Giant Robots!

[Wolf Kanno]

Been in a mecha mood lately and thought it was time for us to have a discussion about Giant Robots! What are some of your favorite series? Favorite robots? Do you prefer Super Robots or Real Robots? Any good recommendations?

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[Spuuky]

I read a book called Sleeping Giants, which was about giant robots. It was good.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

The Iron Giant (1999)

No but for real when I'm not tired I might think of something interesting aside from the 3 million hours of Gundam I've watched.

[krissy]

I love gundam (unicorn especially but it hugely kind of sucks for a lot of ppl)

eureka 7 is amazing

gurren lagan is fun

macross plus for morphing powers and really emotional crap imo

zone of the enders games are great

that being said I have serious issue with evangelion but I did finally get through it when Netflix put it up. just doesn't jive with mew like others I guess. cool music and style but I don't like the plot very much

also watched ratatouille today which is technically a mecha

[Vyk]

Outside of Voltron... I don't think an "anime" has been able to capture what it is I like about mechs and entertainment. I've yet to find a Gundam series that interested me. There was one I watched on Crunchyroll before it came to the west, Aldnoah Zero? Probably mispelled. But it was entertaining, and still had a lot of things that irks me. The prodigy protagonist trope. I don't spend a lot of time perusing the genre because I rarely find what I like there, so I can't say what I want doesn't exist. But finding something like a Xenogears style anime has been a troublesome adventure

[Wolf Kanno]

Xenogears is an amalgamation of several different sci-fi shows of which Evangelion is probably the closest parallel since they draw from similar sources. You might want to try Five Star Stories though. If you're looking for a Real Robot series that doesn't deal with plucky child prodigy leads, I would advise something like Front Mission or Armored Trooper VOTOMS. I also can't help but plug my beloved Big O either...

[Fynn]

Though Evangelion and Xenogears are some of my favorite things ever, I’m actually very behind on all things mecha. Working my way through the original Gundam right now, but I’ve got a pretty big backlog so I’ll be making that up soon

[Karifean]

also watched ratatouille today which is technically a mecha

LOL took me a bit to get that. Can't argue with that.

I like Gurren Lagann and NGE well enough, although not nearly as much as their dedicated fanbases. Attack on Titan (which is absolutely a giant robot show except with a coat of flesh painted over) I never watched past Season 1 so far. Besides that I can't think of many giant robot anime I've watched. I'll throw Muv-Luv in there which has no proper anime yet but was a pretty solid giant robot VN.

In terms of games, Trails of Cold Steel and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim have some of the best stories I've experienced in recent memory, both paying lovely homage to many a classic. Also Zone of the Enders 2 is awesome.

[Fynn]

Ah right! Attack on Titan is absolutely a doer robot show and it only gets more obvious the further in you go

[Psychotic]

I actually completely disagree on Attack on Titan and think it becomes more obvious that it’s not about robots the more you go :shobon: the first season or two though I can see why you’d compare them but even so I think it fits more neatly into zombie apocalypse tropes than giant robot.

[Fynn]

Super robot shows can be apocalyptic too. Evangelion’s ending is definitely not about robots either, but it’s still one of the most important takes on the super robot genre out there

[Mr Gashtacular]

evangelion is one of my favourite tv series ever. ill read the most contrived and weird of the fan theory out there and like it, even though i hate fan theory as a rule. beautiful, incredible, terrible show.

[WarZidane]

Well actually, Attack on Titan is a mahou shoujo vampire anime. :monocle: The real mecha shows in disguise are Kill la Kill and Nanoha (https://youtu.be/ACqXHDmXj_E?t=164)

Anyway, as for the topic at hand :p

The super robot vs real robot question has no straight answer for me. Overall, I enjoy real robot series more because super robot series tend to be "monster of the week" type things that go nowhere for a dozen episodes at a time. However, I'll take the peak highs of super robot series over the peak highs of real robot series any day. This is why my absolute favorite mecha series are super robot series that reach those peak highs without also falling to the "monster of the week" formula too much. Things like Gunbuster, GaoGaiGar FINAL and Gurren Lagann. (all starting with a G which is amusing but pure coincidence)

Favorite robot is honestly impossible to say, there are so many amazing ones out there that i can't rank them. But I'll give a shout-out to the Dynamic General Guardian line of robots from Super Robot Wars:
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As for recommendations, beyond what others have already mentioned, obvious stuff like Gundam/Macross and Go Nagai's works (Mazinger, Getter being the two major ones, but he also made things like Grendizer and Jeeg) and my favorites in this post: Suisei no Gargantia, Sousei no Aquarion, Patlabor, Diebuster (sequel to Gunbuster), Full Metal Panic, RahXephon, Fafner (gotta get over a lot of angst for this one though), Dunbine...and honestly many others but I'll leave it at that :p

Except one more thing, on the game side of things: If you're into giant robots and not entirely opposed to tactical RPGs, you owe it to yourself to at least check out the Super Robot Wars series. Most of them are cross-over games featuring a bunch of mecha series, while the Original Generation games take all the original storylines/characters from those cross-over games and combine them into a new original universe. If the former appeals to you more, officially translated entries include SRW V, T and X, but you can also grab fan translations of entries like Alpha Gaiden (PS1), or A Portable (PSP), among others. If the latter appeals to you more, Original Generation 1 and 2 on the GBA were officially localized, while Original Generations, a PS2 remake combining those two GBA games, is fan translated.

[Psychotic]

Well actually, Attack on Titan is a mahou shoujo vampire anime. :monocle: If you’re going to be like that then it’s a subverted shonen becoming seinen :p

[Fynn]

Shonen and seines aren’t genres! They’re target demographics! And all that really means is what magazine the manga gets published in. Which is why Death Note and Evangelion are considered shonen despite being way darker than you’d usually think shonen would be

[Wolf Kanno]

Yeah, I wouldn't really count AoT to be a Robot show. I can see why some people might argue for it, but it doesn't really fit many of the tropes like say... Evangelion or Brain Powered. It's kind of it's own thing, but I would say the nature of Titans you see for most of the show fall into zombie territory, and even the transforming titan feels closer to a henshin show than a mecha one.

I've found a few shows I feel I need to check out sometime.

Panzer World Galiant
Five Star Stories
Turn A Gundam
Brain Powered
Armored Trooper VOTOMS
Dai-Guard
Space Runaway Ideon
Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still
Go Nagia's stuff.

Lately, I've been on a serious Front Mission kick, and I must say, I think it's the best Real Robot series I've checked out with the exception of maybe Patlabor. I've seen too many Real Robot series start dipping into Super Robot tropes (Gundam, Code Geass, Full Metal Panic) when they want to make it cooler. I've actually been reading some of the side story manga titles for Front Mission and they've been pretty good so far. I just wish I could find a translated version of the Zero Manga, which was the first story written for the franchise.

One other series I want to recommend for people is Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure, which is an absolutely hilarious parody series written by the team that did Tenchi Muyo! and it's a better EVA parody than most. Highly recommend.

I have been wanting to check out the Super Robot Wars franchise. That and Ring of Red.

[Psychotic]

Shonen and seines aren’t genres! They’re target demographics! And all that really means is what magazine the manga gets published in. Which is why Death Note and Evangelion are considered shonen despite being way darker than you’d usually think shonen would beIn the original Japanese meaning, that’s accurate. The words have developed new meaning when used by English speakers (and other languages too actually) and in this context colloquially describe certain tropes.

[Jessweeee♪]

I am mostly not that into this genre but I really enjoyed Eureka 7.

[Freya]

The first Pacific Rim was a great movie version of this genre. It was all the best campy and fun. Giant robots vs Giant monsters. AWW YEAH (we don't acknowledge the second film, it was bad)

[Wolf Kanno]

I thoroughly enjoyed Pacific Rim. That was a neat flick. Anyone remember the old Battletech Cartoon?

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Hell, for that matter, who remembers Exo-Squad?

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[Vyk]

I was not aware that Front Mission or Battletech ever received shows. Exo Squad was campy goodness though. I haven't seen it since its inception, but I remember adoring it at the time. Same with Big O. I rarely got a chance to see it, but I remember it being a fantastic mix of moods from Batman TAS and whatever good mech show you want to compare it to. Heavy Batman influence though, and for the better

Really dig a lot of these suggestions, and not a lot of them are foreign to me, I just never bothered to take the dive

Loved the first season of Attack on Titan, but decided to wait for the show to finish before going forward and have yet to pick it back up. Is it completed yet? I rarely pay attention anymore. My fiancee has played the Mosuo games, so I'm aware of a lot of spoilers, unfortunately. But doesn't really detract from the quality

[WarZidane]

Xabungle is a pretty interesting watch too. A relatively goofy endeavor from Tomino (especially early 80s Tomino), although it still has its fair share of tragedy.

Incidentally I think the director of Gurren Lagann said that Xabungle is one of his favorite mecha shows and an inspiration for him when he made Gurren Lagann

[Wolf Kanno]

Tomino always gets this bad rep of being ''doom and gloom'' but he's often made some pretty funny series as well.

So what does everyone consider to be some overrated Giant Robot properties and why?

[Vyk]

I'd say Gundam, but that's probably a bit unfair, as I've only really seen Gundam Wing and the Unicorn one. I liked Wing at the time, but I was like 17, and even then I hated the whole teenager angle, and how emo Heero was, and he wasn't alone. I enjoyed the adult characters, and the quasi-adult storytelling, but looking back I know I'd cringe at almost every angle of it

And Unicorn had way too many convenient plot mcguffins for me to take serious. I stopped watching after 3 or 4 episodes

I think the only other one I've seen was whatever was on Toonami back in the day. 0080? I think? That one seemed alright, but I rarely caught it. With that being said, I know I've barely scratched the surface of the Gundam world, so I'm sure there's better stuff, and probably stuff I would actually enjoy in there somewhere.

I've yet to dive into Gurren Lagan because I knew someone who wouldn't shut up about it, and it drove me nuts and completely turned me off. So from my perspective it's overrated, but I've yet to actually check it out to verify. But from what I've seen in previews on Netflix, it looks extremely spazzy, so I would honestly wager it would grate on my nerves even if I hadn't already been turned off to it. But who knows. There's a lot of things on my backlog that look way more interesting to me, but I may get around to it someday

But sadly I haven't had the chance to taste test enough giant robots anime to really get a feel for what's out there, let alone to call out a bunch of specific ones for being bad and getting an undeserved good reputation. My opinion is completely biased and trash in this regard and I wholly admit that

[WarZidane]

Most overrated's an easy one for me, since I dislike Evangelion. :p

[Wolf Kanno]

Gurren Lagann for me. It has it's amusing moments but I found it's over-the-top nature not as amusing as my peers. I had a lot of friends who were obsessed with it, but I could just never understand the appeal of it all. I own it and have never had a desire to watch it again after my first foray through the series.

My second choice would be MGS Zeta. Not a bad series per se, but definitely overrated by the fanbase. Not helped by the fact the writing is a bit poor in a lot of places. I never felt like Tomino was terribly great at juggling politics and interpersonal human conflict really well and Zeta shows it as the beginning is rough and hard to follow while Tomino throws in a few redo plot elements like Four who is a shameless expy of Lalah Sue who herself is not exactly the best part of the OG MGS if you ask me. None of which is helped by Kamille being an arrogant and impetuous child for like 80% of the series making him a real drag to watch.

[Christmas]

I am a bitch for Gundam Wing. :bigsmile:

WING GUNDAM ZERO CUSTOM (ENDLESS WALTZ VERSION)!! :kaoclove:

DUO!!! TROWA!!! HEERO!! QUATRE!!! :kaoclove:

Wufei sux. :shobon:

[Wolf Kanno]

I still love Gundam Wing, and funnily enough, it was my mother's favorite anime that I got her to watch. She would watch the whole series like once a year.

I feel it's aged better than some other Gundam franchises. The sequel manga feels like a train wreck though. G Gundam was also stupid fun.

[krissy]

watched the original gundam movies a few months back cause they're on netflix
started gundam zeta
the goal was to get through EVERYTHIng but like
there's a lot
i also went through all of iron blooded orphans but i didn't really like most of it lol
probably wouldn't enjoy wing as much now either but still epic moments
i will continue with zeta just need to find the time

[Christmas]

I still love Gundam Wing, and funnily enough, it was my mother's favorite anime that I got her to watch. She would watch the whole series like once a year.

I feel it's aged better than some other Gundam franchises. The sequel manga feels like a train wreck though. G Gundam was also stupid fun.

There is a SEQUEL manga? What did I miss? What is it called? :bigsmile:

[Christmas]

When you watch these genres as a kid, most likely is for the action. Like Evangelion. When I watch the remake as an adult, I am more into the story and character development. :bigsmile:

PS: What is wrong with Shinji and his father? :mymelbert: