Mecha anime & manga - Big robots. Other than Gundam.

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Kari Kamiya said:
Bitch, death is inevitable and is a cruel reality of war and life in general. You cannot have a message of hope without death. Mechas have historically been tools of war, and mechas have no distinction between good and evil because literally anyone can pilot a mecha and use it however they want.
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This is exactly what I'm saying, the genre is so ingrained into war and conflict its pretty intertwined with imo. Thats not to say mecha can't have a lighter tone, GaoGaiGar (i have yet to watch, but i know for a fact it was made for a younger audience and that no one can die in it because of the age demographic it was made for; correct me if im wrong) has this and for the most part I hear its really good. The main issue I have is the idea of trying to completely stomp out depictions of violence, tragedy and war from the genre because once again its inherent. If anything, this just tells me there will basically never be anything like Getter Robo or Mazinkaiser SKL tone-wise because thats "too violent" according to the words of this guy.

I am crossing my fingers Grendizer U is good but when I see shit like this it just kinda makes me MATI.
 
Kari Kamiya said:
Mitsuo Fukuda has worked on mecha in the past, he should know this. Did SEED legit fuck with him or something?
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In the Dendoh 20th anniversary interview he said that he wanted to make the world of Dendoh a happy, rosy future -- the original concept for Dendoh before he got involved was about a machine man fighting oppressive elites on a gritty, post-apocalyptic planet. Dendoh was amazing, and Grendizer U seems to have lots of similarities to it, so I'm cautiously optimistic this can work.
Kari Kamiya said:
So people shat on Gigguk for his mecha video years ago, but this quote right here I think helps vindicate him a bit as to why it is the mecha genre hasn't been hitting as hard and grabbing attention as much anymore like it used to. His words were about how we live in (relatively) peaceful times and mecha historically was about war, and war as we know it has changed (somewhat).
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There have been good war-based mecha shows recently such as Price of Smiles and Majestic Prince. I think it's not so much that mecha is dead/losing influence as it is that way more people have gotten into anime since the 1980s, and it's easier to get invested in shows about protagonists going on adventures, making friends, and getting stronger than episodic shows or shows about autistic teenagers in convoluted wars. However, many modern writers can't write war -- IBO was a gangster show, and G-Witch was yuri SOL. I blame moe/battle shonen for this more than modern war.
Kari Kamiya said:
Bitch, death is inevitable and is a cruel reality of war and life in general. You cannot have a message of hope without death. Mechas have historically been tools of war, and mechas have no distinction between good and evil because literally anyone can pilot a mecha and use it however they want.

Is it okay to ease up on characters dropping like flies? Sure, sometimes they just can get incapacitated and put out of commission which is always treated as the death of a "dream" or "ambition" that the main hero has to then carry for them. If they do that without compromising the message, then it'll have done its job. Otherwise, if characters are just never going to die due to offscreen bullshit to avoid having to depict a cruel reality in escapist fiction or the goals of the characters have changed to "fit with current times" which ends up fucking around with the foundation, then it's going to suffer and not leave much of an impact outside of pissed off fans.
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There can be good mecha shows with very little character death that aren't SOL. Most kid mecha shows are like this, and they're always good. Ultraman Cosmos and Machine Robo Rescue in particular stand out, but they had actual meaning behind them (Cosmos was about making kids less violent and Machine Robo Rescue was 9/11-conscious). Just make the show cool, earnest, heroic, and have a story that fits the episode count with lots of well-done mecha action rather than cynical, self-inserty, and have very little/poorly-done mecha action and a poorly-done story.
 
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Gundams only appear in times of conflict. To expect a war without casualties is naivety. Like i dont see the problem with portraying death in a mecha show, kinda comes with the territory. Has the modern audiences become so soft that they cant handle violence and death in mecha in this case? Shit man i cant imagine them seeing Victory if they are this bitch made.

Personally i like when a story has stakes and shows that anyone can die. Hell even though i dont like victory, i still can respect the fact that they have the balls to go trigger happy. Mind you is not that i like gratuitous violence but the reality is that if youre a human and your opponent is a big fuck you mech, most often than not the human will die violently.
 
Grendizer has some pretty garbage, Saudi-made English subs. They border on crabsticks. Which is kinda fitting for a new Mazinger thing. Hopefully the Vegans want to steal the exceeding metal.
 
The first episode of Grendizer U was decent. The intro was pure Fukuda (and the ED had some cool-looking animation); it's pretty exciting that each of the female characters will get their own spazers. I saw that /m/ was complaining that the race leaderboard didn't have a Jeeg reference, but the race was called the Energer MotoP, so it's an Energer reference. It was weird that the Photon Lab was in Arabia, but the new Mazinger pool and Scrander skyscraper launch were cool. The flying car was also neat. My issue, however, is that much of the action in this show felt very anticlimactic and toned-down -- Grendizer destroyed two saucers by shooting electricity out of its horns, and somehow that didn't feel as hype as it should have. I hope the rest of the show won't be Duke and his fiance angsting like Kira and Athrun angsting and that there will still be lots of action, but that's a slim possibility since it felt like they were trying to push lots of the potential MOTWs out of the way in this episode.
FatMebius said:
Grendizer has some pretty garbage, Saudi-made English subs. They border on crabsticks. Which is kinda fitting for a new Mazinger thing. Hopefully the Vegans want to steal the exceeding metal.
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The "Mazinger Z is Koji's friend" line was pretty nice, though. It's like if Mazinger was a Brave :)
 
Sailor Troon said:
The first episode of Grendizer U was decent. The intro was pure Fukuda (and the ED had some cool-looking animation); it's pretty exciting that each of the female characters will get their own spazers. I saw that /m/ was complaining that the race leaderboard didn't have a Jeeg reference, but the race was called the Energer MotoP, so it's an Energer reference. It was weird that the Photon Lab was in Arabia, but the new Mazinger pool and Scrander skyscraper launch were cool. The flying car was also neat. My issue, however, is that much of the action in this show felt very anticlimactic and toned-down -- Grendizer destroyed two saucers by shooting electricity out of its horns, and somehow that didn't feel as hype as it should have. I hope the rest of the show won't be Duke and his fiance angsting like Kira and Athrun angsting and that there will still be lots of action, but that's a slim possibility since it felt like they were trying to push lots of the potential MOTWs out of the way in this episode.

The "Mazinger Z is Koji's friend" line was pretty nice, though. It's like if Mazinger was a Brave :)
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Photon Power Lab is still in Japan. Koji just has a Mazinger pool and a Scrander bay at his palatial Saudi horse ranch.
 
First episode of Grendizer was OK, where I watched I felt that the subs were shit like using Bilder assemble instead of Pilder On and Chest Flame instead of Breast Fire. Also I fucking hate subs that doesn't translate the text on screen. I know that they are on middle east but know nothing about where.

Funny stuff: Doublas M2 appeared but no Garada K7, funny that Dr Hell is still around.
Also Valerian Rossi was on second place during the race lol.

Things that bothered me: that bike vit where it turns blue and the people dying and Koji having no reaction.

Fukuda said that he won't do a darker series like the original Grendizer.

And of course, ever since the 70s, Maria Fleed is still the best girl.
 
Yes, I knew the new Grendizer was funded by Saudi billionaires, didn’t I didn't realize it was going to be set in Saudi Arabia and give Koji a Saudi mansion. Hey, it makes sense that some deep pocketed Arabs would fund a reboot since the old Grendizer was very popular there.

Am-2Z.jpg
 
XYZpdq Jr. said:
it's amazing what they can do on a budget of whatever change they found in the street
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It's unironically AOTY 2022/2023, and it would have been AOTY 2024 if not for Shinkalion/SEED Freedom. And it has an actual story too! In many ways it's sad because if this is all it takes to make a good anime, then how come so many big, ambitious projects fall short? Just make good designs, and put them in good scenarios and stories.
 
Sailor Troon said:
It's unironically AOTY 2022/2023, and it would have been AOTY 2024 if not for Shinkalion/SEED Freedom. And it has an actual story too! In many ways it's sad because if this is all it takes to make a good anime, then how come so many big, ambitious projects fall short? Just make good designs, and put them in good scenarios and stories.
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no bullshit I'd love to learn about the behind the scenes for Jobraver
 
I had to check that Jobraver was actually a thing because seriously, it sounds like how people called Vegeta "Jobgeta"

Is Getter Robo Arc worth watching on BluRay? I watched the original broadcast and it was extremely QUALITY, did they improve it for the BD at all?
 
Skeletron Prime said:
Is Getter Robo Arc worth watching on BluRay? I watched the original broadcast and it was extremely QUALITY, did they improve it for the BD at all?
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BD version has some barebones fixes, but Arc is still an ugly ass show and they didn't fix much.

Commander X said:
Yes, I knew the new Grendizer was funded by Saudi billionaires, didn’t I didn't realize it was going to be set in Saudi Arabia and give Koji a Saudi mansion. Hey, it makes sense that some deep pocketed Arabs would fund a reboot since the old Grendizer was very popular there.

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Sayaka being the only girl showing her bare skin made me laugh. I can't believe Koji lets her get away with such haram behavior.
 
Personally i didnt like Getter Arc. It just felt off unlike the other getters. Maybe its a good series for the mayority but for me it didn't click.
 
I'm mixed on Getter Arc, on one hand I love its callbacks to past OVAS with the OST and it feels like Getter to some degree but at the same time I'm just like...why adapt Arc of all things. They could have adapted the entire saga prior, or one of the spin-off mangas (Devolution Anime would be fire, tbh). I'll still take it over anything else since theres passion and love in its creation but it def feels pretty off.

Really do feel like this review sums up my thoughts:
 
Skeletron Prime said:
I had to check that Jobraver was actually a thing because seriously, it sounds like how people called Vegeta "Jobgeta"
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I'm pretty sure it's just a portmanteau of Job and Braver because they're transforming robot car heroes focusing on professional vehicles?
so yeah it's kinda the same, since to "do the job" in wrasslin (that job being to lose a predetermined match) is where we get "lose"
 
Islamic Jihad Rocket said:
I'm mixed on Getter Arc, on one hand I love its callbacks to past OVAS with the OST and it feels like Getter to some degree but at the same time I'm just like...why adapt Arc of all things. They could have adapted the entire saga prior, or one of the spin-off mangas (Devolution Anime would be fire, tbh). I'll still take it over anything else since theres passion and love in its creation but it def feels pretty off.

Really do feel like this review sums up my thoughts:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bKFOeJy_t3o
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Pretty much sums up how I feel about it. The callbacks were good, the music was good, but fuck if it didn't look like shit and of all parts of the manga to adapt, they chose the end of the fucking thing. Getter Robo Go in particular deserves another shot, Neo vs Shin is my favorite Getter anime besides Armageddon because it does a better job than the Go TV anime did. Devolution, too, would be great - the seiyuu they got for SRW 30 did an excellent job as a younger Getter team, and their theme Fragment of the Emperor slaps. Neat trivia people probably already know: the mangaka for Devolution actually wrote the song.
 
Lone MacReady II said:
I suppose wanting to see more Lori would be asking too much?
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No idea if the twins are around in this version. Cast already seems packed with the Grendizer cast plus some Z stragglers. And the reveal that Dr. Hell is still around probably means we'll at least see him as well as Ashura or Brocken. But Nagai adaptations always seem like they have a ton of cameos and whatnot. So, I wouldn't rule out a cameo or flashback or something.
 
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