Why can't comics and cartoons into mecha? All Yas Forums attempts at mecha fall flat. The best and most successful attempts to do Yas Forums mecha are Transformers and that Voltron show. The former barely counts as mecha and the latter just fell apart by the end.
Why can't comics and cartoons into mecha? All Yas Forums attempts at mecha fall flat...
Adrian Mitchell
Colton Bailey
Tiny guess but probably because they're machines of war and death and why Gundam space opera and politics works out otherwise we get the kiddy version of giant death machines just punching each other and doing no damage or hurting anyone and by the end everyone's friends!!!
Daniel Cruz
Because it doesn't interest Western audiences. Simple as that. Even among katana wielding Naruto running weebaboos, mecha fans are considered the EWWW NERRDS.
Jose Smith
genlok
now come back when you dont have to larp on sunrise which only keeps their shows going because of the sell of toys for neets. The moment it becomes no longer profitable they will switch over the the other thing they own that makes 3x more profit; idol shit.
Camden Turner
Feels strange thinking about Transformers as mecha when they don't have pilots.
Ethan Russell
In the west we tend to want to skip the middle man and just have the giant robot as a person.
Exceptions exist. Megas XLR, Battletech/Mechwarrior, Exo-Squad, Headmasters and Godmasters Transformers, Big O.
But ultimately, being friends with Optimus Prime is more appealing than being a pilot. Unless of course you can do both.
James Peterson
>genlok
I'm sorry, that's your idea of good mecha?
Asher Collins
Fittingly, Transformers mecha is almost exclusively Japanese. Its for storylines where most if not all Cybertronians went back to Cybertron, and human/humanoid alien cyborgs kept up the fight by interfacing with remaining Autobots/Decepticons or piloting blank Sparkless bodies. The closest we ever got to that in the west is one of the two ultimate fates of Daniel Witwicky is being turned into a transforming cyborg who becomes Arcee’s head, and he lives on as part of her when in robot mode or by himself when she’s a car or is fine walking around headless.
Otherwise whenever they try to do it in the west they wuss out, and throw in GI Joe or MASK out there instead. Fuck, they referenced the main two human pilots, pic related, in the previous IDW as Overlord dicking around on Earth in human form trolling humanity as “Megan Gigalino” or whatever.
Jose Howard
Headmasters remains overcomplicated. Why can’t the small robot just be a dummy pilot they can remotely control when they want to walk around on the human level? Why does it have to be strange nightmare fuel that you can’t explain out loud with a straight face?
Owen Cooper
Even Japan has lost the knack.
This giant, moon-headed, bodiless bracket is supposed to be ZEUS. Just look at how ugly and lame it is.
Zachary Gomez
FGO is not representative of any fucking thing other than Nasu and Takeuchi wanting to bleed the franchise until it's fucking dry.
Is that even supposed to be a mecha or are you just complaining about stupid shit?
Caleb Murphy
>Why does it have to be strange nightmare fuel that you can’t explain out loud with a straight face?
Because the only reason Headmasters existed was "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck we're not making as much money as we were and, what can we do to keep this ship going" "I know, lets.....make then fit INSIDE he man toys, kids like he man right, we'll call them PRETENDERS, and lets uh....lets make the transformers be vehicles for little pilots, and those pilots will transform into heads!" and on and on with all of the late G1 gimmicks, they were just trying to come up with new toy ideas to keep kids interested.
For the fiction...they then had to come up with explanations, and, yeah, they tried.
Tyler Perry
Been trying to figure this out as well. You'd think with how much us Americans LOVE guns, war, and impractically huge vehicles, mechs would be hot shit over here. And yet.
Maybe indeed we don't really care about the mechs unless they are themselves characters.
Owen Russell
What this guy said. In the west, we tend to prefer sapient robots, while Japan seems to, by large, prefer piloted ones, with something like the Brave series being an exception. But then again, you have things like Magas XLR and Pacific Rim which became cult favorites in the US. Maybe it's just still considered "too nerdy" or dumbasses here think it's silly or unrelatable.
A shame, because I like /m/ shit.
Asher Scott
I think it's because of America's history of super hero culture...which is largely, aliens, monsters, freaks, mutants of some kind becoming the hero
Japan has a little bit of this when they blatantly rip off the idea of super heroes from the West, but they are much more nationalistic overall. Mecha is just army men but the tanks look like people, in the USA G.I. Joe was the closest thing to that that was ever popular on a massive household name scale and it hasn't been popular for a long time either.
Austin Barnes
In fairness, having the mechs themselves BE the characters makes a lot of sense from a production standpoint. Fewer character models, less time having to show the characters getting in and out of the cockpit, no need for interior shots, surviving high damage is more plausible, easy to justify new abilities, easy -if well trod- jokes, , adds a sense of exoticism to the cast, etc.
Easton Adams
Why do we like mechs anyway? Is it the same appeal as cars, but with limbs?
Sebastian Allen
Tanks, but with limbs.
Cameron Davis
Japanese Headmasters IS what you said it is. Tinier Transformers built bigger bodies for themselves to combine with for combat and for interacting with their cybertronian cousins.
Jaxon Edwards
The army man thing is just for Gundam though. Mazinger and Getter are closer to superheros than warmachines. Heck, Getter Robo is Jack Kirby's New Gods in terms of lore.
Oliver Sanchez
This thread could use some more Exosquad.
Jace Allen
Elijah Brown
Nathaniel Gonzalez
Fuck Snyder for introducing the absolute glory that is the Justice League Megazord, and wasting it on a mere cold open. I demand a full issue dedicated to this thing. Filthy hack!
It's the next logical step, really.
Jason Butler
Power Rangers was pretty popular in the US and if I wouldn't go as far as calling it a mecha show, the robot was an essential part of it.
Isaac Wood
One thing I love about robots in general is that they make it really easy to justify whatever whacky gimmick you want to do. It's technology, it explains itself!
Also, Ardjet is underrated.
>was
We're on, what, season 23 now?
Jaxson Miller
there is no talent pool of writers and designers wanting to make decent mecha shit. every piece of western mecha has been derivative or a love letter to japanese giant robots
Tyler Smith
>derivative
The mecha genre in general is highly derivative. You have a choice between something that descends from either Astro Boy, Mazinger, or Gundam.
Tyler Myers
Headless Arcee is cute?
Ryan King
>The former barely counts as mecha
what?
Luke Campbell
>genlok
Dominic Barnes
>every piece of western mecha has been derivative
but people complain when "it's not like my japanese cartoons!"
Jace Hughes
That's another issue. Mecha is a much broader genre than is typically assumed. The point is that the show revolves around a vehicle of some kind, not necessarily a piloted robot. Fucking Knight Rider is technically a mecha show.