Robotech, one of the most singular and strange cartoons of the 1980s, is now available to stream, in all its giant robot glory, absolutely for free. Isn’t the internet amazing?
Robotech is a strange chimera of a television series. Cobbled together from three different Japanese anime shows—Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada—it, along with Voltron, was the major Western introduction to the giant mecha anime genre, wherein giant robots, y’know, fight and fly around and stuff. Robotech is a messy, beautiful thing, with production values entirely of its time but plenty of amazing footage of fighting robots and sweeping operatic story gestures to sell it to an audience of impressionable young nerds.
Now, at today’s Robotech panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Harmony Gold, the original distributor of the series, has announced a partnership with FilmRise, a streaming and film distribution company. As Polygon reports, this means that all of Robotech—plus 11 hours of bonus features—are hitting streaming platforms entirely for free. It also means that the three original anime that made up the series will also be made available for streaming, alongside the 1986 animated Robotech movie. Readers, that’s a lot of mecha anime—255 episodes in total.
For a legacy brand, Robotech has been getting a major push the past few years, with Harmony Gold working on plenty of merchandise, this streaming deal, an ongoing comic, and also the ongoing tale of a live-action movie in the works via Sony. The new streaming Robotech smörgåsbord is available via the FilmRise streaming service, or the Roku Channel, or Vudu—all of which will provide it for free, via ad-supported viewing.
Welcome to Robotech heaven. Get to streaming.
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