Zentradi

The Zentradi (ゼントラーディ人, Zentorādi-jin^?) are a fictional, militaristic race of alien, humanoid giants and often the main antagonist in The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982) anime series and its Robotech (1985) cartoon adaptation.

It is transliterated as Zentradi, Zjentohlauedy, Zentrady and Zentraedi for the Japanese Macross series, with the Zentraedi spelling being the one most used commonly in the Robotech adaptation. The Robotech novels and comics would add the occasional spelling T'sentrati. In both the Macross and Robotech universes, humans and Zentradi are capable of interbreeding due to being genetically equivalent. Physically, most of them also resemble humans, though some have unique skin and hair colors. Prior to their first encounter with the human race, all members of the Zentradi race were artificially created through cloning.

The idea of extraterrestrial humanoid enemies was first conceived by Shouji Kawamori, inspired by the trend of militaristic alien antagonists from previous science fiction shows like Uchuu Senkan Yamato (1974).

After the Studio Nue staff developed the final concept of what would become the Zentradi giant warrior race, artists Miyatake Kazutaka and Kawamori himself were in charge of designing the enemies' alphabet, machines and ships, while Haruhiko Mikimoto developed the Zentradi uniforms and the different alien characters.

In the original Macross Japanese anime series (Big West/Studio Nue, 1982) the Zentradi were created as a spacefaring race of giant humanoid proxy warriors by the first civilization in the galaxy, the Protoculture, 497,500 years ago. They contributed greatly to the expansion of the Protoculture Civilization's sphere of influence and the creation of a Protoculture Stellar Republic that controlled most of our galaxy.

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