You don't need giant robots? [RANT]

One wonders how a story would be different if one replaced a mecha with a fighter or a tank? I suppose the pacing would change, and one wouldn't be able to have man-to-man duels. But what else would change?
 
Well, that would totally ruin most Super Robot genres like Ideon or Mazinger. They're not designed for that theory.

Really, the only one I could see is Macross since the battleloid mode isn't really needed most of the time.
 
Along with the pacing and man to man duels, I think how the story is driven strategy wise would either improve or fault depending on the company doing that type of anime. Aside from those nothing much would change. You are going to have your ace pilot/driver dealing with their counterparts on the other side, the drama behind specific characters, and whatever form of fanservice that may be provided.
 
You couldn't switch between air and ground battles seamlessly, for one thing. Noa Izumi's entire motivation would have to be altered in Patlabor. Zone of the Enders would just seem wrong to me. Ryusui's already gone over Gundam 00. The original Gundam would either lose its space battles or its ground battles depending on which direction you went with. Gundam Wing is also difficult to imagine, given the Gundam's all-terrain nature was a major point early in the series.

Macross might work, since the series is heavily steeped in the aircraft function of the variable fighter, though you'd still have to keep the mecha on the Zentraedi's side unless you completely change the size issue.

Given the severe lack of conquering any nation has done in this day and age, I think Code Geass required the Knightmare Frames as the reason for Britannia's military dominance, especially since it allowed a baseline for the arms race as the series progressed. At the very least, it's the most clear-cut technological upgrade that could be defined visually.

That's just off the top of my head right now.
 
Quite frankly, I like mecha because they look cool. I KNOW they're impractical as actual weapons, but there's a certain mystique about them that ties back into the old armored knight that's hard to shake off.

Cinematically, you can do things with humanoid war machines that you just cant with traditional fighters and tanks, even if it IS completely out of the realm of possibility when you think about it. But then, I'm a Battletech fan too.
 
I think there's a huge difference between randomly throwing mecha into a love story and trying to say that a Brave show should be a shounen and not be about the insane robot corabinations.

The ultra realistic look would probably be something with Powered Armor, and we've seen that as far back as VOTOMS and Starship Troopers.
 
Just tor the record, Beat, the arguments that inspired this thread claimed they were the same thing; that a Brave series (or any mecha series) should not have giant robots because it "took out the human aspect" and that the characters should just fight with their own powers, and that giant robots suck because you can't randomly drop them in existing works (which is like saying ANY genre convention sucks because you can't drop it in a work that didn't already have it).

Also, I have to say I prefer something like VOTOMs to actual powered armor. Powered armor has the limitation that it still requires physical prowess on the wearer'rs part, limiting the kinRAB of characters you can use.
 
Aizen: And now, I shall release Garom-Kyouka Suigetsu-MegaRobo! Your planet is doomed!

You know what really neeRAB to have a cool mecha is One Piece. You just know that Luffy wants the ship to separate into nine separate parts and then corabine into Super Sunny Robo.
 
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