Mechanime 1963-1980: Haha big robot fights monsters and EEEEEVIL mad scientists! (buy our toys, kids!)
Mechanime 1980-1995: Imperialism and war fucking suck, we need to create a better society where it won't happen anymore! (SUNRISE: buy our toys, kids!)
Mechanime 1995-2006: Have you heard of a show named Neon Genesis Evangelion? (buy our skimpy-clothed figurines, otaku!)
Mechanime 2006-Now: 50% chance it's right wing nonsense and 50% chance it's trying to recapture the golden age of Mechanime and is unlikely to have succeeded.
Mechanime 1980-1995: Imperialism and war fucking suck, we need to create a better society where it won't happen anymore! (SUNRISE: buy our toys, kids!)
This is how we got the unironic Zeon stans. Just pure
because no one explained to the kids who bought Zaku's why War is Bad.(Because we're on Hexbear someone is going to link that red sails article about propaganda now lol)
There were more progressive wings in zeonism, like those that would later found the pre-cooption-by-the-federation AEUG, but the leading faction was consistently the fascistic one.
The Bandai employees at the Gundam Factory wearing Federation uniforms is also pretty
lol.If I can't build Gundams to it, it's not my revolution.
- Emma Goldman
Every day your one job is to build a gunpla model. You start off with low grades and some wire cutters and by the time you graduate you're building real Gundams for the people's army.
There’s a bunch which are critical of American hegemony like Code Geass but then it’s a 50/50 split whether the director trips head first into nationalism or not
Majestic Prince was a mecha show that was kinda ok, but probably only because it was trying really hard to copy Leiji Matsumoto works like Space Battleship Yamato
They missed check boxes for "mad about the lack of punching fascists?" and "mad about the lack of punching fascists, but concerned about punching fascists too hard"
Oh right, the other new-ish non-Gundam mecha show that came out that was decent was 86, the first season of which is basically a giant tear down of the kind of performative support for the oppressed that liberals do, alongside an exploration about what being an ally really means. Show was really heavy tho.
I still remember mfers on r/anime saying that the depiction of racism and fascism in the show was too exaggerated and unbelievable. I wonder what they think about what's happening in real life in Gaza now, or if they even think about it at all.
I enjoyed 86 because of the von Neumann 'robots' the protagonists are fighting because, and mind you I only watched the first season minus the final episode,
show spoiler
The concept of an artificial intelligence thats built off of a cybernetic neural network that can be continually expanded by inputting more organic matter actually filled me with a sense of existential terror at the very concept. It makes one question whether or not the cyberware can be concidered a living organism, a question of how concious inputted brains are, and so many more thoughts along that vein.
Also would they be considered a form of zombies since they're hunting for brains?
spoiler
Yeah, I'd count the robots as zombies. To me they filled the same storytelling role as zombies- a metaphor for a big existential threat like climate change, and I think the show did a good job of illustrating just how ill-equipped an ideology like fascism would be at dealing with something like that.
Season 2 goes into more detail about the sci-fi aspects of the show, like how the robots came to be and what their goals are. For me it was overall a lot weaker compared to S1, not that it was bad.
Huh sounds like season two sounds more up my alley in terms of sci-fi-horror nerd shit then. I personally thought the whole story metaphor for a fascist society was so unsubtly hamfisted I was turned off by it and pretty much anything having to so with the society the writers world built made me want to skip back to the kids on the front line.
Like I guess I'd get it if the authors' intent was to convey fascism fucking sucks by being as obtuse as possible about it to make sure that everybody but the most ignorant people on the subject matter knows what the hell the author's message is. I still don't like getting beaten over the head with the silly metaphorical clown hammer though.
spoiler
The more compelling part of the show for me was the constant flashbacks to the happier times on the kids side, where characters who were long dead at the present we're having meaningful interactions with each other. It really got to me and you can easily contrast that with the ones in the core shirking their duties of telling kids to go to their death. I think the most hamfisted metaphor was the neural link being an "empathy" test. As someone who's media illiterate I thought the show was unique because it's so rare to find a show with a straightforward depiction of fascism exploiting/sacrificing an out group to sustain it's way of life/treat consumption.
Like you said the story on the front was far more interesting and thats where the show spent a lot of it's time
.
I get it, but given the state of media literacy I'm much more predisposed to how the 86 author does things than anything subtler. Like I alluded to above, some people really need to get hit over the head repeatedly with the bluntest allegories possible, even if it's not you or me. After all, we live in a world where the Starship Troopers and Fight Club movies can be willfully misinterpreted. Having said that, the thing I found personally most compelling about the show was in how it depicted the human costs of racism and fascism, and the toll it takes even on those who supposedly benefit from those systems of oppression. I thought the character writing and the dramatization of that theme were particularly strong.
S2 summary
Season 2 is mostly about PTSD and a genocide survivor dealing with survivor's guilt, just a heads up. They flesh out the world-building a bit but tbh some of the answers the show supplies to the questions you're asking aren't very compelling, and imo were better left unanswered to make the robots scarier, but ymmv. There's also one new character that gets introduced who's actually really annoying too, you'll know why the minute they appear on-screen. The runtime is mostly filled with sci-fi mecha tank battles (hence the need to flesh out the worldbuilding, so you understand the robots tactics and maneuvers) so if that's your cup of tea I'd recommend it.
I thought the character writing and the dramatization of that theme were particularly strong.
I'd agree with that. Outside of my own personal interests in the ghosts in the machines the major draw to the show was definitely the characters and how their stories were interwoven together in their journey of life towards many of their deaths.
It is a bit sad that postmodern irony poisoning has killed storytelling with any kind of nuance. I'm watching Pluto rn and it feels wonderful to have a show not handhold you and just present concepts and ideas for the viewer to think about, no matter how esoteric or high concept sci-fi they are.
But also I have an inexplicable urge to scream "THE ROBOTS ARE AN ALLEGORY FOR THE WORKING CLASS!!!" at the top of my lungs
I keep hearing about the pluto show and how great it is. I also know the story was concocted by the same guy that made Monster. I can already tell that you enjoy the show, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on it so far.
It's basically playing with a lot of the same concepts that Bladerunner 2049 is (right down to the police procedural framing device), but because it has a longer runtime and a larger cast it's able to give it's ideas more time to breath, so the mystery is an actual mystery and the sci-fi gets to be kinda out-there in a good way. It's also not afraid to get political- I dunno if it'll stick the landing yet but yeah there's a very thinly veiled allegory about the Iraq war and Foucault's boomerang here (that's kinda True Detective Season 2-ish?), and the main character being a cop from an allegorical minority worked well enough in
for exploring systemic issues and it works well enough here, although again I'm only halfway thru so I dunno if it'll stick the landingOk, finished the show and it didn't stick the landing but I still enjoyed it overall.
Oh wow that was quick.
It's something I always noticed with a lot of Japanese shows I've watched is that it seems like it's really hard to stick the landing regardless of how well they constructed the story over its runtime.
It's only 8 episodes (albeit 1 hr eps) and I had the day off lol
Without spoiling too much, the story does tie all the loose ends up but imo it kinda rushes the ending, and ends up with a kinda non-commital run-of-the-mill politics (especially compared to something like Bladerunner 2049).
Yeah that sounds about right in terms of unsatisfactory wrap-ups. It's not particularly surprising since that's usually how it is with wrap-ups but still leaves a bit of an empty feeling in ya
Yeah, I'm mad about Article 9. Mad that it's been interpreted to allow Japan any weapons at all
Well, that’s because the US realized a no weapons policy would prevent the U.S. from having military bases and also just using Japan as a vassal state
......I hate mechanics anime and only tolerate code grass because it's about the characters and not the mechanics
(Spellcheck hard at work, but I think I made my point)
unlike other mech anime it's about the characters? that's literally every mech anime. they're all about the characters. except patlabor which is about communism
A lot of people say "it's about the characters" when defending code geass and I can't speak to why they say it, but I personally mean it's not about who has the strongest mech suits. Also not every problem is solved in a mech battle, many times the MC in geass deals with it himself.
I do admit I tried watching the original Gundam though and the first few episodes were better than I expected and was thinking that perhaps I ought to give it a chance. I just really, really don't like mech suits.
mech anime is almost always character focused and not purely decided by robot combat. 0079 is itself a good example of this, as is most gundam. they may face mech combat, but the primary things moving the plot are circumstances beyond the capacity of a small number of robots fighting to solve. if you want really good examples of this, turn a gundam is full of characters either solving problems without using their mechs or using mechs for non-combat purposes. if you're active in this comm you've seen that i keep recommending it to everyone ever because it's really good, even if you aren't into the robots
Turn A shilling again smh
I actually restarted my watch-through of the show a couple of days ago because of you and I'm still impressed by how good the show is even from a technical perspective. The pacing, the directing, the music, the artstyle, etc.
The scene at the end of E1 where Loran
spoiler
calls for the Moonrace to RETVRN home as part of space Zionism
is beautifully made and sets the tone for the show (at least as of episode 11, which is where I left off last time I tried to watch Turn A.
moon playing as loran hugs the machine that brought them there is an all time great ending to a pilot episode
frankly having the song moon to end your episodes with is kind of cheating
The real/super robot distinction comes in clutch again.
Not that super can't be about character, but there is often decided by either the mech magic or power levels
To be fair, most Super Robo are Saturday Morning Cartoons without any pretensions to being anything else.
Then Evangelion happened and everything had to get edgy lmao
it's not about who has the strongest mech suits. Also not every problem is solved in a mech battle
In Gurren Lagaan it's about who screams the loudest
Patlabor is definitely character driven too (and about Communism)
yeah, but i needed to joke about something and patlabor was the first thing that came to mind
Partizan is about how you awaken peoples' minds to the idea of revolution when capitalism and empire seems so ingrained and powerful that revolution seems completely impossible- how do you even get people to imagine it? And Palisade is about fighting one tiny corner of that revolution.
i wanna but i'm still making my way through counter/weight. i'm not really built for actual play podcasts but i love what i've heard
also i love that interview. respect to ali for being an utena person, respect to the interviewer for saying turn a is obviously the best gundam, respect to austin for making his materialist view of the world clear in those responses
FATT is really a show where each subsequent season is better than the last, Austin and the players grow so much and they really figure out how to make it in such a way that it couldn't work as anything but actual play- the format really starts to justify itself more and more as they go. Partizan is wonderful and Palisade (so far) is probably just straight up my favorite piece of media.
I listened in the order Partizan->Sangfielle->Twilight Mirage->Counter/weight->Marielda (current). And honestly, I had a lot of trouble getting through CW- if you really like CW, you're gonna REALLY like the later ones. Unfortunately, TM is incredibly long and also drags in a lot of places- it's the season that IMO is more fun to think about than listen to, but it is unfortunately pretty foundational for Palisade. But Partizan (and Sangfielle, for that matter) is designed to stand on its own as an entry point into the podcast.
Oh btw you know that list the cast gives in that interview of media they want set in the Divine Cycle? Their Road To Palisade is just them going down that list making one-off worldbuilding games based on each entry (plus the first one to set the stage and Orbital, which was a donation incentive for an abortion fundraiser they did)
yeah that's what i've heard but my brain won't let me listen out of order now that i've started c/w. i'm lucky i didn't commit myself to listening to every episode from the start in order
also the stuff with the road to palisade sounds super cool, i'm excited to get there
like 12 episodes? i haven't listened in a while and i don't really remember. i might need to just start over now that i've reached a good stopping point in my non-currently updating podcasts (finished victory gundam with ggp)
and my plan is to listen to the scifi seasons of fatt and then go back if i want to listen to other stuff later
That's a great interview. I was thinking about trying to get into FatT again with traveling for the holidays on the horizon. Probably going to just jump into Partizan instead of starting at the beginning like my last few attempts.
Yeah no FATT is my obsession but the early seasons are definitely much harder to get into. Partizan and Sangfielle are much better for getting into it. They're all pros by Partizan and they have the world and the themes all mapped out in a way that makes everything flow.
The fact that, whatever the setting, those themes tend to be about the effects of imperialism on people and the land is what makes it really special though. Like Sangfielle- we've gotten kinda used to cosmic horror. But cosmic horror where the slow breakage of reality is explicitly caused by the scars empire left on the land is a twist on it that I've genuinely never seen.
Sangfielle Setup
"They wanted to fence it in. Rows of corn and cane, columns of people. Nations reduced to gardens. Is it any wonder the ground itself started to ache? See, the truth of the Heartland- the truth of the world- is that it cannot be fenced in."
idk what article 9 is but i like mecha anime because gay and by mecha anime I mean gundam witch
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is a clause in the Constitution of Japan outlawing war as a means to settle international disputes involving the state.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_Japanese_Constitution
lotta japanese nationalists very mad they can't technically have a standing army and many of them go on to make anime that's super fascist. something like eva has elements of that but not as much as something like amaim or gate or whatever
i won't be doing that because ttrpgs are not for me
read unjust depths, it's an openly and deeply marxist mecha web novel that's super gay and trans
