What's with the Japanese fascination and obsession over

>>14599351

The thing up is that it's long dead.

That said, what about american obsssion with costumed super-heroes? It's kinda the same.

>>14599370
>That said, what about american obsssion with costumed super-heroes? It's kinda the same.
Are superheroes really dead when they're more popular than they ever have been for quite some time though?

I do agree that it's very similar but it's not quite the same.

Kaijus are a force of nature.

Robots are connected to the whole "Everything has a spirit" thing in Shinto, and as a extension of the character.

What's with the American fascination with sports?

What's with the British fascination with terrible TV dramas?

What's up with the Russian fascination with really bitter alcohol?

>>14599351
Because they're cool
Why isn't YOUR country obsessed with them?
It seems like such an odd thing to not become a cultural phenomenon over.

>>14599376
Movies are still very big, but not really comics.

>>14599381
Robots are the ultimate manifestation of humanitys will. They're miracles taking human shape.

>>14599388
>>14599411
So neither of you fags are actually going to answer the question then and are just going to get offended. Alright.

>Movies are still very big, but not really comics.
Superhero comics are doing alright. Not as good as they used to but there's still a very large fanbase out there who buys them every month.

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>>14599426
I'm not offended at all anon. I was joking. Sorry if you took it that way man.

I believe that the Japanese view robots as cool because of their relationship with industrialization. There was a big goverment paper on it, titled the Nihon Animation Guide: Robot Anime-hen
I forgot where to find it though.

>>14599376

I didn't said super-heroes are dead as kaiju and giant robots. Just that all cultures have their crazy pop culture hit that doesn't really make any sense.

Occident
Giant humanoid robot = Anti-Christ Monster
Japanese
Giant humanoid robot = Great number of got. One of those.
Difference in religion views.

>>14599388
>What's with the American fascination with sports?

That's all nations of the world, man. More like "what's mankind fascination with sports?". Also, giant robots and kaiju are geeky interests, not even in the same level.

>>14599426
Comic sales are at an abysmal place right now. Most of Marvel's titles are selling well below what was considered cancellation numbers just a few years ago, and that's not counting the massive dive from Civil War 2 being shit.

>>14599458
A lot of people feel like superhero comics are more or less the modern descendant to ancient Greek, Roman, or Norse mythology though. Superhero teams like the Justice League aren't that far off from the Olympians. And superheroes all have their iconic stories that are essentially pop culture myths by this point, like Superman's origin.

I was just wondering what it was about kaiju and giant robots that took off in the Japanese consciousness.

>>14599475
DC is doing pretty good thanks to Rebirth though.

>>14599351
I always figured that the cultural appeal of kaiju was a tsunami/earthquake thing. Japan throughout its history has been repeatedly hit by huge natural disasters, having the natural disaster be embodied as a discrete entity rather than an abstract force of nature would be a logical extension. Humans like to personify things. I know that there was a giant catfish monster named "Namazu" who embodied earthquakes as early as 1855, so there is some precedent for the kaiju idea.

>>14599426
stupid, nebulous questions deserve stupid, nebulous answers

Instead of overanalyzing things, what about this:

Tsuburaya loved King Kong and got together with Ishiro Honda to do their own "giant monster" attack city" movie. It's simpler than using stop motion and makes lots of money. They stat doing more and getting more money. Other companies see this new thing makes money and start doing their own cheaper efforts. Soon enough, Japan is over-saturated with giant monsters.

Yokoyama creates comic about robot who happens to be giant. Robot becomes popular and get his own long running series. Series is adapted for TV and makes money. Go Nagai read the comic and watch it on TV. Grow up to create his own robot who happens to be giant and is piloted by this guy. Idea is sold for tv and makes money, lots and lots of money. It makes money because it sell toys, lots and lots of toys. Other companies see this new thing and realize they can make their own money by selling their own toys. Soon enough, Japan is over-saturated with robot anime.

There, here's your cultural phenomenon explained.

It's a post-WW2 thing and has to do with Japan's submission to a giant superpower.

Why US is obsessed with superheroes, representing the desire of the American Dream to achieve greatness and uniqueness.

>>14599388
>What's with the American fascination with sports?

Escapism from the grind

>What's with the British fascination with terrible TV dramas?

95% of British people are white trash.

>What's up with the Russian fascination with really bitter alcohol?

Escapism from their miserable lives

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>>14599512
>A lot of people feel like superhero comics are more or less the modern descendant to ancient Greek, Roman, or Norse mythology though
If you honestly believe this, then you're an idiot. That said, you could easily make the same argument about giant monsters and giant robots. It all boils down to you failing to recognize that the genres are very similar to what we have over here.

>>14599793
I think the crux of the question is why these things get popular enough in the first place to get funded and for people to latch onto it enough to perpetuate it even more

There's no question that it makes money, but WHY it manages to make enough money to justify being made and to get people hooked onto it is the question

>>14599793
I think the crux of the question is why these things get popular enough in the first place to get funded and for people to latch onto it enough to perpetuate it even more

There's no question that it makes money, but WHY it manages to make enough money to justify being made and to get people hooked onto it is the question

>>14600179
what's wrong with seeing pop culture motifs as similar to what was essentially pop culture in older civilizations

The Japanese themselves have produced a history essay that explains the cultural associations with giant robots pretty well:

http://mediag.jp/project/project/images/JapaneseAnimationGuide.pdf

It's a good read if you care about mecha and toku.

>>14600185

It got popular in almost all places it got imported to. Almost as big as Japan in the case of Italy. Maybe they just had a universal appeal. Like Batman seems to be popular everywhere for some reason.

>>14600206
This is a good read, thanks anon.

>>14600206
there's a book called "Loving The Machine" that gets into how many hundreds of years mechanical gizmos have been a thing too

OP is butthurt over nothing and some anons can't type for shit, great thread.

>>14599351
>What's with the American fascination and obsession over guns and junk food? I'm not trolling, just wondering. It seems like such an odd thing to become such a cultural phenomenon over.

No u

>>14600185
>There's no question that it makes money, but WHY it manages to make enough money to justify being made and to get people hooked onto it is the question

Conversely anon, I'm wondering why giant robots have taken off and become popular all over the world -EXCEPT- America (and probably the UK and its anglo commonwealth counterparts)

>>14600206
Thank you, Anon, this is a really good read. Sadly, it's not fully translated.

>>14599370
>long dead
Alright buddy.

>>14599852
So basically you can use any of these as an answer to OP's question.

>>14601178

What about Robotech, Transformers, Voltron and Power Rangers?

>>14599351
Because they're big and awe-inspiring?

>>14599426
>comics
>large fanbase
Fucking KEK, nobody buys that shit.

>>14599512
>A lot of people feel like superhero comics are modern decendents of Greek myth
Said nobody ever. You are truly a moron if you believe this crap.

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>>14599426
Super heroes are doing alright, super hero comics sell like shit, especially now that the fags at Marvel decided that they hate money and want to pander to people who don't buy comic books but scream the loudest.

If shit keeps going the way it's going, though. Marvel is going to become a movie only studio and DC is going to just eat up mainstream comics with all the smaller companies getting new audiences. Which is kind of nice.

>>14602154
They're not really that popular.

>>14599351
Why the fuck are so many people responding with autistic hostility and butthurt?

>B-BUT THEY LIKE __________ IN [COUNTRY]!!

I mean jesus fucking christ, what is happening here? I can't even figure out why OP felt he needed to say "I'm not trolling"
The question 'Where does Japan's interest in giant robots/monsters come from?' is perfectly fine. Nobody in this thread should be arguing about DC and Marvel, god damn.

Get it together, /m/. You're usually slightly better than this.

>>14604762
Marvel comics have been selling better and DC comics have been selling worse.
But only Marvel has liberal themes (which antiSJWs under the age of 18 would be shocked to find out were always there)

99% of the people mad about female-Thor have never bought a Thor comic in their lives and never will, yet they're offended by the content of media they don't buy like feminists

>>14604858
>Marvel comics have been selling better and DC comics have been selling worse.

Marvel generally sells better than DC since the 70s. That has nothing to do with their recent efforts. DC at best manages spikes of one or two months and only in very rare occasions (around Infinite Crisis and the first month of the New 52).

Marvel's last relaunch was a big failure sales-wise though, relatively with their previous levels, with many books quickly dropping to pre-relaunch numbers by issue 3. They still have the Star Wars books too.

>>14604908
>greentexting Marvel selling better than DC as if you're about to prove it wrong
>go on to prove it right
Good job.
Keep pushing this shit about Marvel comics doing badly because of """tumblr""" even though they're doing absolutely fine and it's DC that's slipping further and further into obscurity while desperately trying to hold onto the "old guard" who, in a funny twist, don't seem to be buying comics anymore.

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>>14604908
>>Marvel comics have been selling better and DC comics have been selling worse.

They sell more books since they double ship issues and require stores to buy a thousand issues of Spidergirl to get the Meme Hiphop Selfie limited edition cover.

A lot of stores are saying now that that DC is selling more than Marvel events such as CWII. The constant event rebranding and character changing is also killing the readership.

>>14604942
So you've HEARD that DC is selling more than Marvel but can't back it up with any actual stats, because the numbers are all saying otherwise.

>>14604936
Except DC tried tumblr shit too and it didn't help them a bit.

>>14604978

http://www.newsarama.com/29687-rebirth-top-civil-war-but-comics-sales-still-down-big-in-may.html

DC Rebirth outsold Civil War Prelude. Keep in mind that DC doesn't double ship every book and puts out 30 fewer books than Marvel does, so it's not a one to one comparison. Also, you can return Rebirth books, unlike Marvel. Yet they topped the charts.

DC also moves more trades with Vertigo stuff being no longer independent.

>>14604983

No, they tried DCYou, which is indie shit.

Like Prez and Gotham Academy.

And Black Lives Matter Robin miniseries.

>>14600206
The scholar and translator Frederik Schodt (who translated the Gundam novels) also wrote a book about Japan's relationship to robotics in the 1980s. It's a little dated, but it still has a lot of great historical information. I scanned it back in college (about 5 years ago, now) and the link long disappeared, but I found I still had it on my compy, so I re-uploaded it!


https://mega.nz/#!QQMnlDAT!B-RXbbAsusGc5melu3akAaoJ-feR85gzcL5hSEyKk_U

>>14605021
Wasn't prez a reboot of a shit 70s title?

>>14600187
>what's wrong with seeing pop culture motifs as similar to what was essentially pop culture in older civilizations
It was their fucking religion you ape, do you consider Christianity, Hinduism and other such religions a pop culture thing? Holy fucking shit nigger

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>>14605065

It's a reboot of a fucking amazing 70's title. It only got a few issues, but it's pretty good combination of goofy and political commentary.

New Prez is more hardcore satirical but better. The writer is doing a really dark Flintstones reboot now that's amazing.

Only six issues but

>>14605087
>really dark Flintstones reboot
I didn't believe you but holy shit it's real

>>14604848
Its because with each passing day /m/ becomes more and more like /v/, 1/3 of the threads right now are threads that use literal clickbait tactics so people respond to them and it will only get worse

>>14605108

There's also a post apocalyptic Scooby Doo and Wacky Racers, in addition to a mega Hanna Barbara crossover with Space Ghost teaming up with Johnny Quest.

None of those should work, but they actually do.

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>>14605126
>There's also a post apocalyptic Scooby Doo

>>14605126
>post-apocalyptic Wacky Races
Do Dick Dastardly and Muttley pilot a gyrocopter vehicule? That would be funny, if so.

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>>14605126
>these are all real
WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE
Makes me wonder what the chances are that S.C.O.O.B. and the rest of the Hannah Barbera Cinematic Universe will be anywhere near as good

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>>14605138

The Scooby Doo and Wacky Raceloand books are connected, in that both concern everyone being eaten by nanomachines and a few human surviving. Insane AI's are basically manipulating the racers for their own unseen ends.

In Scooby Doo, the nanomachines turn people into what they fear-- zombies and monsters.

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>>14605138

Coloring is pretty garbage, unfortunately.

>>14605169
Welp, that seems even darker than what the new Yatterman did. Odd, but interesting. Dat Penelope though.

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>>14605189

Scooby Doo is actually pretty lighthearted despite the setting.

Flintstones is just something else.

Future Quest is basically Darwyn Cooke style retro porn.

>>14605189
Besides the badguy winning and murdering the Yatterman and a good deal of humanity in the backstory, it wasn't that dark.

>>14599351

I read this book : Otaku : a Database Animal

https://www.scribd.com/doc/150449391/Hiroki-Azuma-Otaku-Japans-Database-Animals-2009

I cannot speak about kaiju, I don't dig that shit. But as to why japanese obsessed with giant robot, it can be traced all the way back to Osamu Tezuka's Tetsuwan Atom.

Basically from what I grasped after reading that book, it has something to do with the way the author ( back in time ) felt that since Japanese has lost in WW2, they felt ashamed , and has lost their national identity, and remember back in time, after war was ended, there has been a lot of cultural exchanges students between Japanese and American. The only way to "get back" to westerner to stand on the equal foot was by doing an industrial revolution from economic perspective. But from the manga/anime's author perspective, Japanese need somekind of "super heroes" that heavily leaned toward technology , hence why there was a huge super robot fad back in the day and if you see a lot of them did have some kind of underlying message about nationalism way more apparent than super robot show today.

Basically the author on that book said that anime ( in general) was somekind of false pretend / saving grace for Japanese because they lose a war. Hence why anime ( mecha ) in particular , was being used as a "symbol" or you could say "escapism" that they are doing alright, and they have their own "heroes" .

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>>14605206

Let's do this.

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>>14605298

Skipping the other covers to save image limitt

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>>14605300

See

>>14605206

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>>14605303

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>>14605308

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>>14605313

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>>14605320

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>>14605322

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>>14605325

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>>14605330

>>14605320
>Shale Plains Condos [Formerly Tree People Acres]
holy shit

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>>14605334

>>14604807

I can't think of anything bigger with kids in the early 90s than Power Rangers. And how the fuck was Transformers not that popular? The only franchise with long lasting appeal with kids I can think of is Ninja Turtles. Everything else from that era was forgotten by time. But any casual knows whata Transformer is.

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>>14605338

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>>14605340

There's also a new Power Rangers reboot comic. It's decent but the 2000's stuff like cellphones is off putting.

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>>14605351

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>>14605353

>>14605359
Heh

also dang

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>>14605359

>>14604740
>Said nobody ever. You are truly a moron if you believe this crap.
Anon, Grant Morrison has been writing DC's most iconic heroes with such a mindset and he's rather justifiably considered to be one of the best writers in comics.

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>>14605363

The Water Buffalo Club is based on veteran's associations, but we didn't get the PSTD before.

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>>14605374

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>>14605375

You saw i.

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>>14605379

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>>14605379

it*

>>14605384
>Get someone else to do the killing for you

Ain't that the truth.

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>>14605389

>>14605399
It kinda bugs me that Fred looks like Superman

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>>14605399

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>>14605406

fug missed a page.

>>14605405

It's Cavemen John Hamm.

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>>14605408

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>>14605417

Fin

>>14605426
Thanks for the story time Anon, that was pretty good

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>>14605430

My pleasure. Also:

>

Bone Depot, Tarpit, and other big box stores get Bedrock whipped into a buying frenzy while Fred gets trapped in a vitamin pill scam. Plus, Fred and Wilma experience a crisis of faith when they discover the bird god they worship also makes a great record player needle.

>vitamin pill scam

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>>14605399
>That Damien Hirst swipe

>>14605298
>>14605300
>>14605303
>>14605308
>>14605313
>>14605320
>>14605322
>>14605325
>>14605330
>>14605334
>>14605338
>>14605347
>>14605351
>>14605353
>>14605359
>>14605363
>>14605366
>>14605374
>>14605375
>>14605379
>>14605384
>>14605389
>>14605399
>>14605406
>>14605408
>>14605417
>>14605426
>>14605443
Why the fuck are you doing this? This is the mecha board. What the hell is your problem?

>>14604762

Boy that 2D Miraculous OVA is looking pretty lewd

>>14604858

So when are the anti-SJWs gonna get married to Tumblr? They're so tsundere for that damn site.

>>14605622
Those of us firmly in the
>every one ur dumb cept me
camp want all of them to fucking take the poltics to the politics board, and remember this is the mecha board.

>>14605541
Well I liked that he posted it, at least it wasn't shitposting as usual

>>14599426
Robots are just cool as fuck. Also it works perfectly with animism.

>>14605369
And he is still a single guy instead of a legion of people saying it

>>14605298
https://youtu.be/QeDkGnyDv9o

>>14599351
>Pic sorta related, I guess.
toku shit is not /m/

>>14606165
>And he is still a single guy instead of a legion of people saying it
Anon, PLENTY of people feel this way.

>>14601178
>and become popular all over the world -EXCEPT- America

Because we have this really warped view of what is and isn't realistic for some reason. Like people here are totally able to suspend their disbelief for Superman yet a giant robot has them screaming about how impractical and unrealistic that scenario would be.

>>14601178
As a spic I could say japanese media is far more popular than cape shit here. Just like your average nip kid I´m been watching Doraemon since I was five and I´m almost 25 now

>>14610287
Weirdly one of my first experiences with anime was daytime TV on a trip to Spain in like 2002

>>14605087
I never bothered reading it. Is it at least bipartisan with the satire or is it another shill mouthpiece?