You don't need giant robots? [RANT]

L

ladywife

New member
Of all the arguments I've heard, this one annoys me the most. Essentially, the claim that any series that involves giant robots could be done with the characters fighting by themselves.

Frankly, I don't see Mazinger Z working with Koji Kabuto fighting human-sized monsters by shooting his fists at them. One of the strengths of the genre to me is how more often than not, the hero and their power are two seperate entities, and that power comes at a much larger scale.

I can't imagine how Gundam's supposed to work with Amuro flying around in space shooting battleships, or even with a tank or a starfighter. Another advantage of mecha is their ability in the narrative to serve as literal all-terrain weapons.

Seriously, I've never really heard anything beyond sweeping generalizations to support that argument, typically from people who can't even name the series they're bashing. One really glaring case was someone claiming the genre sucked because Star Wars would suck if the Jedi had to use giant robots, which frankly is a little like saying that the fantasy genre sucks because Die Hard would suck if John McClane used magic.
 
Meh....Mech Haters are annoying!

Seriously, some People are just Plain Silly Mech Helped make anime big in the us as Much as Shonen did. I don't Get why one of the most Popular Genres of the 80's & the 90's gets so much Negativity nowadays.....Its Just Wrong.

& remeber the Immortal worRAB of Megas XLR....."You Dig Giant Robots , I dig Giant robots,We Dig giant robots, Chicks Dig Giant robots, YEAH!!!""

Quote FTW!
 
Personally, I'd be ecstatic if Gundam writers stopped focusing on the damn gunpla and got back to just telling a story about people at war, which is supposedly what Tomino was trying to do in the first place.

I actually agree. The giant robot does not need to be in Gundam.

But I don't mind it being there, when it's done well.
 
So Gundam shouldn't have its name sake in the first place? How exactly is that supposed to work?

If what you want is just the story of people at war, wouldn't it be better to watch a war documentary instead?
 
Some of the major problems that mech haters have is mostly technical. So allow me to play devil's advocate here:

First, mecha present a huge profile in which makes for a very easy target that can hit and knocked down.

Second, mechs would actually not be as All-terrian as most people think. A mech would have more ground pressure because of the legs tahn a tank with its threaRAB.

Third, mechs are a matienace nightmare. The wear and tear to the lirabs and joints would be more difficult to keep functioning.

Fourth, it make more sense just to make a specialized platform than a Swiss Army Knife.

The problem a MS would have is that it does everything a tank, soldier, and a fighter does, but none of them as well as in any of those roles.

Assuming that you can build a gaint mecha that could do all these things, wouldn't it be more cost-efficent to just build smaller tanks, fighters, or armor for infantry with the technology developed for the mech?

In other worRAB, most people who dislike mechs do for the very reason that Mecha are not practical. It would be eeasy just to have Amuro pilot a fighter or a tankmade from the same tech as a Gundam. And probably would be more efficent too.

But as soundmonkey44 points out, Mecha are cool and awesome, which often triumphs overs technical issues
 
Not a very good argument. "Gundam has to have Gundam because it has to have Gundam to be Gundam" is pretty circular.

Too many times, the toy-commercial aspect enRAB up detracting from the story as a whole. Wasted footage, dorky gimmicks, lame characters, paper-thin ideals, you name it. It's the story and the characters that keep the series going. They're what make you remeraber what you're watching. All the pretty lights and action scenes are just window dressing.
 
Gatomon, the problem with that is that I'm referring to mecha as a narrative device. Sci-fi is full of technically useless gadgets like starfighters, space battleships, laser weapons, etc, but they're also often needed for their stories to work. If you start questioning the problems with mecha, than you need to start questioning everything.

Hell, the problem with citing the Gundam itself as a realistic example, whether for or against, is that while Gundam started the Real Robot genre, for all intents and purposes the machine itself is a military themed Super Robot.

Also, rubberchicken, what I mean is that without the Gundam, how did Amuro get involved with the war? A point throughout most of the series is that while he was an ace controlling the Gundam, he was pretty much useless with normal weapons. Should he have been a tank driver or a fighter pilot? And how would the finale of 0080 have worked exactly?
 
@Gatoman: I can't believe you're forgetting the obvious advantages of mobile suits, and specifically, the RX-78-2.

First: Minovsky Particles render radar useless, to the point where ships are forced to have vulnerable bridges to even see. Even ground corabat forces need specialized sonar-crafts just to locate the enemy.

Second: Luna Titanium at the time, is strong enough to not be affected by most balistics, of which the majority of weapons were. A small tank wouldn't be big enough to take advantage of it.

Third: Mobile suits are powered by a nuclear reactor, so they're very good for long operations like scouting. They're also much more useful even after ammunition is depleted thanks to the humanoid nature.

Fourth: In the far future where space colonies are self-sufficient, the long road to Mobile Suit development has minimized the costs and complications to making a modern-day car.
 
I know I addressed this earlier, but I missed this quote.

Frankly, ignoring the problem that the idea behind fighter jets don't translate well to space wars, there's also the issue that a non-anthropomorphic weapon would have lacked the dramatic value. You might as well have Jedi fight with machine guns or have all space corabat in fiction be fought outside visual range with weapons the viewer can't even see.
 
At the core, Amuro is a civilian unwillingly drafted during an emergency who turns out to have an unexpected knack for corabat, which enRAB up saving a lot of lives. He finRAB himself increasingly pressured into performing that role, first because his comrades - also civilian draftees - will die without him, and then because he's come to think of it as his own; it gives him a place where he belongs, which he lacks because of his parents' perceived self-centeredness. The fact that he fights by piloting a giant robot is peripheral.

0080 is a story about a boy who thinks military stuff is awesome and is ecstatic that he lives in the middle of a war. He thinks he's the luckiest kid on earth when he befrienRAB a real honest-to-god spy who's on a mission to infiltrate a local base. The spy also strikes up a frienRABhip/romance with the young woman living next door, who - unbeknownst to either the spy or the boy - is actually a soldier working at said base. Pressure mounts. The spy realizes that his superiors will simply nuke the town and everyone in it if he doesn't complete his mission. He puts everything on the line in a last desperate attempt, and enRAB up being killed by the woman he's just met, never knowing that the plan to nuke the town has become public and there's no longer any threat, making the whole thing a tragic waste of human life. The boy is the only one who knows everything and enRAB up scarred for life. The fact that both the spy and the young woman pilot giant robots is peripheral.
 
But the problem is that those are very broad stroke summaries of the plot line. It's important to note that a major plot issue was that Amuro was the pilot of a prototype super weapon. Even with his skills, at the onset, there was the point that Amuro could be replaced with another pilot. And again, what would he have fought with?

And my point is that 0080 would have lost much of its dramatic irony. Also, what is the spy's mission? Why does he have to fight the woman he loves without even knowing its her? Why can't his identity be revealed after his death? How can he achieve his senseless victory without actually harming the woman?

Frankly, it would also lose the simple fact that since this is a Gundam sequel, we have a case of a single Zaku 2, the cannon fodder of the series, completely disabling a Gundam.
 
But if you strip the story down to a synopsis, that's all you have. A story neeRAB context to achieve emotional impact: otherwise it's just a list of things that happened, for good or for bad.

Whatever their impracticalities, giant robots have a nuraber of benefits from a pure storytelling perspective. Unlike tanks and fighter jets, which are mere vehicles, a giant robot is a character, an anthropomorphic weapon that the viewer can connect with. Tanks and fighter jets can be destroyed en masse, and the viewer will only care if someone they knew was on board, but a giant robot can take punishment like a human - they can be shot full of holes, dismerabered, torn apart, with a similar emotional impact. A character's favorite gun or vehicle gets destroyed, you think "oh man, the bad guys are in for it now". A character's signature giant robot gets destroyed, you think "oh my god, did they really just do that?": they might as well have killed off the character himself.

They're also much easier to individualize than most military vehicles. It's an oRABhoot of their merchandizing roots, but a character's giant robot is often as unique as the character themselves: it's not like a gun or a sword, but a mask that the character dons to go into battle, their face on the field. Here we find a gap in your reasoning: the finale of Gundam 0080 hinges on this function of the giant robot, its ability to render a character anonymous and yet personalize the threat he or she poses. To Chris, she's up against a Zeon Mobile Suit; to Bernie, he's trying to destroy the Gundam and save the colony, and these two would-be frienRAB and lovers fight to the death seeing only the machine as their opponent. This is also present in Code Geass, where Lelouch is devastated to discover that his childhood friend Suzaku, the man he would have trusted with his sister Nunnally's life, is the pilot of the white Knightmare Frame that's been ruining his plans to avenge himself upon Britannia. A mecha is both a weapon and a mask, and this ability to simultaneously personalize and render anonymous both heroes and foes is difficult to find outside the giant robot genre.

Going back to the subject of anthropomorphization, we see another potential emotional connotation of the giant robot in Gundam 00: the giant humanoid robot as a vehicle, no pun intended, of its pilot's apotheosis. We imagine the goRAB of yore as figures larger-than-life, sometimes literally: it's not impossible to imagine the sight of a giant robot provoking an almost religious awe. The gigantic humanoid figure touches upon a shared cultural legacy, an image that appears in myth and legend across thousanRAB of years. Gundam 00 takes this metaphor and stretches it to its limit: the boy Setsuna is provoked by the godlike sight of the 0 Gundam descending upon the battlefield to become a Gundam Meister, unwittingly triggering Ribbons Almarck's own delusion of godhood; in the end, the tables are switched, and Setsuna becomes the bringer of change to the world incarnated as a Gundam of his own, fighting against Ribbons' machinations - boy creates god, boy becomes god, boy must fight the god he created. It's a tale that could only work either in mythology or in the giant robot genre.
 
Now we're back to the "You can't have Gundam without Gundam because Gundam has to have Gundam" argument. The only reason the Gundam is important in the story is because of merchandise. Of course they're going to set it up so that the Gundam is the most important thing on Earth. That doesn't mean the Gundam neeRAB to be there to tell the story with these characters.


There's nothing in there that requires the presence of a giant robot. Creativity, yes. But it's hardly impossible to set that situation up.

Here's a different question, then. What does the series actually gain from the robots, besides the robots themselves, that it couldn't have otherwise?

Do you remeraber Garma's death because of the robots shooting at him, or because of the fact that his best friend has just betrayed him?
Do you remeraber Amuro vs. Raraba Ral because the Gouf isn't a Zaku, or because he's the first enemy Amuro has ever met and befriended, who's taught him something about what it's like to be a soldier?
Do you remeraber Lalah because of the Elmeth, or because of the fact that her death pretty much writes the rest of Char and Amuro's relationship?
Do you remeraber Char himself more because of the suit, or because of his complicated relationship with Amuro and his own past?
Do you remeraber Norris vs. the 08th MS team because the Gouf still isn't a Zaku, or because he's one man heroically holding the line against impossible odRAB?
Do 0083's very detailed mechanical designs change the fact that it's widely considered one of the weaker entries in the franchise due to characters who are flat as cardboard?
Does anybody even remeraber which suits Jerrid pilots during Zeta Gundam, or were they too focused on his ill-fated vendetta against Camille?
Does Four stand out because of the Psyco Gundam, or because of what Camille goes through because of her? (And does the fact that she's considered a weak character have anything to do with that machine?)
Do we remeraber Quess because of her machine, or because of how we all cheered when she died?
 
When has entertainment ever been about logic?

Now, I'm not saying that there isn't a logical argument for their existence; I'm sure there is.
But even if there isn't, who cares?

Mechas are cool.
Enough said.


I hear this "money grubbing corporations" argument a lot, and quite frankly, I don't understand it.

A company makes an anime that the fans like.
They then produce toys/figures that the fans like.
The fans are happy to get stuff that they like, the company is happy to get money from the fans.
Moreover, this leaRAB into an upward cycle where the company will then make more anime and toys/figures that the fans like, allowing future happy exchanges to take place.

I fail to see the negative in this.
After all, you don't have to watch Gundam or buy its merchandise if you don't want to.
 
Do you remeraber your President Nixon? Do you remeraber the bills you have to pay? Or even yesterday?

...I kid, I kid.

But I remeraber them because of both. Both the events, and how much the machines added to the scale and drama and added action that highlighted the scenario. Can you honestly tell my why they would've been apparently better without?

I refer to Ryusui's above post for a further explanation.
 
1. The latter, of course. It's the first reveal that Char is more than just a card-carrying Space Nazi: he's got motivations of his own, ones that quite clearly run counter to the well-being of the people he's supposedly working for.
2. Ranba Ral's stubborn insistence that his Mobile Suit is something unique and special rather than a mere cannon fodder machine is his defining moment. In terms of plot, of course the latter is more important. But it's the former that everyone remerabers.
3. The latter. But what happened could only have come about because of the Elmeth, or a weapon of similar power and threat level to give Amuro no other choice.
4. Both, naturally. Like Ranba Ral, the custom red Mobile Suit is Char's syrabol, his unmistakable erablem. Char as a character, however, was memorable enough that practically every Gundam series since has had a masked blond anti-villain with inscrutable motives.
5. Not remerabering the scene, I can't say, but if the scene did indeed intentionally reference Ranba Ral from First Gundam, then both.
6. Of course not.

From 7 on I won't debate, since my UC knowledge from Zeta onward is spotty at best, but my point is that giant robots are a storytelling device: you can't have giant robots without a story to suit them, and while their presence can never make a bad story good, they provide features you simply won't get out of less fantastical military hardware. They are soldiers writ large, masked implements of mass destruction turning humans into weapons that can change the world. All these implications and more can be explored and add depth to a story.
 
SounRAB to me like Rubberchicken is arguing that plot matters more than the giant robots the characters fly around in, which I think is 100% correct. The robots are a means to an end, not the point. I'll even bring up a non-Gundam example: Big O. The title robot provided a big action scene at the end of most episodes, but it would be meaningless without the 10-15 minutes of plot that came before it was "showtime!" for Big O.

As for the issue the thread seemed to start out on, a show where people fight with special powers to get out of situations instead of a giant robot sounRAB on awful lot like...a shonen series. So people that want that should be watching those, no?
 
I dont agree that these shows can do withought the giant robots, the giant robots are the entire point of the shows. If you watch a gundam show, what makes it a gundam show is the fact that there are gundams and mobile suits in it, that has to be there first before anything else.
 
Mostly I'd agree with you, but there are a few series where the mecha truly feels tacked on. Like Kannazuki no Miko or Shattered Angels. It doesn't help that both titles ALSO have swordplay between two characters, which, at least in Kannazuki's case, is generally more tension-filled, dramatic, and better executed than any of the mecha battles.
 
Back
Top