What do you think of mecha stories?

[Aader]

A bit overplayed. They tend to be repetitive, but like isekai there is wiggle room for them

 

[LilRora]

I used to think like that too, but slowly i realized our own scientific processes and knowledge of the world can be rather nonsensical too, as well as biased or lacking. For example, i still see many people still stuck in a scientific method mentality in an age of quantum physics. More than half of earth remains unknown to humanity. Not to mention space.

Its amazing how much knowledge can blind us. Just because we grasped a few concepts here and there in the last few centuries, and we have easy access to these pieces of knowledge through books or the internet, as a species we suddenly started acting was if we have full grasp on how reality works, even though there's so so much that remains a mystery to us.

Since, its become much easier to suspend my disbelief when i read these kinds of stories.

I can't really disagree with that, but the issue I have is not if something makes sense. Many things are allowed not to fully makes sense in fiction, both science fiction with all the funky tech and fantasy with magic. The thing is, a lot of times something both doesn't make sense and isn't logical internally, or just somewhat makes sense but falls apart once you ask just a simple question, which is not caused by insufficient knowledge as much as plain failure to create a believable image of the world.

One example is people who don't know or don't care how something really works and try to simplify things only to end up with something stupid. I once read a LitRPG placed in space where the main character woke up with an interface connecting them to a spaceship, and that interface included, for example, hull durability in percents that improved linearly as a nanobot package was applied. I don't know what the author thought doing this, maybe thay had a good reason, but to me it's a virtual number that means absolutely nothing; it's just not possible to simplify something as complex as hull durability into a single number. Noteven considering the next thing.

Another example, this one not related to LitRPGs, a guy gets a suit that supposedly makes him superhuman. It's all fine and dandy because it does, he jumps around like a rabbit, punches holes in concrete, throws people like ragdolls. Then he encounters a night and stumbles around because apparently, whoever designed the shit, didn't have the foresight to include nightvision or thermal vision in a visor that's there either way. And, like... what the heck. Those are examples I encountered in actual stories.

The thing is, those examples aren't necessarily bad stories and they might even be fun to read, and they don't try to exaplain any of the sci-fi technology that makes up their worlds, but their internal logic just... fails. They just pretend they're something without solid foundation, and it shows if someone looks a bit more closely.

And one thing I feel I need to say. I don't want technology in a sci-fi setting to be explained or to completely make sense. I want it to make sense in application, and that often means not trying to explain what's going on, but generally means things got to be consistent and logical internally, on the basic level. That is what a huge amount of stories lacks, and I found it's really prevalent among the relatively popular kinds of stories like isekai, mecha, cyberpunk. The simple "since it's a futuristic story, something like this got to be a given" or "the mecha are very expensive, but they've been found to work best against the beasts" kind of logic, instead of "when monsters emerged, we decided to build huge mecha to fight them becuase apparently normal weapons don't work".

Gawd damn, I'm staying up late now. It just pisses me off.

 

[BigBadBoi]

Mechas as a genre is great but it works best as an anime like gundam, a movie like pacific rim (before the sequel that everyone forgot existed shat on the carpet) or a video game like armored core. Manga and written media just doesn't capture the essence compared to them.

 

[BouncyCactus]

Personally, I don't really like mecha that much. Visually, yea, they are impressive, but, there is little reason, or mecha existed just because, and there is no in-universe explanation for it. I know rule-of-cool and all, but I would like people to try a little harder to make mechs make some sense.

I mean, why would a piece of combat equipment be so complicated? Have anyone thought of the logistic of having to repair a mech on a FOB? Or the numerous weak points in the joints?

I do like it when mechs have a reason to exist, and fill a unique niche that no other can in-universe.

(If you can't tell, give me cool tanks, vehicles, ships, and whatever!)

 

[LitrpgBird]

Frankly, I love mecha as a concept. The execution though... I've yet to see a story that would portray them well enough I would have no complaints. Most of the time it either seems like the mecha are there for the sake of it, or like the author really wanted to do mecha but didn't study up and made a shit ton of mistakes, objective not subjective ones, that help make things dramatic but stop making sense very quickly once we look closer.

I know I'm arguably just complaining now, but this is such a prevalent thing it baffles me. The most prominent example that I can tell off the top of my head is Pacific Rim - sure, a massive mecha having a slugfest with a Kaiju looks amazing, but please, just what the heck. Why would you need two people for it to work, where did physics go that that mecha doesn't just fall apart, where did logic go, and why won't you mount the same damn weapons on an airship so a Kaiju won't be able to reach it and just die without a fight? I mean, yeah. Action, suspension of disbelief and all that. Still annoys me as fuck.

The same thing is with cyborgs, AI, implants, and basically all sci-fi to a smaller or lesser degree, a lot of authors just don't know how to work around issues with scientific accuracy and realism.

I used to be interested in those stories. Recently though I don't want to be disappointed.

I agree wholeheartedly. The last mecha I managed to tolerate was stretched really far to becoming a mecha. It's like a litrpg writer had their work repurposed to seem more modern.

 

[Jemini]

I only like them visually. Like manga or anime

Yeah, I was thinking this would be very much a thing. I mean, I'm definitely biased because I don't like mecha much at all, but I think a lot of that is a result of my first exposure to the genre being Gundam Wing, which is just boring. I did watch Eureka 7 years later when my anti-mecha sentiments had settled in and, I gotta say, it was actually pretty darn good. I enjoyed Eureka 7 a lot.

On that subject, I believe Gundam Wing was a lot of people's first exposure to the genre in the West, due to it being part of the Toonami line-up. I mean, yes, there were other mecha anime out in the west before that one, some of which have legendary acclaim such as Evangelion and some of the earlier installments in the Gundam series, but the same can be said for the Final Fantasy series. There were earlier Final Fantasy games out in the West, but FF7 was the first one that got a large advertisement push and popular exposure, and as such this game that is just not as good as FF6 or Chrono Trigger manages to get rated as somehow being shoulder to shoulder as part of the top 3 JRPGs of all time, and it's just because it was the one people were exposed to first.

First impressions can do a lot for people's enjoyment of an entire genre, and I think Gundam Wing did a huge disservice to the mecha genre among western audiences.

 

[Daitengu]

I'ma meh. Watched some Gundam and Robotech when I was younger and loved it. I just grew out of it after a while.

Swap giant mech with magic or super powers or whatever and you can generally get a similar story.

 

[K5Rakitan]

My kid loves this:

 

[Anon2024]

Just curious what people think. I often hear ones in the west aren't fond of the concept, even if there is a fair share of western media revolving around giant robots. There's also the possibility of a person merely tolerating the mech parts because they like other aspects of the story like the characters or so on.

Personally i'm not immediatly draw to them, but i can like it depending on how its made or presented. Mecha stories are also often over-the-top interpretations of war tales and large scale human conflict, which is probably one of the reasons i may feel drawn to some on occasion.

The thing about mecha is that it requires visuals to fully appreciate. Mecha doesn’t do well with a non-visual medium

 

[Shrimp_eater]

My kid loves this:

thats one type of mecha i suppose

The thing about mecha is that it requires visuals to fully appreciate. Mecha doesn’t do well with a non-visual medium

I do know about a few mecha novels that were decently successful. Full Metal Panic comes to mind.

 

[BigBadBoi]

Full Metal Panic

I should start reading that I've been putting that in the backburner for a long time now

 

[Shrimp_eater]

I should start reading that I've been putting that in the backburner for a long time now

Not a big fan of the second half of the story honestly. What they covered in the first season anime and Fumoffu were the best parts.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

Every genre has haters and likers. Personally, I love mecha stories...especially those that concern space countries and rebellions, like Gundam, BattleMech, etc...

 

[Paul_Tromba]

Depends on the mecha. I like some like code geass.

 

[melchi]

I like some Mecha. I sorta liked mech touch because the premise was really good. Boy wanted to be a mech pilot but didn't have the genetic aptitude to do it so he solves his problems by designing mechs. Though after 1000 or so chapters it starts to feel a little bit too drawn out.

I'm not sure if legendary mechanic counts as mecha or not, how big does the robot suit have to be to count as mecha? That was was good for a little bit after the main character just sorta ghosted the potential love interest I stopped reading it.

Knights and magic has a LN coming out, though to be fair that one started as a manga.

Most of the mecha that I can really remember though I saw through anime. There prob are some good stories here but the ones I've tried out I can't remember much of them. So I guess the vast majority of them tend to be forgettable to me.

 

[Bartun]

I like mechs. I think they are awesome. What tends to happen in most mecha stories is that since the mechas are the dominating weapons, the pilots become essential, they quickly take over the story and it becomes boring if you don't have great characters.

For war stories to work we must feel that the characters are small, just another cog in the great machinery. It's easier to identify with characters like that. It is more difficult to relate to the characters when they are the elite, the best of the best, and the entire conflict rests on their shoulders. You need to have an amazing cast for that to work.

If the mechs aren't the dominant weapons, then you can have other characters doing their part and feeling just as important, like clerks, mechanics, infantry, and so on, all working together to accomplish their objectives. Imagine the chief engineer chewing the young pilot for pushing his machine too much. "You're supposed to call for reinforcements when you face a tank! Not charge at it!" or something like that. Or owing a beer at the guys in artillery for the timely support. Watching the mechs just moping the floor with the tanks is boring. Why do you even need tanks then?

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

I like mecha. I personally think there isn't enough in the west, or I don't like the way its handled sometimes. But you can even do cute stories with mechs.

 

[J_Chemist]

I mean. Giant robots are pretty cool, I guess.

 

[Shrimp_eater]

I like mecha. I personally think there isn't enough in the west, or I don't like the way its handled sometimes. But you can even do cute stories with mechs.

i suppose there can be cute mech stories also

 

[Zirrboy]

I like mecha in the sense of piloted battle bots, but I can't bring myself to like the low poly upscaled human aesthetic that Gundam and the likes follow from what I've seen. Prominent heads are especially bad in that regard.

There is the disbelief aspect @LilRora described to it, but I also just visually perceive them as awkward and ugly. The Code Geass ones were decent in both regards for me, the Heavy Objects designs too, if you count them as mecha.