State of the Mecha Genre

[Henyo]

recently, the line "MECHA IS DEAD" has been getting quite the attention.

what are your takes on this statement? personally it more in decline than actually dead. we do get a new mecha show every season and now(Granbelm is the last original show i can recall) mecha in other mediums should also be considered. that said, anyone knows how many mecha genre have been made in printed media?

[Seto Kaiba]

recently, the line "MECHA IS DEAD" has been getting quite the attention.

what are your takes on this statement?

Mecha is not dead.

Mecha is just stagnant as f*ck... and it's mostly Gundam's fault.

You see, the Gundam franchise is the metaphorical 800lb gorilla of the genre. It was a groundbreaking title at the time it debuted and for a good decade afterwards, and did a lot to codify what the mecha genre was. It was an enormous money-spinner for Sunrise and its merchandising partners from a fairly early point. The studio got greedy and things like artistic statements and originality took a back seat to maintaining the Gundam revenue stream with new sequels, spinoffs, and merchandising tie-ins as fast as they could make them. So they flooded the market by releasing at least one new series every bloody year. The fans may have been happy, but general audiences were quickly burned out on the endless parade of minor variations on the same old story where the only question is what we're calling Not!Amuro, Not!Char, and Not!Zeon this year.

With Gundam being the face of the genre thanks to its incredibly prolific production rate, nobody wants to be that guy whose show is running opposite Gundam. You're just not going to win that fight for viewership. That would be like, a few years back, running opposite Game of Thrones or having the same opening weekend with Harry Potter.

Gundam's dominance of the genre and profound lack of innovation mean that the genre is largely synonymous with Gundam's core tropes of an angsty teen in a samey war story invincibly stomping all over every enemy he meets. It's not a picture that really captures the imagination. It's a no-win scenario for dealing with investors too, since deviating from Gundam's tired formula is seen as risky. If you're trying to pitch a NEW property, well, it might be a bridge too far, especially given how narrow profits margins are.

Reviving the mecha genre means we need an artistic renaissance. We need creators and investors willing to get out there and try doing something different. Something that will add interest and capture imaginations, instead of just blindly following the same old formula.

[Chris]

recently, the line "MECHA IS DEAD" has been getting quite the attention.

The "mecha is dead" argument is tired, and old, and I absolutely hate it, mainly because it's always the cry of clueless Westerners. Mecha has always been around and will always have a fan base, but what gets made changes over time as fan bases change. Yes, you have anime mainstays like Gundam and Macross, but also tokusatsu stuff like Super Sentai, which still cranks out shows on a yearly basis.

The issue that drives sentiments like "mecha is dead" and similar ideas in other entertainment media is "It's not what I wanted, therefore it's bad and dead." You see the same stuff from people in fandoms like Transformers, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. There is definitely a loud minority of Western fans who are just stuck in the 80s when mecha anime TV shows, movies, and OVAs were a dime a dozen. But that was a blip in history due to Japan's bubble economy in the 80s. That time is over and it's never going to come again, but that's fine.

[MythSearcher]

recently, the line "MECHA IS DEAD" has been getting quite the attention.

what are your takes on this statement? personally it more in decline than actually dead. we do get a new mecha show every season and now(Granbelm is the last original show i can recall) mecha in other mediums should also be considered. that said, anyone knows how many mecha genre have been made in printed media?

The last original mecha show is Obsolete, if you do not count Shinkalion's film.(both in Dec, 2019)
If you have not watched Obsolete, I highly recommend it. Hardcore realistic military mecha with the only fantasy part being you get the blackbox mecha core by trading 1000kg of stone with unseen aliens.
It is Gasaraki without the boring dance.(See the staff list and you will know the relation of the two shows)

Other than anime, you also get a lot of original models. Kotobukiya's Hexagear, for example, has a pretty detailed background settings.
You also get strange things like Amodeus: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07YB46ZFN
(The maker, M.I. Modele is a newer challenger)

If you do not limit it to original, you also get Shin Sakura Taisen(New Sakura Wars)
Not that I recommend watching it, I haven't watch it but the game itself is a mess and unfinished when it was released. They seriously need a lock on system because flying units are very hard to gauge the right distance with melee units since the flying unit have random sizes and you cannot pick the unit you are using, they added a lock function in a later release but that was after most die hard fans who bought the game at release already finished the game most having very bad experience. Also consider the original Sakura Wars series was a board tactical SLG game which requires tactics but the new game is a hack & slash that required little brain cells but a lot of reflexes that the growing old fan base is losing because of age. Not that I have fast reflexes to begin with. Also, 2/3 of the game's battles are pretty much like tutorial and they expected the players to like the game enough to replay the battles with different characters in a simulator. And seriously the "Oh no, what is my hand doing" joke is dead by the third time you deliberately choose to get near the bathroom while a girl is known to be bathing.
Also they choose to abandon the steam punk looking mecha for the new smartphone game and use steampunk mecha girls instead. I mean I know I like girls with mecha armour, I am playing Alice Gear Aegis and have built models of 4 Megami Device, waiting for delivery for another 3 and have over 14 Busou Shinki, but New Sakura Wars world view in the 1940's with record of using mechas just sounds strange to have a step back to power loader models.(I have no problem if it happens in a different world view)

In the doujin area you still get a lot of mecha designers doing their own work.

Enough ranting, but I don't think mecha is dead, it makes sense if they can sell models without making an anime, why spend lots of money making the anime? It is not like 70s~90s where you are limited to using TV as the only visual advertisement media, people now have access to the internet and news spread pretty fast, things that look cool will be spread by itself sooner or later, you really don't have to spend millions to create an anime as a comercial anymore, especially when it is getting harder to collect revenue from anime(people are not as willing to pay for DVDs)
Mecha girls, on the other hand do not necessaily get into the modelling business. Aforementioned Alice Gear Aegis does not have many characters with models, the Megami Device collabaration didn't even have one of the two supposed heroine(the one on the logo and title screen and has the story surrounding her) but out of the 4 with models, the one that is definitely a supporting character already has a different colour pending to be released this month and the model isn't even the original armour she used in the game, she gets the original armour back in the March release instead(which is blatantly a shout out to GP03, seriously) She also gets her own Desktop Army collaboration, so I guess she is just that popular. I guess an otaku girl loving mecha and yuri with the addition of being a big breasted Lolita AND using an energy sniper which is easiestly the best weapon in game along with a skill that gives you the ability to spam ranged melee attacks as a sniper does gain many population. (Hey, she's also my main unit because of the ease of use and enjoyable personality, so I'm not complaining.)

The "mecha is dead" argument is tired, and old, and I absolutely hate it, mainly because it's always the cry of clueless Westerners. Mecha has always been around and will always have a fan base, but what gets made changes over time as fan bases change. Yes, you have anime mainstays like Gundam and Macross, but also tokusatsu stuff like Super Sentai, which still cranks out shows on a yearly basis.

The issue that drives sentiments like "mecha is dead" and similar ideas in other entertainment media is "It's not what I wanted, therefore it's bad and dead." You see the same stuff from people in fandoms like Transformers, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. There is definitely a loud minority of Western fans who are just stuck in the 80s when mecha anime TV shows, movies, and OVAs were a dime a dozen. But that was a blip in history due to Japan's bubble economy in the 80s. That time is over and it's never going to come again, but that's fine.

On the other hand the "Anime is dying" argument is put forth by many anime industry people, including Hideaki Anno and Yoshitoo Asari.(I do kinda recall Tomino saying something similar but not sure) Pretty convincing since the two I listed attacked the problem on two different fronts and not talking about what anime should be but how the industry is being abused by sponsors and bad practice from some producers.

[Henyo]

Stuffs

i read on ANN that obsolete has animation issues. or are those along the lines of "CG then its automatically bad"

i watched a complete playthrough of the Shin Sakura Taisen game(YO!!! VIDEOGAMES!!!) it was fine for the most part. the characters were okay too(not the type to pick a waifu. i go by the reipu them all principle. ) the anime is a nice watch and is a direct sequel to the events of the anime. seems to be setting up for future Shin sequels. just disappointed that they didn't do anything about the subplot of the original team's being stuck in the other dimension.

going back to that youtuber, the person also made the statement that gunpla is for the hardcore fans only. and i saw a mecha FB group posting about Pewdiepie(could care less about this bloke) making a gunpla and saying he has never, and wont watch a gundam anime. thats something huh?

The recent statements that Tomino made that i recall is about the anime movie Your name's relationship ,and essentially most other romance story, ending on getting together. The Gundam man basically wants to see the later parts of it and this of course made others say that Tomino is just bitter about other peeps current success in the field.


the other one is about series like Kancolle and Girls und Panzer and them making..uh what was it again...ah yes. we can you use that! those animes makes weapons of war look cool!!! that people forget what those weapons cause in real life and things along the hose lines.

[Seto Kaiba]

[...] going back to that youtuber, the person also made the statement that gunpla is for the hardcore fans only. [...]

Eh... well, not from a western perspective.

From a Japanese perspective, however, there is some meat on the bones of that particular assertion. Production of anime is done on razor-thin margins and because most anime with mature topics is banished to late night time slots it's very difficult (often borderline impossible) for a series to get high-enough viewership to recoup production costs on advertising revenue alone. The vast majority of TV anime depends on the revenue from fans buying its merch to break even and start turning a profit.

Casual fans tend to only buy the little stuff like cell phone straps and various small and inexpensive character goods that have a small profit margin. It's hardcore fans who are the big spenders willing to pay those premium prices for the series on home video and collectibles like plamodels, model kits, toys, character statues, and other such goods. That's where the REAL money is for these shows. Japan's obsession with the words "Limited Edition" and "Exclusive" figure heavily in the market model. Small-batch limited editions let them jack up the price to maximize profits at first sale, store-specific exclusive extras let them twist fans arms into buying the same product at several different stores, and the limited edition nature lets them repackage the product and make them do it all over again a couple years down the road to get their hands on a new set of exclusives and special features. Having a bunch of different minor variations on a design allows toy, plamodel, and kit makers to minimize costs and maximize profits by casting many "different" products from a single set of molds or slight variations on the same model.

(Part of the reason that collecting goods is more of a "hardcore" fan thing in Japan is that living space is smaller, on average, so there's less room in any given home to store collectibles.)

[MythSearcher]

i read on ANN that obsolete has animation issues. or are those along the lines of "CG then its automatically bad"

i watched a complete playthrough of the Shin Sakura Taisen game(YO!!! VIDEOGAMES!!!) it was fine for the most part. the characters were okay too(not the type to pick a waifu. i go by the reipu them all principle. :D) the anime is a nice watch and is a direct sequel to the events of the anime. seems to be setting up for future Shin sequels. just disappointed that they didn't do anything about the subplot of the original team's being stuck in the other dimension.

going back to that youtuber, the person also made the statement that gunpla is for the hardcore fans only. and i saw a mecha FB group posting about Pewdiepie(could care less about this bloke) making a gunpla and saying he has never, and wont watch a gundam anime. thats something huh?

The recent statements that Tomino made that i recall is about the anime movie Your name's relationship ,and essentially most other romance story, ending on getting together. The Gundam man basically wants to see the later parts of it and this of course made others say that Tomino is just bitter about other peeps current success in the field.


the other one is about series like Kancolle and Girls und Panzer and them making..uh what was it again...ah yes. we can you use that! those animes makes weapons of war look cool!!! that people forget what those weapons cause in real life and things along the hose lines.

Obsolete is actually pretty good for rendering the CG into a more natural 2D-like style, the only thing is they might have overdone it, and some characters seems to be a bit rough on the edges, more like draft pencil work coloured than anime quality firm lines.
I personally can understand the "CG then its automatically bad" argument. 3D characters aren't always rendered correctly and harder still, naturally. But I can see the industry has improved a lot and is definitely getting better.

About gunpla being for hardcore fans, obviously the person doesn't even know Gundam fans are separated into many categories, many modellers of gunpla don't even watch the anime at all. This applies to pretty much at least all of east and south Asia, from Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan to at least Singapore and Thailand.
Gunpla is a pretty standard present given by adults to boys, especially when they are not sure what they interest are.
Typical stereotyping boys must like giant robots, build models, the bigger the better! Under such culture, it is no surprise that many do like these things growing up.(and of course most run into another stereotyped culture of "grown ups do not play toys" so the interest stops or get hidden sometime they get into high school)

(Part of the reason that collecting goods is more of a "hardcore" fan thing in Japan is that living space is smaller, on average, so there's less room in any given home to store collectibles.)

Long running joke of true hardcore fans behaviour in Japan: Buy 3 sets of everything, 1 for use/to play with/read/watch, 1 for lending to friends to spread the gospel and 1 for keeping as a collection item/back-up. One can buy 4 to separate the back-up item.

And I live in HK, I know how living space is small.(Many with smaller than 5m^2/person and 30m^2/person is consider luxurious[appartments of 30~50m^2 will be sold as a lower end luxurious home.])

[Seto Kaiba]

Long running joke of true hardcore fans behaviour in Japan: Buy 3 sets of everything, 1 for use/to play with/read/watch, 1 for lending to friends to spread the gospel and 1 for keeping as a collection item/back-up. One can buy 4 to separate the back-up item.

Half the reason it's so funny is because it's so often true... though to a certain extent it's those fans trying to justify having bought three or four copies of a given light novel, manga volume, etc. to collect all the different extras the book comes with that are exclusive to a particular chain retailer. Collectible bookmarks, art cards, and the various other little extras are a big draw for hardcore fans and puts a lot of stress on bookstore and other retail employees (since that stuff comes packaged separately and they have to pack them together themselves, usually by hand). It drives retailers insane, but it makes a LOT of money for the IP owners... money they need, because of those razor-thin margins they have to operate under.

[MythSearcher]

Half the reason it's so funny is because it's so often true... though to a certain extent it's those fans trying to justify having bought three or four copies of a given light novel, manga volume, etc. to collect all the different extras the book comes with that are exclusive to a particular chain retailer. Collectible bookmarks, art cards, and the various other little extras are a big draw for hardcore fans and puts a lot of stress on bookstore and other retail employees (since that stuff comes packaged separately and they have to pack them together themselves, usually by hand). It drives retailers insane, but it makes a LOT of money for the IP owners... money they need, because of those razor-thin margins they have to operate under.

I always hated how they have different premium items at different stores. Especially because I have no way of buying them and I hate buying the same thing twice. I did acidentally bought a few novels twice on amazon.jp before, thus I loved their new feature that it will now tell me I've bought that product before or the product is already in my kart and the number is added as 2, but I never diliberately buy the same thing twice for collectibles even for a series I am a big fan of.
But the joke existed before they have widespread products like this and you can probably only buy the limited edition and the regular version at the time. I suspect the joke comes from people who will buy more copies for resale, but since it is loathed upon, they will claim it is for such collection reasons.

[MythSearcher]

Deca Dence is kinda mecha.
At least a giant moving castle that has giant hands punching monsters is Super Robot mecha genre enough.
(you can also see a lot of other mecha tropes in it)

[Henyo]

Deca Dence is kinda mecha.
At least a giant moving castle that has giant hands punching monsters is Super Robot mecha genre enough.
(you can also see a lot of other mecha tropes in it)

How did the show go? i dropped it around episode 7 or 8. there wasnt something missing there for me.

here's something to consider, if the mecha genre is dead then why do other shows/mangas what have you makes references to OLD mecha shows. i think that nice quote was from one piece. someone truly dies when they are forgotten..or something like that.

[MythSearcher]

How did the show go? i dropped it around episode 7 or 8. there wasnt something missing there for me.

here's something to consider, if the mecha genre is dead then why do other shows/mangas what have you makes references to OLD mecha shows. i think that nice quote was from one piece. someone truly dies when they are forgotten..or something like that.

Not bad in recent shows, at least worth watching.
I have problems of the typical "Mind over matter" solution in the final battle, which in itself is kind of a super robot trope thing: no more fuel for you power plant? no fear, because this super robot powers on your hot blood! Don't know if this is considered a spoiler, but happens a lot in super robots that you see it coming. The solution doesn't even fit into the world view that much.
Contrast Eva, losing your power cable but still able to go berserk and beat the crap out of an angel right before you use up all your power is kinda fitting in that world view, your mecha still stop functioning without power, which is more realistic when you talk about having no juice left in your tank very specifically.
However, overall it is still enjoyable.

References are because those references are usually not limited to mecha. A lot of people do not get this, but mechas are characters on their own, you have Amuro as a character, while Gundam is itself another.
So it is perfectly reasonable to see such tropes being used on human characters, because they are essentially the same thing. Fighting out of power? Rephrase it, fighting tired. Shouting out your moves? typical in all fighting shows(in Japan, at least) Slight rephrasing or even directly apply the situations on normal humans or anything you consider a character works pretty much the same way.(easier on some types of character, say, if the character is a robot/cyborg)

"someone truly dies when they are forgotten" is used in many shows, also very common in the other form "s/he still lives in my heart", OP definitely not the first.

[Henyo]

No new mecha this season. Unless you count Senyoku no Sigrdrifa, which to be honest, is basically Ace Combat with moe waifus. and i cant believe i forgot about Tomica Kizuna Gattai Earth Granner from last season. it's a bit more simple that a Yuusha show but i am still enjoying it. the Takeru and Saber plot line could've been better done though.

[MythSearcher]

basically Ace Combat with moe waifus.

Notice Gunbuster(Aim for the Top!) is Top Gun crossed with "Aim for the Ace!"(and they put the Gun part in Gunbuster, I can't believe I didn't notice this until now.)
Noriko, Kazumi and Jung are waifus of that period.
Ace Combat with moe waifus is perfectly valid as a mecha show.

Come to think of it, recently there have been more anime and manga aerial combat with realistic military planes + waifu.(Not all of them are real life aeroplanes but surely designed to have much less Sci-Fi accent to them)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girly_Air_Force
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magnificent_Kotobuki
(Manga only: http://www.comic-ryu.jp/_sarissa/)

Along with Girls und Panzer, Kancole and maybe the more Sci-Fi Appeggio of Blue Steel. The military + waifu genre seems to be getting more and more popular.
(Azurelane originated in China as a Japan-style Gacha game and everyone can see it is copying the success of Kancole only with a different game play, so I am not listing that here, but surely the population of that is due to the same phenomenon.)

Don't know if Strike Witches should be listed as one of these or not, but definitely occupying a similar position only with less mechanic parts and more waifus.

This may have filled the gap of mecha shows, if you consider mecha was basically used to fill the gap of the military genre which is a bit hard to swallow with Japan being a losing country in the WWII and anything made with a clear military theme with real world weapons would be scrutinized and viewed as a resurgence of militarism at least until two decades ago.(Not that they didn't make any, but seldom as light hearted as a waifu show. And most Macross series carry to some degree an anti-war theme and it is still exclusively in the mecha genre.)

[Henyo]

basically Ace Combat with moe waifus.

Notice Gunbuster(Aim for the Top!) is Top Gun crossed with "Aim for the Ace!"(and they put the Gun part in Gunbuster, I can't believe I didn't notice this until now.)
Noriko, Kazumi and Jung are waifus of that period.
Ace Combat with moe waifus is perfectly valid as a mecha show.

Come to think of it, recently there have been more anime and manga aerial combat with realistic military planes + waifu.(Not all of them are real life aeroplanes but surely designed to have much less Sci-Fi accent to them)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girly_Air_Force
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magnificent_Kotobuki
(Manga only: http://www.comic-ryu.jp/_sarissa/)

Along with Girls und Panzer, Kancole and maybe the more Sci-Fi Appeggio of Blue Steel. The military + waifu genre seems to be getting more and more popular.
(Azurelane originated in China as a Japan-style Gacha game and everyone can see it is copying the success of Kancole only with a different game play, so I am not listing that here, but surely the population of that is due to the same phenomenon.)

Don't know if Strike Witches should be listed as one of these or not, but definitely occupying a similar position only with less mechanic parts and more waifus.

This may have filled the gap of mecha shows, if you consider mecha was basically used to fill the gap of the military genre which is a bit hard to swallow with Japan being a losing country in the WWII and anything made with a clear military theme with real world weapons would be scrutinized and viewed as a resurgence of militarism at least until two decades ago.(Not that they didn't make any, but seldom as light hearted as a waifu show. And most Macross series carry to some degree an anti-war theme and it is still exclusively in the mecha genre.)

Girly Air force, lame name aside, is another basically Ace Combat with Moe Waifus. Specifically Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere. the Anima planes is Nemo with anime skins while filling in the 3 "plot" sizes. Senyoku no Sigrdrifa meanwhile is Ace Combat Zero with that one AC game with usable WW2 planes. when i saw that hell dog

i haven't thought about this much, what do the long time mecha fans think of this mecha/moe/waifu mish mash titles? especially the ones with good story or with good potential like Sky Girls.

[MythSearcher]

Girly Air force, lame name aside, is another basically Ace Combat with Moe Waifus. Specifically Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere. the Anima planes is Nemo with anime skins while filling in the 3 "plot" sizes. Senyoku no Sigrdrifa meanwhile is Ace Combat Zero with that one AC game with usable WW2 planes. when i saw that hell dog

i haven't thought about this much, what do the long time mecha fans think of this mecha/moe/waifu mish mash titles? especially the ones with good story or with good potential like Sky Girls.

Can't say too much for others, but I have no problem with this.
If you look at the artists for games like Alice Gear Aegis, designers for model series like Frame Arms Girls and Megami Device, you can see quite some famous designers names in the mecha genre as well, like Yanase Takayuki and Kanetake Ebikawa.
There are people who dislike this, while the opposite also exist.
I am playing an app game called Kantsuku where you have a certain freedom in building your own warships and controlling them in battles(Yes, similar to Warship Gunner, just with much less things to choose from) and I have met both sided of the spectrum, some like to play games like Kancolle and Azurelane, while some stated pretty clear that they hate titles with overwhelming number of girls as its characters. While in the community of the app game Final Gear(Basically an sidescroller with waifus piloting mechas in which you can choose from weapon, upper body, lower body and backpack, there are people who like hardcore mecha and military stuff while some will say "too hardcore" and have no interest in normal mecha shows.

[Ryujin]

Speaking as someone who's been watching giant robot stuff since the early '80's, I have the following to say:

-GuP & Kotobuki are great, especially since Mizushima knows the genres & his Hollywood references well. It's interesting how Kotobuki was analogous to DCS in the first episode, then went the gamut of progressively arcade-y flight sims before ending up full-bore Ace Combat (or maybe Sky Crawlers?), complete with superplanes, aces & tunnel runs, at the end (the first of the canyon runs came up pretty early episode-wise). Also, both shows' audio direction was magic.

-GAF was bad. Putting it against Kotobuki in the same season just made it more obvious, coz plausible dogfighting for the majority of episodes > missiles doing all the work even when it's not BVR. Sigrfrida's been good so far, partly because it knows when to be serious & when to be silly. Inevitably, there'll be comparisons with SW: RtB since both are airing concurrently, but the tones/approach of both shows have been very different so far.

-I was ambivalent about Pantsu Witches at first--Neuroi based on wunderwaffe was what interested me at the time. Eventually the pantsu shots just fade in the background & you just sit back & enjoy Erika's shenanigans. Also, what is still the deal w/the humanoid neuroi plot that was totally dropped in the first episode of s2?

-The KC anime was bad, and the AL anime has the dubious distinction of somehow being worse, even when its last 2 episodes were delayed several months to ensure production 'quality' (let's just paste the game sprites onto the horizon line, do a pan & call it a day, lol).

-KC shipgirl designs, especially the later ones, put a good deal of thought in technical details & historical references. It contrasts with AL designs that go the waifu-pandering route and usually release a whole bunch at a time in a throw-everything-at-a-wall-&-see-what'll-stick approach. Also the occasional case of horizontal-flipping & copypasting KC rigging artwork. The doujinshi numbers at Comiket, for both franchises, in the H/non-H categories are an interesting data point with regards to this.

I am playing an app game called Kantsuku where you have a certain freedom in building your own warships and controlling them in battles(Yes, similar to Warship Gunner, just with much less things to choose from) and I have met both sided of the spectrum, some like to play games like Kancolle and Azurelane, while some stated pretty clear that they hate titles with overwhelming number of girls as its characters.

Have you tried Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts? It's still in Alpha, but play it if you get the opportunity.https://i.imgur.com/SZs0xUt.jpg


Anyways, it's silly how some people go MECHA IS DEAD just because it seems to be absent from the lineup for a season or two. It just means that they're not interested enough in the genre to do like, 5 minutes of googling. The second part of OBSOLETE is in December, Jet Jaguar is returning, there's Dynazenon, PacRim, even MUV-LUV coming soon. And that's not even mentioning the pair of 600-lb. gorillas in the corner. One gets the impression these YouTards have some kind of agenda to push or are being willfully ignorant.

[MythSearcher]

Speaking as someone who's been watching giant robot stuff since the early '80's, I have the following to say:

-GuP & Kotobuki are great, especially since Mizushima knows the genres & his Hollywood references well. It's interesting how Kotobuki was analogous to DCS in the first episode, then went the gamut of progressively arcade-y flight sims before ending up full-bore Ace Combat (or maybe Sky Crawlers?), complete with superplanes, aces & tunnel runs, at the end (the first of the canyon runs came up pretty early episode-wise). Also, both shows' audio direction was magic.

-GAF was bad. Putting it against Kotobuki in the same season just made it more obvious, coz plausible dogfighting for the majority of episodes > missiles doing all the work even when it's not BVR. Sigrfrida's been good so far, partly because it knows when to be serious & when to be silly. Inevitably, there'll be comparisons with SW: RtB since both are airing concurrently, but the tones/approach of both shows have been very different so far.

-I was ambivalent about Pantsu Witches at first--Neuroi based on wunderwaffe was what interested me at the time. Eventually the pantsu shots just fade in the background & you just sit back & enjoy Erika's shenanigans. Also, what is still the deal w/the humanoid neuroi plot that was totally dropped in the first episode of s2?

-The KC anime was bad, and the AL anime has the dubious distinction of somehow being worse, even when its last 2 episodes were delayed several months to ensure production 'quality' (let's just paste the game sprites onto the horizon line, do a pan & call it a day, lol).

-KC shipgirl designs, especially the later ones, put a good deal of thought in technical details & historical references. It contrasts with AL designs that go the waifu-pandering route and usually release a whole bunch at a time in a throw-everything-at-a-wall-&-see-what'll-stick approach. Also the occasional case of horizontal-flipping & copypasting KC rigging artwork. The doujinshi numbers at Comiket, for both franchises, in the H/non-H categories are an interesting data point with regards to this.

Sorry, can't resist this:
Erica Hartmann is also a leading expert in Biological designs and how not to sterilize your dust.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2 ... your-dust/

The KC vs AL, I've seen people criticizing AL's design to have nothing to do with the actual ships, and the clothings don't even match with the country of origin.(like the crown on one of the British ships looks awfully like the crown of the Dutch crown and nothing like the Bristish crown, while the same ship in KC has all the right parts including the sceptre.)

I can see why AL has no heart in it. It is just a Chinese company trying to rake some money following KC's success, and it is obviously taking advantage of KC's server limit(which is stopping people from playing the actual game).

Have you tried Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts? It's still in Alpha, but play it if you get the opportunity.https://i.imgur.com/SZs0xUt.jpg

No, but interested and it has been on my watch/wishlist.
However, I still wanted to play a game like warship gunner, with highly customizable ships, various realistic and unrealistic equipment(also funny ones like flying ducklings and cats). Would be a plus if they somehow have a waifu standing somewhere on my ship doing something, like in the Arppeggio of Blue Steel's mental models.

[Henyo]

Nice discussions~ especially about KanColle and Azur Lane(COME ON KCS2 with Shigure!!! ARRIVE ALREADY!!!) i became VERY interested in Naval stuff because of KC. if theKC arcade game ever gets a English console released i'd get that in a heartbeat. cant get enough of them glorious 3D versions of the shipfus. as for Azur Lane, free to pay player here. 3 years i think. focusing on leveling the Iron Blood faction(DOITSU!!!!) i;ve got all but one of them. and yes that includes the grind fest that is Roon, FDR, Odin and Mainz. if in were to descibe the designs between KC and AL...the latter can be too high on the fanservice. same for the OTHER and forgotten first getting some attention rip off of KC, Warship Girls.

i will give the AL dub a big thumbs up. ACCENTS!!!

speaking of MuvLuv..is it really that great? i've seen a lot of peeps getting hyped with the announcement on TV anime. TBH, the adaptataions i watched, Total eclipse and Schwarzes Marken made me MEH about the franchise. only incentive outside of mechas are the girls. can't exactly say no to doujin materials..

[MythSearcher]

I love how the mecha genre is also getting a lot of attention in China:
https://twitter.com/_MRXu
https://twitter.com/Phoenix_BFB
And I hate it how they still blatantly copy off of others when a lot of their own designs are perfectly validly cool.
They especially love challenging the legal limits(how close to the original can you copy to avoid being sued, or in case being sued, how to get away with it.)I've heard that a company pulled the trick of making a product where the whole thing is almost just a detail up redesign version(like Katoki redeisning Kunio stuff, just without the approval from the copyright owner) but they are selling different head units but not the one that looks like the original. However, the head unit is sold as a separately item by another, much smaller company, suspiciously matching their release dates with semi official fan accounts putting them together before the release as reviews...