Where are the /m/echa Cinemaphilemics and cartoons? Are Sym-Bionic Titan, The Iron Giant, and Megas XLR really all there is? Don't you guys like giant robots?
Where are the?
Where are the /m/echa Cinemaphilemics and cartoons? Are Sym-Bionic Titan, The Iron Giant, and Megas XLR really all there is? Don't you guys like giant robots?
Don't forget the goat.
I've posted about this several times but broadly speaking, no, the western world or at least America really don't love giant robots in spite of the lies we tell ourselves. They are and for the time being will remain a niche thing for nerds in the West and broadly speaking American (and other Western societies arguably) have a different view of machinery and technology which, compounded with other peculiarities of attitude, makes a show where machines are a focal point a bit less viable. Japan has had us beaten out for both quality and sheer quantity for some time and even with a severely reduced mecha output on their end they still hold the lead and have the arguably better attitude.
There is an unquestionable and reasonably strong machine nerd cult in the US and west in general but broadly speaking they just don't ever seem to manifest the creative strength to put out a large volume of mecha content. This not to say it's completely absent from the world and the volume of what you count as "/m/" definitely expands when you count racing shows, shows about robot individuals and not giant robots, etc. but even that, fascinatingly, still doesn't quite beat out the nips for sheer quantity.
Transformers dominates the market and has ruled unquestioned for a very long time in these parts. Pacific Rim and Sym-Bionic Titan were some notable breakout attempts but both died in their cradles. Everything that isn't Transformers tends to be forgotten and to die in this way, and there simply is not a lot of it to go around to begin with.
Severely underrated show. To tie into my autism, SRMTHFG is also quite notable in that it not only was good(!) and got multiple seasons(!!) but wore its weebism and Japanese/broad pulpy sci-fi influence on its sleeve
what makes Transformers succesfull where others have failed?
A popular toy line with a lot of media tie ins?
every time i go to the store i see no optimus, no megatron, no grimlock, no soundwave, sometimes i see a Bumblebee SOMETIMES, but is always some literally who transformer.
I'm not an expert in this subject, just an autist, but I'll try and give my two cents as best I can. Transformers and Voltron are about the only two Western mecha properties I'm aware of that aren't video games which have been allowed to succeed.
Transformers in particular has a number of factors going for it which might cause it to resonate particularly with western audiences
>all the robots are distinct and identifiable characters, NOT just robots
>VERY long standing legacy characters and stories
>extensive and highly popular toyline(s) from day one
>endless memberberries on top of basic toy popularity make the franchise evergreen
In a sense Transformers is really closer to superhero shit than 'mecha' content. It's done with robots, but like Bionicle, another successful western /m/ IP, it's more or less fantasy/superhero shit as opposed to actually being about people using robots for their own ends.
I have no ill will against SBT or western mecha content in general. Frick me, I wish there was more. What I'm trying to say is that western mecha as a concept is in this fricking really weird convoluted position. It's around and alive but it's a zombie concept with only the occasional breakthrough to mainstream audiences, and Westerners generally seem to dislike, so far as I can tell, mecha and mecha anime, leaving them a very niche nerd thing even beyond most nerd fantasy shit.
The weird bullshit elements of western mecha stem from several factors I'm not going to list because it'd be too long. However, here's a good example. The robot on the left is Dougram's "Blockhead", and the one on the right Battletech's "Wolverine" in early versions of the tabletop game. Battletech is a foundational element of Western mecha, but most western mecha fans generally will give few to no kudos to Japanese content despite it being so foundational to western mecha designs later down the line.
I think making robots into characters was just the logical step for burgers and euros because capeshit was always the boys' "action" medium default. its all the creatives knew for years. Getting them to appreciate mecha in the japanese sense is going to be tough because even car culture is fading. The best you could hope for is some mazinger styled middle ground where the pilot and the robot are both "alive" and work in unison to achieve a greater good.
Yeah, there's a certain mix of appreciation for machines and psuedo-military interest that's often necessary to be a mecha appreciator IMO. Nowadays apparently MSG: Witch from Mercury is apparently selling extremely well while also being yuribait, but I haven't seen it. If it's true however I think it speaks to the position mecha is in as a whole, and also speaks to why getting it made in the west would be very difficult.
There's certain types of autistic itches that can be scratched by mecha content but in the west those itches are fulfilled and dominated utterly by existing franchises or the itches outright not existing, or at least not any more.
Literally rebooted already and died because The Lego Group both mismanaged and deliberately throttled it. Lego itself has been at odds with Bionicle from day one even when that franchise first began and has never understood it, and that's apparently according to people who've worked on it. This is also a part of why Hero Factory, which also had Christian Faber working on it, died.
Yeah, I don't care for video games. I can both agree and disagree with you. I'm not big on Brigador from what I've seen of it but I think that in general Americans will always have something of a leg up in the video game department at least over the nips, since unlike the nips westoids can into netcode, but even that I think is a little questionable since so many people are creaming themselves over that Japanese game Armored Core.
i think it should also be noted that its ingrained in nips to like mecha shit. you go back to the days of the samurai and they all believed in this notion of the body being little more than a vessel for the spirit. mecha at its core is an extrapolation of that concept. without that cultural background it seems to lack some of that punch. that or the sheer magnitude of american media just continued to prove too dense to penetrate. though going off the bushido point, I think westerners value the individual more. it shows is in the very nature of the superhero.
the entire debacle lego, faber, and bionicle found itself in is so massively depressing. its been corporate patricide since the beginning.
are we too late for a Bionicles reboot?
I don't think they'll bring it back after the last revival failed.
I'd fight you over the "quality" comment, but only because your scope seems to dip outside of strictly Cinemaphile material by bringing up Pacific Rim--as no one really cares about the Pacific Rim animations. There's definitely been nothing to really compete on the animation front, but there's other American /m/aterial that is of quite high quality, even when coming from small sources like Brigador
>but there's other American /m/aterial that is of quite high quality, even when coming from small sources like Brigador
Pretty much all western mecha is video or tabletop games. Battletech, Titanfall, Heavy Gear, Brigador, Lancer, etc. there should be more attempts to adapt the worlds of those games into animation, they all have plenty of rich lore and ready to go settings.
Oban Star Racers was good too, but more star wars pod racing than explicitly giant robot shit.
We have MLAATR for honorary /m/.
>no mention of Big Guy and Rusty
for shame OP
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_hfDtD68l8X2nk78PRf3x_kqugU7Jm3A
>Frankenstein Jr
>The Mighty Orbots
>Go Bots
>Robotix
>Rollie Pollie Ollie
Here
>pairing two of the greatest action cartoons with three unremarkable yuri/fujo bait shit shows
DESPICABLE
The really rich part is that the middle example is actually the most basic example of how robots tend to appear in western shit: as disposable goons and obstacles. It's like an "anti-example" of actual fricking giant robot content, or maybe that's Voltron since it's a giant robot show about everything but giant robots.
Here's an example of an actual Western mecha show by the way. Nobody paid any fricking attention to gen:lock, it was mediocre, and in spite of the literal actual stupid gay rape bullshit inserted into it nobody even bothers to mourn about it.
There's so much fricking clown bullshit to talk about with Western mecha it's not even funny. I could write a fricking essay about the absolute delusion that seems to pervade the very idea of Western mecha.
at the very least that anon could have included either the 90s or 2011 voltron reboots, but that smoothbrain had to include the netflix gayfest.
This. Frick western shit, SBT included
even when comes to Megas and SBT, the better examples, most of their enemies are Kaijus, and the Mechas pretty much work on magic with coop being the worse offender with a mcguffin button every episode.
what style of mecha would you want to see a western spin on? part of the reason SBT and Megas caught my attention to begin with was because they reminded me of the shogun warriors comics. do you want something more along the lines of an american gundam ?
>do you want something more along the lines of an american gundam ?
This was Exo-Squad. I miss it.
for what its worth playmates never stopped using the toy molds. alot of the mechs continued to show up in various TMNT lines for years afterwards.
i don't know something like Star Wars minus the space wizards i guess, the mechas don't have to be giant humans.
I love the fight with the Giant Camels on episode 5, i guess you could consider that essentially a tank.
I don't have a problem with super robo stuff though, but they have to make some sense in-universe and not just have a new power every episode.
You have something against Pacific Rim: The Black?
I have everything against pacific rim anything after the first film. everything after thaf first movie is utter dogshit.
So you never watch The Black
unironically one of the greatest comics of the 1970s. I'll never understand how micronauts and rom are celebrated but shogun warriors is a foot note.
Go Lion > Voltron Force > Voltron the Third Dimension >>>>>>> classic voltron >>>>>>>> netflix voltroon
>Don't you guys like giant robots?
No, I don't like giant robots.
I. Dig. Giant robots.
I don't know why, but aside from Sym-Bionic Titan and Megas, I could never really get into any mecha show, but whenever an otherwise non-mecha show has a giant robot episode, I always get excited.
>only one mention of Exo-Squad
fricking zoomers don't know shit.
Easily better than a lot of mecha anime, including the original Gundam 0079 and Zeta (and i get ZZ).
Was watching Zeta the other month and wow, i don't get why anyone praised that shit.
Exo-Squad pulls it punches for being a kids show, but the impact is still felt when characters die. War felt like a real war, with the main characters not always winning and battles being fought offscreen by other characters.
>Exo-Squad
I tried watching it but it was pretty boring. Also anime like ojamajo doremi made death seem more serious and impactful than this.
Netflix Pacific Rim had a shockingly promising start but damn it really tripped and face planted in the second
I have to wonder if there was a sudden cancellation because it’s a real mess
I consider it a true shame that it went belly up, since it seemed like a way to get out of the bloated blighted shadow of Uprising