How has Transformers become a cultural staple, whereas other giant robot shows have nigh universally failed? Is it because in TF's case, the robots are characters instead of mere tools?
Western Mecha
Landon Kelly
Ian Moore
Because the West doesn't like genre repetition the way Japan likes genre repetition. If there's one baseball show, the West will have that one show, while Japan will have ten different baseball shows. Same for mechas. It's a cultural thing.
Adam Rodriguez
Yes, but what about diversity of storytelling? I love Transformers, but it's severely limited by Hasbro's marketing department. Even stories that take place after the War are influenced by the War. It'd be nice to see something different for once.
Connor Hall
What kinda of transformer stories do you want to see, then?
Brandon Allen
Not necessarily Transformers, just some new IPs.
However, I wouldn't mind seeing a police procedural, ideally starring Strongarm, naturally.
Caleb Butler
The only other really big western mecha thing is probably Battletech. Seriously, Battletech was ungodly huge back in the day, shit was basically synonymous with Table Top Strategy, and Mechwarrior (the videogame spinoff) was one of the biggest videogame franchises of the 90s and early 2000s.
The difference is, the company that made Btech exploded and the IP got split into a billion different prices by lawyers, making people scared to even try filling it's shoes.
Transformers, comparatively, has just kept on trucking through thick or thin since the 80s. It'll probably still be a major franchise like 50 years from now when the rest of popular culture is in the dustbin of history, not even through consistent quality, but through shear perseverance.
Adam Hughes
My theory is that the majority of the west see mecha shows as glorified commercials, and think of mechas kits as toys, ignoring the hobby aspect.
Eli Williams
Americans don't like mechs because they are infantryfags.
Nolan Gutierrez
It exists to sell toys.
Hudson Sanders
Are we not counting power rangers?
William Adams
Transformers itself probably played no small role in fostering that perception.
Power Rangers is in a grey area. Even ignoring it's production nature, the zords are roughly half the action focus. And even then, monsters don't always grow, so zords are not always needed.
Angel Ortiz
Then where is my exosuit genre? Why was there nothing after the Exosquad?
Sebastian Robinson
A lack of power armor material is especially odd considering MCU Iron Man is still hot shit. Where the hell's my Bubblegum Crisis knockoff?
Noah Gutierrez
Western writers, as always, out of touch with the audience, no one is surprised.
Grayson Evans
Marvel went through that weird phase where they introduced a lot of armored girls too. A company that wasn't incompetent would have used that as an opportunity to create the western version of the Knight Sabers.
Colton Cox
At least it seems like Pepper is getting a push, so that's something.
Also, I recognize Pepper and Riri, but who are the other two?
Easton James
pepper sucks and her armor sucks
Lincoln Taylor
There are variety of stories. The issue is that all the stuff not involved with the war is aimed at a much younger audience.
From the look of things, Hasbro's plans are to get really young audiences with the non-war stuff. Get to the more action stuff for the older kids that either involves the war or is connected to it. Then, older teens and up get the more dramatic war or war-related stuff.
Isaac Watson
Do Transformers even count as mecha? I thought the genre was about giant robots you pilot, like Gundam or Jaegers. And is it true that Japan isn't really into sentient bots like TFs?
Ryder Reyes
Transformers are alive. Who cares about robots that aren't alive? That's what put me off stuff like Gundam when I was a lad.
David Perez
>Do Transformers even count as mecha?
If Braves do, then so do transformers.
>And is it true that Japan isn't really into sentient bots like TFs?
Not sure, thought doubtful given the success of both Japanese made Transformers shows, and the aforementioned Braves series.
See, I feel that, but I wonder if that's a common sentiment.
Jaxson Harris
>The difference is, the company that made Btech exploded and the IP got split into a billion different prices by lawyers, making people scared to even try filling it's shoes.
Is that why Battletech seemingly disappeared from pop culture? It was huge when I was a kid. It was like -the- American mecha franchise.
Jaxson Bailey
The only reason Transformers became popular was its toys.
And second, most Western mecha sucks fucking cock.
Megas XLR was a fucking abortion.
Gavin Mitchell
Jackson Brown
megas is cool you fucker
Brandon Wright
>I love Transformers, but it's severely limited by Hasbro's marketing department. Even stories that take place after the War are influenced by the War. It'd be nice to see something different for once.
Well here's the thing, Transformers simply isn't a "mecha" series in the Japanese sense, it features none of the tropes of Japanese mecha and if it weren't for the designs of the Transformers being originally Japanese and lets just say Hasbro came up with their own, there would absolutely be no similarity at all. As pointed out in the OP, the Transformers aren't even mechs in the first place, they're an alien race of sentient beings, so it really has nothing in common at all with stuff like Gundam and whatnot other than some design similarities.
Transformers really just isn't a mecha series, and with that being said it attracted a different audience in the West for different reasons. Transformers appeal is very similar to that of super heroes, the characters are iconic to people who grew up with them and they get attached to their favorite characters, Optimus Prime and Megatron are no different than Batman and The Joker or the Ninja Turtles and Shredder. This is why you don't see it stray from the formula too much, and honestly why most fans don't want that....Transformers isn't a mecha series to most fans, it's not simply about the design of the robots like in mecha, the robots are characters they care about and are basically super heroes. You can't have Spider-Man without Uncle Ben getting shot, can't have TMNT without mutagen and Shredder and Splinter and the gang, you can't have Transformers without the Autobots and Decepticons being at war....it just doesn't make sense because the story and identity is important to why people remain fans for decades, not just the general concept of "robots who transform", if that was true Go Bots would be just as popular.
Alexander Scott
You say that like Superhero movies aren't dominating the theaters and cop shows don't run on a 24 hour loop on network TV.
Robert Rogers
>the story and identity is important to why people remain fans for decades, not just the general concept of "robots who transform", if that was true Go Bots would be just as popular.
It's a terrible shame Go-Bots looked so old fashioned, I think that's what really sealed its fate, the design work. It's just not as visually appealing and almost looks like it was made in the '60s rather than the '80s. The human characters in GoBots were way better than the human characters in Transformers, I feel like it could be successfully rebooted if anyone cared enough, but companies don't dare risk that sort of thing any more. Transformers is popular and has brand recognition, so they'll keep making Transformers.
Colton Reed
Doesn't Hasbro own Gobots anyway still? I know they basically just use it as a sub line of Transformers sometimes, like those G2 mini bots or the kiddie line before Rescue Bots was a thing
William Walker
So in order to see something other than Bots vs Cons, I need to look elsewhere. Or hypothetically make my own IP, subsequently getting my pants sued off because Hasbro is a notoriously litigious company. Yay.
Adrian Gomez
Probably because the giant robots are "people" rather than just a vehicle for humans to use. I mean, the only other western "giant robot" show I can think of is Challenge of the Go-Bots.