Air Cavalry Chronicles

[Mafty]

Is their any information out there on this series? It was a "Design" Series, but was there a story that was written for it? The factions names are later used in the Vision of Escaflowne; and the mecha themselves appear to be a hybrid between the Macross style, and what would later be seen in Escaflowne. To the point that certain designs are used four years later in Macross 7 ,and up to twenty six years later in Macross Delta.

[Seto Kaiba]

Is their any information out there on this series? It was a "Design" Series, but was there a story that was written for it?

The story developed for the Air Cavalry Chronicles design series was an early draft of the story that would be used for The Vision of Escaflowne. It hadn't yet made the jump to the fantasy genre, so the magical elements weren't a part of its story yet, but the framework of the Zaibach Empire's invasions was present as well as some of the stuff that involved fortunetelling and the basic cast.

When Kawamori was enticed back to the Macross franchise by the guaranteed funding for new productions, what he did was reuse a lot of material he'd previously developed for non-Macross series concepts. The story that he'd developed for his first original design series, Advanced Valkyrie, was only slightly reworked to add the staples of a Macross story like the love triangle and became Macross Plus. The mechanical designs created for the Air Cavalry Chronicles concept that was developed from Advanced Valkyrie were tweaked for reuse as the enemy mecha in Macross 7 while its story went on to become The Vision of Escaflowne after changing genres into fantasy.

[Mafty]

Thanks that makes alot of sense story wise. I read a Kawamori interview about Advanced Valkyrie where it says: Kawamori wanted to move on from Macross (this was as early as 1985), and the story outline really is like Macross Plus(ie character driven with only a few battles). Also two of the fighters in Advanced Valkyrie look like the YF-19, and YF-21.

[Seto Kaiba]

Thanks that makes alot of sense story wise. I read a Kawamori interview about Advanced Valkyrie where it says: Kawamori wanted to move on from Macross (this was as early as 1985), [...]

Yeah, that was also the reason that Kawamori was not involved in Macross II: Lovers Again. He declined, as he was not interested in doing sequels. He only came back because he was having trouble getting funding for the stuff he actually wanted to make.

[...] and the story outline really is like Macross Plus(ie character driven with only a few battles). Also two of the fighters in Advanced Valkyrie look like the YF-19, and YF-21.

Vaguely, perhaps... though the Advanced Valkyrie designs are based on older experimental aircraft than what the designs in Macross Plus were (the Grumman X-29 and Northrop/McDonnel Douglas YF-23).

As he so often does, those non-Macross VF designs gradually started being adopted into Macross.