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Thread: Giant Robots!

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    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Cool Giant Robots!

    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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    *permanent smite* Spuuky's Avatar
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    I read a book called Sleeping Giants, which was about giant robots. It was good.

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    Total Sweetheart
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    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.

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    disc jockey to your heart krissy's Avatar
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    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

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    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



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    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    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...

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    Radical Dreamer Fynn's Avatar
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    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

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    Witch of Theatergoing Karifean's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by krissy View Post
    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.

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    Radical Dreamer Fynn's Avatar
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    Ah right! Attack on Titan is absolutely a doer robot show and it only gets more obvious the further in you go

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    Huh? Flower?! What the hell?! Administrator Psychotic's Avatar
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    I actually completely disagree on Attack on Titan and think it becomes more obvious that it’s not about robots the more you go 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.

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    Radical Dreamer Fynn's Avatar
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    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

  12. #12

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    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.

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    Well actually, Attack on Titan is a mahou shoujo vampire anime. The real mecha shows in disguise are Kill la Kill and Nanoha

    Anyway, as for the topic at hand

    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:
    Dygenguard.png DaiRaiOh.png

    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

    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.

  14. #14
    Huh? Flower?! What the hell?! Administrator Psychotic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by WarZidane View Post
    Well actually, Attack on Titan is a mahou shoujo vampire anime.
    If you’re going to be like that then it’s a subverted shonen becoming seinen

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    Radical Dreamer Fynn's Avatar
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    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

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