Inextricably linked to Super Dimension Fortress Macross and fated to live perpetually in the shadow of its better-known sibling, Orguss is an uneven and messy show that nonetheless manages to build a interesting setting, a great cast of characters, and a story that leads to a powerful if ambiguous climax.

Though springing from the same collaboration between Big West and Tatsunoko Pro as Macross (and considered part of the “Super Dimension Trilogy”), Orguss isn’t directly related to Macross. Many of the same creative staff do carry over with the noted exceptions of Kawamori Shoji and Itano Ichiro, and you’ll feel their absence keenly at the show goes on; but there are still plenty of heavy hitters working on this show, from character designer Haruhiko Mikimoto to mechanical designer Kazytaka Miyatake. A new animation studio will take over from Tatsunoko Pro, with most of the production duties being handled by Tokyo Movie Shinsha.

Orguss is the story of Katsuragi Kei, a hot shot Bronco 2 Variable Fighter pilot who is part of a war between two global powers over a space elevator built in South America. After a failed attempt by his faction to capture the elevator, Kei detonates a Space-Time Oscillation Bomb, which unexpectedly rips several alternate universes apart and stitches them back together.

If that’s not bad enough, the reconstituted world is covered with the Great Divide, a space-time anomaly that is acting as a huge greenhouse roof and slowly killing the earth with elevated temperatures.

Boy, doesn’t that last part hit a little harder in the year of Orguss’s 40th anniversary?

After a chance encounter with the Emaan, a near-human species from one of the alternate Earths, it turns out Kei is a Singularity, somehow bound up in the ongoing disaster afflicting the Earth, and he becomes a target for the various factions of this new amalgamated Earth: The militaristic Chiram, the mysterious Mu, and anyone else with a stake in saving the world or remaking it in their own image.

Orguss sets some high stakes, but immediately discards them for interpersonal drama and low-key shenanigans much of the run of the show. Kei is a ladies man, but he falls for – and slowly develops a genuine deep love for – one of the Emaan, Mimsy, leading to friction with her supposed fiancée Slay and concerns over Mimsy’s own future. As the episodes go on, the cast continues to build, adding Mome – a childlike robot built by the Mu as a nurse and servant – and Tai – another Mulian robot, repaired by Mome to protect the Glomar – to the crew. We meet Athena, a crack pilot for the Chiram who is also a Singularity, as well as her superior officer who turns out to be a familiar face.

The Glomar sets off for the Emaan homeland but is waylaid by numerous travails along the way. While the overarching story is always present, it often gets backgrounded for character-focused episodes or episodes focused on specific funhouse mirror reflections of our world. Two highlight episodes are an early episode featuring a horde of humans from a primitive earth attacking the Glomar with axes and stones, and an episode where they visit a France-analogue experiencing its own version of the French Revolution (complete with the evil Queen of Not-France direct firing artillery into crowds of revolutionaries as they assail her castle).

When the story finally does pick up in the back half of the show, it still somehow manages to meander across the world without feeling like there’s much forward momentum being made. How much you forgive the show spinning its wheels depends on how invested you are with the cast.

It is to Orguss's credit that it really buckles down and does its best to resolve as many character arcs as it can in the final run. When Kei (and his fellow Singularities) finally undertake their attempt to save the world, you get the feeling these are people risking their lives with few regrets thanks to that effort to wrap up storylines. The final ending sequence is straight out of classic sci-fi, a mind-bending sequence that ends in ambiguity. It may not feel innovative today, but for 1983 this was an impressive creative decision.

And that brings me to the other big problem with Orguss: It’s from 1983. That means (as the Lolicon Boom continues through the 80s) that the childlike Mome is semi-regularly portrayed in a leering manner, and has a one-sided obsession / love for Kei (it is to the show’s credit, on the other hand, that Kei tolerates this at worst and often actively rejects her advances, clearly uncomfortable with her attention). Gender politics are often old-fashioned and frustrating, despite the presence of multiple strong female characters taking on classically masculine roles and thriving in them. The Emaan’s own physiology requiring an early pregnancy lest women become sterile forever leads to some truly unpleasant moralizing about how the only “real” women are women who can get / have been pregnant.

Notice I haven’t even talked about production quality. If you’ve seen Macross, you know what you’re in for – uneven animation quality, repeated reuse of cuts (sometimes playing the same cut twice in a row, or mere seconds apart!), and occasional badly off-model character animation cuts. Every few episodes there’ll be a startlingly good cut, but mostly the show is “average” quality for the era. While Orguss never quite descends to the same lows as Macross, because of Itano's lack of involvement, the cuts never quite get as good either.

Mikimoto’s character designs are great, though you would be forgiven for thinking they’re just recycled Macross characters. You have characters with a startling resemblance to Claudia, Max, Misa, and Milia, among others, and the Emaan jumpsuits are a close cousin to those from Macross. Even if the shows aren’t related there’s a clear attempt to give them a shared visual identity.

Whether these flaws are bad enough to merit giving this show a miss is up to your own personal tastes and foibles; for me they’re flaws, but not deal-breakers, and in some cases seem like the product of genuine attempts to ask interesting questions in the vein of classic sci-fi and then answer them.

And that leads me back to the beginning of my review: Orguss is a complex, deeply flawed show that nonetheless has a lot to recommend it. If you like Macross, or other 80s anime (mecha anime especially) it’s worth at least giving it a try.

Recommended (with caveats).