New Year's special double anime review

Macross aka Super Dimensional Fortress Macross

Easiest way to describe it is: mecha anime.
I don't have much experience in this genre, but this classic series has managed to make a pretty strong impression. One of the thing I really appreciated with this series is that they provided an adequate explanation on how humanity managed to develop such advanced technologies in a short period of time. The premise is that an alien ship, known to humans as the Macross, crash landed on Earth, with no alien survivors on board. Humans being humans, after waging a war for it, quickly took the ship as their own, learned from it, fixed it, and used it's advanced technology to create transforming fighter planes/mecha robots.
But all of this happens in a short description in the first episode. What the anime is really about is a war between the humans who currently inhabit the Macross and a different alien species that seeks to control the war ship.
What stands apart the Macross series from other action anime is that it also has a focus on music... yes, you read that right, music, that is actually contextualized and makes sense within the world of the anime.
As the series is a product of the 80s, you can expect that animation isn't the best. Indeed at times you'll notice some really bad shots. Like faces that you could swear have suddenly developed down syndrome. But the really terrible moments are the exception instead of the rule.
The story and action aren't bad overall, but it takes a while for things to escalate. I'd say it has a pretty slow start. My favorite part is how you can tell it's a product of the 80s by how slow burning the romance side story is. You don't get the instant harem like today's fan service anime, instead you have a slow developing love triangle, that literally takes years (in show) to get resolved.
At 36 episodes, it's quite a bit long imo, and it almost feels like it was supposed to end at about 24 episodes, but overall I liked it. I gave it 8/10.

And now for Macross Plus.

This is a 4 episode long OVA, that takes place 30 years after the original series. TBH, there's basically no connection between the two. It is set in the same universe, with the same style of tech, aliens, whatever, but really, it makes no difference. You could watch it as a standalone just fine.
The story is quite different. As the original story arc was resolved, this is no longer a mecha war anime. Instead this is focused more on the music and romance parts, and the mecha/fighting takes more of a back seat.
The story is simple, 2 long friends pilots test the newest developed mecha for the military. They both are in a love triangle with an ex-singer that is helping create a singing AI, only unknowingly to her, the military is also investing in the same technology that powers this state of the art Hatsune Miku. As you can expect, some things get out of control.
The animation is massively better. Made in the mid 90s, I'd say it looks ahead of it's time. But being an OVA, I guess they were less pressured to make it quick.
While it was a good watch, I think it does suffer from the mix of genres. While you can call Macross a mecha anime, I wouldn't call Macross Pluss that, as I don't feel like mechas are it's main focus. But the romance isn't very well developed either. It's an anime that feels unsure of what it is.
All in all, I gave it a 7/10. Rest assured that if you want, you can absolutely skip it if you want to binge watch all the Macross series, or you can watch it all on it's own. Really, it's amazing on how well they managed to isolate this OVA and make it stand on it's own, without hurting it or any other Macross series.