A to Z Challenge: Lynn-Minmei and Lynn-Kyle

In many ways Lynn-Minmei is the Helen of Troy of the first Robotech series.  She didn't start the war, but she soon became the great symbol of it.

Lynn-Minmei

When it begins, Lynn-Minmei is a Chinese girl from Yokohama, Japan who's living with her aunt and uncle on Macross Island.  She's only 16 with dreams of superstardom.  When the Zentraedi attack, she stupidly leaves the safety of a civil defense shelter to go back to her room for her diary.  She's saved by Rick Hunter, who's piloting a Veritech--badly.  Rick picks her up with the Veritech's hand but at one point the arm is blown off.  He saves her with an impressive maneuver where he matches speed and opens the cockpit so she can land in it.

When the SDF-1 jumps to Pluto, Rick is taking Minmei home in his little airplane.  The plane crashes on an unused part of the SDF-1 and Rick and Minmei are stranded for a couple of weeks, where at one point Minmei asks Rick to hold a fake wedding in case they don't make it.

Once they're rescued, Minmei becomes the darling of Macross.  She enters a beauty pageant and wins.  The pageant gains her a whole new legion of fans:  the Zentraedi!  The aliens have seen the broadcast from the SDF-1 and they start to fall in love with her.

Minmei's singing becomes like a weapon to use against the Zentraedi.  During the climactic battle with Dolza's fleet, Minmei performs live, the music broadcast on all frequencies to distract the enemy.

After the battle, Minmei is the biggest star around, though that doesn't mean much with most of humanity dead.  She performs at various places but in some cases all they can pay her in are rations.  When she gets tired of her cousin Lynn-Kyle's abuse after being kidnapped by Khyron, she leaves him to live with Rick Hunter.  But ultimately he rejects her for Lisa Hayes.

That becomes the recurring theme of her life.  She hooks up with Colonel Jonathan Wolfe and then the evil TR Edwards, who forces her to publicly spurn Wolfe, which prompts him to return to Earth.  After Edwards dies, Minmei hooks up with Rem, a clone of the original Zor.  When they're stranded with the SDF-3 in "newspace," Minmei sings with Bowie Grant and a pair of Robotech Master "Muses" to help Rem remember Zor's past.

When the SDF-3 is returning to regular space, the entity Haydon keeps Rem in newspace and Minmei latches onto him, being transported with him.  It's said that the child Minmei is carrying by then is actually the original Zor in some weird quantum thing.

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After the SDF-1 returns to Earth, Minmei goes to visit her parents on Earth and we meet her cousin Lynn-Kyle.  Kyle is a nut for peace but he's also really good at kung-fu.  Lisa Hayes falls madly in love with him, thinking he's like her old boyfriend Karl Riber, but Kyle wants nothing to do with someone in the military.

Kyle

If you haven't figured it out, Kyle is kind of a douche.  He stars in a movie with Minmei called Small or Little White Dragon.  He plays the heroic martial arts warrior who destroys a bunch of giants.  The Zentraedi, having no movies of their own, think he actually has superpowers!  While Minmei is performing during the big battle against Dolza, Kyle comes out to kiss her to really amp up the emotional turmoil for the enemy.

After the SDF-1 lands on Earth and reconstruction begins, Kyle becomes Minmei's manager and takes up drinking.  She gets tired of him and rejects him.  After which Kyle bounces around before going undercover to join the Robotech Expeditionary Force so he can look after Minmei from afar.  He tries to save Minmei from TR Edwards but is killed because he doesn't kill Edwards right away.

Kyle's end

In Japan it was probably more acceptable for cousins to have a thing for each other but in the books they spell out that Minmei and Kyle are third cousins.  So that totally makes it OK for them to kiss and stuff!  Right?  Sure, why not?

I have a Lynn-Minmei action figure from the original toy line.  In lieu of a gun or something she comes with a microphone; I guess that was her big weapon.

As a Fun Fact:  in the show when Minmei's name is spelled it's "Minmay."