Cheryl’s sickness and the library in “Macross Frontier”

Today I’d like to talk about the 2007 anime, Macross Frontier, part of the Macross franchise. In the show’s 18th episode (“Fold Fame”), two characters, Michael and Klan, try to find out more about the symptoms of 17-year-old Sheryl and the conspiracy behind it. In the process, they travel to a library for more answers:

As you can see, there are a number of other people in the library, but none of these individuals seem to be librarians, only patrons. Again, I ask the question: where are the librarians? In any case, Michael thinks about the disease affecting Sheryl, a singer extraordinaire who he likes…

And Klan looks at the computer and pulls up old medical journals, a bit reminiscent of Mikage in Revolutionary Girl Utena who was looking at old newspaper clippings on a microfilm machine.

Multiple times, they are shocked by what they find, with Klan annoyed that it seems Michael (who seems to flirt with everyone at times), seems to like Sheryl.

 

Of course, to the viewer, these revelations are not much a surprise, as the character they looking into is clearly evil and heartless, only caring about her quest for power, with everyone else as a pawn. The one-minute library scene ends with Sheryl coming into the library, feeling delirious, almost falling onto the floor.

A later scene in the episode, presumably on an internal stairwell in the library, has all of them talking, with Sheryl asking them to promise to not tell Alto, a 17-year-old pilot, and a boy she likes that she is dying. He complies and Klan scolds him, to get the response from Michael that Sheryl likes Alto (which we already knew), only for Klan to show her feelings for Alto. In another episode, she confesses to Michael, but at that point, it’s too late. I’m not going to give any more details than that, because that would be ruining the story.

© 2020 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on my History Hermann blog but has been re-edited and fixed before being posted on this blog. Enjoy!