Screenshot: Harmony Gold/FilmRise
You don’t need to have seasonal affective disorder to be depressed this holiday season. There’s plenty to be bummed out about, first and foremost that most of us won’t be able to spend time with our friends and family thanks to the pandemic, but then there’s also [
gestures at everything]. It sucks, but most Christmas specials refuse to admit the holidays can be anything but a time of hope, cheer, and goodwill. Not
Robotech.
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The 1985 cartoon TV series—made up of three separate anime series, rewritten, re-edited, and redubbed to form a somewhat coherent whole—is legendary for a lot of reasons. It was one of the first U.S. cartoons to trust kids to be able to follow a massive, serialized storyline instead of standalone episodes, it introduced anime to the generation that helped the medium reach the popularity it has today, and it was never, ever afraid to tell kids we rarely get true happy endings in real life. The show’s Christmas episode, “Season’s Greetings,” is a prime example.