Some final comments on Macross Frontier part 1: ‘Canon’, creators and the fan community

Would the real Lynn Minmay please step forward?

Partake in the enjoyment of a franchise with works that span several different types of media, and you will inevitably encounter what I call the ‘canon obsession’. As one of the most well known Macross bloggers on the internet observed:

We also are, rightly or wrongly, continuity fanboys. We like our coherence, consistently, and symmetry. This is why Kawamori’s cavalier attitude towards canon is a curse upon our houses. We like looking back, remembering love for a single narrative continuity.

The “cavalier attitude” that ghostlightning refers to is what some derise as the ‘anything goes’ approach, which is how many fans interpret the various statements by series creator Kawamori Shouji, dating back to the 1980s, that all shows the shows and films produced in the Macross franchise are in-universe fictional takes based on events and individuals in the ‘real’ Macross history. The author’s notes for the Frontier novels, along with Kawamori’s endorsement of several manga iterations of Frontier, suggest that this approach extends to the other products that have his approval. That is to say, the TV show, the films, the manga and the novels all have the same level of validity in Macross ‘canon’. Which is also to say, given the many differences and inconsistencies across all these versions of the story, that there is no coherent and consistent ‘canon’ that fans can count on as being factual history. We will never know exactly what Hikaru, Minmay and Misa were like. We will never know if Michel actually died or not, nor if Alto really disappeared and never came back…

At least, that’s what some fans are concerned about. To those taking a quick look at the Macross fandom today, there might appear to be one question that everyone is concerned with: what was the real outcome of the main love triangle? Did Alto and Sheryl really get together? Or did real Ranka actually have a chance sometime after those real events in the history of the Macross universe? Using various interpretations of Kawamori’s ‘they’re all fictional’ comments, along with their own interpretations of what happened in one iteration or another, fans continue to argue for their own ship.

Which is mostly all fine and dandy in my book…well, the shipping part at least. I can largely ignore that and happily keep exploring the universe on my own. However, I have seen far too many people twist and interpret Kawamori’s words to fit their own theories about particular works. Given that I am one of the people who make his words available for the perusal of those in the West, the fact that my work has been used to perpetuate misperceptions and untruths about Kawamori and the people he works with gravely concerns me. Hence, I would just like to offer some research and comments on ‘canon’ and ‘canon’ in Macross that will hopefully help straighten the foundation of the debate. Pardon the long introduction, but so begins the first of three posts on Macross ‘canon’.

Contextualising the debate: what exactly do we mean by ‘canon’?

The use of the term ‘canon’ is arguably one of the roots of the debate, for not only is there no consensus on what it means, but people use it in several different but related ways. Its use in the field of literature is somewhat different to that which is used in popular culture: a literary canon is a collection of works that is considered an authoritative representation of a particular type of work. Here are some examples of such canons: American, black (American), black (feminist), Australian, English, Western, Hispanic, Spanish, classical Japanese…the list could go on. To go into a few of these in a little more detail, works by Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters and Shakespeare are obvious additions to the English literary canon, with The Pillow Book, The Tale of Genji and many of the poetry anthologies having a place in the classical Japanese one. And obviously, each of these canons can be broken down even further – poetry anthologies such as the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu can arguably be considered one such sub-division, given that they are often called a representative body of a particular form of poetry in a particular period.

Arguably the grand daddy of them all…

The use of the term ‘canon’ in popular culture is slightly broader. One use draws on the idea of the literary canon, in that those works that belong to a particular fictional canon are the ones considered to be part of an official, authoritative list from which all the particulars about events, character personalities, places, vehicles, systems etc etc in the fictional universe can be drawn. A work that belongs to that list, no matter who it is authored by, is considered a canon work: examples include all the official Marvel comics on Spiderman, the DC comics on Batman, and all the officially endorsed titles in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. A second use – arguably the one most of interest to fan communities – is the idea that there is one canon, one version of all the particulars that should be considered true across all of those works. As one might expect, with the expanded universes having contributions by numerous writers and creators, the decision as to which developments belong to any particular canon can be rather controversial.

There are several ways in which creators and fans alike have addressed this puzzle. The most straightforward approach is simply to further divide the body of canon works. For example, fans are now referring to the most recent Batman films as “Christopher Nolan’s Batman”. All of the characters in his iteration are different from those in other iterations, be they comic, film, TV or other (are there other media in which Batman has appeared?). Generally, the words I associate with Nolan’s Batman are “real”, “dark” and “human”, as opposed to the “camp” of the TV series with Adam West, or the “kooky” Tim Burton version. Within each of these subdivisions then, there can be a solid continuity, depending on how much care the creators wish to take with it.

Another approach, and the one that appears to be preferred by fans of franchises that started their lives on celluloid (or the modern equivalent), is to assign different levels of canonicity to each particular work. Star Trek and Star Wars are the two most famous franchises that follow this approach. Until at least 2004, the official Star Trek website actually stated that “Almost without exception, it is the live-action series and the movies that are considered canon.” (The exceptions apparently include two novels penned by Jeri Taylor, as well as some details that appear in other parts of the franchise.) On the other hand, Leland Chee, the full time maintainer of the Holocron, the database of all things that happened ‘a long time ago in a galaxy far far away’, categorizes all works in the Star Wars universe according to varying levels of canon. Whilst ‘secondary canon’ can add details to the franchise, such as introducing beloved characters like Boba Fett, they often contain other flaws such as having Princess Leia singing a carol… Most fans, I’d say, appreciate it when those little ‘details’ that would ruin their image of a series are decidedly disincorporated.

However, no matter which approach creators take, one thing that gets to fans is when creators exercise too tight a control over their franchises. JKR’s famous wizarding world is one of the more popular recent additions to a group that includes Buffy’s Sunnydale in the way of fans loving and hating the creators of their beloved fandoms, but what happens with the Star Wars canon (see the same article above) is arguably the king of this group. Chee may be employed full-time to maintain the Holocron, but GWL still retains relatively tight control over certain key aspects of his creation. On several occasions, he has roused the ire of many Star Wars aficionados, with the most famous incident now immortalised by the phrase “Han shot first.” Personally, whilst I accept that that Lucas can control ‘important additions‘ to the universe he created, I will always blame him for the devastation of the Solo family.

But that’s not the only thing that gets to fans. As the semi-recurrent furore over Kawamori Shouji’s take on Macross ‘canon’ shows, some fans also hate it when creators do not establish a detailed, fixed canon. I’ll go into this in a bit more detail in my third post, but from my perspective, the main reason behind this discontent is that it allows some fans to deny an outcome that most people (on both sides, might I add) accept, and keep pushing what others call ‘fanon’. The ire this causes for many is obvious – in the case of the triangle, shippers of the winning ship get incredibly tired of being regaled with interpretations of scenes and dialogue that they simply cannot agree with, for reasons involving both logic and literary techniques like contrast and symbolism.

…come on, just get over it already!

The ire for the rest of us is a little less obvious…speaking for myself, I’m thoroughly sick of the debate on the triangle and how absolutely everything points to how so-and-so is perfect for so-and-so. I’d much rather discuss Kawamori’s philosophy and why it makes so much more sense than other approaches to canon. To do that, however, we first need to look at the idea of ‘canon’ in Japan.

If it exists, that is…

TBC…in part 2…