Ok /m/, why do you think certain anime fans look down on mecha

>>15653326
You have to admit, most mecha shows are terrible

>>15653328
This is true

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Partly because they're too inherently seen as toy commercials. Most shows push merch, but they're usually not as blatant as twenty foot tall brightly colored supposed war machines.
Partly because pic related.

>>15653328
Most of anything tends to be terrible

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>>15653328
>"your favorite mecha show is shit"
>"so what all mecha is shit anyway LOL XD"
how do we fix this /m/?

>>15653326
Because of propaganda from the likes of ANN, Anime Suki, and Evageeks. Net neutrality has to go.

>>15653341
tell me moar please about this propaganda, as I am curious about it

>>15653343
Who do you think controls all the anime opinions and commands the sheeple to act stupid throughout the internet? This is likely They Live levels of subliminal control. Have you ever noticed that internet critics never disagree on things?

>A friend of mine says he doesn't like mecha
>When I say he never really watched any mecha to have any opinion on it, he says he watched Gundam Wing years ago (we're not in the US, so that was around 2007, when it aired on our Toonami)
>I say Wing is not representative of the genre, being horrible
>He says he just doesn't like the theme, implying that the theme of mecha shows is simply "giant robots"
>I say that's not the case most of the time
>He moves the goalpost and says he didn't really mean theme
>He then says that he doesn't like giant robots

I mean, sure, that's fair. But it's still a silly stance of hating something without actually knowing what it's like.

He watches generic SoL stuff and says he only likes "bad" anime. I don't get him.

>>15653359
SoL tend to be the hardest ones to get to understand mecha yet alone get into it.

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>>15653326
Mecha at its core has technology as a theme, and that just scares people. For those who likes mecha, they understand the idea that technology could be used to benefit or destroy humanity. Mecha takes this idea and plays it out because not only does the world rest on its technological foundation, but the good guys and the bad guys both rely entirely on often very similar technology. For most people, they have already decided whether they like technology or not and the fact that technology is whatever you make of is fundamentally foreign to them. For those who like to believe in fate and destiny on a shallow level, the fact that the most important thing is your choice is terrifying.

In mecha, there is no such thing as someone born to be evil, or has to fulfill a destiny simply because they are associated with or identified by certain themes. There is only choice, the means and chance.

>>15653359
your friend is a fag and you should say that to him

>>15653326
Because most of the western casual viewers, emphasize on 'MOST', can't handle complex theme or capable of reading between the lines for context.

Thus, they can't watch anything with complex plot or not shounen shit. They can only know how to follow the crowd with whichever new shows recently aired or released being the hot stuff of the season. And we now have a group of people actually praise the politic of IBO.

There is alos the problem of "reading the book by the cover", or notably the problem of style over substance. That's why we have people praising 08th shows and IBO for being gritty stuffs despite their shallow plot and characters. They can't understand anything beyond the surface level and isn't spoon-fed to them.

>>15653326
I think part of it is that the action scenes often get rather impersonal. It doesn't sit right with people to see two people fighting indirectly using giant metal avatars instead of a classic emotional fistfight. The well known battle shounens (DBZ, Big Three, Jojo, etc.) all do feature more direct confrontations than mecha, where you can usually see the damage on the fighter's body. A robot limb getting blown off just doesn't have the same visual impact as seeing Goku bleed all over.

As mecha fans, we're probably a little more entertained by the fantastical aspects of action scenes in general (or in other words, how fights work within a setting and the stylistic presentation of them). Others will only care about action scenes insofar as they serve the characters or plot and are looking for emotional climax regardless of how technically accomplished and uniquely creative the action is in and of itself.

Mecha is not entirely defined by action scenes, but that is how most people think of it. When we say "mecha", Gundam and Mazinger are usually the first thing that come to mind, not Mechazawa and Keroro. As such, I think this is the key thing at play here

>>15653326
Because people are obsessed with looking mature, and the most common things people associate with mecha are kids stuff like Transformers and Power Rangers. It's why the only mecha shows that gain traction these days are stuff like IBO, things that try so hard to look adult that it's socially acceptable to watch them.

It's all very silly, but let's be honest here. The anime fanbase (and really, entertainment fanbases in general) are not shining examples of maturity.

>>15653475
>or notably the problem of style over substance
I do think it's just the opposite, as I outline here >>15653499

Casual viewers will eat up the substance, but they have no appreciation for the style despite how much work can go in to style (with TTGL being a weird exception that I have a hard time getting my head around). This is why shows like MJP and Gun X Sword are already mostly forgotten. Both of them are visually striking extremely clever in the way they execute their mecha battles, but neither have the kind of story that will entice anyone but people with an appreciation for creative mecha battles to watch them

>>15653341
>Net neutrality has to go.
I don't trust the government to tell me what is and isn't good.

>>15653528
Mentioning ANN, animesuki etc. is obvious trolling. Just so you know.

>>15653513
cause TTGL had the famous stroke of luck that combines right timing and luck, same happened to SAO, and more recently SnK

Being good or no doesn't really matter, its all about hitting that sweet spot.

>>15653499
A pilot dragging along his half destroyed mecha and continuing forward is one of the most bad assed and emotional things ever.

>>15653359
This seems to be a trend that everyone who doesn't watch mecha say.

>>15653369
He's just irrational about some things.

>>15653468
I did, now he's a bit salty. Thanks.

>>15653539
Yeah, it really is. The worst part is that he refuses to even try to watch something else, and I have really recommended some great stuff that I'm sure he'd like.

Or maybe he'd hate it just for the sake of being a contrarian, who knows.

Mecha fans will overlook awful drama, naive political preaching, and terrible characterization just because there are robots, and they will often double down on it when confronted with this fact. It's perfectly acceptable to not like mecha anime for both its content and its terrible fans.

>>15653552
And how do you feel about overlooking good shows with various qualities just because there are robots?

Is that acceptable?

>>15653326
Those arguments are stupid because most anime aren't realistic in the first place, and people in robot anime are usually the focus of the show, even in older anime

>>15653552
It's because in mecha shows, the giant robots aren't just decoration or eye candy, but symbols and metaphors. The shows could not tell the same stories, with the same subtext if mecha are removed.

Mecha isn't popular for the same reasons real, crunchy sci-fi isn't popular.

>>15653552
Fuck off back to /co/ thomas

>>15653532
It's really because TTGL reminded people so much of dumb shonens like naruto or DBZ.

>>15653326
>Ok /m/, why do you think certain anime fans look down on mecha in general?
Prior to the dawn of CG anime, I think those kind of shows were seen as fairly childish with many children shows taking the mecha motif as a way to sell merchandise. (Let's not lie, some of that merch was cool though)

Now we have significantly less kid shows popping up, but most mecha shows opt for 2d animated characters and CG mecha. A lot of people seem to perceive this on saving on animation budget and cheaping out on mecha animation. You guys think /m/ goes nuclear when CG sneaks its way into a show? At least we are moderately acclimated to it. On /a/ it's seen as a cardinal sin.

>>15653593
I don't get the hateboner for CG. It's in one way or the other in pretty much all anime made in the past, what? 10, 15 years?

>>15653359
Try to get him to watch Patlabor TV.

>>15653552
>awful drama, naive political preaching, and terrible characterization

You are right, mecha fans do take it easy on those occurrences in mecha anime.

The problem is, a good chunk of current running anime is guilty of all of those things now that anime has a shift towards an older/teen audience as a whole. Drama + political commentary and trainwreck character writing are completely standard now.

>>15653598
CG isn't done nearly as well as it should be, there's a handful of shows that got it right
You can't defend the new berserk for exemple, that's just straight up bad

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Not enough cute girls.

>>15653598
True, computers have made animation much more efficient for a long time now. But for some reason 3DCG is seen as it's own separate crime to a lot of people. Rotoscoping cute girls doing cute things is fine, but if there's a 3D render somewhere on screen...

>>15653598
But muh skill! Muh soul! Despite the fact that CGI also takes a lot of skill and effort to do, but it seems people think "computer generated" means computer does all the modeling and animating instead of human, not just renders moving pictures.

>>15653609
No, you can't defend Berserk, but I really think it's an exception in how bad it is.

>>15653609
Well, sure, but that's going to an extreme of the measurement scale of quality. Not only do many anime nowadays do CG well, most of them use it at least for corrections - same as in films. I too prefer 2D over 3D in most media, but there's no need to be irrational.

People can complain, sure, but they should face reality.

>>15653600
He refuses to watch anything with mecha. I even stopped trying seriously recommending stuff to him, now I just argue when he spouts nonsense about anime.

>>15653609
Yeah, the same way you can't defend Mars of Destruction. It's almost like it's not tool that matters.

>>15653326
When people say they hate mecha because it's "unrealistic" they're really just saying they don't like giant robots but they're trying to make themselves feel superior for not liking a thing.

Usually people just find the politics and technology stuff too dry or if it's a super robot show they find it too silly and associate it with childishness and toy commercials.

For some people it really is the concept of giant robots in general that turns them off and honestly that's fine too as long as they're not being a smug bitch about it.

A friend explained to me that he does not like how the main characters in mecha show can just separate themselves from their responsibility and power by simply stepping out of the mecha, and it just makes it so the writers don't have to deal with the social consequences a character with that much power would have to deal with form day to day. In his words, "It's like they are super heroes, but only when convenient to the writing."

While there are some characters that do fit this bill, I think there are just as many characters that are mentally (most Gundam protagonists) and sometimes even physically altered by their interaction with the fictional war machines.

>>15653598
I was pretty against it at first, but it's starting to get to the point where it looks fine and it's getting better all the time.

For exemple, buddy complex manages to waver CGI and 2D animation to near perfection in its combat scenes

Of course you can't expect sunrise quality from every studio out there, but until studios around japan can raise the bar to that level, you will see distate for CGI, doesn't help most the western anime fans were raised on high budget OVAs and movies.

Well, is he someone who only bothers with modern anime?
I don't really blame him then. Modern mecha now seems to be associated with poorly implemented settings/world building and rushed/half-assed conclusions. It can be pretty tiring when you watch a slew of shows and none of them can offer any sort of satisfaction beyond mecha battles.

>>15653642
I don't think your friend has seen many mecha anime. Most super robot pilots are intrinsically linked to their robots in some way that makes them irreplaceable or they're "the only pilot that can handle it." If no one else can pilot the robot then they're just like any other super hero.

If it's a more real robot setting with a war scenario the pilots don't often have the choice of running away either.

A mecha pilot abandoning their robot is no different from any super hero hanging up their cape and usually has the same ramifications.

>>15653537
I mean, I don't think anyone disagrees, but what I'm saying is that people that are not fans of mecha tend not to get anything out of it because they have a hard time connecting with a non-sentient robot over an actual wounded human being.

And this is kind of why I think the Transformers franchise is the one mecha series that has perennial popularity over in the west. It's easier for people to get absorbed in the drama when the robots are themselves sentient and humanlike

>>15653545
I have so many friends that seem to say the exact same thing

>>15653660
Any time a superhero is written to 'hang up their cape' it's usually just a vehicle to hype up their return. A superhero pretty much dies or they stop making comics about them. There's no safe way out.

>>15653545
He's free to miss out on things he'd likely enjoy for the sake of being a bitch. It's no skin off your back.

>>15653718
That's my point. Most mecha pilots are the same way. There's usually no one other than the hero who can move the robot or move it well enough to save the day. They quit piloting, everyone dies, the same as if a super hero stops fighting.

>>15653714
Same here. I find it funny that out of all of my friends that are into anime, the only one that has ever given a chance to mecha was a goddamned 14 year old (now 17) shithead that I met while playing TF2 way too many years ago.

Even weirder, the anime he watched was 0079. Weirder still, he loved it. He started Zeta right after but even after almost 4 years hasn't finished it yet. He's into Kamen Rider now, so I guess that's something.

People, man. They're weird sometimes.

>>15653721
Eh, I know you're right. But I really wish I could share and discuss mecha with more people.

>>15653545
You say he likes SoL shit right? Have him watch Girls und Panzer, then Sora no Woto, then have him watch one of the more entry-level mech shows like Full Metal Panic or Gargantia.

You have to slowly work your way into the genre with these types.

>>15653725
Sentai and Power rangers may have a lot to do with the perception of it being different given how the mecha battles in those tend to be barely relevant to anything else that happens in the series

Although I will say it makes for more varied plot setups. Villains can't target superheroes in the same way they can target mecha pilots outside the cockpit

It's sci fi most of the time which is less popoular than non sci fi.

People think EVA or TTGL or Geass or something is the pinnacle of the genre so they don't need to watch any more

They think it's for kids, or it's all the same/formulaic (which isn't untrue in many cases).

They don't want to watch older stuff.

Mecha is not a genre

>>15653326

people only say this about gundam and its because its basically a rehash and when it isn't m throwsa bitch fit

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>>15653871
>Mecha anime and manga, known in Japan as robot anime (ロボットアニメ robotto anime) and robot manga (ロボット漫画 robotto manga), are anime and manga that feature robots (mecha) in battle. The genre is broken down into two subcategories, "super robot" is one category in which the anime or manga includes a super sized totally non plausible robot. The second category is "real robot", wherein the robots used are explainable by real world physics.

>The Genre

>>15653326
It's really hard to find torrents of the old good shit

>>15654003
>wiki
lol no

>>15654060
Ignore the retard.

>>15653636
Really, this is what it boils down to. Why do we always find more excuses for people or try so hard to justify ourselves?

>>15654003
>trusting anything that actually uses the words "super robot" and "real robot"
Yeah, Giant Gorg totally has a lot in common with fucking GaoGaiGar, exactly the same genre no doubt

>>15653552
You say that when all works and fanbases are guilty of that.

>>15654087
They're in the same genre alright. The Mecha genre

>>15653326
because to most people mecha is just the power rangers megazord and like the robot chicken voltron skits, they've completely written it off as dumbass shit to be made fun of, thats what the collective consciousness of it is and they wont risk being a fag by going against that

>>15653552
as opposed to everyone else putting up with all of that all the time but without even the glory of mechs to prop it up. They just eat that trash up willingly

>>15654154
It makes about as much sense to call mecha a genre as it does to call musicals a genre. Granted, I don't like "sci-fi" or "fantasy" as labels for genre either. None of these words tell you anything about the story other than aesthetic and setting details of which you can infer very little from anyway

Adventure is a genre
Horror is a genre
Spy fiction is a genre
Each of these give you a rough outline of what the stories will be about.

A work being in the "mecha genre" or "sci-fi genre" doesn't tell you shit. You could end up with Gasaraki (better described as a political drama) or you could end up with fucking Space Dandy (better described as an episodic adventure comedy)

>>15654194
Real robot is political/war drama with giant robots.
Super robot is action/adventure with giant robots.

>>15654206
Still plenty of stuff that falls outside of those and others that are pretty questionable. For instance, Combattler V spends the whole series at war with the Campbellians. Does this make it a real robot war drama?

This is why having broad terms for mecha doesn't work. Just use existing genre terms on a case by case basis. Big O isn't super robot. It's film noir mystery. Xabungle isn't real robot, it's adventure comedy and so on

>>15654218
Big O is mecha film noir mystery. Xabungle is mecha adventure comedy.

>>15653606
...So if a work shouldn't have drama, commentary on something external or any character depth and/or focus...what exactly should it be about? If those things are all shite then what's good then?

>>15654218
Pointing out exceptions doesn't prove a rule. All you've established is that not all shows fit within that definition, which any reasonable person already knew. Genres are labels for the majority, not for all.

>>15654305
That's not what I'm getting at. What I'm saying is that in order to actually get to a majority, you have to stretch genre label definitions like super and real so broad as to be meaningless.

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>>15653326
In the west people associate giant robots with three things.
Power Rangers, Transformers, and Bayformers.
The latter two have been around for decades and pretty much made it so that the concept of giant robots or anything of the sort are associated with children.

This is why many Mechafags in the west tend to lean towards the "realistic" kind of mecha.
It's kind of like a reactionary stance to society.
They don't want their interest to seem childish so they heavily force it to adapt to a more realistic and gritty aesthetic because that gets accepted by the masses.

Bayformers promoted the notion that mecha were stupid, cheesy and just there for eye candy.
While this is true (for any genre really) it is not the norm, but it's what we have to deal with.

Also there's the fact that due to the earlier two reasons people explicitly associate mecha with colorful giant robots.
It's why something like pic related, Evangelion or Ghost in the shell wouldn't be considered mecha by the masses.
I can't tell you how many idiots I've seen claim Eva wasn't a mecha work despite all its influences, content and other information.

>>15653552
>SoL fans will overlook awful drama, naive societal preaching, and terrible characterization just because there are cute girls, and they will often double down on it when confronted with this fact. It's perfectly acceptable to not like SoL anime for both its content and its terrible fans.

I don't have a hate bones for any SoL shows, I'm fact I like white a few, but this is an extremely generalized statemt that says nothing.

>>15653642
>A friend explained to me that he does not like how the main characters in mecha show can just separate themselves from their responsibility and power by simply stepping out of the mecha
What show is he talking about?
One of the core writting elements of the genre has always been that a pilot takes on the mecha and has to deal with repercussions.
He's either not paying attentuon or just coming up with BS.

>>15654316
Anon, it's really not that hard to paint 51% of a type of media with a word. These genre labels exist so that people can get a general idea of what they'll be watching before they actually watch it. I genuinely can't think of a time I ever, ever watched a show after seeing its tags and thought to myself, "you know, those tags didn't reflect the series at all!" And I've watched a metric shitton of anime, TV, and movies in my years.

Just in general, if you're trying to read deep meaning into labels like these you need to stop and re-evaluate what the fuck you're trying to do. The only, ONLY purpose of these labels is to provide a brief but accurate idea of what you can expect from a show. All this shit that y'all keep going on about, like how super robot tags imply X and real robot tags imply political shit, that's stuff that's an association that y'all are making.

A Slice of Life, Comedy, Romance, Mecha is a show about the lives of people who life in a world of mecha stuff, somebody has a crush on somebody and is too fucking weak ass to do anything about it, and also the writers want me to laugh.

It's really as simple as that, and if you're reading beyond those lines you're setting yourself up for a mistaken belief that genres just don't make sense. If they didn't actually make sense people wouldn't use them.

>>15654364
prob a vermin scum that thinks the industry is dying cause moe and SoL

>>15654345
>blaming transformers when it does a good job of appealing to different spergs off and on.

>>15654289
Obviously that is what that poster meant. Things only come in extremes right? If someone doesn't like melodrama and shallow commentary that must mean they dislike drama and insightful commentary as well.

>>15654422
You really don't think Transformers effects the mainstream perception of mecha?

>>15654401
The problem is again, that these labels can't give you a good idea of what's in the show since they're not specific enough. And granted, this is why we do have multiple labels, but I often don't see multiple labels used. As I've said, all mecha means is "has mechanical things in it," which could mean anything, from Kishin Corps to Little Witch Academia to Mega Man Battle Network to Whatever Happened to Robot Jones.

Back to the original point, this is all part of why I can't consider mecha a genre. According to dictionary.com, a genre is "a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like". I can't really say that's true of mecha on its own. There's no particular set of common conventions that mecha has in the same way that a romance novel or horror movie does. There kinda was back in the 70s, but there's been so much branching out since then that any semblance of coherence among mecha shows is long gone. I've seen mecha shaped like animals. I've seen mecha made entirely out of wood or flesh. I've seen microscopic mecha. I've seen mecha large enough to snap the universe in two. I've seen low budget 90s schlock mecha. I've seen 10/10 arthouse masterpiece mecha. I could go on and on.

>>15653334
So?
Moeshit is dakimakura commercial. And most SoL are moeshit.
Shounenshit is as much toy commercials as mecha is.
Shoujoshit and Mahou Shoujo shit is merchandising commercial, with all the pencil boxes and tiaras and staffs decorated with your favorite anime's colors and shapes.
That's bullsit.

>>15655079
Shounens don't depend on toy sales the fuck are you talking about? It's all about the manga and anime sales. For real this is the firs time I'm seeing anyone mention shounen being made to sell toys

>>15653328
/thread

>>15655079

You seem to have the impression that people DON'T look down on that shit either and even that not withstanding other shows being commercials don't make mecha not one

>>15654455
>I've seen 10/10 arthouse masterpiece mecha.
Elaborate.

>>15655477
For whatever reason, /a/ will knowingly watch an anime that shills for its LN form but will often dismiss a mecha show for being a toy commercial.

>>15655987
No because you'd just dispute and shitpost whatever I mention.