Category Archives: giant robots

I Have the Answer. What’s the Solution?

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Do we really know why anything is popular?

Whenever an anime or manga is super popular, be it with “casual” fans or super hardcore 4channers or die-hard bloggers or anywhere in between, someone eventually decides to ask, “Why is this popular?” The question can be interpreted positively, encouraging people to express why they like that work so much. It can also be interpreted negatively, giving way to sweeping generalizations that categorize a work’s fans in a particularly unattractive light.

As a quick demonstration: Why is Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu so popular?

We can posit why Gundam isn’t popular “here,” or why Captain Tsubasa is popular “there,” but after a while I just have to wonder how often we’re putting the cart before the horse, completely blinded by hindsight and trying to draw conclusions from something most people might have trouble expressing in the first place, even if you asked every Naruto fan why they like Naruto so much. And in a way, when we accumulate more knowledge and experience in anime, we paradoxically move both closer and further away from the truth.

Not saying I don’t enjoy the speculation, nor am I telling people to stop, but popularity (or lack thereof) can be such a difficult entity to grasp and manipulate that I’m sure we’re all wrong more often than not.

Also, I know this doesn’t just apply to anime or manga or even fiction. Asking why stuff is successfully popular is applicable to just about any topic where  group enjoys or uses something.

No, really, why is  Baka Test so popular? I liked it well enough because of the way it embraced the otaku/moe/anime humor and really ran it to some logical extremes, but why is it considered the #1 light novel series of 2009?

There Are Two Kinds of People in This World: Winners and Trolleys

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In Anime World Order’s look back at the previous decade of anime, guest Matt Alt talks about how the true successor to giant robot anime isn’t current giant robot anime, instead bestowing that title to those shows which spawn trading cards and games revolving around collecting. Essentially, the true spirit of super robots lies not in the continuation of the aesthetics of giant robot anime, but rather in their ability to push merchandise.

Considering this point, I can only think about how much more today’s anime for boys fosters a sense of competition, with trading card games and the like being at the center of children’s entertainment. The kids don’t have to be competitive “high-level” players, and they don’t even have to necessarily know the rules, and I still think these games, even if their shows talk about friendship and honor, still push the theme of competition more than anything else. Just the fact that there are  specific rules and stats and points means that, in a given activity, there will be winners and losers, even if it’s just cheap plastic being spun in an enclosed space. In contrast, that’s not really possible when you just have toy robots and the like. You can perhaps beat your friends by collecting more toys than them, or even create arbitrary rules of competition or even create fake competitions between your toys as Cobra Commander attacks with his vicious horde of My Little Ponies, but at the end of the day there’s no definitive way to become King of Make-Believe.


Well, almost no way.

This in turn got me thinking about the anime fandom and how we have figured out ways to compete via anime. The act of watching cartoons is not really an area in which you can determine winners and losers (unless you say that we’re all losers), so the community instead focuses their competitive spirits towards anime-related activities such as making music videos and cosplaying. These competitions are far more subjective in their criteria and human judgment is paramount in determining winners, but all the same we have taken a relatively passive activity and found ways to test our abilities against others.

I don’t really have a grand point I’m trying to reach, as I’m just laying down some thoughts. But be it through subjective judging or concrete goals, I don’t think an increase in competitive spirit is really a bad thing. That said, it can be taken too far.

Robotech Pens, Steaks, Etc.

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What do you know, just as I think it’s over I have another anime-related dream. For now this is the last one, but who knows how the subconscious works?

So I’m standing there in some kind of nerd hobby store where the most prominent display is a giant banner welcoming fans of Robotech. And there the Robotechfans stood, gathered in the same area, talking about Mospeada or possibly Southern Cross, I don’t remember exactly, and which arc it correlates to.

A nice, roughly middle-aged lady asks if I speak Japanese and I respond in Japanese and we have a good laugh. I look for something to purchase, and I spot some Robotech-themed pens. I don’t know, apparently I really wanted to buy something Robotech-related. But I don’t pick them up quite yet.

I also spot some Nintendo keychains, grabbing a Wario one, and then decide to grab seven Robotech pens, only to realize that if I’m going to the steakhouse(?!) I’d better watch my wallet and not spend so much. I try to pare it down to get a 3 for $5 deal, but then realize I got rid of 1 too many and only have two pens left. But then I remember I have the Wario keychain and it all evens out, because apparently keychains are part of the deal.

The two Robotech pens are very “nice” in two distinctly different ways. One of them features Lisa Hayes and you can hardly tell it’s a Robotech pen. Why, for all we know that could be Misa instead. The other is very clearly a Robotech product, as the character designs look nothing like the show and it’s apparently merchandise for some novel or comic spinoff. It also has some generic tie-in name you’d expect from Robotech, like “Fortress Chronicles” or something equally generic.

I make my purchase, but then for some reason am given a Giratina keychain instead of the Wario one. I ask the clerk if I can exchange it and she says okay, but I have to give the Giratina box back. I think it’s odd, but agree to do this.

Then I realize I was in the store for so long that I cannot make it to the steakhouse. Resigned in defeat, I pass by a new Pokemon movie starring Mewtwo. Actually I’m not sure if it was supposed to be a movie or if I was actually seeing real Pokemon, but the creatures were being sucked into a chamber to fight Mewtwo (though at first I assumed it was Darkrai). The movie is in Japanese. Mewtwo, actually a victim in all of this, flies around and goes to the other side. A Geodude tries to Rock Throw Mewtwo but Mewtwo reflects the rocks back at Geodude and hits two other Pokemon in the process while also saying, “Tsutometa!” In the context of the dream it’s supposed to mean something like, “I see through you,” but in actual Japanese means, “I worked.” The movie is really, really well-animated and a joy to watch. Though I don’t know how it ends because that’s when I wake up.

Yes I Am Quoting Myself

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For the Reverse Thieves’ second Speakeasy Podcast they compared Gurren-Lagann and Shin Mazinger, discussing why the former has a much more universal appeal among current anime fans than the latter. One of the topics that interested me was the false assumption that if a person likes Gurren-Lagann then the next step is Shin Mazinger, or similarly that if a person likes Gundam W that they will like the original Gundam as well. I thought of an analogous situation which I think sums up this problem quite well, and I wanted to have it on-hand and on-blog.

So consider, if you will, the following hypothetical conversation.

“Hey, what’s your favorite cereal?”

“Frosted Flakes!”

“Well if you like Frosted Flakes, I think you’ll enjoy CORN FLAKES! It’s the ORIGIN of Frosted Flakes!”

The person recommending Corn Flakes has his heart in the right place, but doesn’t realize that the reason why the other person likes Frosted Flakes so much might be mainly because of the sugar frosting, i.e. everything that Frosted Flakes have that Corn Flakes do not.

Reducing things down is not the answer for everyone, and just like Frosted Flakes vs Corn Flakes, I think people enjoy the total package of Gurren-Lagann, making it difficult to sell some fans on the idea of Gurren-Lagann stripped down to its bare essentials.

Giant Robots, Growth, and Evolution (or Lack Thereof)

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Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a fan of big ol’ robots (a technical term). I love the genre and nearly all that it entails. That said, I am not without criticisms towards my beloved mecha. When I look back at how giant robot designs in anime and manga have progressed since their inception, I get the feeling that robot designs have grown too much without evolving enough.

There was a time when giant robots in anime were mainly known for having cylinders for limbs and looking more like superheroes than weapons of war. As the years went by, however, the robot designs became more and more detailed, to the point that today when you think “giant robots” or “mecha,” complexity in design is something that comes to mind.

It was really an inevitability. Even as far back as the mid 70’s, we could see that Daitarn 3 looked a little more detailed and structured than Combattler V, and Combattler featured more complex design features than Mazinger Z. And it’s not a bad thing either; in many ways it shows how far along mecha design has come since Tetsujin 28. At the same time though I can’t help but lament that the giant robot fandom seems unable to reverse gears and bring itself back to those simpler times.

“But giant robot fans love Mazinger!” you might say. Yes, they might, and they might even refer to its design as “classic” or even “enormously influential,” but as the mecha fanbase has grown older and more concentrated, their heyday of being the go-to shows for marketing to kids having passed, the idea of presenting an old-fashioned robot design as a modern one is something that I think simply would not fly. All recent attempts to create super robot series, remakes aside, still do not match the level of simplicity in robot design that once existed.

So what I mean by mecha designs growing without evolving is that the giant robots of today aren’t that different from those of yesterday in basic design, and that the major developments in mecha design that have persisted over the years have mainly had to do with how to make robots look sleeker and more detailed, whether it’s with the more angular robots of the 80s or the muscle-like excess of the 90s. Compare this with character design development, which people can criticize as being worse today than it was previously, but it still feels like character design trends moved a certain direction.

I can’t entirely fault giant robots for the direction they took over time. Like I said earlier, it was practically inevitable, as one show tries to top another, which then inspires another. It’s just that I think a lot more people might get into designing robots if “robot design” wasn’t the massive undertaking it’s perceived to be because of expectation as to what a giant robot is “supposed” to be.

Check Out the Veef Show

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As far as podcasts go, the relatively new “Veef Show” is one of the best I’ve found.

Formerly of Destroy All Podcasts DX, Andrew, aka VF5SS, has taken to recording his own one-man show where he lays down his thoughts on specific topics of interest to him, from the Super/Real Robot dichotomy to Star Wars Extended Universe novels. What’s most appealing about the Veef Show though is Andrew’s balanced view of anime, mecha, and other topics, that takes a broad view of the subject at hand and really gets you to understand it, all without feeling in any way elitist or that he’s more about lambasting anime than enjoying it.

I think there are a number of similarities with the way I approach writing about anime, so I think if you enjoy Ogiue Maniax and my blogging style, then I think there is a very good chance you will enjoy the Veef Show.

If Your Mother Knew You Didn’t Like Giant Robots, It Would KILL Her!

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Over a year ago I explored the difficulties in recommending anime and manga to people, whether they were entirely new to the world of Japanese animation and comics or they were already in the fandom but looking for more. Since that time I’ve gotten a little better at the whole recommendation thing, but it’s still far from one of my strengths. Still, the dynamics of introducing new shows and series to people is a fascinating topic to explore, and seeing others’ recommendations posts as of late has revealed to me more and more of the tricky dynamics of suggesting shows.

Tim Maughan recently had a bunch of guest writers for his blog to provide content during his trip to Thailand, and among the articles was one by the Otaku Diaries creators the Reverse Thieves where they created a guide to introducing giant robot shows to people who are into anime but aren’t sure if they like mecha, or who avoid it entirely without knowing the variety of stories giant robot shows have to tell.

As if inevitable however, they received complaints that their list was not good because it did not contain enough of the classics, the things that brought people into giant robots over the decades. At that point, the problem became about the identity of the mecha fan. Shouldn’t someone who gets into giant robot anime like giant robots? But if they already like giant robots, then half the work is already done! The guide was clearly made for the people who don’t necessarily have that inherent potential to enjoy robot shows, the people whose interest in the genre has to be slowly cultivated over time. The classics are classics for good reasons, but they’re not beginner’s shows necessarily.

Over at comics blog Mightygodking, a more fundamental question was asked: “How do I start reading comics?” In his response, Mightygodking explains that, more often than not, comics fans go about it incorrectly, and make the same mistakes that many of those who questioned the Reverse Thieves’ guide did. He even lays out some criteria for recommending comics for newcomers, and though I don’t agree that a beginner comic has to be “fucking great,” I think he makes a very good point when he says:

…they’ll recommend something safe, like “you should read Sandman.” Or Watchmen, or Transmetropolitan, or [insert critically acclaimed comic by the Usual Suspects here]. Now, sure. These are great comics. But I’m not going to say “this is how you should get started with comics.” Watchmen should be nobody’s first comics read. Sandman has an impenetrable first volume. And Transmet is a commitment – not that Spider Jerusalem isn’t worth the ride, but I’m not going to introduce somebody to comics with it.

Even more than giant robot anime, COMICS!! can be such a gargantuan and daunting subject that even gaining the will to approach it can be an arduous task, and as such the problems with recommending the GREATEST gets magnified. And of course, this is in no way helped when the fans who are already there berate the potential new fans for not enjoying what they are “supposed” to enjoy.

I fully understand where people are coming from when they say the best place to start is with the classics. I have in the past recommended the ORIGINAL Mobile Suit Gundam when someone wanted to know where to start with the massive franchise. I have also lamented the fact that many newer fans in anime are unable to appreciate older shows because they cannot get past the older styles. But I also know that it is nearly impossible to attract people into a fandom or gain new enthusiasts by appearing obtuse and impenetrable. It’s one thing to have very firm ideas of what makes shows good or not, and to defend those ideas, but retreating into the folds of the existing insular fandom isn’t going to do anything but make it even more exclusive. It all comes down to how much you’re willing to not simply throw out suggestions from on-high, but to guide people, even if you can’t personalize it too much because you’re making broad recommendations.

In a way, I feel like recommending arguably difficult classics to beginners is not unlike being parents living vicariously through their children, like a soccer mom pushing her kids to the brink of competition.

“I never had it this good when I was getting into giant robots! I’ve boiled it down to everything you REALLY need to see!”

“But dad, I’m not sure I like giant robots!”

“How DARE you! I did not suffer through Magnos the Robot so that you could say you don’t like giant robots!”

But each generation is new, and casts off the bounds set by their predecessors, like a man with blue hair and stylish shades living in an underground village.

The Personal Side of Giant Robot Fighting: Shinkon Gattai Godannar

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When it comes to Shinkon Gattai Godannar, everyone’s first impression is this:


Exhibit A

Followed by this:


Exhibit B

And they’re definitely right in that Godannar contains both, but unfortunately those are the only things they notice, and will often-times write the series off as trash. I’m here to tell you, however, that while those two elements featured above are ever-present, to the point that you’ll be seeing them invariably in every episode, what you see isn’t necessarily what you get. I want to try and set the record straight, even though I’m well aware that it is in many ways a futile effort and that Godannar is just about the most difficult show to convince people to watch who aren’t enticed by Exhibits A and B.

If it sounds like I’m being defensive, it’s because I am. It’s just that I know how difficult its shell can be to penetrate, and I’m tired of people writing the show off as some vapid exercise in fanservice. Don’t get me wrong, the girls in this show are hot, with character designs by Kimura Takahiro of Gaogaigar, Betterman, and Code Geass fame, but they only scratch the surface of what’s really there.

Aoi Anna is a 17 year old girl who is the target of affection of every guy at her school. She’s beautiful, buxom, has a great personality, and is a match for anyone when it comes to physical competition. But while many girls her age are dating, Anna already has a fiancee. And while many teenagers are only beginning to consider their future, Annas already has a goal: to become a giant robot pilot. Her husband meanwhile is Saruwatari Gou, a man widely respected as the greatest robot pilot ever known.

Gou, however, is not a hot-blooded, gung-ho, never-say-die teenager, but rather a 30+ battle-scarred veteran able to temper his ferocious passion in battle with experience and foresight. He once lost the love of his life, a casualty of his life’s duty as the world’s greatest pilot, and has sworn to never let it happen again. With the aid of giant robot teams from all over the world, Anna and Gou must defend humanity by piloting the mighty robot “Godannar” while also living together as a newlywed couple.

Godannar is a very atypical giant robot anime, something which becomes more and more apparent as the show goes on. For example, the enemy in Godannar is a race of grotesque creatures of unknown origins known as the “Mimetic Beasts,” and that is all you ever learn about them. They are not Dr. Hell or Zeon or the Vajra, they do not have a mysterious past to delve into or personalities to hate. Instead, the real function of the Mimetic Beasts is to act as a backdrop for the characters to develop their relationships and grow.

While the show features robots prominently, its real focus is on characters and romance and on the relationships and bonds that develop between comrades-in-arms, instead of the conflict, politics, and the character development through antagonism that you usually see in giant robot shows, real or super. It is a more personal look at the men and women who defend the planet by jumping in steel golems and punching aliens.

Yes, if you watch Godannar you’ll be getting a faceful of cameltoe on a regular basis, but if you think the show is going to be about a guy who walks into girls changing and then gets punched through the roof, then I am glad to correct your mistake. Unlike what you might expect out of a typical fanservice anime, the men and women of Godannar barely bat an eyelash at the skintight suits and giant breasts which populate every scene, as if such scenery is merely commonplace in the world of the future. Instead, the only female characters to whom the men of Godannar react to are the ones they care for the most, which only reinforces the true theme of the series: love.

And through it all, particularly with the sexual aspect of the character designs, what may be most surprising of all is how strong the female characters are in Godannar. Not only are they on equal terms with their male counterparts, being every bit as capable on the battlefield as the guys, but they are also full of confidence, intelligence, and compassion, and never are they forced into the role of the damsel. There are no Aphrodai A’s to rescue, and for that matter no Boss Borots to bumble along to reinforce the idea of how strong Mazinger Z is. Each character and each robot pulls their weight in the heat of battle, and every relationship is equal, even if they may at first appear otherwise.

Godannar can be a difficult show to approach and to get past that initial impression of boobs and metal, but if you want to see a show with very good characterization and relationship development which also plays with the common tropes of anime to create a stronger story overall, then I think you should check it out. I know that the series is not for everyone, and for those who are not as familiar with super robots the clever subversion of the genre which occurs in Godannar may be lost or a non-issue, but I think many more people would enjoy the series than are willing to give it a chance.

What Do Nancy and Kira Yamato Have in Common?

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No, the title is not a lead-in to a bad humor post.

Like many anime fans out there, I have issues with Gundam SEED Destiny and how it effectively sabotaged the SEED plot with nonsense and a complete and utter lack of direction. Think Code Geass R2 and Gundam 00 Second Season ruined their respective prequels? While I might disagree with you there, I can see easily how you can hold that opinion with the big thematic shifts that happened between seasons. Even then, they’re nothing compared to what Destiny “achieved.”

I have a whole laundry list of complaints about Destiny, but there’s one in particular I want to focus on, and that’s the show’s treatment of Shinn Asuka. Shinn from the start of Destiny was meant to be the main character, with returning character Athrun Zala in the role of older and wiser mentor of sorts. However, as the series progressed Shinn slowly slipped out of the spotlight, replaced gradually by Athrun himself and then eventually Kira Yamato, the hero of the original SEED. Now Shinn is a very abrasive character. I know I’ve used that word a number of times before, but Shinn is the real deal. He’s pig-headed, ignorant, fueled by equal parts petty vindictiveness, trauma, and some sense of justice, and is overall the kind of guy who, if you told him the war he was fighting was wrong, would yell back at you, “OH YEAH?! WELL MY FAMILY’S DEAD.” It’s easy to see why people would prefer Kira or Athrun over him, but at the same time I can’t help but feel that it was a crime to shift main character focus to that extent. It felt disappointing because they could have done so much more with him. It felt wrong.

As much as I dislike the idea of switching up main characters mid-series though, I realize that it is not all that uncommon in animation and comics, let alone anime and manga. Before Tezuka created Tetsuwan Atom, he created Captain (Ambassador) Atom, a story where Atom was more of a side character than anything else. Similarly, the newspaper comic Nancy was originally known as Fritzi Ritz before the introduction of Fritzi’s niece, who would eventually take over the entire comic (as well as the title) and relegate Fritzi to that of a side-character-as-parental-figure.

Both Tezuka and Nancy creator Ernie Bushmiller saw the writing on the wall and realized just how much better and more popular their works would be when they pushed aside the old protagonist, and while I can accept that, I can’t quite accept what happened to Shinn. The fact that it used a character who was already a main character in a previous series made it seem like they were taking two steps backwards, and just trying to turn SEED Destiny into a retread of the original, instead of actually making a sequel.

In the end, it really all just comes down to doing whatever might get you a better or more successful work, but changing up your heroes has just as much, if not more of a chance of making a story worse than it does of making it better. One outcome as we saw with Destiny was that the constant shift in focus detracted to the story as a whole,  which resulted in both the plot and the characters sputtering about. On top of that, it happened within a TV series that had a set amount of episodes and probably a decent amount of story written beforehand, and while 52 episodes seems like a lot, it doesn’t compare to the long, long serial run of something like Nancy, and it doesn’t make a sharp division between stories like that of Captain Atom and Tetsuwan Atom. In better hands or in  a looser storytelling environment, the Shinn->Athrun->Kira shift may have been enjoyable, but sadly that was not to be.

Oh, and don’t get me started on what they did to Cagalli.

They’re Like Robots, Except Giant!

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Much like my attempt at compiling “Non-Japanese” magical girl shows, I’ve recently started a Youtube playlist consisting of “Non-Japanese” giant robot shows. My definition of “Non-Japanese” here is somewhat lenient, as I’ve also included anime which were heavily adapted for foreign audiences, as well as shows animated in Japan for foreign audiences. Something like Voltron which was based on Golion and Dairugger XV but then got additional episodes made due to the popularity of Voltron counts as both. Parodies are okay as well, as evidenced by The X-Treme Adventures of Brandon and Mallory.

I’m taking suggestions, so if anyone knows any series/movies/whatever besides the ones I have already, please chime in. Please keep in mind that they must be lean more towards the “robot” side and less towards the “powered suit” side, though I understand that such a line is blurry at best. To give you an idea of where the line is, I do not consider The Centurions or Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors to be giant robot series. Dino-Riders is on the fence, but if you can convince me that a T-Rex in advanced techno armor is not that different from an Evangelion, then I might include it as well. But most likely not.