Why is mecha so uncommon in the west? >inb4 muh Transformers That doesn't count. Go fuck yourself.
>>147120829Same reason why panty shots are popular in Japan but not really anywhere else. You can find people that are into it but not enough to make money off of it so barely anyone tries.
>>147120829ttgo
>>147120829Go back.>>>/m/
culture, Japs have the whole shinto thing with spirits in everything. Western media approached it from from the industrial angle, where its just a tool
>>147120891There are mecha cartoons fagtard, you lost.
Because it's easier to import eastern mecha shows than take a chance making your own.
A real shame.
>>147120856Sauce
>>147120829>That doesn't countYes it does. Fuck off
>>147120829Optimusprimal.jpeg
>>147121176>Pretenders are basically mechs suits for the giant robots
>>147120856Those boobs are not corect.
>>147120990Exo squad was fucking great
>>147121158>>147098516
>>147121176Transformers are robots, not mechs>>147121208Pretenders are robots that pilot humans(sorta). It's like a reverse mech.
>>147120829Bionicle
>>147121158Gunbuster>>147121211It's not correct that they are fictional and I can't hold them.
>>147121215A real shame it just ends on a cliffhanger.
>>147120990>>147121215This show does feel like mecha in the sense the political intrigue becomes more engaging that the robots blowing shit up.
>>147121287Only the rahkshi
>>147120829>That doesn't count.transformers are literally mechanical life formsyou dont get more mecha than that
>>147121316Mecha refers to piloted humanoid shaped tanks. Mecha is not sapient, autonomous mechanical lifeforms. Unless japan has changed the definition.
>>147120829Ok, this bait thread gets posted all the time, so define mecha. There's plenty of western stuff that has piloted robots in it, but apparently that's good enough for you, so what are you talking about?
>>147121346>Unless japan has changed the definition.mecha is just short for mechanicalnon-piloted robots and powered armor count as mechairon man, starship trooper mobile infantry, and the sentinels are all mecha and so is R2-D2
>>147120829 (OP)various factors including budget cuts, executive meddling (this one is the reason Sym-Bionic Titan got hosed early), and it's a niche genre
>>147121381>and so is R2-D2Because there's a midget piloting it. Right?
>>147120829Bears a little bit of a resemblance to a Hygogg. Something more recent was the Lightyear movie. The Zergbots have a ton of design cues from the Zaku II.
>>147121430
>>147121430I dunno man, Zurg bots (Zyclops?) only similarity to Zaku seems to be.>Red mono eye>Green>BipedalBesides that they are completely different.In other words, That is no zaku, boy! No zaku!
>>147121430Was war in the pocket available in the west back in 1996? Otherwise it's convergent evolution.
>>147120829Robots have more appeal when they have any sort of sentience, rather than just exist as a tool. I'm not even trying to start an argument, that's just the way it is.
>>147120829Pic related was still animated by the Japanese, amusingly. They did a damn good job with it, I fondly remember the imagery of its ejected shell smashing a car through sheer bulk.
>>147121605>"Hurr hurr me not enjoy da robots unless they have stupid voices and pop of shitty quips!"Kill yourself.
>>147121685
>>147121590Nah, the Toy Story 2 Zurgbots were more Cylons than anything else, between their chromed designs and their constantly scanning eye dots. They got much more Zeon-ish (always with the Zs...) in Lightyear.I should also say that you should never underestimate the weebery of animators. Lupin III: Castle Of Cagliostro was shown to an American animation convention not long after it came out and it inspired a lot of people, even despite the relative obscurity of Lupin in the west. The clock tower fight would be referenced in multiple works, including The Great Mouse Detective and Batman: The Animated Series episode 'Clock King'.So, it stands to reason that any animator with respect for their craft would have had the channels to access and appreciate anime that may not have made it to western shores yet.
>>147121605There’s no reason you can’t have both, Mazinger which kickstarted mecha as a genre has multiple instances of sapient robots in the 70s anime.
>>147120829>Why is mecha so uncommon in the west?What you really mean is:>why is dedicated mecha content so uncommon in the west? Because as your example shows, they are extremely common as villain gizmos and contingency hero equipment. Just watched some russian thing from last year where one of the kids built himself a power loader.
>>147120829Yes we had the best mechs, since early 2000s!
>>147122270Yeahhhhh! I lOVE KUKIS GIANT ROBORABBIT
>>147121743>>147121577This is making me want a Lightyear do-over that just turns it into a more Gundam Story
>>147120829The West prefers cool tanks over mechs.
>>147122353So where are all the tank centered cartoons then?
>>147120829Because the west has real engineers, so we know mecha are fake and gay, unidealized for the purpose of real fighting.
>Because the west has real engineers, so we know mecha are fake and gay, unidealized for the purpose of real fighting
>>147122419>Because the west has real engineers,Nowadays they mostly import saars for that.
>>147122435Same with superhumans, kaijus, and etc?Real superhumans are military and drones, not militia?
>>147122444'They' being the useless ceo's and board members looking to enrich themselves at our expense. Revoke all corporate charters and that all ends immediately.
>>147122435>mindbroken ricecel postLong range attack plus manoeuverability equals dominance. Only now they're manned remotely.
>>147122435Kek it’s funny because realismcucks actually believe this.
>>147122435NO, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, IT’S NOT OKAY WHEN GIANT ROBOTS ARE UNREALISTIC, THEY HAVE TO BE REALISTIC LIKE STAR WARS AND HAVE PEOPLE WHO MOVE THINGS WITH THEIR MINDS AND ARE SOMEHOW ABLE TO USE MELEE WEAPONS EFFECTIVELY IN A SETTING WHERE LASER GUNS EXIST
I think the prominence of Voltron and Power Rangers in the west kind of fucked up the image of mecha in the west. A lot of people still work under the impression that mecha is about combining robots that pull magic attacks out of their asses every other week and are only there for the big finish.
>>147120973I don't know if that really explains it. Aren't big trucks or vehicles and robots still some of the most popular toy types? Isn't big mechanical thing always a popular thing for kids? Well, boys anyway.
>>147122768Even America likes that kind of stuff though, just not in large doses, otherwise neither Voltron nor Power Rangers would have found an audience.
>>147120829Reminder that mecha is seen as an outdated boomer genre in Japan.
>>147122968… if you ignore Gundam Seed Freedom’s massive success.
>>147122882Well yeah, but it doesn't appeal to audiences who don't want that stuff. I suspect that Gundam would be pretty damn popular if more people realised what it was actually about. It's not called the Japanese equivalent of Star Wars for nothing.Unfortunately, the last time Gundam saw any mass audiences on TV was fucking Gundam Wing, which is actually one of the worst versions, but it still stood above a lot of the schlock western programming was giving at the time.
>>147123103Wasn’t SEED pretty big in America for a while too?
>>147120829What is Battletech, for two hundred.
Americans suck at designing mecha, simple as that. A lot of the aspects of JP mecha I like would just be considered stupid by Western designers.I love how shamelessly ornate mecha can be.
>>147122573>>147122435Thrust vectoring owns the sky! This thing can turn on a dime, Macross Zero-style!
>>147122982>success of a singular entry in one of the most popular franchises in Japanese pop culture is indicative of the overall reception of and interest in the genre by audiences>>147123112Yeah, IBO had decent traction too. >>147124728Fairly niche though quite large within that niche. Spinoff video games are more popular than the core game.
>>147123103>Unfortunately, the last time Gundam saw any mass audiences on TV was fucking Gundam Wing did incredibly well though, it's the UC series that bombed here.
>>147125092I don’t think Gundam could be a massively popular franchise if all the newbies consider it to be an outdated boomer series.
>>147121430>>147121517Haven't bothered with Gundam before but this funky fucker tempts me. Love its design.
>>147125133The UC series were too old for kids by the time they got shown on American TV, though I doubt the timeslots the UC series had on Toonami helped much either.
>>147120829It's cheaper to just license something from glorious Nippon than it is to make something original. Mecha has been a niche in the west since the 80s at least, it's just not western made
You now remember Doozy Bots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy8b04PF_fk
>>147120844The global popularity of gunpla models, along with the popularity of power rangers, voltron, and hell, even movies like Pacific Rim, says that everyone digs giant robots.
>>147120829>inb4 muh Transformers That's just it. The west belongs to the almighty robot.
>>147120829Transformers is mecha - the term is shorthand for "mechanical". Educate yourself.
>>147125683Eva 01 growing in size in these charts will never not be funny.
>>147125149Sure it can, because I'm talking about overall genre while you're talking about a specific entry to that genre. At this point mecha is to Japan what westerns are to the USA; the True Grit remake was highly successful and won an Oscar but that doesn't mean westerns are vibrant and highly demanded genre.>>147125188The bloc was squarely aimed at weebs, college kids, and highschoolers like the rest of their late night offerings. The problem is that at that point OG Gundam was 30 years old and was never particularly well-animated being put up against shows 20 years newer with better animation. Plus, Wing was self-contained, you had the series and Endless Waltz; UC is a continuous narrative across multiple series, films, and OVAs plus side stories that were dropped on US consumers in short order with all the spotty availability and information of the early 00s. It never had much of a chance.
>>147120829It's lame.>t. Tried to get into mecha for years
>>147125377Those are all niches. Do not confuse something that is popular with certain groups or in one country with something that is bankable. You can have successes here and there but not enough to justify multiple attempts at it. Pacific Rim's success was the reason it got a sequel and a show but those both failed so the attempt stopped. That's how it works for companies and studios. They're not going to invest in something if it doesn't make enough money. Like you mentioned it'd be better to sell kits to hobbyists because those sell well enough to a small number of people that are willing to spend a lot of money for it.
>>147120829There's a deep resentment for mecha in American communities seemingly because they're not realistic. Not sure where it started but they always bring up Mech Warrior.
>>147125788Bullshit. There is no resentment. There's mecha all over the place, it's just not a genre unto itself.
>>147125788>AmericanOP was asking about the west, not just America.
>>147125788This isn't an Armored Core thread on /v/the Mech Warrior autist isn't here (presumably)
>>147120990Not only is Exo Squad just a good action cartoon, IMHO it is the single greatest toyetic action cartoon ever made because the toys were absolutely awesome, very well made and had a surprisingly high degree of cartoon-accuracy on top of all that.
>>147125788You're confusing normies with autists. Normies don't give a shit and see it all as stupid robot punching. Autists give too much of a shit and have not only categorized several dozen types of robot punching but have also determined their favorite type is better than the stupid loser type you like. Also there are canonical sports leagues and dance competitions using mechs in Battletech, so ignore anyone bitching about realism in Mechwarrior.
>>147125899I always had a fondness for Marsh's E-Frame.
>>147125788And yet these same tards drool over capeshit.
>>147127819Normies don't like pure, unrefined capeshit though. Stuff like the MCU is made so the normie women in the audience can enjoy it.
>>147127881>>147127819Nolan/Reeves Batman movies are also normie catnip since Batman doesn't have those icky unrealistic superpowers and just uses money to pay for gadgets he uses to beat up schizos in clown makeup and bag masks and the poor people that work for them.
>>147128187The Nolan Batman films are straight up campy, they're just played seriously.
>>147120829Japan during WW2 tied a lot of its cultural identity into its navy, which carried over to post WW2 media like Space battleship Yamato and Space Captain Harlock in which the ship was treated just as much as a part of the focus as the crew.This carried over into the Giant Robot Genre in which despite what people who don't engage with the genre and /m/ spec/build types say, has always been an equal billing between the giant robot and the human characters in a way wester works don't.The best way to put it showing the disconnect is, using cape comics as an equivalent, unlike the Spider-Man comics in which Spider-Man as a fake name Peter Parker goes under to fight crime, in the genre defining show Mazinger Z, Koji Kabuto is Peter Parker and Mazinger Z is Spider-Man. As an inverse to Spider-Man that also shows the disconnect, Optimus Prime is both.Another point is from the start the Mech Genre has leaned what would be viewed dark for a western audience, with the OG Gundam in 79 as the cornerstone for the modern genre. In comparison even when the west tries mechs they rarely are whiling to take it much darker then a 80s action cartoon constrained by Standards and Practices. See what modification had to be made to Robocop for a good example of the boundaries.That is all to say that the west has never really done equal billing for both Mech and Pilot and doesn't have the capacity to make a show that will even attempt to match what already exists.
>>147125874>Thinking people don't mean America when they say the West.
>>147128262Even in Batman Begins when Gotham was slightly more then just real Chicago/New York, its main distinguishing trait was an L-Train running through the city, which again was just them aping Chicago.
>>147128262One generation's serious is another's camp. There's a fun bit from Opie and Anthony where they rewatch 80's movies clips and talk about how no one realized how corny they came off back then. Tonally they were just considered serious at the time. stuff like Rambo or Tango and Cash.Remember, in 1989, Burton's Batman was considered a more serious take on Batman. In the Nolan movie era, they were seen more camp.Now in The Batman era, the Nolan movies seem camp. And so on.
>>147128579Again, mech is not a genre in the west. It is parts of other genre. Go read an Iron Man book or a superman book with robots or watch empire strikes or rofj. All of those do or can have mechs. Mechs are just war vehicles and are not uncommon. What is your deal?
>>147128698That was my first post in the thread, and yeah their can be mechs but they aren't part of the mecha genre of which Megas XLR is like the only proper western mech show I can think of off the top of my head.Using Star War as another example, it would be like if Luke and his X-Wing (that can also transform into a humanoid form in this example) shared equal billing.Or the Iron Man suit is not (generally) a sperate thing from Tony or whoever is wearing it at the time.You can have mechs but a show isn't Mecha unless the Mechas are a primary focus.Also as a distinction so you can see where I'm coming from, the Iron Man Suit is power armor while the hulkbuster suit is a mech suit. The AT-ST in starwars is not a Mech is a vheicle.
>>147128579Don't forget the aspect of Shinto. A cornerstone of Shinto belief is the idea of all things having life energy, from living animals to inanimate objects, hence the abundance of supernatural fiction where household items become spirits due to the surrounding life/faith/energy around them, or through intense dedication.The Super Robot genre has this in spades, with the mecha having an ego-personality of its own, either overt as a member of the cast, or implied and existing as a background element, or even the dead soul of a previous pilot or person installed into it. Real Robot almost never has this (where the mecha is just a tank with legs and/or arms) barring the Super Real Robot genre.The Super Robot Genre has its roots in Gigantor/Iron Man No 28 (which pulled from earlier manga featuring remotely operated giant robots with powers akin to Superman), and was really set in stone by Mazinger Z.
>>147128579Interesting that you bring up that comparison of the Mecha serving as someone/something with top billing that acts as something distinct from the pilot, because it follows suit with "universal accessibility" once coupled with Shinto belief. That is, superpowers as a tool capable of being passed down or granted to others, and the tool itself being alive to whatever extent the story wants.Sometimes the tool is a person who can transform into a tool. Sometimes the tool got turned into a person. Or vice versa. Regardless, there's a great distinction between Japanese hero fiction and American hero fiction. The heroic identity is not necessarily something the main character has a monopoly over or dominates, but is rather something to be dignified in its own right.
>>147122435replace "Adults" with westerner then
>>147128691Camp and serious are not antonyms, camp is a synonym for theatricality.>>147128816I'd argue that most Japanese mecha entries aren't part of the mecha genre either, the majority being "genre + giant robots." I'd go so far as to say that the epitome of the mecha genre is actually Patlabor.>>147128931Shintoism is largely irrelevant to this discussion, anthropomorphism is a common literary technique and psychological tendency across humanity. And the Super Robot/Real Robot distinction doesn't really exist except as an arbitrary categorization created by and for Super Robot Wars.
the west doesn't usually buy into rule of cool which is required for mecha
>>147129449but, big guy and rusty is pretty good for a show. although cubix or whatever it is is just horrible nightmare fuel.
>>147120829Sell me on why they should be.
>>147129567>should be commonSorry it's late as fuck.
What's the size requirement to be called a mech? Isn't it just power armor then?
>>147129589>power armor = you wear it>mecha = you use controls in itA quick and simple test is:Do you wear the machine's hands? If so, it's power armor.
>>147129589>Isn't it just power armor then?power armor could be considered a form of mecha, as long as its actually mechanical like iron man and not a magical suit of armor or a power-enhancing tuxedo
>>147129661A better test is: do you need a secondary mechanism to move the limbs? Otherwise you get technicality cases like Starcraft marines being mecha while Patlabors are power armor.
>>147124855>Americans suck at designing mecha, simple as that.That and they are hard to draw at different angles. hell SBT is round to make the 3d model easy
>>147129464>big guy and rustyThank you for being a fan of pure epic American mechas, this shit is a true example of what American mechas should be>cubix>nightmare fuelI don’t get it
>>147120829Our version of Tatsujin 28
>>147125356>They put the disabled kid in the fucking Guntank
>>147129420>I'd argue that most Japanese mecha entries aren't part of the mecha genre either, the majority being "genre + giant robots." I'd go so far as to say that the epitome of the mecha genre is actually Patlabor.The way I view it Mecha requires at the very least an equal amount of focus be put on the giant robot as on the pilot and for the mech to do most of the actual action in the show. And obviously for the show to be an action show in some regard to show off the mech. To that end Patlabor is a good example.Also since I'm here I might as well post a incredibly good AMV that conveys the Super Robot side of Mecha really well.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaJw6lqGFew
>>147121219>Transformers are robots, not mechsMost depictions of Transformers are pure-energy lifeforms running around in robot bodies.>Pretenders are robots that pilot humans(sorta). It's like a reverse mech.Pretenders are normal Transformers with an outer layer of some sort. It doesn't need to be human, or even humanoid, or even organically-based.
>>147130757
>>147125177It's a fun kit to build. It's just snapfit at the moment; I have a few others getting done before it gets the proper treatment.>>147125188There's some context you're missing, and it (not you, the events) pisses me off like nothing ever had or has since. The Wing run was popular; 2nd in ratings occasionally. DBZ was fresh at the time, and the craze wasn't ending. Nothing could beat it, so 2nd was the best you could hope for. They saw the success of that and figured hey, may as well try the original. Slight problem. The first airing started in mid-2001... Yeah. And considering there were at least two suicide bombing sequences with two different planes crashing into things, they canned the 0079 run for about a decade, and by that time, nobody cared. I'm going to reply more about the Zurg zakus someone else mentioned next post; I need to use a visual aid to get the point across.
>>147120829Not /co/ but War of the Worlds had mechas. Might even be the first instance of them.
>>147121577You know, I was about to pull up a picture I made, when it dawned on me that they don't resemble the Zaku II as much as they do the Z'Gok, at least in the upper body and arms. The legs I'll still say are Zaku-esque. Now, something that was weird that I also saw researching that? There's some kind of drop pods being used as one of the toys (I'm not about to watch that piece of shit to find out) that looks uncannily like the Drop Pod from Warhammer.
>>147120829Is skibidi toilet mecha?
>>147128579Koji explicitly has to hide his identity as Mazinger’s pilot in the 70s anime, he very much leads a second life in his fight against Dr Hell.
>>147130798If Sunrise was willing to just wait a few years they could have gotten 00 Gundam to air on Toonami right after SEED, patience is a virtue and they didn’t have enough of it back then.
You know, OP, Skibidi Toilet is technically mecha.
>>147120829You now remember Bots Masterhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLKYOSiW7U4>IT'S LASER TIME BOYS!!!
>>147120891?
>>147131932it's not "technically" mecha, it just straight-up is. one of the factions is made entirely of goddamn robots, nevermind the other one being cyborgs.
>this threadBiped mecha has always been associated with robots in the West anon. Since Frankenstein, the automaton has ALWAYS been considered a abomination or mocking of man. Be it from a religious standpoint (the Jewish Golem) or uncanny valley. tl;dr, mecha is evil in the West. For the East it has been one thing and one thing only. Compensation for the the loss of WWII.
>>147137499schizo post
