500 Blog Post Special: Q&A Celebration

Hello everyone! Thank you for being here and following me for some reason. I can’t believe that I’ve been around long enough to post 500 blog posts. I don’t post everyday and there was a long spell when I was starting out that I would post maybe once a week, so this blogging journey of mine has been going for a while. I mean, I will be blogging for three years come January. I’m glad that these two bits of celebration are quite a distance apart from each other. I would run out of ideas to celebrate the two things otherwise.

In this little bit of celebration, I asked for questions concerning the mecha genre. I suppose, this is technically I mech focused blog, right? I’m thankful for everyone that asked me question. You all are awesome. A few of them gave me quite a bit to think about and some people asked me even more than one question, which is great too.

Once again, thanks everyone that got involved. Let’s answer some of these questions, shall we?

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-What’s your favorite mech? Least Favorite? Which would you most like to pilot and why? – Aster Crow from Crow’s World of Anime

My favorite mech in recent memory is the Escaflowne. It’s a beautiful looking mech in its standard humanoid form because it’s so elegant, but it transforms into dragon. That’s so awesome! What’s not good about any of this?

My Least Favorite Mech is the Zeong. I am a fan of chunky mechs from Zeon, but they pushed it too far here. Aerodynamics don’t matter, but aesthetics do. Worst Zeon design ever. The gigantic Behemoths from Full Metal Panic are second.

The mech I would love to pilot myself is the something more grounded like the AV-98 Ingram from Patlabor. Its aesthetic is beautiful and I just love how it operates with almost limitless items to attach to it and the mech isn’t always going into an all out war scenario. Sounds like a winner to me

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-I’d actually just like to know which robot design you feel is the most practical for one day being a reality from all the mechs you’ve seen in anime? – Karandi from 100 Word Anime

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I think the Armored Shrikes from Blue Gender. The mechs are not that advanced, but they are very hardy for travels around an apocalyptic Earth where everything that wants to kill you. You must have a hardy mech that is easy to maintain yet is powerful enough to fight giant bugs.

To me, that is the most realistic kind of mech that we would build. Yes, I say that even though the United States and Japan have had a robot competition, the Armored Shrikes are still the most realistic kind of mechs.

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Is it mech or mecha? What is the difference between mech and mech, I there is one? – Lina from Tiny Ugly Animal

I am going to answer both questions at the same time. I googled this one and found some interesting answers. I think the most pointless one something along the lines of Japanese Robots are Mecha and manned robots from the United States are mechs, which is kind of stupid to me.

It’s seems like the same sort of logic of where people don’t understand that anime are Japanese cartoons and want to make it seem like there is a line separating the two. In my opinion, I feel like they are interchangeable. I just think that Mecha is a good singular term while Mechs are more of a plural form. I don’t think that makes sense for anyone else then me, but oh well. If you want to correct me and/or feel like I am wrong, please let me know.

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The Mech Genre has certain traits that some might say make it quite un-original in terms of variety. What would you say the Mech genre needs to remain fresh? – Raistlin0903 from Michel’s Book/Boardgame/Movie review Blog

I think the biggest thing people can do add more variety into the genre is to STOP IMITATING EVANGELION. It’s been 23 years and some change since it appeared. Instrumentality is not ground breaking anymore, guys. Having every other mech series trying to lead into the psychological and philosophical realm without any new ideas behind it is kind of boring. At least do it in a way that is different and makes sense like Planet With or something.

Other than that, how about some fresh characters and perspectives? I feel like most have been explored and considered already. There is nothing wrong using concepts that have been done before. Just jazz them up a little more with fresh perspectives that come fresh experience that can only come from living in 2018. Make it more now.

Lastly, if we can’t have 2D drawn robots, can the 3D models at least be well detailed? Please? That would help my enjoyment at least.

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The mech genre gets 1) quite a few shows over 20 episodes or 2) new entries in older franchises (more so than some other genres, at least). Are these two factors impediments to the genre as a whole and why/why not? – Aria from The Animanga Spellbook

Oh wow, that’s an excellent question. Going to answer these individually, because I feel like the answer is very different from both of them.

1) Unless a series is able to handle the themes and story arcs that a mech series with all of that political stuff and character themes that are involved in most mech series in one cour like Planet With, two cours are absolutely necessary. Since today’s anime market is more centered one cour productions, that end result is that they are harder to produce because of the resources involved or their stories are told very fast and kind of bad. Looking at you, Knight’s and Magic. This could be considered a detriment and/or an impediment to mech genre as a whole.

2) Having sequels and/or new installments in older franchises is more of a half and half scenario. Even if an installment has the capacity to be watched without any connections to the franchise at all, the fact that it is attached to a long-standing franchise can be intimidating to people. That hurts everything that the franchise is going for. Looking at something like Gundam with its alternate universes, they are still Gundam series. Not many people understand what an alternate universe is or what it means for some reason. Not having that cleared out can hurt and not many franchises are good at that.

Still, if a person can get attached to some part of a larger franchise, then that’s an opening for people to enter the realm of this series that’s a win. Congratulations, you just got involved in a larger mech franchise. There is no escape for you anymore. I also don’t think the reason why fans who liked franchises also like getting more installments to them needs to be explained. All of that seems to have a natural conclusion.

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Thank you for reading all my nonsense. If you have anymore mech questions, put them down in the comments. I’ll answer them here.