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nomadicism · 4 years

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I read that one posts. I agree with Sol. I think it's more likely that Dreamworks crunched the numbers, figured it wouldn't be profitable and just canned the project than them cancelling it because of a very small section of the internet. p1

“p2 Mecha is just a dying genre as a whole. Even in Japan, isekai has taken it's place and there are hardly any new mechas outside of Gundam. That's in Japan! In the west, mecha is even more niche of an interest and general audiences don't gravitate towards it. I don't think that any mecha movie wouldn't do well at the box office. I'm even worried about that Gundam movie bombing at the box office.”

Hi Anon, thank you for the Ask!

Yeah, I agree with Sol too—and at risk of repeating what I’ve said in other posts about the movie thing—it’s really hard to convey just how incredibly unlikely a property like Voltron or Robotech will ever be made into a live-action movie. It really is about the numbers, as it always has been. Since the 80s, there’s this whole persistent and stupid element of the cartoon industry that continues to delude itself that promises or interest from Hollywood will ever pan out. There are so many scripts sitting in production limbo, that it’s almost criminal.

No one wants to risk money on a live-action movie based on children’s media IP that won’t bring in rated PG-13 or R dollars from adults, and no one wants to risk repeating the 80s He-Man film. The exceptions are live-action films made from children’s media IP that are fully owned by the company paying to produce the movie. I’ve got more to say about the complexities of royalties, but that’s awfully long-winded when I get into it, and I’d rather be long-winded about giant robots. (◕ᴗ◕✿)

The topic of mecha genre dying out is what really interests me here. It’s a topic that I think about a lot, as the beginnings of the mecha genre had a lot of deep cultural time-and-place stuff behind it, even if the stories were just kids and teen boys hopping into a giant robot to beat up other giant robots and monsters, in what were essentially 30 minute long toy commercials.

Isekai will come-and-go as all genres do. It’s not a new genre, but right now the types of themes driving the isekai stories being made speaks to a lot of interesting things happening in the youth of Japan’s relationship with digital gaming and role-play escapism. It’s fascinating, even though the focus of the genre as it’s done today hasn’t really grabbed me in the same way that isekai of the 80s-90s did.

Mecha isekai exists, and it’s only a matter of time before someone either remakes Vision of Escaflowne, or does a more mecha-focused isekai story similar to Magic Knight Rayearth. I doubt anyone would revisit Aura Battler Dunbine, or Super Dimension Century Orguss, but an otaku can dream.

Before we can say the mecha genre is dying, let’s briefly skim over the genre trends of the past +40 years. Every decade or era of mecha anime has a trend that reflects cultural concerns built into it, in a way that I don’t think any other genre of animation can touch (until now, with Digital/Virtual/Fantasy RPG World Isekai).

Late 60s-70s was: Super Robot smashes monsters and alien robots

Mid-70s – early 80s was: Combining Mecha Sentai Team Super Robot smashes monsters and alien robots

80s was: Real Robot + “how many sci-fi/fantasy settings can we put a robot into?” + the death-throes of Super Robot (e.g. Dairugger XV, Golion, Baldios, Godmars)

Also 80s: What the hell was Super Dimension Fortress Macross about? Cold war tensions of escalating end-the-world arms race meets an alien species whose only culture is fighting. Where songs about love, and the culture of love, are what win the day, not just transforming robots and big guns. Macross is deeper than it lets on.

Fun 80s: GoShogun happened. The first parody-satire mecha anime that still feels more serious than they intended, but is actually hilarious once you get past the dated gender roles humor (which was also kind of intentional satire).

WTF 80s: Space Runaway Ideon broke everyone’s minds.

Still not done with 80s: Gunbuster happened. The first angst-driven parody-satire mecha anime that blew everyone’s minds.

Late 80s-early 90s OVA mecha was a mix of Serious Cyberpunk-influenced Real Robot for older teens and adults + Mecha with Tits & Tentacles for Adults (see also space elf lesbians).

90s was: The Franchises Will Survive With Prettier Pilots, and Super Angst-Bot That Was Way More Influenced By Drugs And Ideon’s Ending Than Anyone Wants To Admit (aka Neon Genesis Evangelion) + “Since Gunbuster was a success, how many parodies of Super Robot and Real Robot can we do?”

Mid 90s isekai gems: Magic Knight Rayearth and Vision of Escaflowne

Late 90s: Brain-Powerd (not a typo) happened and it’s a shame no one remembers it. I’ve seen it’s influence come up in the 2000s – 2010s.

The 00s seem to be filled with a lot of re-treading of everything that came before but with different cross-genre influences and some of it really damn good but hard to remember because it all kind of blends together.

The 2010s-today: I have no idea what’s happening now b/c I can’t keep up with anything that isn’t Gundam. And why bother when there has been a flood of classic 70s-80s mecha releases—many for the first time in the US—to binge watch?

Knights of Sidonia was cool.

Since I haven’t kept up, I can’t speak to what new mecha anime is like, or why it's less popular (though I have an educated guess). It was gonna happen eventually, and I suspect that the kinds of post-nuclear and Cold War existential dread that informed mecha anime of the 60s-80s has moved on as target audiences grew up. Those lates 80s OVAs, where the stories could be more adult, reflect that growing up (and also Blade Runner’s influence).

I see the 90s as very transitional, includes reactions to the prior eras, but also reflects a lot of angst by Japanese teens and young adults caught up in the after-effects of 80s stagnation, and the constant test-studying to get into the best school to get the best job (if it exists) and figure it all out before you’re 14 so you can pick the best school to test into. Also, salary-man dad works 120 hours a week and is never home. Get in the Angst-bot Shinji.

Excluding the stand-out brands that survived their respective eras: Gundam, Macross, Braves series, Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, Evangelion; there’s not much other ground that can be covered right now that would warrant a series. The franchise mecha shows are grounded in their respective niches. It’s kind of odd that there isn’t an isekai mecha franchise, b/c that’s a niche that hasn’t been owned in the way that the other niches have (unless maybe Machine Hero Wataru is still a Thing?)

It’s worth mentioning that Sport Anime has really been having a moment for almost a decade now, and that’s super interesting to compare against isekai. Isekai about dungeon slimes or whatever vs literal horse-girls racing each other like high-school track. Thanks Japan, are y’all all right over there?

A few last things:

The success of Super Robot Wars tells me that mecha genre isn’t dying. Consider the ages of players. How many of them actually grew up watching Yuusha Raideen (aka Yūsha Raideen / Raideen the Brave)? There is an SRW manga anthology series, and loads of gachapon and collector’s grade mecha figures from old mecha anime get released with regularity. Someone’s buying that all that shit.

SRW is nearly 20 years old now, and they are still making video games that do one thing really well: rotate a 40 year old cast of everyone’s favorite robots into a battle strategy game held together by a duct-tape plot that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The games are fun, and it’s cool to put all these mecha into the same field. It’s really great to see older shows that will never be remade have little cut scenes in a newer animation style that still feels like the originals.

There’s also the old staple that started it all: the tokusatsu genre of live-action Super Sentai shows (e.g. Power Rangers). They’ve been making the Super Sentai Series since 1975, and there’s still fun to be had watching color-coded warriors use special powers/tech to summon forth some combining mecha to do battle with rubber suit monsters from outer-space. The effects are much better these days, but it’s the same formula, year after year and people still love it.

So with respect to mecha, I think what’s died or dying, is that people are afraid to have shameless child-like fun with giant robots. The genre got too serious and too angsty (and too horny without the grown-up edge of 80s OVA Tits & Tentacles mecha). The franchises carved their niches and aren’t going anywhere, while the genre survives in video games and collectables.

A lot of that shameless fun has moved into other genres, because nothing else explains a title like: “Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girl’s In The Dungeon?” or the nearly-ecchi concept behind the sports anime “Keijo!!!!!”. But that kind of fun is less child-like and more self-deprecating or pervy-humor. Both sports and isekai anime have their serious side, but seem to be dominated by stories that don’t take themselves too seriously, or like Yuri on Ice, aren’t afraid to take a concept that no one ever saw coming, and shape it into a good story.

I eagerly await a mecha sports anime (wait, no, I think that already happened), and I’d love to see a knock-out isekai mecha anime again. I think it will happen eventually, but probably not from Toei or Sunrise. If Tatsunoko could get beyond Moe Idols In Space, then the Macross franchise already has everything it needs to do a isekai series. That would be rad.

#mecha #ask me anything #anonymous #i'm sorry this got long

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bot-spotting · 7 years

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KR01 Version 1.0.1 ‘KURATAS’, Suidobashi Heavy Industries, Minamitsuru District, Japan.

Kogoro Kurata is a man who stands at a unique crossroads, of being an anime/mecha fan, and of being an industrial steelworker. And an artist in his own medium.

Having grown up watching anime such as ‘Armored Trooper VOTOM’, he waited many years for the dream to become reality. Then one day in 2008, after creating a 1:1 scale model piece of one of the Armored Troopers from his childhood, he decided that he was done waiting, and so set out to do it himself.

He began with a series of scale models, working up little by little and playing it by ear. Eventually he brought on programmer Wataru Yoshizaki, to create the operating system that would guide the mech’s movements. In the end, in 2012, the KR01 Kuratas was revealed to the world, and news of its appearance spread like wildfire.

Standing at 13 feet tall, the Kuratas weighs in at 4 tons, standing on four legs each tipped with a wheel for its mobility. Its cockpit is completely enclosed, depending on a camera system for the view outside, and a unique armature system allows operation of its arms. It can also be operated via smartphone app, and via a physical master/slave puppet system. Its diesel engine allows it to scoot along at a little over 6 MPH.

One of the interesting things about Kuratas is the fact that Suidobashi Heavy Industries, the company name that Kogoro Kurata operates under, is currently accepting orders for Kuratas units. Not only that, but one can order theirs with multiple options, such as a water-bottle ‘LOHAS’ missle-launching system, a smile-activated BB Machine-Gun, and a ‘Pilebunker’ launcher. Add to that various atheistic options such as leather seats, communications, custom color schemes, and cup-holders... your final order could weigh an extra ton in total, and the price tag well over $1.4 million.

The main website was flooded with thousands of orders at first, before people realized that this offer was not a joke, and began calling in to cancel their orders. Kurata himself has not disclosed whether any orders were not canceled. To him, it’s not a huge deal either way. "The idea was a toy robot — it's built for people to ride in and have fun with, not for the army or anything," he is quoted as saying.

Even if it IS built to be a toy, the machine is still made almost entirely out of steel, and is thus quite capable of taking a beating.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

The KR01 has had a busy public life since it was unveiled, having been slated to appear in an upcoming live-action mecha series, and then going on to promote products like Windows 10, to being listed up for sale on Amazon. All that changed however, when in 2015, MegaBots Founders Gui Cavalcanti and Matt Oehrlein challenged Suidobashi Heavy Industries to a Giant Robot Duel.

Kurata accepted the challenge, but there has been no further word out of Suidobashi ever since, remaining eerily quiet for two years. It’s assumed that they’ve been either been busy upgrading the KR01 to make it combat-ready, or else been building a completely new mech from scratch. In September of 2017, we should find out at long last.

This article will be updated if new information becomes available.

Videos of the KR01 in action.

youtube

References:

The Verge, ‘Iron Giant: Up close with Kuratas, the $1.4 million, 4-ton mech robot’, circa Dec 3, 2012. https://www.theverge.com/2012/12/3/3722592/kuratas-robot-iron-giant-four-ton-mech

Reuters, ‘Japanese man's childhood dreams give birth to giant robot’, circa Nov 28, 2012. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-giantrobot-idUSBRE8AS04D20121129

Quartz, ‘Japan has accepted the US’s giant robot fighting challenge’, circa July 6, 2015. https://qz.com/445535/japan-has-accepted-the-uss-giant-robot-fighting-challenge/

Suidobashi Heavy Industries Main Website, est Jan 25, 2012. http://suidobashijuko.jp/

#mecha #mech spotting #Suidobashi Heavy Industries #KR01 #Kuratas #Kogoro Kurata #Wataru Yoshizaki #real life mecha #Mech Profile #mech video #Japan VS America Robot Duel #entertainment

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