Mecha March Is Back for 2020! You can get involved too!

Hello everyone, welcome to the announcement for what has become an annual blogging event for Mechanical Anime Reviews, Mecha March. If you didn’t see this on the first paragraph from my F91 review from yesterday, now you know.

This year, I will be going through eight specific mecha? titles. Each one is very different from the last. Also unfortunately, one newer series from the 2010’s is going to make an appearance here. Otherwise, the series are older or focused on older properties renewed with more modern technology and animation. For those interested in knowing what is going to appear, here is the list of what anime review is going to appear in it. Not sure how I am going to schedule these at the moment.

In Random Order:

Patlabor: The Early Days
Cyborg 009: The Cyborg Soldier
After War Gundam X
Tetsujin-28: Morning Moon of Midday
Giant Robo: The Animation
The Vision of Escaflowne
Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu
Star Driver

So yes, I’ve broken one of my old rules of never reviewing Gundam series during this event. That rule was originally in place because I wanted people to know that there were so many other mecha series out there then something mainstream like a Gundam show. As a self imposed rule, I decided to let it go for Gundam series that are clearly not mainstream or in most anime fan’s consciousness. That fits Gundam X to a t. I honestly really love Gundam X and I want more people to at least know what it’s about and why it’s something worth paying attention to.

And yeah, I’m also pushing the definition of Mecha quite a bit too. I’m doing that to provide a more varied sense of what the genre can do. Two series in question here revolve around a kid using a remote control move a robot like an RC Car. Time to explore Mecha’s origins a little bit here. Cyborg 009 has cyborgs in it, but also has plenty of technology in other departments that more then makes up for that fact. Once again, looking at different parts of Mecha history. I’m pretty sure Cyborg 009 has played some part of it before Mr. Go Nagai showed up to push it to what the genre is today. (I need to talk about some Mazinger next time, don’t I?)

Lastly, Fumoffu. Yeah, I’m just going to say that Bear Suits are mecha when they have technology inside of them. FMP is also a mecha franchise so nothing would be the same without it having an entry in Mecha March like the last couple years. That’s like the unofficial tradition of Mecha March itself. It will only end next year when I rewatch Invisible Victory once again UNLESS more Full Metal Panic! Comes out in the near future. Here’s hoping. Otherwise, I might have to come with another franchise that has multiple installments to talk about. That’s for the future me to figure out. Like way far out in the future.

What is current though is I would like your help if you really want to.

HOW YOU CAN HELP!

First: Sharing Your Mecha Posts!

The first thing I am interested in is sharing other people’s Mecha Anime posts. If you have a good mecha review or mecha post somewhere, please let me share it during this event. Please link me your post twitter or here and I will share it during Mecha March. Doesn’t matter when it came out. That’s it for this portion. Simple, right? I hope so.

Second: Answer Some Questions.

Since this event is roughly going to take place in 4+ weeks, I have four questions that I would like people to answer. I’m going to give a lot of time for you to answer these questions, which is why I am putting this post out right now.

My Questions:

Week 1) Does a mecha series have to be something special in order for you to watch it?
Week 2) What is your favorite Mecha Design?
Week 3) Who is your favorite Mecha Protagonist?
Week 4) What is something that can be improved through more mecha?

To make this easier, I’m going to be doing most of leg work here. I’m going to be posting your responses along with mine to these during the weekends, so please send your responses to me. Week 1 will be question 1 responses, Week 2 will be question 2 responses, and so on and so forth.

You can answer the questions here, use my contact page to send them to me, or even DM/Tweet at me on twitter. I’m just trying to make them as simple as possible so there is multiple options.

Some quick rules:

-Each Question Needs to be Completed the Friday before these posts make an appearance. (Example: Question 1 responses need to be sent in by evening PST on March 6. Repeat the same +7X days for each of the following weeks where X is number of weeks afterward in March)

-No word limit, just type as long as you want to spend time on answering a question. I don’t like diminishing anyone’s sense of voice and creativity.

-Answer whatever questions you want to answer. You are not required to answer all of them.

-That’s it.

No Audience Participation is Required. This is a new idea I’m playing with. If no one does it, I won’t look down on anyone. I just thought this would be fun.

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Thank you for reading, everyone. Hope you enjoy reading everything and as much fun as I’ve had watching and writing about these series. Plus, hope you have fun getting involved if you feel like taking the chance to do so. Just look forward to some fun things coming next month.

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