Current Events > question: what is the appeal of mechas, for you?

(+) Yeah! (+)

there's lots of popular mecha animes out there. and people seem to like the idea of giant piloted robots outside of anime as well. are you able to articulate what you like about it?

evangelion, gundam, attack on giant, gurren lagann, gunbuster, eureka seven

most of these i only know of because of how into the aesthetic people are

so what does it for you?

Robot go boom

ArchNemo posted...

Robot go boom

i was hoping for a little more detail, if youre able. im asking out of like, an autistic dis-understanding

I particularly like seeing an underdog hero rise to the occasion, and a rival enemy pilot who can hold his own against a Gundam despite being in an inferior machine due to pure skill.

Also a weird show like Nadesico with its hilarious character roster and unique approach to a mech story that's as much slice of life gag show as it is trauma filled horror of war.

Mech stories that ask difficult phikosophical questions and make their characters undergo complex personal hardship have become a real staple and I appreciate it.

Also if it's super robot, robot go boom ie fun and crazy attacks and retro aesthic

They look cool and they do cool things

Armored Core is peak mecha for me. The level of customization it had on the PS1 was amazing to 7 year old me at the time. The skill and power of a solo pilot taking down overwhelming numbers of enemies is fun power fantasy

Fast mechs are typically my favourite

The waifus

The more "realistic" mecha series make for interesting war dramas with cool action scenes, while super robot stuff is just a lot of fun due to over the top acting and action. Characters like kamina or master asia are very entertaining to watch imo.

It just combines a regular genre, replaces boring human designs with cool robot designs and adds kaiju-or-bigger-scale destruction to it (which can be good for the cool factor of leveling a skyscraper by falling down and also for the drama of potentially killing hundreds/thousands of people by accident).

It also lets the main character get holes stabbed through them or limbs cut off (and forces them to deal with all the immediate problems those things entail) without having to deal with the long-term consequences of dying/needing prosthetics/never being able to fight again/etc. Finally, and most importantly, robot go boom.

I like the idea of a single pilot inside these giant machines. I kinda feel like Top Gun and stuff like that is also pretty mecha-adjacent.

You dig giant robots.
I dig giant robots.
We dig giant robots.
CHICKS dig giant robots.

Honestly, I'm more into mecha games than mecha anime. And for the games, the appeal is how much customization you have for building your mech, especially with the Armored Core series. I love coming up with builds that look cool, even if they don't do well in the gameplay lol

Also, it's fun as hell blowing shit in the Mechwarrior games I grew up with.

The designs. You can more or less guess the inspiration or origin of a mech based on design aesthetic and from an artist as well as historian point of view that is more than enough. XD

the Big O theme song was in Blades of Glory

that's not an answer to the question, just trivia

I'm more or less indifferent to the idea, but a lot of fiction has done cool things with them.

It's weird. Sci-fi is totally my thing. This is just one piece of it that I could more or less take or leave.

aesthetic.

for games, it's the customization. armored core parts are usually poorly balanced (classic fromsoft), but it's nevertheless fun to spend hours tinkering in the garage for the right AC that looks and plays good for you, even if it may not necessarily be optimal. I guess if you're really into making interesting builds in souls games, it's sort of like that, but with way more appearance options.

also for the OG armored core games, movement was a little technical (maybe clunky by today's standards) with how you're constantly juggling:

1. your camera
2. your lock-on box
3. your ammo
4. your energy
5. vertical height (land from too high up and you get a hard landing, leaving you open for a bit)
6. shimmying to dodge enemy rifle shots and/or missiles

all that obviously got more streamlined in 4 and then 5 and 6.

but yeah the simple answer is really:

ArchNemo posted...

Robot go boom

edit: I always forget gamefaqs does not support markdown

"giant robot fuck yeah pewpew stompstomp," mostly

Umbreon posted...

You dig giant robots.
I dig giant robots.
We dig giant robots.
CHICKS dig giant robots.

i do love Megas XLR, but that's bc of Coop, not so much megas. i think that's the only example of one i like. maybe attack on giant if "so bad its good" counts as liking it

When I was a young teenager, I was in love with Rick Hunter and I wanted to BE Lisa Hayes. I didnt really care about the mecha except as a vehicle (pun only halfway intended) for the romance arc.

Giant robots are awesome! Although Super Sentai is definitely getting rather creative with their giant robots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vU7XqToZso

It's a combination of things. A fair amount of my early exposure to anime was Gundam, so there is some nostalgia, plus I like sci-fi as a broader genre, and in today's market, new mecha anime almost feels novel in a sea of isekai/reincarnation.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a8d8cfd3.jpg

It's pure sci-fi awesomeness, it's just fun to watch

Chicks dig giant robots.

I see another user with excellent tastes already got to that.

Also everytime they shoot beams.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/dbe9cbcd.jpg

Eureka 7 is my favorite Mecha anime there is so many factors that go into the story and character arcs told.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwTydFBtdBY

But I mean Megas XLR sums up the appeal nicely

The unapologetic feeling of power.

Some reasons why mecha is my overall favorite genre:

1. strengthens the underdog
Especially "kid and robot" series - see Tetsujin or OVA Giant Robo, even regular piloted robot series (Gundam/EVA) can have teenagers able to fight against those with power that they wouldn't otherwise be able to do.

2. connects to the humanity in the non-human
Similar to "kid and dog" stuff, a good series can show this off. Sometimes this pertains to the "soul" of the object - maybe tsukumogami is the applicable term - that Kirby mecha game, Planet Robobot? has this at the end, for a game example, again OVA Giant Robo, I think Shin Mazinger Zero did this too. Can also be an outright sentient example like Iron Giant or the tachikomas from GitS.

3. hot blood
There's something fascinating about being able to positively shout (or sing) your problems away. I think a lot of people feel deeply but don't know how to express their emotions properly, and a good kiai, surge of power, physical expression (especially in combination with point 2) can be incredibly cathartic when it culminates in a just cause being fulfilled by otherwise weak humans (see point one). Pretty much any super robot hits this, Getter Robo, Macross 7, Giant Robo OVA (did I mention this enough yet?).

4. science fiction
What most mecha falls under, which is usually cool in and of itself. Even cooler to see robots moving around than say, planes or spaceships (though planes can be cool within mecha series, and ships of land or space are always good carriers...). I also support the OG use of the terminology btw, mecha isn't just giant robots but anything mechanical - cars, planes, trains, ships, regular sized robots...

5. Designs
You can almost always find something to like in the genre. Sticking to just giant robots, you've got fast+sleek (Valkyries from Macross, Aura Battlers from Dunbine), small+military (ATs from VOTOMs, tachikoma from GitS), big+heavy (Megadeus from Big O, Giant Robo from Giant Robo :^) ), medium+weighty (Labors from Patlabor), big+nimble (toss a dart at Robot Romance+similar series), incredible GATTAIs (look at Getter's combination sequences through the years, or GaoGaiGar), even increasingly massive robots like King J-Der or Getter Emperor. Cool vehicles and spaceships (Arcadia from Harlock for example) are also pleasant to look at.

6. Themes
Since early JP sci-fi was much like early Western sci-fi, you can usually find standing side by side:
6a. rule of cool stuff that likely won't happen in our lifetime (alien invasions, giant robots, bounty hunting in space)
6b. deeper narrative meanings, especially from the "survived WWII/grew up in post-war Japan" group of creators. For many, mecha was a means to question society then and what might be in the future, the necessity of war, and weigh the cost of human lives against the benefit (whatever it may be) of mankind's scientific progress.
Two good examples: Space Battleship Yamato (the anime - plenty of goofy moments throughout, along with gutwrenching ones, and a mindblowing ending), Mars (the manga - some cool designs and an ending that makes you reflect on all of the above).

Because mechas are often (but not always) humanoid, you can get similar-ish fights to what you'd have between people, but you can have a great level of damage done without having to actually kill the characters, so you get a lot of fighting tropes, but with unique twists. And on top of that because you have someone piloting the mecha, you also get a lot of tropes that are similar to those in stories about fighter jets and such, but again with unique twists because of the different types of mobility and such.