Mecha and the Male Fantasy
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 พ.ค. 2024
- It's copium for modern war, essentially
00:00 - Intro
01:39 - Modern Warfare
05:50 - The Materialist Reading
08:45 - The One Year War
10:29 - Martial Pride
11:47 - Conclusion
BATTLETECH OST:
Fan Out
Past as Prologue
Zeta Gundam OST:
Z-Gundam
AEUG - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
"Some cultural critics point out that the reason for the popularity of mechanized chassis is likely far less technical: we made them the most powerful fighting machines that could stride across the earth, and we made them look like us." - Lancer TTRPG Core Rulebook
That would make a lot more sense if not for the fact that a lot of Lancer’s mechs take some serious liberty with the humanoid form
@@Hy93Ri0n TBF Horus takes liberty with a lot of things.
"looks like us"
Ah yes looks at the rail gun on spider legs, it's just like me, legs arms and body, no feathers or fur too. Just like ME@@Hy93Ri0n
@@Hy93Ri0n At that point one can argue that it no longer simply is just about looking like the human form, but making the chassis an extension of the pilot, or a grander representative of them; a symbol
@@JandroAguinaldo That sounds like post mecha individual trans-humanism, were it started as human looking in a more collective society like way and it kinda transcends into personal representantion of the individual and not what that individual is part of at the large scale. I found imteresting specially in what context usually non-humanoid mechs tend to be used, as a foreign force or sometimes physically speaking an alien race or something that is way too advance. as a side note funny enough quad mechs seem to fit the former due to look more like a horseman in general.
I think mecha is an extension of the Medieval Knight.
1. Expensive, state-of-the-art equipment to which there is no counter
2. A sense of ordainment of being superior to any footsoldier by a wide margin
3. Heavily romanticized
4. Called upon sparingly
I don't think this is a universal reading but I like it
@@TheBellman I don't think infantry is a universal reading, but I like that one too
Reminds me of all the “fighter pilot = medieval knight” symbolism in Ace Combat Zero, and how similar these games feel to other real robot genre plots.
Thus making the Dáinsleif the equivalent of crossbows.
Pretty much
The manly urge to die due to your opponent being a much more skilled pilot
Similarly, dying in fair duel is quite the same.
Like cowboys vs cowboy, or samurai duels
"I-impossible....!" *Boom!*
I think the romanticization of that is very interesting, and not just in mecha anime. The idea that a person only gains a certain kind of legitimacy only by being bested by someone else, and only in death. Not to say death is somehow heroic or romantic in itself, but that death is an indisputable finality. I don't find it too convincing, since the same kind of randomness that can throw victory one way or the other exists no matter what the stakes, but death forces both sides to accept the result, whatever it may be.
No that’s the beta urge. The manly urge is to defeat that opponent that is better than you and become stronger on your path.
In a way I think that idea underlies one of the most anxiety inducing parts of modern warfare. Being killed because your opponent was stronger or more skilled is scary. Far more terrifying is the idea of being killed by some drunk barley-literate conscripts missile that randomly fell on you. In the second scenario your never safe regardless of how good you are.
"War is bad, robots are rad" true. Though, coming from Battletech, would replace bad with "lucrative", man gotta pay his bills to Space AT&T before they send the hit squad
That could also be applied with Armored Core except even more grimmer as Space AT&T may be blown up right after you just paid the bill and the IRS are after you for being in debt.
Gundam have Anahaim Electronics which are JUST LIKE Comstar, they play for themselves and sell weapons/technology for everyone behind everyones back
Battletech used part of the story of Dougram, as well as the designs
plus macross, crusher joe and others@@troloinkto
“Pay Your Bills Fucko!” - ComStar
"Chicks dig giant robots!"
The female audience did play an important role in resurrecting Gundam after all
@@srcoeiu6100Yaoi (Gundam Wing) and Yuri (Witch from Mercury). What's not to love.
this is true
Megas XLR
@@thetimebinderUC is filled with with 🏳️🌈❓, where the hell is Yaoi in Wing
I think mecha is not just an extension of any military unit in particular, it's a combination of everything we romanticize.
> It's has the form of a knight in shining armor.
> The brute force of a tank that can barge into any enemy territory.
> The speed and agility of a fighter jet.
> The caliber and firepower of heavy artillery.
> Sometimes even the sheer amount of weapons of a battleship.
> A complex piece of machinery that can satisfy the intellectual thirst while having an artistically simple design to ease the mind.
> The ability to ascend beyond the limitation of the flesh without loosing the beauty of the human form.
> An object that greatly rewards mastery over it.
> A big, shiny, expensive thing that you can flex with.
> Is a single or multiple crew vehicle depending on if you're feeling lone-wolf, comradery, romantic, or even-
“It’s almost as if the obsession with Mecha is fantasy, and not thought out speculative futurism”
I mean…yea.
*credits roll* 😂
Remember kids, if weapons designers in the 2300's aren't cracking open your old novels to figure out what to build next, you're not writing REAL SCI-FI.
@@RorikH 🤣🤣🤣
You're always free to depict your wildest imagination about the future in any form, because they barely predict anything in the real future XD
"Mecha is fantasy, and not thought out speculative futurism"
*laughs in his mech maniacally
@notapuma Humankind is more stubborn than you'd think, especially military, because they're trained to be immovable objects.
My point is that they would just resort to space jets or something. They might have a few manipulators attached to their hulls, but the military will definitely not allow them to grow full metal limbs. I'm fairly sure.
Funny how Gurren Lagann is one of the only mecha anime to not only acknowledge this, but incorporate the meta idea that "the robots have superpowers because they're shaped like humans, because it's all just a masculine power fantasy" into the actual plot and lore of the show.
Tbf G Gundam did something similar and just became dragon ball z of mecha
One of the only? Gurren Lagann thematically runs on the rails of just about every super robot series ever...
Gurren Lagann isnt as innovative as most people think it is
It's like that one quote about Evangelion being unlike other mecha shows because they focus more on the characters than the mechs
Gurren Lagann is basically a light hearted parody of Getter Robot, and is a super robot show, or rather, a love letter to the Super Robot shows of old. The mecha show is roughly divided into 2 sub genres: Super Robot and Real Robot, Super Robot came first with Mazinger Z, and it usually involves a single almost invincible mecha fighting alone an entire army of bad guys; the Real Robot started with Mobile Suit Gundam and has a more realistic and militaristic setting.
There are several others who use the shaped like humans thing as part of it, a big chunk being in the control part of things.
With a lot of the Gundam stuff, it tends to start with the fact that Mobile Suits were, originally, developed (in most of the Gundam universes) as worker suits rather than combat suits...it's just that when you add other options, the mecha takes over for the normal things since they can do that as well.
On a purely primal basis, the reason I love mecha, power armour, and other humanoid mechanisms used for warfare is because I like the idea of one guy being able to punch a mountain sized dinosaur in the face. On an even baser level, I like to pretend that I could be that guy punching the dinosaur in the face.
When I'm not listening to the monkey brain though, I enjoy these media because of the reasoning behind the machine's creation. If there's a genuine reason that mecha are used over tanks other than just "they're stronger" then I find that pretty interesting.
Mecha can be useful in construction and civilian use. Once these platforms are made for that, it's easy to see people converting it for warfare with varying levels of success.
In the case of Mobile Suits... they can fly and are often capable of exiting and reentering orbit. Tanks cannot/are not.
When that isn't the case, typically they're shown to be faster/more nimble than standard tanks.
And then there's the fact that watching two giant robots hack each other up is just awesome.
My favorite mech series Are the ones that go deep into research and development. Not only how you got from Gundam to GM, But also all of the failed ideas, Niche variations, And strange concepts that would later link into more iconic machines.
Things like how the Delta Gundam's failure lead to the Hyaku Shiki and later the Zeta Gundam Absolutely intrigue me, And make me stick into a setting long-term.
@@Globalnet626 I like the "multi-purpose vehicle also used for construction" idea, and I also like the "synthetic muscle fibers that are really strong but work best with biological shapes" idea.
@@BlitzkriegOmega I particularly like Gundam: 08th MS Team for that reason, they show not only the mechs working as part of an entire mechanised division, but they also show the maintenance, repairs and more aspects that go with a war machine, in the show, one of the very few Gundam Ground Types they have suffers damage to the head and they have to make do by repairing it with the head of another GM unit because they simply didn't have the pieces for it, or when they rebuild another which is also modified in the meantime as it was almost completely busted and turns out to become basically a new model
Keep in mind that Mazinger Z, the starter of the whole mecha genre, was described in-universe as a weapon that can make you a God or a Devil, capable of singlehandedly destroy the world or save it. In Super Robot shows you have a single invincible mech crushing entire empires without breaking a sweat. Gundam made it a little more realisticby having the mechs being mass produced.
And tgen later reinterpretations of Nagai's classics like Mazinger and Getter asked if it is really in humanity's best interest to have such ungodly powerful weapons.
Then in Super Robot Wars franchise, we go interstellar with our romantics, alongside with "friendship", "love", "bravery", "miracle", then wholesale stoner sunshine that final boss with good company.
Like nukes.
@@AcaciaMorn what's colony drops, solar ray, G3 gas, and even fucking Angle Halo just from the universal century Gundam timeline alone. And you think mere nukes is the least of our problems, when newtypes armed with funnels are taking potshots at them for kicks.
The Getter and Mazinger are also (like so many things in Japanese storytelling) nuclear energy, or the nuke. It's especially on the nose with Getter, where the Getter Energy is a radical new kind of power, and there's no pussyfooting around it, Getter WILL doom the whole world in that story.
The first mecha was Tetsujin-28. Mazinger was nust the first mecha to put the pilot inside the mecha.
There's always the Battletech answer to why mecha replaced conventional military hardware of "because everyone in the entire setting is a psycho."
I dunno, that's part of it, but that setting also has the 'individual warriors pushing back against the inhumanity of modern war' angle because like. It seems to me like everyone over time agreed on the use of mecha to solve disputes because actually, tearing up cities as personal battlegrounds between feudal mecha-lords is preferrable to nuking entire planets to glass. Our capacity for long-distance soulless destruction got so great that everyone was like "this is stupid, let's just have champions and challenges'. In a way, that's oddly humane compared to modern paradigms.
They also had the Ares convention, a treaty which limited warfare to try to prevent whole planets from being destroyed. The result was that the powers started to use/invest in mechs more, and it has stayed that way because that is what people know, whole industries are geared towards it, the fact that BT style mechs were good enough, and the general loss of technical knowledge that happened in the setting.
We can either fight like medieval knights using these expensive, inefficient suits in a regulated warfare or go back to nuclear striking each other from orbit. -Ares Convention, probably.
Something to add to the points you list:
Mechas are like superheroes, they give the ability for awesome scale while still being recognisable avatars of the protagonists. You can have big explosions, have the protagonist destroy lots of military equipment without having to show much in terms of actual human casualties. Its a sanitised form of depicting large-scale war. Gundam puts some emphasis on the death caused by Mobile Suit battles when they show grunt enemies die or show footsoldiers or civilians in the crossfire but goes to greater length in Hathaway.
I'm glad you mentioned Hathaway, because there the mecha feel much more like they represent the faceless war machines.
Who's Uso Erwin from Victory Gundam, literally swapping female commandos wearing bikinis and armed with rocket launchers and jetpacks, using Gundam grade beam saber.
I like what Armored Core 6 did with their "core theory" to explain why mechs exist. An Armored Core is so fast and agile that traditional ranged weapons like artillery can't hit them or even properly lock on. The only thing that can reliably beat an AC is another equivalent fast close-range mech of some kind, like another AC or the PCA's Light and Heavy Cavalry mechs. AC's are also piloted via some sort of neural link, so pilots actually have some sort of feeling of having this giant robot body.
It doesn't quite explain Muscle Tracers aka MT's (basically just a tank with tiny little arms and normal sized legs), but still.
ACs evolved from MTs, and are much more modular and powerful, but that comes at a very literal cost. ACs are far more expensive to build and maintain, and it's implied that their incredible performance also requires extremely short maintenance intervals. MTs are cheap, reliable, and much less demanding on their pilots, so they make up the majority of most forces. Add more specialized heavy variants like the BAWS Tetrapod to the mix, and a coordinated group of MTs can overwhelm and overconfident AC pilot fairly quickly, as G4 Volta found out the hard way.
Yeah, sorry to burst your bubble but missiles ARE faster than mechas (as theyre faster than supersonic or even hypersonic vehicles even today) and accurate enough to target them. You would also need to invent some bs reason as to why you need direct fire weapons due to some type of guidance prevention.
@@bleachorange The main thing keeping most missiles from murdering everything at long range in Armored Core is the sheer violence of an AC's movement. The only missiles that can come close to matching a standard AC's quick boosts are small and extremely lightweight, limiting their damage potential. If a bigger missile does manage to catch an AC off guard, it typically does a good chunk of damage to it.
@@bleachorange
It's sci fi fantasy about armored core but okay, i wanna say
yes and no.
Missile fast, is relative.
Its fast for you, its the same as an patriot missile.
Hypersonic missiles is faster than normal missiles.
But Dragonfire yes equipment is bulky as fck, lasers are fastest.
In armored core the future, hypersonic missiles really wouldn't make a dent to an AC anymore.
Cause think in 1000yrs in AC timeline, the tracking system would have been improved to accurate track the hypersonic missile flypath and either evaded or counter measured it with fast lasers we nowadays dont have but being developed.
In AC certainly has.
and about hypersonic missiles, it's still relies on a map and data comparing with the actual landscape.
An AC with sudden moves high agility, the possibilty to take it down is not high.
@@griffinfaulkner3514 Honestly, you just make a missile whose explosion radius is larger than the distance an AC can travel in the time to target. And or you bracket them with enough missiles that if they move in any direction, there are only more missiles within their possible movement range. Do a quick boost or two, even 5, move a few tens or a hundred or so meters. A nuclear warhead is going to vaporize you and the surrounding several miles of countryside
To add to the point of romanticized infantry, Mechas, especially anthropomorphic ones, are somewhat futuristic depictions of knights. I practice and compete in Armored Fighting and when people ask me how I got into it, I tell them it’s the closest thing I can get to piloting a giant robot.
Yes and as modern knights stories, Mecha anime are stories about ideas of masculinity as stereotypical as Dragon Ball.
Honestly, a crab mech would be really good. It's a solid shape with a low center of gravity, and it still has the all terrain versatility that limbs would offer
Falls down to how fast it can go, I think It'll still need to match pace with tracked tanks somehow. If that can be achieved then the difficulty of mobility killing the crab/spider tank should justify the higher cost of building it.
You mean like tge Crab, or King Crab in Battletech?
I could imagine in the future when governments use smaller versions of the crab that are not piloted by humans. Honestly, masculinity is being murdered, so the idea of actually piloting and facing death turns off many. This in turn kills a real future where we use mechs in sports let alone fighting.
Sad nerd noises :(
Eighty Six anime has spider mechs
The 6+ legged mecha is the only capable one when compared to modern tank warfare. Legs give you better mobility over rough terrain and 6+ gives you 2 broken legs before you become immobile.
There is a very nice review of the BTA3062 mod for Battletech (still up on Vice) that I'm just going to quote verbatim:
"The majority of BattleMechs are designed to look like people. This serves a few aesthetic functions. First, it makes the violence they suffer readable to an audience. I, a human woman with blood and bones, do not know what it feels like for an axle to break, but I do know how it feels when a shoulder is torn from its socket. The slow violence of vehicle combat becomes intelligible through a mostly human body.
Second, it does not allow you to forget who is doing the violence-that a human hand is pulling a trigger."
Was this said by an amputee?
@@AB-bg7osor someone who had a shoulder dislocated. And I can sorta relate, I got a concussion playing high school football, I’ve felt a little real pain every time I see a really bad headshot in media ever since
Mechas also serve a narrative function as they often symbolize the adult self the pilot has to become. The gab between human teenage body and machine warrior is often what creates most oft Mecha Anime inner conflics. So in the Mechaverse the Mecha serves as a idea of ideal masculinity.
there is also the fear factor of going against a giant humanoid figure
Soldiers aren't cavemen. They're scared based on how dangerous they know things are.
Besides. If you want fear factor, try helicopters stalking from miles away.
So basically, mecha are the modern incarnation of giants/golems. I like it.
Heavy Gear takes the Patlabor approach to mechs.
"Why did Gears make tanks obsolete?"
Every faction with tanks, "They didn't."
CEF: "They really, really didn't."
Oh hey I witnessed the same discussion you're talking about at 1:36 on Twitter. Yes. All fiction is inherently romanticized and trying to be 100% realistic is a zero sum game because your mind (or the mind of the creator of your favorite mecha show) can't account for everything that real life entails. What separates the good from the bad, as Tolkien said, is respect for the rules that govern the fiction, making the work seem more "realistic" (suspension of disbelief).
> Implying that I'm on Twitter
@@TheBellman Good for you, very impressive
Gundam is fun not just because of robots, but because you get to look into the minds of people like Tomino and Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. Their artisty gives them a unique identity and seeing their outlook on life and their line of work gives their art significance. It shouldn't be we make demands to artists and treat their work as a service that needs to meet criteria, but we watch, try to understand what they want to say and measure them based on their own intentions.
Yeah , fiction trying to be super realistic is esentially like a Limit , sure , X can get *close* to 3 , but it will never *be* 3 , fiction is the same , also because reality doesn't makes sense sometimes but is 100% justified , meanwhile fiction doesn't has that privilege. So ironically reality isn't "realistic" , and that is a reasons why a work of fiction can never be "realistic" enough
@@ulforcemegamon3094 Or if you ever get to 3, it's just called writing nonfiction lol
I honestly think Code Geass did a great job of showing how the nightmare frames replaced tanks: they hit just as hard while being twice as maneuverable. Combine that with the grappling hook blades and the wheels attached to their legs and they become the undisputed kings or urban combat. Even when the mechs start geting more powerful and ridiculous they keep it interesting by introducing an arms race between Britania and the Black Knights, both sides constantly trying to one-up each other.
Their relatively small size makes the difference, they even fit inside buildings. They straddle the line between power armor and mecha.
There's actually a series where this mecha otaku gets reincarnated into a society where they have primitive mecha technology that's more used as like, power suits than as mobile artillery, and he's some sort of prodigy with the tech partially because he loved mecha so much in his past life that he pursues a career in developing mecha. Instead of ATVs or fast tanks, he builds a centaur mech. Other nations build blimps as their first attempts at air supremacy, he builds flying mechs. It just leaned hard into the "form over function" thing because the world he's been reborn into had so much room for military tech improvements and he's the only one who can come up with half the stuff he makes, so even though it would make more sense to use tanks and planes, he can live out his fantasy because no one is going to come up with tanks and planes, at least not for a long time. I think it's called "Knights and Magic." It totally is a fantasy fulfillment story but it makes that front and center as the MC's motivation: to indulge in his mecha dreams.
Gimme the title man
Knights&Magic
@@fakedthunderKnight & Magic
one of the best isekai anime out there
underrated
I like it when the Mechs are built to reasonable reasons. For example making a mecha for industrial reasons work. It could simplify equipment as it reduces the need for specialized equipment (If 5 industrial equipment is replaced with 1 mech that is a significant savings).
Another example being new technology and an enemy thatjustifies the need for giant humanoids (My favorite example is Knights and Magic). In Knights and Magic, it is explicitly stated that the Mecha are magic-science machines that run on mana, are reinforced by mana and without mana can easily fall apart at the seems. The enemies are big so big weapons are required to fight them.
Not to mention, The constant research and improvements made on the Knight Runners over the course of the series. Turning crystal fiber into Something akin to muscles, then needing to redesign the armor to accommodate the expansion of the muscles when they are flexed. Then came the invention of the tertiary arm to solve the problem of having to constantly switch between sword and wand... And then there was freaky Experimental stuff like using fire magic to make Boosters and The centaur design to mess around with the idea of a mech-scale "Horse back Jouster" archetype.
Later in the light novels, The main character experiments with wind magic as another, easier to maintain form of flight and create something designed to look like a mermaid.
@@BlitzkriegOmega
Even later in the novel, it is re-discovered that there are silhouette knight sized giants which is easy to justify why silhouette knights exists.
Though the "mermaid" knight was exploiting a strange reaction of ether that the enemies made flying ships with. The MC miniaturized and mass produced it.
Heck even in Battletech, conventional warfare is absolutely devastating and can easily trounce a Battlemech, its just that Battlemechs are created because they are cool in universe. The Mackie was the first Battlemech was an absolute money pit and passion project of one man, said man was the leader of the largest Star Empire (Terran Hegemony). It became the core of warfare because after the Age of War, using battlemechs in limited engagements to reduce collateral damage became a matter of order. Untill the first two Succession Wars threw that out the window to engage in total war. In fact, Zelbregin (Clanner Rules of Conduct in Battle) was an extension of that idea, so everything is decided by a duel, where they try to underbid in what they will use to prove who is a bigger bad ass.
Pretty sure in Battletech battlemechs ton for ton have more armor and weapons due to how lightweight the skeleton and myomer are to conventional modes of mobility. As to why the technologies that make mechs feasible only apply to mechs in battletech... they don't, its what makes it so great. While ton for ton the mech wins in general the second you factor in cost for units conventional armor and aircraft start standing a chance.
@@awesomefatBruceLee it affects other platforms such as protomechs and Battlearmor, also compare a only mech force to a Combined Arms force that also includes battlemechs. Throw in some copperhead Longtoms, or a Davey Crocket.
@@screenmonkey personally an Atlas is far less scary to me than a lance of Demolishers or... god forbid... being surprised by a lance of SRM carriers and your standing still :(
@@awesomefatBruceLee so we on the same page.
@@screenmonkey AFF
I'm dissapointed you never mentioned knights in this video. The medieval era is basically the only point in history in which a few guys in armor actually can decide a battle. I'd say its the most directly comparable event in history to mecha, both in terms of actual physical resemblance and in terms of how its treated by the cultural zeitgeist.
Not true either, medieval battles largely depended on tactics, the successful use of units, and psychological warfare. Knights were often organized often into shock cavalry units and used for the intended effect of smashing through enemy lines or fighting other Shock Calvary Units. Knights were also used in Heavy Infantry roles were, but this was not as common as it seems.
Battle Standards were used to signify a company headquarters or CoC on the battlefield, and if the standard was lost that mean’t that mean’t the CoC was broken or either the leadership was dead. So it was important that Battle Standards were kept up or else the troops of the field army would scatter. A unique psychological warfare tactic was for a field army to shout that the opposing army’s commander was dead. This had the effect of convincing enemy troops that all was lost, which would lead to desertion and panic.
@@spacemanapeinc7202 I don't see how that disproves my point. If anything it strengthens it. Faking a commander's death to shatter enemy morale is totally something I could see happening in a mecha anime.
Or to provide the Japanese analogue mecha are the current romanticized vision of samurai enlarged and brought into the future.
@@NRSGuardiankidou senshi gundam basically can get shortened to Kishi gundam
Mechas are knights not samurai who were loyal to masters not to chivalry like code
@@meteorknight999 The samurai too had a code of honor e.g. Bushido. Also, it would be no more accurate to say that knights were loyal to chivalry than it is to say that samurai were. Both were codes of conduct for how warriors should behave on the battlefield, and were essentially the nascent predecessors to the modern Laws of War epitomized by the Geneva Conventions. A major theme of samurai epic literature was the conflict between Ninjo/Honor or Sentiment and Giri/Duty, and also the debate on where a samurai's loyalty truly lied, with his lord or with his personal honor. Also, knights themselves were required to be loyal to their liege lord, whom they took sacred oaths of loyalty to serve. In fact the word knight and samurai both originate from words meaning servant. So your distinction between knights and samurai is not as well-defined as you may think it is. There are many parallels between them due to analogous paths of cultural evolution in feudal societies.
It has been my opinion for a while that mecha represents an ideal future where the fantasy of high technology and knightly individual heroes both exist.
ideal or not.
I prefer the mecha futurism than biological alien zombie futurism of the other spectrum, of future.
cause there are two streams of ppl imagining future.
@@mechart8888 Yeah, the ending for Evangelion was kind cringe ngl.
@@masonreppeto882 think you mean horrifying or disgusting cause it puts you off being a sad ending or good for the 2 surviving
I just love how well thought out Gundam is. It always drops a massive amount of logical information, and then the mechs go burrr.
This video went from being a pretty interesting topic for a conversation to feeling like someone trying to give a college thesis on a topic while presenting examples from works they don't quite understand.
An example of what I mean is the whole "Gundam showing a few individuals can turn the tide of war" thing,
since the original show goes out of its way to blatantly point out several times "no, the crew of the white base made little difference in the actual overall war effort beyond being a distraction for zeon, they are a skeleton crew used for war propaganda"
Even just addressing things that were wrong in a little over the first minute of the video,
Mobile suits were upscaled space suits, in-lore they weren't designed to be humanoid for the sake of being humanoid, they were designed that way because the technology already existed and they wanted to apply it on a larger scale.
The point about optical sensors is moot because minovsky particles affect those as well.
It's a good idea for a topic but a lot of it feels like you only have a surface level understanding of the stuff you're bringing up to back your points (as in you've only watched the animated media and haven't looked into any of the side materials that actually explain how the mechanics work)
Not knocking you for it or anything but it does make the video come off as ill-informed to people who know this stuff, as opposed to people who don't and go "well, he says this like he knows what he's saying so I'll just trust that he does"
I could go on about other things about the video, but this comment is already pretty long to begin with.
This is a thesis that specifically relates to the impressions that media makes. The deeper lore is kinda immaterial, especially if it isn't part of the text itself.
@@notapumaNewtypes are just space autism man it's not that deep
I think Minovsky particles are the cause of Newtypes and Zeon was freakingly wrong in that aspect.
@@notapumaRandom mutations and Minovski radiation environmental contamination from all the reactors destroyed during the wars or something.
There's novels to the Gundam series as well. Unfortunately, they weren't released in the U.S. to my knowledge . And I'm still new to the Japanese language, so I can't them yet . Hopefully soon.
I watched "Knight's & Magic" (accurate spelling) last week and had a fantastic time watching it.
An 'isekai fantasy mecha' show where they gave no shits about character development and just crammed as much fun as they could into a season, culminating in two 'design psychos' trying to prove who the bigger nerd was. Because the protag was a programmer and a gunpla enthusiast in his former life. No pretense at all.
Over the past few months it's been a recurring point for me, to unironically endorse what I love (without being completely socially unaware or obnoxious) and how there's a lot of people who are deeply uncomfortable with admitting the same and have to lash out at the same hobbies and media.
I think if a person needs mecha to be realistic, that they've essentially missed the point. If the argument is that mecha are just fundamentally too unrealistic, then the standard for suspension of disbelief has moved in an untenable way. If there are grounded elements, like 08th's focus on ground war, that's to shift the tone, not to be an accurate and realistic representation.
If someone starts from actual in-real-life warfare then of course that person's not going to enjoy mecha.
Also I'd just like to say that even if a single mecha was feasible to put on the field, even if it was costly, it'd be one hell of a morale boost and worth it for that reason alone.
Hi, I didn't know where else to put this, the only Mecha anime I've ever watched was a fantasy isekai called Escaflowne.
The show features Mecha that are essentially towering suits of armor powered by the crystal hearts of dead dragons, and as such are all swordsman. The villains of the show (outside of one archer) are the only characters whose Mecha wield non-sword weapons, and usually advanced weapons.
From invisibility to alchemical flamethrowers the villains are the most advanced civilization, and I think represent the dawning industrialization that makes the lone swordsman mecha seem obsolete. The show is absolutely insane in its second half and also dabbles heavily with romance. The worldbuilding is intriguing and the visuals are stunning so i'd highly recommend giving it a watch.
Also that way maybe I'll meet more people who know what I'm talking about.
@@grinninggoblin3698 It’s a classic, it’s been brought up often recently as an earlier example of isekai (2 years later Twelve Kingdoms came out, no mecha though).
Knight’s & Magic can’t compare story wise, it really is just a goofball show not meant to be taken seriously at all.
Me who start with aldnoah
Yeahhhh i like this niche semi pyshic stuff
Gundams make sense in universe because someone had to build the space side colonies and they had to develop the tools necessary to make that construction possible
Big robot make space construction more easier 🙂
@@grinninggoblin3698escaflowne whips you should play Frame Gride
I agree with a lot of this assessment on Mecha here I would add that in the context of the original Mobile Suit Gundam it was likely the efforts by Yoshiyuki Tomino to push the boundaries of typical super robot shows creating the real robot subgenre in many ways the use of the giant mecha robots was able go allow Tomino and his team to depict a level of graphic war realism and brutality by disguising the infantrymen as 18 meter robots however since then beyond a few exceptions such as VOTOMs more and more real robot shows have used the giant robots as both fantasy or representations of weapons of mass destruction.
I think what distinguishes First Gundam was that in many ways it is a retelling of the second world war by a generation that had grown up in its aftermath for future generations to remember or to serve as a warning/hope for humanity's future.
Or maybe I'm reading into it too much
Definitely not reading into it too much. You’re right on the nose.
@@just_koop Its probably one of my favourite aspects about First Gundam, however what got me thinking about the themes more was the Valkyrie Chronicles JRPG/Tactical Strategy title by SAGA as it shares a lot of the same themes as well as being a vague ww2 allegory. I think one of the best aspects of both is how they handle the topic of human conflict both show casing human bravery and courage whilst having a anti-war message. Often with a lot of western media they tend to be overall in support of war or completly against it, to almost comical extremes (in most cases) whereas in a lot of Japanese depictions of conflicts they tend to be more nuanced.
@@MarathonGuy1337 I really like what you said about First Gundam being made by people who have experienced war. It reminds me of today’s Gundam and many other franchises like it in how they just don’t hit the same. I think that’s because today’s writers can other creators are simply riding off the coattails of the people who truly know what conflict is and looks like. Not to say that the current generation of Japanese Gundam writers as well as other creatives are desensitized, but they simply can’t comprehend the magnitude or scale at which WWII had on the world. Hell, sometimes I find myself thinking about it.
@@just_koop Yeah it's one of those interesting things about early anime, one of the best stories I think which demonstrates this is the story of Leiji Matsumoto who grew up in post-war Japan and whose father lived with the guilt of sending so many young men to die and I believe as like a based commander for the Japanese air force had to personally take responsibility for their deaths. This affects Leiji Matsumoto father greatly and a lot of Leiji thoughts on like public service and the pursuit of individuality is put into his work such as Space Pirate Captain Harlock, with Harlock being the ideal self made man that stands for his own ideals and lives by his own convictions.
@@just_koop I love that this kind of thing is what lead to Witch from Mercury being made for the generation that doesn't really experience war as of now. All the conflict in the series lurks in the background until it escalates and the school is attacked as well bring the conflict to them.
The reason i like Armored Core (Particularly Gen's 1-3) is that your Mech (AC) is an absolute S*** stomper to every basic Drone, Tank, and mass produced infantry mechs but are no means invincible against them and improper piloting against them usually means death.
It makes the war mercenary fantasy all the more appealing when your piloting skills and weaponry improve to point where you feel like a true one man army for hire.
AC6 has that again in some sections, tetrapod MTs are fully capable of wrecking your shit if you aren't careful about it, especially if they have backup. There's a pair in the Infiltrate Grid 086 mission you have to kill for their battle logs, and that skirmish with early game weapons and OS tuning is legitimately harder than fighting an AC.
For me AC6 has it's numbers tuned wrong to get that experience. The damage flying around just leaves everything feeling like cardboard with a half decent build, especially ACs, where it is very apparent how reliant the game is on the repair kits to make the game not fall apart at the seams and become a cakewalk in that regard. Also how you just freeze in midair when staggered or using a heavy weapon kills immersion hard for me. Also IMO it's way too generous with ammo counts, you are never really at risk of running out unless you are playing poorly.
Still an 8/10 easily, but the only real things it feels like you deal with are weak FCS distracting enemies or set pieces and damage sponges that deal overinflated damage. I am only really disappointed in it when I start comparing it to other AC games, on it's own merits it's great.
@@BlazeEmerald The ammo count thing is _very_ weapon dependent. Things like the basic ARs and linear rifles don't have to worry about reserve ammo, but the heavier energy weapons and pistols are almost crippled by it on longer missions. I made the mistake of going for all of the combat logs early-game in Grid 086 and burned through all but 60 rounds each on my Ludlows, and completely expended my missile racks. AC fights are also highly dependent on exactly which AC you're facing. Freud, for example, got shredded in under 10 seconds by a reverse-joint boost kick/charged Harris/pile bunker combo, while Volta legitimately felt like a harder fight than the goddamn Sea Spider with how much health and armor he has.
@@BlazeEmerald
AC6 is definitely not perfect but for what it's worth as a return to form it is still a solid 8.
Who wouldn't want to pilot a giant mech that completely overwhelms your enemies and incidentally becoming a hero?
And on top of that only you can pilot it because your unique chad skills is the only thing capable of piloting it. It's the ultimate male power fantasy
I like the Battletech explanation for why they use mechs instead of just tanks.
They developed Myomer which is artificial muscle powered by electricity.
the myomer is an extremely efficient and load-bearing form of locomotion, but cannot be used in a wheeled, tracked, or airborne platform due to the nature of its operation.
That’s the in universe explanation for why mechs are able to carry more armor and weapons per ton, despite having a larger surface area. Although it doesn’t break immersion because the mechs don’t arbitrarily have access to some more powerful kind of weapon or armor that other vehicles don’t have.
Well in Battletech they also fight across thousands of planets with very different terrain, gravity and atmosphere conditions along with varying levels of infrastructure. Tanks simply won't be able to go anywhere if planet ain't mostly flat or covered in human-made roads, and as for aircraft - only aerospace fighters would be able to perform reliably, as conventional planes are going to be unpredictable with both propulsion efficiency and aerodynamics in non-standard atmosphere. So walking mechs are the most convenient thing to have heavy weapons if you wanna go planet to planet, drop almost anywhere and be able to storm fortifications asap.
I've actually taken to calling the science of mechs as "Fascinating...yet heartbreaking", LOL. As much as I like mechs I fully understand that they are grossly impractical, and yet I persist in my fascination with them.
I think a good marrying of the competing ideas in mecha is in Battletech, where battlemechs come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and roles, and where more traditional combat vehicles are still viable and sometimes even preferable. Mechwarriors are treated almost like heavy cavalry, the knights in shining armor, and tend to be experienced and well-trained soldiers rather than plucky teenagers. War can be personal one-on-one dramas while also providing the horrific indifference of actual warfare.
Most gundam series also do this because the main character is a naive kid who is placed in the middle of a war due to circumstances completely outside of their control.
Some protags end up with savior complexes and start doing pretty bad shit.
@@Vanity0666 Nothing says future war criminal like a young teen who has been traumatized and then given a gun, an enemy, and no oversight or discipline.
@@bleachorange it's almost like using child soldiers is a core tactic of the feddies because they know it will make zeeks look bad
I dunno it is still kind of a similar vibe. BT mechs are just as implausible and impractical from an engineering standpoint. So why do they exist? Because they're fuckin cool. And their role as "knights" is definitely a thing--a very similar thing culturally as gundams serve in that kind of mecha.
That said, BT does definitely explain it differently, almost directly citing some of the things in this video about the horrors of war. In the pre-mech era of BT, technology grew to the point that factions possessed faster than light capable warships that could raze planets. So there was a Very Bad Time where that happened a shitton until more recent eras where no one is allowed to have warships, instead they fight with mechs and decide things in a non-total war kind of battle environment.
I think all the criticisms of the suspension of realism are valid, but, most of the time mecha anime do so within the realm of what separates literary stories from real stories. By which I don't mean fiction vs non-fiction, I mean that a story is meant to convey something beyond entertainment or just recounting events. If realism doesn't allow you to convey a message, then realism is detrimental to your story.
I think mecha representing individuals is a good thing. You want to promote the individual, because wars do the opposite.
But most importantly, they don't have to be manly, or men. That's an understandable connection to make because of martial history being closely tied to the male gender, but that's looking at it from the perspective of gender politics and with confirmation bias. Whereas, if you don't start with that perspective, you see mecha for what they actually portray (individuals fighting back against the horrors of war), not what they can be easily associated with (testosterone). If an author chooses to include aspects for the purpose of being a male power fantasy, or if they do so subconsciously, then we should isolate those cases, not simply assume that anything resembling a male fantasy must be one.
Glorifying the past is NOT necessarily what they do either; that might be what the author intends, or it might be pure coincidence, in which case it likely won't be a theme reinforced by any other part of the story. Sure, duels are glorious and from the past, but we can use dueling without promoting anything else from the past.
That's one of the main reasons why I love Gundam honestly. He might like Area 88 . Area 88 delves into similar themes like Gundam dose . Area 88 dose this , without new types or mecha . I think he's turned off by new types and how mecha in the Gundam franchise operate. There are some fantastical element's to it, not by alot obviously, but it is there .
I think Mecha is an inherently Japanese idea that draws on the conception of a "warrior" rather than a "soldier," as you see in western takes on the idea. Gundam vs BattleTech, for instance. In Mecha, the warrior and the mech are one in the same. The warrior is special. The mech is special. In western properties, where the mech is a weapon, then the idea is that anyone can pick up a weapon and become a warrior; the warrior is not a warrior, but a soldier, and the soldier is not special. The weapon can be modified to accomplish any task and wielded by anyone willing to put themselves in danger.
Yeah my fantasy is to become a traumatized 14 year old war criminal....and I love Mecha, but it's for the art and story, not my fantasy
I just dont think you get Gundam. Most of it is strictly anti war, showing horrors with everyone being pinged for death, and the horrors of colony drops and gas attacks.
While also depicting the mecha fighting in extremely visually pleasing and action filled ways so...war is bad, robots are rad
Being in a mecha fighting for the survival and/or glory of mankind against xenos is something I'd definelty want to do.
And being anti-war is arguably idealistic. War isn't all bad. Otherwise, certain nations wouldn't be superpowers or prosperous. Resources, land, and having more people is important for a nation. And contrary to popular belief, violence/war has solved more issues than diplomacy ever will. Some people cannot be reasoned with.
@@notapuma Very cool. But wouldn''t it be better if the leaders just dueled like they could in Gundam. I mean, I for one don't want to be one of 20,000 men dead in the first day of the battle of the Somme for example, which was quite a useless battle in the end, where they gained practically nothing. Just think of how many people that is, and that's just one day. Where most wars have causalities that were for useless gains, it all seems pointless. And the lives lost are just men like all of us.
I get fighting against tyrannical countries, but most wars are more grey than that, and should be resolved without that violence or at least in a way that reduces the amount of casualties.
I'll continue to live with my fantasy of being in a romcom instead
@@jjhh320 Remember what Francois Truffaut said about war movies.
@@notapuma
"You can't portray anyone as irredeemably evil in media, you just can't. It's against human nature to see just about anyone as irredeemably evil." not true
I think its fine to want to get granular about 'why something is X' without stepping into the rather very recently overused deconstructionist PoV where one can not seem to just vire the content for what it is 'escapism'. Too many people recently want to overanalyze things or try to see things in a form of fiction that might not be there just due to there own bias of real life view on things, sometimes a show about giant robots can be just that. I love Outlaw Star but even I don't think that the ships with literal grapple arms are in much ways a practical form of combat but it certainly looks cool. This video is interesting and may just not be my kind of analytical thesis style content but it popped up in my feed since I've been a Gundam enjoyer since it ran on Toonami in the late 90's and the early 2000's.
The question isn't whether or not something is escapist, you'll notice I don't dwell on how "realistic" mecha actually are, but why and how that escapism functions. People understand that mecha is a fantasy, but I think people attribute that too much to technology rather than the hows and whys of war in and of itself. And I think that needs to be unpacked because people's imagination of warfare does have an influence on policy and society, however minutely.
Totally understand being tired of this kind of content though
Fair enough, but "don't think about it bro, it's just entertainment" usually misses why some entertainment rather than others speaks to you. Like, if something is cool or vibes with you particularly, then why? Similarly, "overanalyzing" is often just code for "an interpretation that I personally don't like".
@@TheBellman Not even a small influence, sadly.
A huge chunk of the horror show that was WWI came from a population that got fed a century's worth of romantic propaganda about the glory of war running head-first into the fact that artillery and machineguns just do not care about how noble your cause is, or how righteous your feelings. And the PTSD from that little incident led almost directly to WW2.
Multimodal armies trump robot suits the same way that even the largest animals can fall prey to a big enough horde of killer ants.
I think there is a lot of ways to take it , on one hand it's the romanticized concept of an ace fighting for his country,ideals, family etc, on the other hand most aces in these series (especially gundam) rarely survive long after becoming an ace and few survive the wars, plot armored protagonist sometimes aside. It's kind of a trope that being a teen getting into a giant mech in a "realistic" mecha anime means lots of trauma , possible death or dismemberment and almost certainly getting screwed once or multiple times before reaching a bittersweet victory (if that.)
mecha stories are samurai stories. the edo period saw the proliferation of semi-historical pop fiction that contextualize the wars of the last thousand years as great morality plays, filled with shades of grey and shifting allegiances.
The nameless millions of peasants, foot soldiers, and townspeople are invisible when great warriors swing their great spears at each other, laying waste to the world while yelling about conflicting interpretations of "loyalty" and "justice."
0:28 my favorite bit here concerning this is code geass, which shows the knightmares run absolute circles around tanks while decimating them with no real issues. It really works there because the setting isn’t hyper advanced compared to modern tech.
Until season 2 when everything gets a jetpack because drawing sky backgrounds is easier.
@@seb24789 yea lol. And I do like the designs of those flying dudes, especially the edge lord mech, but I do miss the more grounded combat.
Man rides rust bucket, man happy.
"Carcinization comes for us all."
Truer words have never been spoken.
Real Mecha is expressly an exploration of "what would happen if...".
I've always seen Mecha as armored knight fighter jets.
There's a reason people say Armored Core is Ace Combat with Mechs, and Ace Combat is Armored Core with jets.
As far I know in Gundam UC the reason Mobile Suit is needed is because Minovsky particle effecting many types of radiation like light radiation. This is make laser guided weapon and optical targeting system decrease in effectiveness, MS IGLOO episode The Vanishing Serpent of Loum show how bad the interference is for optic.
Are gundams invisible to the naked eye? No? Then you can definitely see it with some variety of camera.
@@TheBellman Decrease in effectiveness doesn't mean you can't see the target, it mean what you eyes and optic see doesn't really what it is like the air distorting around fire. If you aim dead center the target might be off by 1 meter because Minovsky particle, that is big error margin in long range engagement.
The original Mobile Suit Gundam novel addresses this on some level. The scale of the “giant” mobile suit is dwarfed in the vastness of the Earth sphere region. The interference of radio waves hampers communication, which then necessitates either a more accurate or broader means of communicating, the latter of which would help to broadcast your position and make you a target to those highly accurate optical sensors. [SPOILER ALERT] This is what leads to the death of Amuro when he learns of Char’s true objectives in the novel.
@@TheBellman Pretty sure cameras are only reliable for targeting systems in Gundam within a couple KM as the Minovsky interference in the optical spectrum can cause varying degrees of refraction/magnification and demagnification. (Basically, even with a perfect optical targeting system, outside of close range... targets may physically be elsewhere from where they appear on camera, or closer/farther away due to the interference.
Think of it like looking across a hot grill and objects behind get all wavey, only on massive scale.
@@TheBellman😐
i just like the mechs because they're cool.
i buy gunpla. i can picture gundam duals during cardrives.
they're just cool.
i dont think i need to explain it. whats cooler than 3 story high robots shooting it out in a commercial district?
Do you happen to have a list from where all your footage is from? I happen to like the aesthetics of some of the older anime shown (example being Patlabor) and it would be great as I can't identify where all of the footage is from.
I think I recognized most footage except like 2 shots, so if you tell me a timestamp, I can most likely tell you from where it is.
Gundam changed my life forever
while this is interesting and all, one thing I do find very interesting is how early Gundam was far more popular with girls than boys. Which makes me wonder a bit of how it sorta fits together
Fujoshi took a liking to Amuro and Char's relationship, and shows that focus on the relationships tend to garner fujoshi audiences; sometimes stronger than the model building crowd. Godmarz also had a big female audience.
The title is kindof bait, given the number of women Gundam fans I know. Romance in the combat and romance of the squishy kind can have overlapping and multimodal appeal. Legend of the Galactic Heroes built an entire franchise around that.
1:06 for UC Gundam that’s because the MS’s weapons are massive weapons compared to normal counterparts. They make them bigger to be used by these much larger machines. For example, the Gundam Ground Type and Ez8 uses essentially a tank gun as a sniper rifle but it’s a ridiculous caliber of 180 mm (7.1”), and the Bazooka used by the Zaku IIs is 360 mm (14.2”). The only one I’ve seen with conventional calibers is probably the Guntank with 120 mm (4.7”) guns. The machine guns used by the Zakus is also 120 mm, whereas the usual biggest caliber for a MG is 12.7 mm
I think you kinda bite into your thesis of mecha being 'individualist heroes defeating the enemy armies and faceless tactics" by focusing on the original Gundam series.
Don't forget that while the Gundam and White Base usually win their fights in the series, they are ultimately just a distraction while the larger conflict happens around them. In all of the major war battles the Gundam participates in, while it usually draws some enemies away and kills some big monster of a mech, it really doesn't affect the success of the battle; that is usually determined by the (mostly) faceless battle tactics and larger gameplan that the White Base crew are simply part of. Never once does Amuro or the Gundam act as a key piece for a large battle's victory.
Gundam ends up being that "coordinated shoving match" that you argue mecha shows are not.
“Civilian government has effectively vanished” great line to put over kamile getting jumped by the titians
Wow you must be fin at parties.
Mecha are cool.
This was an endlessly fascinating video, I loved every second
I think this would be an interesting topic for a video, but you effectively just talk about traits unique to the Gundam franchise while trying to comment on a very broad and diverse subgenre of Japanese sci-fi. Others have mentioned Mazinger, and Gurren Lagann, but there's also Tetsujin 28 Go, Grendizer, Getter Robo, the Robot Romance trilogy, non-Gundam Tomino shows, Ryosuke Takahashi shows, Godmarz, the Yuusha series, Macross, and even Transformers, all of which have their audience in different parts of the world (Italy, USA, Phillipines, France etc) and hold different levels of cultural significance and meanings to the viewers. They helped evolve the genre and have elements that make them unique; even the older titles made a number of stylistic choices which Gundam evolved from. In the future, I would try to approach your topic beyond just one franchise of many, or just try to just narrow your topic down to Gundam or else it comes off as an overgeneralization. Mercuryfalcon's video on the history of 70's mecha helps paint a very clear historical picture of the earlier shows that paved the way for Gundam.
I will address some things regarding Gundam:
It's not so much the ability to shift weight around that made mechs superior so much as their agility, becoming able to compete with fighter jets while being able to whip around and snipe a tail in space with the idea of AMBAC (basically what was mentioned) coming later on. On top ot that, the idea of New Types was pushed by the toymakers, but as thew series progressed, newtypes became less relevant of a necessity to fight so much as being someone adept at quickly learning how to use mechs and maybe having some sort of psychic link here and there that can use the non-wire-guided bits, since minovsky particles even render long range optical sensors, on top of long range radar and communications kinda borked in the sci-fi "fog of war."
Other than those nitpicks, I can understand what you're saying, and admit that even despite any notion of why gundams work in their universe doesn't make real sense.
I like to use the explanation from mechs from For The Barrel, the pretty bad remake of Mobile Suit Gundam with great artwork, where they were adopted because moving the limbs allows it to increase it's turning capabilities in space.
He never mentioned Gundam Witch From Mercury. The newest Gundam dose something different. It's pretty good. Highly recommend.
"Hereditary psychic powers"
It's difficult to take your critique's of UC Gundam seriously when you're basing your argument on a flawed understanding of the concept.
It's cute that you think he ever watched any of these anime, glaringly obvious bro's a clip watcher at best.
Mechs from Titanfall : Repurposed orbital dropped utility equipment, equivalent to current technical trucks.
Mechs from Battletech: A very successful pitch by an industrial mech company and a critique on the government procurement process.
Gem of a video from such a small channel!
Every big channel was once a small channel
In battletech, the reason for Mechs being around is as complicated as one could get, but essentially they managed to get multiple tons of a weapons platform to engage in a variety of unique environments with little issue and can go 48 kph and up which treaded vehicles, even with the technology that spearheaded the mech, could not surpass.
This occurred when in particular, a Faction that was known for having pride in being technologically superior than other factions, had a leader whom was a bit on the 'I might have fucked up politically and I need a Win RIGHT now.' and greenlit the mech and had it forced out as fast as possible.
It's introduction and success had caused a panic reaction with the other mechs and thusly they too heavily invested into this giant robot that's essentially a faster tank with more aggression and armor.
Before that though? Most wars were fought with just nukes and space fleets. THere really wasn't much of a ground battle to talk about until they realize 'we can't nuke our problems away' and started more conventional wars.
Now what does that have to do with the ideology discussion of 'giant robots cool and look like us and recapture a fantasy that never was'?
Well it only proves it, that writers whom know the flaws of a giant robot will literally carve the perfect set of circumstances to justify their nature so we can have indeed, war is bad, robots are rad setting.
And while the books often don't have protagonists changing the entire face of known Space, that's ironically left for actual politicians to do. It does have plenty of stories of individual warriors altering history in their own little way. The drama that a warrior can cause. The grit. The fierce nature as man or woman fight against all odds, only made more compelling because the setting is not afraid to rip off any plot armor from someone and give them the classic 'your face explodes' treatment. But in the end it still has that story of True Grit can win. A fantasy.
All i want is a huge robot, huge explosions, good looking girls and a quest for glory. In short
Yes
And holly shit i did not know that zeta outline lmao. That hilarious
You dig giant robots
I dig giant robots
We dig giant robots
Chicks dig giant robots
this is really excellent work, thank you
Battle tech kinda made this obvious by saying mech only became a thing because destroying a planet with nukes is fine for politics until you need an economy.
BT literally runs on the gentlemans agreement that we'll all duke it out on the ground with mechs becaus eif we fight in space with ships and ASF, people die to damn often. Like to the point that when Clans are competing and start "bidding down", the first thing to go is air forces because... mech vs mech and everyone walks away. Second ASFs show up, people start dying.
Gurren Lagann specifically states that "the human form is the one most capable of using spiral energy" so there is that.
hey just wanted to say the production quality and the overall flow of the video is very good, great job!
The masculine urge to commune with the blessed machine spirit. The machine spirit has known their position! FIRE!
Hail the Omnissiah
The only gundam series that gets the lore behind the humanoid robots right is wing. It’s like episode 12, the gist of it is they thought the populace would be more willing to submit to big ass robots than tanks.
That's still dumb, and the entire plot of Wing is dumb. I've watched it probably 5 times over and the story is pretty much just gibberish when you pick it apart. Best mech designs by far though.
Nope, the original Gundam did justify with the giant humanoid mechs; Zeon needs sturdier warmachine to go against Federation battleships
Fax
You know that there's a lot of women who like Gundam, right? It's not just a male fantasy.
Aren’t women are more interested in the characters (especially Char) than the mecha?
@sacktheargonian you might think so, but the girls who like mecha stuff i know are just as interested in the robots themselves as the dudes who like mecha
its been said that at the start of the gundam franchise, fan mail and irl fan gatherings were majority girls, and they were a bigger driving force to to franchise than selling gunpla kits
I had the same thought, but I think that the title is mostly bait
The constant argument of whether Mechs would be practical is why I love Titanfall so much.
Titans (the mechs of Titanfall) started off like most machinery, being used for hard labor, constructions, shipbreaking, etc.
But then after some absolute unit of a Corporate Worker decided to bonk someone over the head with his crappy mech, the corporations of the universe realized they could militarize the Titans.
So then they strapped a bunch of weapons to them, gave them the ability to be dropped in from orbit, and essentially reinvented the word “Blitzkrieg” by using them.
Thats not to mention the Pilots of these mechs are also badass. They aren’t just guys who are certified to pilot Titans, they are instead some of the most elite soldiers in the world cybernetically augmented and given some of the coolest equipment so they can keep up with their own mechs and do all sorts of wacky things on the battlefield
Robotics;Notes is one of the most underrated Mecha Anime, and one of many things I find fascinating about it is how in universe the conventional Giant Robot design isn't actually practical but the and the main Heroine's obsession with bringing her favorite Anime to life is utterly irrational.
“It’s almost as if the obsession with Mecha is fantasy, and not thought out speculative futurism”
Woah... it's almost as if Mecha enthusiasts are into it for fun and not military realism, like how LOTR or Skyrim fans are into it for the lore, magic and characters rather than the politics and realism of a fantasy world. There's a category for this: (Speculative) Milsim.
Next you're going to start questioning why feminine knights in a majority (like, 99%) of fantasy anime wear extremely skimpy armor that realistically provides little to no protection. Or, why so many weapons in fantasy media tend to make little practical sense in terms of design or function. Appeal and fun.
Battletech does what it can to remain quite realistic, however. A majority of the powerful equipment and weapons that can be mounted on BattleMechs can also be mounted on BattleTanks and other BattleVehicles, creating superior traditional combat vehicles like you've said that *should* be done. Hell, MechWarrior games traditionally has the realistic mechanic of needing to pay your communication bills to ComStar so that you aren't cut off from the rest of the network and stranded, being the game's equivalent of a Technical Game Over. Alongside needing to repair and maintain your BattleMechs and other equipment, which is another expense, to ensure combat effectiveness and survivability.
My male power fantasy is for the phrase "male power fantasy" to be banned.
I think considering the culture of the author is important, and I'll use an example to show exactly what I mean.
I had the culture difference explained this way. Americans see weapons as tools, and the better tool wins the fight. The Japanese see weapons as an extension of the wielder, and the better soldier wins the fight.
This can be seen in our video games. I've selected some specific games to illustrate the point, but by no means do I claim that all games follow these trends. Americans who create shooters make Call of Duty, a game where the soldier you play is tangential to the weapon you wield. Japanese developers who make shooters made Vanquish, a game where the weapon usedbis tangential to the soldier who wields it.
From what little I know of it, I think the concept of the weapon becoming an extension of the will of the user is perfectly encapsulated within Mecha anime.
Gundam also exemplifies this, as Gundams are specific advanced mobile suits made to order for specific pilots by arms manufacturing companies, while the common suits that Zeon use are mass produced mobile suits
The Earth Federation Government can afford to pay massive sums to the arms manufacturing companies to produce Gundams, Zeon and the poor side colonies can not and must instead rely on overwhelming force and guerilla warfare
im not done the video but i wanna say that Eureka.Seven's nirvash is quite literally the embodiment of the entire theme of the story between nature and human involvement. Its quite literally the symbiosis that the creators clearly wanted the viewer to achieve
I know little about mecha beyond Evangelion, but that's a compelling thesis.
You could even say, a cruel angel's thesis
First bit brings up a good point. Anyone have any series in mind where contemporary armor isn't rendered obsolete by the setting's mecha? I can think of:
Dougram
Front Mission
GitS: Stand Alone Complex
If we leave anime, I think Brigador has done some of the best excuse making for mecha, and puts them in balance with other forms of vehicle.
Being able to put sensors and weapons up high but also duck behind cover in urban environments does start to make it make sense.
I would add Armored Troopers Votoms, the mechas there can be killed by other vehicles rather easy if not careful
Strictly speaking, In Gundam 0079, the EFSF pushing Zeon off earth during Operation Odessa was almost exclusively conventional arms (tanks, aircraft, infantry, and land battleships with 20in guns) It's been a retcon over the years to sell more model kits and sidestories to add wide and wider supplies of MS to the EFSF at or before this point in the timeline. (Watched the Char backstory OVA a while ago, now we've got mass produced Guncannons as far back as 76 on the moon fighting Zaku 1s)
@Nikarus2370 Lorewise yeah, thats a good point, the Federation DID hold out for the first half of the war without MS. I just mean what's actually depicted. Like, I don't remember Votoms ever encountering issues from anything than other mecha, and the same goes for Mobile Suits.
BattleTech
This was actually super interesting to watch on my drunken Sunday morning
One time in a Barnes and Noble as a child, I got into a discussion with some other kids about how Gundam is unrealistic. A few minutes in, a real life version of The Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons showed up and asserted that it had nothing to do with realism because the point was to transform the pilots into heroic samurai.
He was of course correct, and it stuck with me.
Much later, I heard Gundam called part of the "Real Robot" genre and was deeply confused.
Theres a lot good points and analysis in this video, but i think another avenue to exploee is the transhumanist themes of some mecha media. some crossover with cyberpunk in that sense, emphasizing the use of engineering and technology to overcome human limitations. The idea that we are more than flesh. Witch from Mercury and Evangelion tackle this more than the UC timeline, and these are what got me into the genre in the first place.
I see Mecha is the plot device that allows the characters (regardless of gender) to engage in the story on a level playing field. It’s like magic in Harry Potter and card games in Yu-Gi-Oh. I also need to point out the Gundam NT1 in the thumbnail is piloted by a woman. I thought there was going to be some mention of women pilots in this ‘male fantasy’ genre.
You will find male characters in a romcom or a drama series but the focus will obviously be on the main female characters, because it's a "female fantasy" genre. Same logic applies in reverse in this case.
@@dragonandavatarfan8865 You’re absolutely right. The image from the thumbnail is from Gundam: War in the Pocket. The main character is a 10 year old boy but he doesn’t pilot the Gundam, his neighbor does. (She’s a girl) I just think it’s ironic, the title of the video is juxtaposed with Mecha I know is piloted by a woman. I want to know if it was intentional.
@@toonboy222 I doubt it, probably just picked it because it looks cool with a mobile suit and a zaku staring at each other.
Interesting video, I especially liked the editing, mixing anime with real warfare footage. Great job!
Dude, that fuckin "balls of steel" line was some peak level script-writing. First video I've seen of yours and an instant subscribe.
You should give dougram a try it's way different and the main characters have high stake and Cooperation for win
It does sound promising
I have no major issues with the video (I just kind of think its tepid tbh) but I think it's cringe to talk about "mecha" in such a vague sense only to effectively talk about just Gundam here. The genre and the appeal to mecha existed prior to Gundam and even after it came out there are still many works that aren't particularly inspired by Gundam and its militaristic approach to "giant robots being cool and fighting".
I think this pretty broadly applies to real robots anime, and I think is still a useful lens through which to view super robot material
@@TheBellmanIt’s more of a better comparison to have Super Robots compared to Superheroes generally.
Mecha are attractive for emotional and illogical reasons. They're anthropomorphic: you can project onto them, where you can't a tank. They do reclaim some glory of the light infantry. They're also neo-knights, and are often treated identically. Extremely expensive armor, elaborate training, an air of nobility to them. The most famous mecha is obviously the RX-78-2 Gundam, and it literally has a Shogun helmet. They're cavalry knights. They make the horrors of sci-fi war romantic and heroic. Nothing proves this more than when one pulls out a lightsaber.
So glad this got recommended to me
Would love to see more dissections like this 🤘🏽
For me mecha (and combat vehicles in general) were a projection of a real life desire (of something I lacked). So many of these shows and movies start with a civilian protagonist somehow ending up in the cockpit and kicking ass. Sure, to get better he/she needs to train, but without te vehicle you can't even begin training. This was my doctrine to life, talent/material prerequisite first, practice second. If my brain is naturally smart then I will use it to do math. Someone who's not a math person can't become one by doing a lot of math. My parents believed the exact opposite. You don't start with anything, you pay/put in work first then recieve (the martial arts fantasy plotline). They don't believe in the "breakthrough jumpstart" represented by the mecha show scenario I mentioned earlier. So I spent most of my life missing something crucial to making me feel safe, and I went deeper and deeper into mechanized military fantasies. Not superpowers, beating things up, sword fighting etc. Just piloting a mech, tank or fighter plane.
Talks about real robot anime making tanks and planes obsolete. Shows Gundam, where they specifically are not, in a scene where an SPG is taken out because of an air craft which was using a mobile suit to let it function like an AC-130.
I feel like.. after the first 12 seconds I might be doing myself a disservice to continue watching the video. I don't know how you could so precisely choose one of the best moments to showcase how combined arms warfare is still a major part of ground combat in Gundam even decades after the introduction of mecha to their setting's battlefields, while specifically talking about how the very concept has been left in the dust by anime.
Not really what this video is about (people doing "tactical analyses" of mecha is done to death) but thank you for your engagement. To be honest I just liked the cut of the little feddie ATGM position.
Everyone is allowed to enjoy this. This doesn’t belong to just boys.
Mecha like superheroes and Jedi are modern myth that serve the same role as past myths and epic literature. Just like Gilgamesh, the Illiad, Beowulf, the Song of Roland, and King Arthur the role of epics was to provide an example of what a warrior is, how he should behave, and what his role in society is, it's to be an example either positive or negative of what virtues a culture's warriors should embody and what lines should not be crossed in warfare. As part of every epic was that each character had a scene where they got to show their prowess on the battlefield and as part of that they would demonstrate a notable feature either physically or morally that set them apart from the other heroes/characters. The same thing is done in modern myths with each superhero or mecha pilot given a chance to show how badass they are each in their own unique way. Soldiers/warriors need role models even more than most professions, because without a good example of what it means to wield lethal power in a morally responsible manner you have people doing terrible, inhumane things to each other. By humanizing the fantasy of warfare, epics try to humanize the reality of warfare and provide an image of what is allowable in war and what the goal of a noble warrior should be that is indelible enough to govern human passion when it is most strained so as to prevent the abuse of lethal force.
Very well thought out
An idea clicked in my head after binging some of your videos in the past month, and this video made it clear.
Most modern anime (and related works from Japan) are made by people who do not understand conflict.
By this generation, gone are the people who grew up during the hard post-WW2 and Cold War years. Gone is a strong word, but I'm guessing that (like with every industry) a lot of people working in the anime industry nowadays are under 50. Japan, like most developed countries, has not faced large-scale violent conflict in a long time. They may study conflict and violence in an academic and philosophical sense, but they do not have the innate understanding of people who grew up as internally displaced peoples, victims of and/or forced participants to violent acts, sons and daughters of parents who are so deeply hurt that they continue to be in survival mode even in times of peace, or sons and daughters who themselves are continuously in survival mode because there is no peace and stability. They are so removed from large-scale conflict that they cannot make sense of it.
Good for them, I say. Large-scale conflict is horrendous. It gives you wounds that are so deep, your children inherit the scars.
But by being so far removed from conflict, their fiction (sometimes, non-fiction even) have very shallow ideas of such phenomena. Modern anime labeled as "political and serious" often say things that are no deeper than "war bad," "racism bad," or "justice system flawed." Ironically, modern anime which advocate such things often have the opposite effect. Anime which say "war bad" often "drama-fy" violence because of the emotionally charged voice acting needed for such material. "Racism bad" anime often have main characters whose genetics give them powers unique to their clan or race or some bullshit. Those that want to reveal the flaws of the justice system often use ultra-contrived devices that end up unrecognizable from the very thing that they intend to criticize.
I think they see conflict existing in a vacuum, that it exists and stands by itself, that it could be resolved by just putting a stop to the conflict. However, true conflict is intersectional. The factory worker who machined the bolt of a gun experiences conflict together with the soldier who fires the gun itself. The farmer who threshes and winnows the wheat seeds experiences conflict together with the infantryman who is eating his rations in his foxhole. The teacher teaching students miles behind the frontline experiences conflict together with the SF operator scouring foreign documents for troop placement and logistics. When a nation goes to war, is subjected to an invasion, or rises up in revolution, the entire population goes to war with the armed forces. As the armed forces suffer, so too do the people.
Very few anime recognize this intersectionality of conflict. I can only name three on top of my head that I've seen (although I'm sure that there are more):
1. Legend of the Galactic Heroes - This is a given. Although primarily a space-battle anime, LoGH shows how the people are affected by an interstellar conflict that has gone on for more than a century.
2. Kemono no Souja Erin - The MC may have a "genetic power," but she does not stop a long-standing war by herself. She was but one instrument. Conflict was resolved through diplomacy that was the effort of many people. Not coincidentally, this was written by an actual ethnologist/anthropologist who understood power dynamics between different peoples. Also, this was written for children. CHILDREN. We often do not give much reverence to the intelligence of children, but they understand a lot of things even early in their lives.
3. Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans - For all its flaws, it is one of the few Gundams which was overtly intersectional. Kudelia becoming the "maiden of the revolution" through the Dort Colonies, in the process shedding her naive ideals about equality, diplomacy, and working "within the system." Biscuit's relationship with his older brother and the sacrifices needed for revolution. Kudelia's and Orga's efforts to provide a future for the Tekkadan and Martian children that was not "joining a PMC and/or selling your body to a corporation." A lot of the future-proof methods that the main cast did to resolve conflict was to actually build a future for them to look forward to---something that can't be done through the "Alaya-Vijnana System" or with "Nano-lemonade Armor."
Most Gundam shows actually are intersectional, but they are not as overt about it as IBO. The "Hathaway" movie, for example, used its Jollibee and Philippines scenes to show the scope at which conflict occurs at. The few frames of the Jollibee worker being revealed as a Mafty supporter/operative turned the silly marketing stunt by Jollibee into a look at the breadth and composition of Mafty's supporters. AoT is also intersectional, but more so on history and "generational sins" instead of focusing on human material existence. Patlabor is intersectional, and is one of the few anime which succeeds in revealing the flaws of Japanese society without using ultra-contrived plot devices, but it zeroes in on the Japanese experiences, which probably someone from the West doesn't understand immediately. Hell, Ghibli films which deal with war and violent conflict are HIGHLY intersectional, but some are not so overt about it, others---very.
What most Japanese creatives don't understand (I think) is that conflict is a result, not necessarily the cause. Wars are fought because of resources. Revolutions are waged because of unfair treatment of citizens. Conflict cannot be resolved through an OP teenager making a speech mid-battle, and then all is forgiven. Conflict isn't done by killing the "big bad" and suddenly the "minions" are released from mind-control. Conflict can't be resolved by a magical Tetris T-block revolving around the Earth, and confessing to your rival moments before your mutual demise that your common love-interest "could have been a mother to you," (What did Tomino mean by this?).
There are ways that conflict is resolved. Some are ideal, some are not. I'm on the camp that "restorative justice" is needed to prevent future conflicts as much as possible, but I know that that is the textbook definition of naivety. But conflict sure isn't resolved the way that most anime and manga writers think it can be.
Damn, I ain't reading all that.
There's a couple other Manga where the author seems to have read enough history to at least attempt to grasp this. Golden Kamuy, Gunslinger Girl, and Groundless are the ones that spring to mind.
But they always feel like they are pretty detached from the topic, yea.
I really wonder how this will change as Japan's military and security posture is forced to shift in the coming years
>T-Block
The biggest flaw in Tomino's Gundam post 0079 is that he wants to portray a solution to the problems he is articulating but there is no real solution.
Gundam itself revolves around the core principle that war has been made completely unnecessary by the fact that literal magical psychics exist and have the ability to communicate telepathically, something that is covered up by the Earth Federation Government and the arms manufacturers who create all of the weapons used by both sides of the conflict.
In fact the Earth Government starts doing medical experiments on people to turn them into cybernetically enhanced humans who perform as well as Newtypes, called Cyber-Newtypes, for the sole purpose of prolonging and continuing the war to further enrich Earth's inhabitants.
Zeon did nothing wrong
Good shit as always, Bellman.
In Battletech/Mechwarrior, the primary reason mechs exist is largely to prevent the glassing of entire worlds through the spectacle of 4-12 several ton robots punching the crap out of one another. This was done in part (a very VERY small part) to save entire unique cultures of people that would populate planets under siege, but mostly done in the attempt to save infrastructure, workforce, and industrial base, because at one point adolescent spats of "I know you are but what am I" were resolved in the megatons.
This video is a little too reductive. I feel you have touched on some good points, but ultimately drew some incorrect conclusions which would be changed with a better understanding of military history and culture. Not trying to dismiss your opinions; this is definitely one side of the debate. Talking about Gundams only would make this a more accurate thesis, but speaking about Mecha as a genre in its entirety leads to too many gaps between your conclusions and reality.
there is no feasible reason why you would make a gigantic walking target that is a nightmare for logistics and maintenance other then ''because its cool as fuck''.
Armored trooper Votoms is A LOT more grounded with its AT's, with them being MUCH smaller then any gundam or even armored core, being roughly the size of a titan from titanfall.
They are fast, maneuverable but are also glass cannons. Titanfall is also more ''feasible'' again because of their smaller size and high dexterity and maneuverability.
Agreed. The most realistic version is something like a powered exoskeleton, shading into something about the size of a modern-day tank (but standing vertically instead of horizontally). My personal explanation goes something like this:
Step 1: drones and increasingly-cheap guided munitions makes anything more than a few units into targets, so there's a premium on packing as much capability into as small a package as possible. Fast-moving, small-unit tactics centred around calling in fires becomes the order of the day.
Step 2: with small units running into each other all over the battlefield, being able to bring organic armour and firepower to the fight is suddenly very important. Small vehicles, powered armour and such make an appearance in a big way, with the added advantage that they give the infantry-man access to a bunch of extra sensors, cuing systems and so on.
Step 3: improvements in power storage mean that battlefield laser weapons are finally feasible, and they are murder for any un-protected infantry or aircraft in line of sight. Our proto mech suits are now maturing into a dominant battlefield weapon, able to move fast, hit fast and call in fires at an incredible pace. Warfare begins to revolve around lightning campaigns where the advantage goes to the fastest-moving, hardest-hitting, best-sensing side.
Step 4: the battlefield stabilizes around a new normal, with mech suits reaching a plateau of size and capability (my guess is around 10m tall maximum, with these being rarities or niche units). Other weapon systems (tanks, strike aircraft, helicopters) hang around, but are confined to niches that suit their particular advantages. Long-range fires are still a central component of warfare, with land warfare increasingly resembling the late 20th-century surface naval paradigm of fast-moving, hard-hitting, vulnerable units working together in complementary system-of-systems type configurations.
Mobile Suits also started out as Mobile Pods like the Ball whose whose arms replicated human movement. The humanoid shape was to give more room for engines, thrusters and armor while retaining ANBAC movement. Also they experimented with all sorts of designs for Mobile Armor, including crabs (see Val Varo)
As for "power" Mobile Suits were modelled after the fighters and torpedo bombers in World War II naval combat - smaller, faster and lighter than large capital ships, but with weapons that can cause considerable damage.
Become Crab. Sick video btw its nice to see others that enjoyed gasaraki