
• Harmony Gold planned to edit and dub and make money. But USA regulations demanded 65 episodes at least. It is because TV stations realized that shorter shows were toy ads. Macross only had 36 episodes. So they appended other mecha shows as sequels. 23 episodes from Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross were added. 25 episodes from Genesis Climber Mospeada were added too. TV stations were convinced to air that collage of animes.
• March 4th 1985. Robotech was premiered. The rest is history...