>>144669596
>Revenge of the Fallen was a box office success, earning $402.1 million in the U.S. and Canada and $434.2 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $836.5 million, being the 37th-highest-grossing film of all time domestically.
>The film grossed over $34 million worldwide, becoming the sixth-highest-grossing Japanese film of 2022 and the most commercially successful Ultraman film. It was theatrically released in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Ireland in January 2023.

Japanese audiences embrace the relationship between the toys and the content of the fiction.
I remember people fucking praising Netflix Voltron for treating the titular mecha as. "sometimes treat".

>>144669621
>Transformers
>mecha

>>144669630
>Therefore, Pacific Rim became a bit of an oddity and a weirdly financially successful cult classic. It's difficult to rationalize but 400 million in box office receipts equals quite a lot of moviegoers, even if from the big picture perspective assumed by studio bean counters it might look like a bit of a flo

>>144669642
>Pacific Rim
>mecha

>>144669623
>"sometimes treat".
what?

It all failed after the 90s

>>144669740
Dunno anything about Voltron, but I would assume it means people thought the mecha only showing up every so often was a positive aspect of the show because it made its appearances feel more special.

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>>144669642
Wow, that's great. Too bad they never made a sequel.

>>144669623
Japanese mecha shows were largely 80% humans or human conflict with some robot bits
The quality and quantity has dropped since some decades ago too.

>>144669623
That's why I appreciate the Japanese - they let dumb fun stuff be dumb and fun and don't care if the purpose is to sell toys. The West is just brain rotted into thinking cartoons made to promote toys are bad

Only Transformers and Voltron to an extent worked over here. Americans don't dig giant robots. Gundam was hot for a minute but quickly cooled off until recent years. I can't say why this is. Sym-Bionic Titan was well-written, though serious. But a more comedic take like Megas similarly struggled. I don't know, man.

>>144669596
I can hardly think of any examples of "western mecha" for it to be considered a cursed genre. Transformers is very successful. Voltron had a ton of reboots. Yeah, Sym-Bionic Titan flopped, but teen-oriented action cartoons always flop on Cartoon Network

>>144670133
>teen-oriented action cartoons always flop
Teen titans?

>>144669596
Sym-Bionic Titan didn't failed because it is mecha, it failed because marketing simply didn't knew what to do it with. As good as the show was, there simply wasn't anything to turn into toys.

And let's not beat around the bush here, the character design in this show sucks.

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Was Mech Cadets succesful?

>>144669942
you've got it a bit backwards, japs make a show and if it's popular enough for merch that's a bonus. America makes merch and bases a show around it.

we don't care about how popular a thing is, just the merch. old men who are in smokey rooms who haven't talked to anyone near a show's target audience in decades, deciding the future of that show on what their instincts tell them based on rules they decided 50 years ago.

it's a reoccurring issue in a lot of networks where shows that have borderline rabid fan bases almost instantly getting cancelled. like fox is infamous for hating their scifi shows despite the fact they keep pumping out cult classics.

>>144670175
Specifically from the 2010s onward. Sym-Bionic Titan, Young Justice, Thundercats, Green Lantern, Beware the Batman, etc. It's impossible for them to have long runs now

>>144670223
>America makes merch and bases a show around it.
this isn't as true any more.

>>144670284
You're right, America makes shows and then makes shows around them (reboots and spin-offs)

>>144670284
source?

>>144669596
I think the west prefers giant robots being alive, like the Transformers or Iron Giant.

>>144670175
Teen titans was aimed at younger audiences than teens

>>144669596
Japanese mecha is similarly cursed
Good mecha shows are few and far between, and tended more to be war tragedies/drama where the robots were just window dressing.
The only franchises where the robot was central to the whole idea of the show where Go Nagai's and he has precious few imitators. The only shows I could say have replicated that spirit are Gogaigar, Gurren Lagann, Goddanar and more recently Bravern
Rest of "mecha" shows are usually more about character drama / war stories.

>>144669665
>>144669630
>mecha media aren't mecha because they aren't japanese
ok weeb

>>144670482
>Good mecha shows are few and far between
This is true for every genre ever made.

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>>144669596
The mecha genre has always been weaker in america than in other places (love for mecha is not just limited to japan, a lot of classic super robot shows were massively popular in Europe and south america in ways that it never caught on here) and the reason for that is because the 'niche' that the mecha genre fills is already occupied in America's cultural ecosystem.

Japan's giant robots are our Superheros, and vice versa. They fill the same roles, appeal to the same crowds. The same colorful designs, special attacks, secret identities... even the types of enemies they fight like mad scientists and aliens and such. The complete cultural dominance of Superheroes in America left little room for the classic super robots like Mazinger to find purchase except as niche oddities.

On top of this, America values 'chosen by god' type heroes, heroes who are INHERENTLY special and powerful by nature of a special birthright or miracle of fate. With few exceptions, all of the superheroes have their special power built into their very body. Japan, meanwhile, tends to have its heroes be largely normal people with external sources of power (whether that be giant robots, transformation belts, magical girl rods, pokemon pals, etc) that can be used for good or for ill and the hero is the hero because they use that power for justice where others use it for evil. Lots of mecha shows even go so far is to cast doubt on whether the giant robot the MC pilots can even be trusted, or if it is a tool of destruction that is as much a threat to innocent people as the things we are fighting with it.

>>144669740
>>144669863
It's insane to me that this had to be explained.

>Americans are huge into stuff like cars and war machinery like tanks
>somehow they don't like Mecha
???

test

>>144670514
while that's true, other genres tend to have a more well defined identity, whereas what people associate with the idea of a "mecha anime", aka a big fuck you robot with magic powers fighting evil, is actually a minority in its own genre.

>>144670504
Transformers are Japanese
They just aren't Mecha but it's own self isolated genre

One Japanese Mecha fan on /a/ explained that that's how Transformers viewed in The Japanese Fandom, a sibling to the Mecha genre

>>144669849
Eureka 7 and Gurren Lagann did well though

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>>144670564
Thats because there are lots of things that get labelled as mecha when they really aren't, they just have robots in them.
86 is a good show, and it has robot spider tanks in it, but its not really a mecha show. They could have been using fighter jets or something and it really wouldn't have made a difference to the story.
Not every show with a scifi aesthetic is mecha just because robots are a common scifi staple. That would be like if we defined the 'fantasy' genre as any story with swords in it, making an account of the napoleanic wars 'fantasy' because there were dudes with cavalry sabers.

>>144670524
Most of this post is complete fantasy
first off the archetypal mecha story isn't a hero in a robot fighting mad scientists or aliens, it's gundam : humanity locked in space opera warfare.
Second, mecha pilots ARE special. Gundam pilots are newtypes, Ryoma is an exceptional individual with unparalleled getter ray compatibility, Shinji is unique in his ability to interface with 01. While personal responsibility is often a theme, it is because mecha stories tend to be war stories - the mecha is a weapon and what it does is destroy, and the pilot is a soldier. American super heroes go throguh exactly the same dramatic beats, wondering who exactly they are fighting for, if punching criminals is truly the way to make the world a better place, etc etc.

>>144670654
No, that has nothing to do with it. The real reason is that most mecha shows are actually taking after Gundam.

>>144670673
And you don't see how those 2 things are related?

>>144670223
>you've got it a bit backwards, japs make a show and if it's popular enough for merch that's a bonus.
That is not always correct. Many Mecha series start as a series of robot designs and they work backwards from there, like Drive Head and Shinkalion which actually had toys release with rudimentary setting details, before it all got rebooted when they got respective anime.
This most famously applies to Zoids, that would often release kits before they even wrote basic context for their place in the Battle Story or anime.
This happens with specific cases in long running series too, like Dino Getter, Jeegfried and Gundam Phenex which all existed as designs before they got their fiction.

>>144670678
They are, but trying to gatekeep what is "mecha" to the point where you'd start arguing the original gundam show isn't mecha is absurd
Stories with humanoid ridable robots are mecha, that is about as far as the definition goes.

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>>144669952
>Americans don't dig giant robots.
We do, but the problem is that the marketing for so much of any genre here tries to push competitors out. Hasbro hammered in Transformers as the real thing and everything else as imitations. To this day if you talk about Go-bots to an 80's kid, they call it a cheap TF knockoff
If you were around on the internet when Gen Xers were around making snarky articles and posts, anytime Power Rangers was mentioned, they were sure to deride it as a Voltron ripoff(even though Golion was inspired by Sentai)
And with Power rangers, the attempt at bringing over more Tokusatsu shows simply lead to them being called Power rangers ripoffs.
This goes back to DC attempting to sue Fawcett over Captain Marvel, and even now with the movies you have Marvel edging out DC movies and absorbing the marvel IPs that were outside of Disney. The higher you go, the more their can only be one in the US market.
Meanwhile in Japan, they don't really wince at imitators so long as you're not outright ripping off the exact design. Ultraman had a ton of imitations despite being such a unique property, but Tsuburaya had no reason to take legal action as they ultimately had different designs if not different premises.
There was an anecdote about a mecha toy collector from America talking about Machine Robo/Gobots with a Japanese collector. The JP collector talked about how popular they were in Japan because they were marketed basically like hot wheels, cool, cheap pocket toys a kid can take anywhere with them in their pocket. The American collector said between the bad job marketing the show the cartoon did, and the general American perception that bigger=better meant that anything that was a transforming robot but not Transformers was deemed lesser.

>>144670581
mecha isn't a genre, as shounen isn't a genre either
and transformers is only half japanese, and it still is mecha

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>>144669596
Yankistanis hate mecha as a large public group, genre remains niche
People interested in machinery either aren't making mecha or are sidelined and do not make any mecha
No big hits to

>>144670524
I think there's a kernel of truth to this but this seems highly questionable. Grendizer might be a series where the MC has a secret identity but in shows like Mazinger Z or Voltes V the identity and location of the heroes is outright public knowledge. There's also the matter of actual performance, I really don't think psuedo-military or outright professional soldier characters like Amuro Ray or Chirico Cuvie are really analogous to characters like Superman, whereas a character like Goku is always compared to him.

There's also the matter of what kind of stories are told. A story like Dougram isn't really something you find analogues to in superhero type media so far as I know.

>>144670708
>the marketing for so much of any genre here tries to push competitors out
that's a very american thing yeah, the comics code, the constant remakes of japanese movies, the overall discomfort with anything foreign, or god forbid, european...

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>>144670524
>Japan's giant robots are our Superheros, and vice versa.
Japanese superheroes are their supeheroes.
Giant robots generally fill more a unique blend of military vehicle combat, political/military intrigue
Even going back to Tetsujin/Gigantor(which isn't a piloted mech, but still a forefather) humans politics and international relations is a major factor moving the action.
There's absolutely Japanese mecha shows about more streamlined approaches, into basically treating the mecha as a superpower or a secret identity, but it's not as present in the last few decades and even early in the super robot genre they experiment with the set up a lot.
The Thunderchild vs Tripod fight in War of the Worlds arguably has a lot of parallels to how mecha stories are structured.

>>144670524
>On top of this, America values 'chosen by god' type heroes, heroes who are INHERENTLY special and powerful by nature of a special birthright or miracle of fate. With few exceptions, all of the superheroes have their special power built into their very body. Japan, meanwhile, tends to have its heroes be largely normal people with external sources of power (whether that be giant robots, transformation belts, magical girl rods, pokemon pals, etc) that can be used for good or for ill and the hero is the hero because they use that power for justice where others use it for evil. Lots of mecha shows even go so far is to cast doubt on whether the giant robot the MC pilots can even be trusted, or if it is a tool of destruction that is as much a threat to innocent people as the things we are fighting with it.
Those are every american superheroes lmao.
Green Lanterns are the biggest example of this lol.

>>144670743
With you bringing up Amuro, it made me realize we don't have many western cartoons starring a protagonist like Amuro in the original Gundam. This teenager who gets drafted into war, forced to fight, and even by the end of the conflict isn't sure what he's fighting for. And discovers he has psychic powers. I think the closest analog I can think of is Animorphs which isn't a cartoon. Military science fiction/fantasy is nothing something made for western kids/teens.

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I think Americans want to like mecha, but most mecha relies on protagonists that are either boring or offensively whiny to Americans, or just plain forgettable. We like hotshots and cocky pilots, or stoic, father like figures, and generally we detest weakness and softness.
Wing hit the jackpot in being a show about a bunch of moody, angry, but independent(mostly) figures who took action regularly
It's why Shinji is such a hated figure in US fandom.

>>144669665
I mean... yeah.

>>144670901
>and generally we detest weakness and softness.
maybe back then but now frail white male is a genre

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>>144670901
Silly post

>>144670901
>and generally we detest weakness and softness.
Weird thing to say considering every male protag in western cartoons for like the last decade has been weak and soft.

>>144670901
>weakness and softness.
Lol hahaha, Americans detest weakness and softness? This is the funniest post I've read in a while

>>144670901
Americans prize and prioritize certainty. We want everything to be in extremely simple categories where good and evil are clear and distinct, and the explanations are so simple there isn't room to think about them. The hot shot cocky pilot is able to be so cocky because there is absolutely zero room for him to be wrong about who to fight, his world has been simplified. Batman has never, in 80 years, dropped into an alleyway ready to brawl only to find that he misread a situation from a rooftop 2 miles away and actually this isn't a mugging its just a guy helping his drunk friend home. American heroes might be tricked by a duplicitous enemy, but they never make MISTAKES because they always are in possession of too much information to be confused by ambiguity.
This is a big part of why 9/11 mindbroke America for a solid decade and everything had to be morally grey now and everyone was a gritty asshole in a bleak and drab world, because a bunch of people died and we didn't know what to do about it and they things we DID do about it didn't help anything. The curtain was pulled back, reality was shown to be complex and not based on simple digestible narratives, and we recoiled at the horror of it. But only for a while, we've since gone back to hiding in simple black and white logic again, because its where we feel safest.

>>144670958
They don't write those cartoons for broad appeal. They write them for some niche audience online. It's part of why western cartoons are struggling.

>>144670901
>It's why Shinji is such a hated figure in US fandom
Shinji has always been hated by people that had very little knowledge or care about anime besides a few battle shounen. That's where 99% of the hate on old forums came from.

>>144670993
It also applies to live action stuff.
In fact, most western male characters over the last decade have been soft, weak, or otherwise emasculated, usually by a woman.
Saying westerners hate this just isn't true, because they still pump plenty of money into it.

>>144670973
Gray is how the world is.
Black and White is how the world should be.

>>144669665
What else would it be? tokusatsu?

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>>144669596
This is a question for /toy/. Western companies just can't make good robot toys. Japanese companies can make so many mecha because they actually know how to make toys.

>>144671018
That gets into the big picture trends in western media. I don't think the mainstream audience wants these emasculated male characters. but they also don't want to watch non-IP things. I work with some guys in their late 50s, early 60s. Watched the SW OT, i think in theaters. They hate the Disney era, but they watch it with their kids. They don't care to find an alternative and just put up with it. These big IPs all shifted to this type of storytelling. I don't think audiences were asking for this or would ask for it back if the industry shifted away from it. But it's not so bothersome that they will stop watching. There's certain tropes/trends in storytelling that i don't think are popular but they're able to keep doing because it's not so bad that people will give up on big IPs.

>>144671146
Kino xlr

>>144671146
What's up with American toys anyways? Apart from Todd's Fortnite dolls the industry sucks. The latest series of transformers don't even fucking transform.

Hasbro ate the industry then promptly shit itself despite having the most dominant position in the toy market ever.

I guess that's proof that in absence of competition, the companies get fat and retardedx

>>144670930
>>144670958
>>144670970
>>144671018
I meant more when they were actually attempted to market mecha anime in the US. Look at what did best Wing, and G Gundam. You can nitpick about the Wing boys being emotional, but the overall presentation was more favorable to mainstream audiences. than other Gundam series. There's other factors too, but I'm sure a part of what made those series a success was the pilots just having more appeal.
Besides, even if they attempt to push more soft, weak protagonists , the confident, decisive protagonists generally remains the most popular. . RDJ's Iron Man is still the most popular superhero movie character of the last 20 years. He has moments of softness, but thy don't dwell too long and it pushes him to immediate action.
Context also matters. People will accept a female character being soft and emotional more than a male one.

>>144671243
Parents stopped buying toys and started buying gadgets.

>>144671243
If you want to maximize short-term profits, the simplest way to do so is to make the cheapest product you can get away with and still charge full price. Over time, you erode any sense that a quality product is even to be expected in the first place. This kills your industry, but the people responsible for it already took their winnings and left before the consequences catch up to the company they left behind.
Executives are a plague of locusts. You can see it happening even faster in things like the video games industry, where any small studio that makes something even halfway popular gets bought up, raped to death, and dissolved by a bigger studio in just a few years.

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>>144671243
>. The latest series of transformers don't even fucking transform.
anon if you're saying shit like this you have no clue what you're saying.
There's issues in new TFs for sure, but this is just you looking at an empty wal-mart peg a few weeks ago and assuming things. There's a few non-transforming options but the bulk of TF toys have transforming gimmicks/alt-modes.
Hell I don't think Mcfarlane has even had the fortnite license in years.
The big problem is prices keep rising and have basically priced kids out of regular toy buying. Along with video games just eclipsing all other media in popularity.

Where as in Japan there are actually a lot of dirt cheap toy options for IPs.I think people don't realize that the bulk of JP toy sales for kids isn't the more expensive X options, but cheaper $2-5 options like these ultraman monsters

>>144671278
What are you talking about, RDJ Stark is an extremely weak man. Every major decision he makes is out of guilt or fear. The fact that he commits unyeildingly to his emotional tantrums even when it hurts other people is his defining character flaw.

>>144671278
>Look at what did best Wing
Maybe because of Toonami?

>>144670524
>On top of this, America values 'chosen by god' type heroes, heroes who are INHERENTLY special and powerful by nature of a special birthright or miracle of fate.
this is the same country that lost their collective shit over Rocky Balboa

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>>144671278
I'm not the guy you're replying to but I really feel like I am reading a toonami babby post. I get your points, I really do, but Wing is such a fucking shitty show. The main characters aren't "whiny" (except for when they're allowed to be) but they are often flat as boards, genuinely insane, and intensely boring. Heero tries to kill himself fucking twice and fails, the plot armor in that show is palpable, the rationale of the wagon wheel of antagonists and heroes is awful and incredibly simplistic. You call guys like Heero and his buddies cocky hotshots- of course they are, the entire cast is a moody boy band. I struggle to remember actually whiny protagonists in all the mecha media I've seen, and when I do in the case of guys like Kamille Bidan it both genuinely makes sense (taken pretty much against his will into a paramilitary having lived a cushy teen life) and forms a huge part of his arc as a character- going from whiny to a being a better man is a key part of his story.

>>144669596
they are doomed to fail because their industry has no value in the work outside of profits

>>144671367
Doesn't Anpanman alone sell more than most toy brands combined

>>144671367
You're probably right. I haven't set foot in a toy store in years. I'm out of touch

>>144671375
But he makes a decision, and it's punctuated by action. It's like I said, the crew in Wing, or Domon, are also motivated by their emotions (Domon punctuates his signature attack talking about sorrow), but ultimately they're just cool. Personality, and visually.
You can analyze these characters further but to general audiences they have a decisiveness that appeals to them. People don't think of RDJ Stark as motivated by guilt or fear, they just see him as a cocky guy, makes the right quip, confident and self-sufficient.
>>144671376
They were all on Toonami, or adult Swim. There's other factors, like 0079's age/look, but Amuro just didn't have the juice to the audience Heero did, even if Amuro's a better character.

>>144671278
I think a major factor was Wing being first and G Gundam being close to the shonen being shown on Toonami. I sometimes wonder if a Wing sequel existed how well it would have done. Kids do like following the same characters and IIRC Endless Waltz did the highest rating in CN's history at the time when it aired.

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>>144671463
This is unironically the biggest redpill ITT
It's very important to remember the Western media landscape right now is, ironically, quite hostile to creation.

>>144671453
>but Wing is such a fucking shitty show.
I would agree anon, I prefer UC myself, but I'm not talking about my own tastes here.
We need to put our own tastes aside since this is a thread about discussing what sells to a broad audience.
Even something like Heero's haircut over Amuro's is a factor. That's how shallow we're talking.

>>144671278
Bro, you're delusional, modern western male characters are almost universally soft, weak, or emasculated.

>>144671532
But are people talking about them the same way we do stronger protagonists? Have you noticed how irrelevant movies and TV are to
online user generated content is more popular or relevant than most TV or movies these days

>>144671515
You're very right. I still don't think trying to use Wing again would be the ticket but more superficial coolness is genuinely better for audience retention, sad as it is to say.

>>144670284
I wish they did it more. the majority of cartoons that are fondly recalled on this board had a single major component that they all shared. the execs made toy lines then went to the show creators and said "we need these things in a show" and that was about the full extent of their involvement. the show creators got free reign as long as product x showed up. the toy execs would get more toy ideas off the show and hand them over and repeat the cycle. as long as the toy showed up for a few frames everyone was happy.

if I recall right most of Batman, gi joe, and transformers were the big names that they did this way. Batman beyond was literally just some exec saying "we want a young teen Batman toyline"

>>144671886
The important part there isn't the involvement of the toys, it was the uninvolvment of the executives. Because they only cared about toy sales, they didn't stick too many fingers into the pie when it came to the show. Now everything have to be reviewed, focus tested, etc because the show itself is the product to bolster some streaming service or another.

>>144670175
That was before the iPhone stabbed both the toy and cartoon markets in the back. iPads were just the final nail in the coffin. Toddler shows can bypass the rules around advertising to children by making shows that look like ads and then licencing the rights to Chinese plastic factories pumping out plates, bowls, sippy cups, backpacks, etc.
If it can't make a toddler scream about what cup their milk is in, studios don't want to make it.

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>>144671886
The problem is cocky fuckers like Greg Weisman resented having to sell the toys and would brag about playing hardball. Weisman had a story about Kenner asking him to implement a helicopter in an episode for the toyline, and he had it blown up in two minutes. Kenner's execs sighed and said they don't need to advertise their toys anymore.
The Gargoyles toyline ending at Kenner was a decision that helped end the show and Weisman wasn't asked back for the third season(I'm sure he didn't notice the connection)

>>144671397
American underdog narratives are an .mkv holding an .mp4 of Chosen One inside of it. Rocky's capacity for training is like John Henry's ability to dig but even more so because he only loses in the first movie and the first fight of the third movie.

>>144671886
>>144671977
I'm pretty sure it works the same way in Japan. IIRC there was an interview with Tomino who basically confirmed that the toy companies gave him the design of the toy they're trying to sell, and they didn't give a shit what story he based the toy around, hence stuff like Space Runaway Ideon

>>144671367
mcfarlane still has its portion of the license. its divided up among price tiers, the cheaper toys still exist from different companies. The sales dropped off like a rock though, so switching back to the other brands.

>>144671886
Toys are not as strong as they once were. I do think video game tie-ins should be the future.

>>144672166
The same can be said of a lot of Japanese underdog narratives
>this outcast loser is actually descended from this super powerful ____ and has a great destiny ahead of them
Rocky is still a retarded guy from Philly who gets brain damaged though.

>>144669596
Mecha was created as a genre by Japan as a result of WW2 by a generation of guys who were too young to fight in combat but romanticized that they did combined with the rapid rise of technology at the time who were quickly becoming tech leaders. So it has strong ties culturally and historically to Japan leading to its proliferation as a genre, while in the US it's just wow cool robits, so you won't get the same passion for it from western creatives.

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>>144670708
This answer makes the most sense to me. Apparently mecha was first brought to the United States, by rebranding 5 mecha shows as Shogun Warriors. But then Transformers came out and buried any memory of it.
Now whenever an American sees a mech, they think it's a Transformer. The problem is only exacerbated with Optimus Prime being a recolor of the RX-78-2

>>144672715
Not really. I hate explanations like this, because it's way too simple. Truth is, people have just always been interested in war and machines, regardless of culture or age. People say that Star Wars is supposed to be a note on Vietnam, but this isn't necessarily true. Sci-fi like Buck Rogers has been a thing since the 1930s, and of course the generations long after Vietnam still enjoyed Star Wars. It's like how people say Godzilla is "supposed" to be about WW2, when in reality invasion B movies were just the norm in sci-fi, not just in the 1950s, but back to War of the Worlds.

>>144672715
If you want to read mecha through a WWII lens, you gotta remember that America is already part of that framework.
Take Mazinger as the prime example. At it's core, the heroes are protecting the most advanced power source and armor from Dr Hell. It doesn't take much to stretch it as a nuclear power analogy. Which can be used for good (nuclear energy) or it can be used for evil (atom bombs).
You can tell this story from an American perspective. This technology was developed in the United States, and public schools teach that we wish we didn't have to use the bomb.
American ties to the bomb aren't as strong as Japanese, because it's considered a guilty part of our history. But there are ties nontheless.

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>East vs. West thread
Did /a/ laugh you off the board for your shit taste again Pedro?

>>144669874
Yup, but I'm glad they only made one movie, I'm sure they would have fucked up a sequel.

>>144670524
Grendizer U's ed slaps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6skNXCuo0Q

>>144670973
>Batman has never, in 80 years, dropped into an alleyway ready to brawl only to find that he misread a situation from a rooftop 2 miles away and actually this isn't a mugging its just a guy helping his drunk friend home.
Question and Green Arrow did
>American heroes might be tricked by a duplicitous enemy, but they never make MISTAKES because they always are in possession of too much information to be confused by ambiguity.
Vigilante was wrong many times during his murders

>>144672953
I'll agree with him that we don't have the same passion here for the genre. Our major cartoon creators come off like they grew up on 90s cartoons, slice of life anime, and Miyzaki films. they aren't motivated by what the mecha creators of the 60s/70s were.

>>144673131
Star Wars is fundamentally different from stuff like Gundam, Manzinger etc. It has american cultural ties in both revolutionary war mythologizing as well as the traditional heroes journey structure. Japan lost the wart and in turn lost it's samurai warrior heritage by being blocked from building a standing army post war. These and other cultural differences are why mecha and other genres proliferate in post war japan and not burgerland and then go on to have cultural momentum into the modern age.

>>144673556
Japan didn't have traditional hero's journey stories in its history?

>>144673556
>gundam
Made by people raised on Western media. Paints the future as multicultural. Originally conceived as an adaptation of Starship Troopers. Inspired by Star Wars and other stuff.

>mazinger
Ditto, except it's more clearly rooted in the 60s generation. Based on Tetsujin, which is Astro Boy and superhero fiction. The residual of pulp sci-fi and heroes is obviously there.

>star wars
Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon but better, and inspired by romantism/anthropology.

IMO Star Wars actually stands out the most because it's looking further into the past.

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>>144670524
>Lots of mecha shows even go so far is to cast doubt on whether the giant robot the MC pilots can even be trusted
Another cultural difference is that as an American, this sentence is weird to me.

>>144669596
Part of the problem:
Megas XLR rated objectively - 12/10
Sym-Bionic Titan rated objectively - 2/10
Megas XLR based on /co/'s shilling - 8/10
Sym-Bionic Titan based on /co/'s shilling - 20/10

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>>144674100
A lot of mecha shows have the robot be either almost or explicitly possessed of its own will. The first piloted robot, Mazinger, has the famous line where they describe Mazinger itself as being able to become 'either god or devil'. Remember, for context, that in Japan god is not the all-powerful christian god, but the smaller but still strong local regional gods of which there may be thousands of them.
In many ways this concept, that the piloting of a mecha is man taking the reigns of an artificial god, continues into later mecha shows much more explicitly. Getter continues to grow in power, with a vision of the future showing its final form of Getter Emperor which is a threat to the universe itself which struggles to contain what it has become. Evangelion isn't exactly coy about the robots attaining a godlike power. Eureka 7 has the Nirvash being a silent but important character throughout the story that only acts when it chooses to and has its own personality and will.
Ideon goes probably the furthest, a robot that the characters found rather than built and which is powered by a mysterious energy that occasionally wrests control of the machine away from the pilot to perform indiscriminate annihilation on everything within reach before it goes dormant again. More than once the narrative asks whether the Ideon is too dangerous to use and they should bury it somewhere like some sealed evil. Ideon ends with the Ideon itself being destroyed in battle, that energy escaping out into the world, and destroying the galaxy and everything in it as a result including the main characters.

Power in american fiction are generally pure-positive for the heroes. They make them stronger and cooler, and thats all. Power in japanese media almost always comes with caveats: great power is DANGEROUS, and that danger can escape your grip in an instant if you are not wary of what it is you attempt to wield.

>>144674387
Go Nagai wrote Christianity into a lot of his stuff, or at the very least a weird sort of outsider understanding of it

>>144673556
>Japan lost the wart and in turn lost it's samurai warrior heritage by being blocked from building a standing army post war.
But Naruto.....

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>>144674387
I'm not reading all of that, but you're close to my point. As an American we tend to think of giant robots as vehicles, and the pilot drives it like they would an airplane or a tank. The Japanese have a weird relationship with technology because they did a speedrun of technological development due to the west, so a pilot and a giant robot is thought of more like a lion with a tamer.

>>144674530
Even as an American I still don't understand Christianity in the slightest.

>>144674730
>Even as an American I still don't understand Christianity in the slightest.

Christianity is tricky, because there are a dozen different flavors of it that pick and choose different bits of the dogma to focus on or reject, and they all pretend that only they are the real deal and everyone else is a heretic.

Christianity as described in text is mostly a historical narrative of a group of people to whom 95% of christian worshippers have zero relation, interwoven with some good stories and morality tales, as well as a generally good if occasionally wildly outdated spiritual and ethical framework. There is a lot of good stuff in the bible I don't object to one bit, and I don't look down on anyone who follows it.

Christianity as practiced, however, is the world's most complicated game of tag. There are a set of arcane rules on how you can win or lose the game, and if you make it to the end of the game and touch the flagstones of the church and declare 'base!' in time, you win and go to heaven. If you fail, you lose and go to hell. No other part of the religion actually matters, only the high stakes game of tag. Every major schism in christianity is, at its core, about *disagreeing what the rules of this game are*. About introducing rulings to make getting into heaven easier or harder, or disputing who is qualified to make those rulings in the first place. Because everything in the religion has been built around things you must or must not do, things you must or must not believe, according to the rules of the game. The priority of this afterlife takes such precedence over this one that it was used to convinced peasants to accept a lifetime of suffering under brutal exploitation by nobility because they would get the reward for their humility 'later', and for a long time before it was canonized that suicide was a sin Christianity was fast becoming a literal death cult because the obvious solution to avoiding losing the game was to quit while you were ahead.

>>144674387
In Mazinger the line is that -with- Mazinger you (Koji) can become either a God or a Devil.

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>>144674968
I'm not reading all that.

>>144674968
that's how you get antinomianism my brother in Christ.
Thinking that you can be christian without needing to follow all rules.

>>144672636
>Rocky is still a retarded guy who gets brain damaged.
Like Goku?

>>144674968
Most Christians are nice guy cucks. Shit's soft and gayed up.

>>144674387
>Remember, for context, that in Japan god is not the all-powerful christian god, but the smaller but still strong local regional gods of which there may be thousands of them.
That's a pretty common concept in fiction everywhere. "You would be as a powerful as a god" meaning that you would be extremely powerful rather omnipotent.

>>144675228
Sure, but what rules? Is that the power of confession and the rules of the papacy, or the rules of the protestants and accepting jesus as your personal savior without the need for the church to act as an intermediary between you and god?
You see the problem. How can you follow all of the rules if you can't agree on what the rules are? Because the rules change, sometimes in big ways, from sect to sect. And thats before you get into the stuff that barely even counts as christianity like prosperity cult megachurches, "Send $1000 a month to god's most beloved preacher and in return you will know the glory of god's love".

We're getting off track and too deep into the religious weeds here, but my point is that not 'getting' christianity is easy when you try to group it all together under one umbrella because so much of it disagrees with itself. You have to spread it out on the table and see it for the different groups it is for any of it to make sense or its a confusing mess.

>>144675459
go to church, don't give money to who asks but those that needs, drink wine once a week for mass, marry and have babies

>>144674336
>Sym-Bionic Titan based on /co/'s shilling - 20/10
lol

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Member Star Wars?

Was Mech Cadets good?

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>>144669596
You need manliness to do manly combat properly. Not many crew in Los Angeles have the fighting spirit
>>144671463
True

>>144670223
OG Gundam got cancelled twice for not selling enough toys. It only got an movie ending because they started selling model kits and those actually made money. It didn't mattered fan send letters or that the show itself had good ratings, Gundam survived as a franchise because they could well model kits.

>>144669665
Well it is a humanoid machine being piloted by a human. And instead of it just wrapping around the pilot's body, the pilot themselves are inside the machine. So yes, it is part of the mecha genre.

>>144677329
>americans think this is what mecha robots and pilots are

>>144677276
Los Angeles is more dangerous than anywhere in Japan

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>>144677312
This is not exactly right
Mobile Suit Gundam was cancelled once and then granted reruns later, where it did well. This and successful merchandise sales led to the compilation movies. In its 43 episode run, Gundam ended properly. The three compilation movies are not a change or extension of Gundam's series ending.
You might be mixing up Gundam with Ideon. Ideon was also cancelled in its run, though significantly earlier. It ended, but unlike Gundam did not quite end properly. Ideon was granted two films, the second, Be Invoked, ended the series properly and looked damn good doing it

>>144677377
>third world /a/ nigger keeps moving the goalposts of what a mecha is

>>144670524
>Japan, meanwhile, tends to have its heroes be largely normal people
pffffffffAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
You serious?

>>144670213
By what metric? I don't think there's plans for another season that I've heard of
I've never seen an actual thread about the show that's just people discussing it, like or dislike
I'm not sure I could say it was by about any angle

Also me personally it was aight for the "disparate team learning to get along" aspect, but the robos themselves were severely disappointing for the premise we had

>>144675395
Yeah honestly Goku is one of the few to somehow not get truly "predestined to greatness" protagonists. Episode of Bardock is only referenced by the games. Goku is still a low tier product of low tier saiyans who improved beyond levels expected for him

>>144678676
>american think he has any right to call others a nigger

>>144679104
Now try making an actual response, this time without crying

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>>144669596
Eastern mecha suck tho

>>144679144
>american seethe

>>144679690
>Retarded spic can't make a good response in his limitate knowledge of english seethe

>>144676678
Like Godzilla's beam?

>>144679148
man I miss these bait images, they kinda went out of style lately, probably because of all the retards that replaced the older users

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>>144680123
NTA but I think it's because there are less retards arguing along these lines, every /co/ thread about mecha in the west for example for the past six or seven months explicitly hasn't been an east vs west thread. I'm also pretty sure you can still get (you)s for this from /v/

>>144677377
>noooooo it can't be mecha if the interface isn't a proper cockpit!
By your standards then, Evangelion isn't mecha?
(and don't start with me on the biomech thing)

>>144680123
People misusing the chad/virgin stuff proved to me most people aren't able to handle it.

>>144674968
You should learn about the Quakers. They have the opposite dynamic of a non-hierarchical association of volunteers whose focus on immediate and actionable charity often leads people to mistake them for secular volunteers. To them, Heaven is something nice to hope for but what they focus on is doing practical good with their own two hands in the moment. They don't talk much about being Christians, but when they do it tends to catch people by surprise.

>>144669665
Come ON dude.

>>144674387
Mecha is deeply tied to Shinto and I'm glad this anon gets it. America CAN and should be able to not only create mecha, but also connect with it on an emotional level. Sadly, most people in America are raised to be out of touch with faith whether through an absence of it or through being exposed to a dogmatic/hollow interpretation of it. And that's not even getting into how most Americans are taught to lack empathy towards objects.

Perhaps one day things will get better. After all, men in America love their cars just as girls love horses. Could we get an American mecha made in the vein of a horse girl movie or a racing movie?

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>>144670654
Technically speaking, any story focusing on vehicular combat and operation is mecha. It doesn't have to be specifically robotic. Even planes count, if they would fucking MAKE shows about aerial combat.

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>>144682461
>After all, men in America love their cars
I think that's part of the reason Transformers hit so hard in America. Anybody that truly loves their car, believes there's a soul under the hood. Same goes with mecha, a pilot will always give some farewell to the machine that saved their ass so many times.

>>144682599
That makes sense: most of American life is built around the car, something that can't be said for Japan. Perhaps that is the key towards mecha and success in America: drawing parallels to cars (and by extension, horses).

>that's that old hunk of junk! you'll never win with that!
>you're wrong! I'll pilot it and we'll both go the distance!
>cue montage set to Cake

>>144670581
"Mecha" just means "mechanical" in Japan.
Yes, even a car or toaster is technically mecha.

>>144670524
>America values 'chosen by god' type heroes

What the fuck? I can name like 3 characters that work like that meanwhile Japan has to purposefully subvert itself to get an underdog MC which ironically only leads into getting chosen by god anyway through a retcon.

>>144670404
It's not the 80s anymore, you old fuck.

>>144669596
westerners can't draw mecha. simple as.

>>144670554
Most mecha are really ornamental and don't look like actual weapons. There's a reason the bayformers bots look so edgy.

>>144671453
>toonami babby
Know who you're marketing to, dumbass.

>>144671511
The eastern animation industry is greedy as fuck. They only care about making the most profitable shows marketed towards the most profitable demographic. There are no megacorporations throwing tons of money on OVAs anymore.

Remember that time a japanese robotics company and an american one were going to have a "fight" with each other and when it finally happened it was boring as fuck because they weren't allowed to put each other in harm's way at all, so it was just them shooting paintballs at targets on the other robot to score points or some shit

>>144682650
I unironically believe my grandfather possesses the wheel of my car when I'm in a tricky situation when driving. I know it's him, because he was a bus driver with a knack for squeezing the city bus through tight corners and narrow roads. That's the kind of shit you'd see in a mecha anime

>>144682872
>He didn't saw Dexter's Lab

>>144670564
>while that's true, other genres tend to have a more well defined identity,
Speaking of identity and classification, if let's say only the villain used mecha while the protagonist uses superpowers or a different type of sci-fi technology, it doesn't classify as a a mecha series, right?

>>144682519
is Pixar Cars a mecha movie?

>>144684520
yes, Wall E too

>>144683063
> Coming Spring 2025: Ghost Oji-san, Guide My Hand!