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Are Japanese anime robots isometric or allometric?

jgeekstudies.org

41–50 of 69 posts

Re: Are Japanese anime robots isometric or allometric?

#41
post #15

Mecha seem to have disappeared from Japanese anime. Here's the anime list for Spring 2024.[1] [1] https://anichart.net/Spring-2024

While I'd like to blame the metastasization of the narou-kei LN adaptation, I think the real reason is the same as why Sci Fi has largely disappeared from visual media in general outside of hangers on from legacy franchises. People have stopped believing in the future.

Re: Are Japanese anime robots isometric or allometric?

#42
post #2

*Excluding Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Kept looking for GL’s outlier dot in the super robot section, then figured the just left it out so as to not bastardize the results. For anyone OOTL, the show features robots at an intergalactic scale, such that the crew needs to invent FTL communications and travel just to communicate and move within the ship proper.

The Gurren Lagann is only 12 metres in height though. Lagann is around the same height as Simon and Gurren is about nine metres on top (technically below) of that.

Re: Are Japanese anime robots isometric or allometric?

#43
post #15

Mecha seem to have disappeared from Japanese anime. Here's the anime list for Spring 2024.[1] [1] https://anichart.net/Spring-2024

Mecha was a 1960s-1980s war-inspired fascination that maybe, if anything, we should be surprised at the longevity of. We haven't really been getting that many giant robots or pilotable mechs in popular media outside of Japanese animation.

Patlabor wasn’t war-inspired; you might enjoy it’s contrast to gundam-type mecha stories. The Labors represent the rise of technological power that can be employed by a single person and all the effects that can have.

Re: Are Japanese anime robots isometric or allometric?

#44
post #28

Then, what is the heaviest movable machine of human civilization? The answer is aircraft carriers. The U. S. Navy Nimitz class aircraft carrier is one of the largest ships, and each ship is about 325 m long and 99,000 t heavy. Looks like some ships are a few times heavier than that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_machines#Sea_v...

Surprisingly the difference isn't quite as it seems. There's an important distinction between mass of the vessel's own structure, the bare necessities like fuel, stores & crew, and its payload. Naval engineering and insurance talks several interrelated measures, for our purposes "light load displacement" is the closest to the weight of the bare structure, while "full load displacement" includes all typical stores, fu…

I have nothing to add this was just so fascinating to read. Thanks for that!

Re: Are Japanese anime robots isometric or allometric?

#45
post #36
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Gundam, the niche that does 100 billion yen in revenue per year.

The toys are appealing even to children that never saw the anime.

Actually I wouldn't let my kids watch it until they were at least 13 or so, maybe more depending on the child. A lot of war and mass-scale death there, and frankly, a lot of adoration for fascism - the space nazis turn out to be right.

Re: Are Japanese anime robots isometric or allometric?

#46
post #30
post #15

Mecha seem to have disappeared from Japanese anime. Here's the anime list for Spring 2024.[1] [1] https://anichart.net/Spring-2024

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Mecha fandom doesn't necessarily cross over with anime fandom (even though the former is arguably the origin of the latter). I find that there's more crossover with hobbyists (plastic models), military fandom, and gamers. Gundam is almost it's own thing (to Sunrise's simultaneous satisfaction and chagrin), and the Site Which Shall Not Be Named split a Mecha board off of the Anime board almost 2 decades ago. I don't know that the fandom will be represented on MAL, which is itself a niche service for the wider anime-watching community.

Suffice it to say, the multiple life-scale Gundam statues that have been put up/dismantled over the past few years speak to its enduring popularity. I will say that there haven't been as many non-Gundam mecha anime as there were in the 2010s. We did get G-Witch and Bravern last year, and Hathaway on Netflix in 2021. And, as someone said, AOT is essentially Meat Gundam.

EDIT: Also, I don't know that I'd even call 86 mainstream. It felt like it actually got way less recognition than it should have.

Re: Are Japanese anime robots isometric or allometric?

#47

I thought the word "mecha" is used to describe devices which are operated by humans, like a Gundam. Essentially mecha is anthropomorphic tank. "Robot" is used to describe autonomous system, like Marvin or Laputian Robot Troopers

Related to this is something that's always bugged me. Playing games like Battletech, at some point the fandom (largely those who came in from the video games) started talking in terms of enjoying playing with "big, stompy robots".

But they're .... not robots? It's more like "big, stompy powered armor"

Re: Are Japanese anime robots isometric or allometric?

#48
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gundam, the niche that does 100 billion yen in revenue per year.

The toys are appealing even to children that never saw the anime. Actually I wouldn't let my kids watch it until they were at least 13 or so, maybe more depending on the child. A lot of war and mass-scale death there, and frankly, a lot of adoration for fascism - the space nazis turn out to be right.

Wing (and, by extension, 00) was a fine watch at 10, and G probably would have been, too. They're considerably less fraught in both iconography and philosophy than some of the other series, and quite a bit more hammy. The Build Fighters/Divers series are great, too. Stay far away from AGE, though; cutesy stylings because it was intended to exist alongside series like Yokai Watch, but it ended up being quite problematic.

Re: Are Japanese anime robots isometric or allometric?

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“メカ” refers to any mechanical design. The artists who do “mecha” design in anime will do everything from guns to boats. The English term’s meaning changed when it was re-borrowed.

> The English term’s meaning changed when it was re-borrowed. Like the meaning of the term "anime" changed?

The point is "mech/mecha" as in "biped humanoid machines" is en-US specific. In ja-JP and probably few others it's "robots". "Anime" is more widely understood.

Re: Are Japanese anime robots isometric or allometric?

#50
post #40
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Attack on Titan is for all intents and purposes a mecha, and one of the most mainstream anime of recent memory.

It has mecha elements, as well as steampunk and magic elements too.

Other than their kits, everything else they operate is very standard WW1-esque tech.

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