something interesting about Macross is Hikaru's conflict between being a soldier and wanting to maintain a teenage social life. He knows there's a chance he'll die at any moment during these missions and that scares him when he's got someone he wants to return to.
When you're introduced Hikaru he's this cocky kid who wants to prove and make a name for himself as a pilot. Then he's thrown right into the middle of an intergalactic war, sees a dead body that shakes him to the core, and falls in love with a girl. Suddenly his priorities are all mixed up and he has no idea what he wants out of life anymore. There's a certain realness to his character that I like that hasn't really been there for most other giant robot pilots I've seen. Granted, I'm not super experienced with the genre.