BW Media Spotlight

I swear there’s a Chinese knockoff in this design.

I grew up with giant robot shows. Not as many as I would have wanted to as a kid, mind you. Around here we only had three “super robot” shows–the two Voltrons were one show, Tranzor Z, and of course Mighty Orbots–and the war story Robotech. Occasionally you might come across something, and in high school, when the “Japanimation” boom began I picked up shows like Super Beastial Machine God Dancougar, Magic Knights Rayearth (although that was more of a “magical girls” show that eventually got robot-like things added), GaoGaiGar, and a few fandubs of things that aren’t nearly the amount of giant robot shows that existed. I’ve also seen The Big O and a handful of others. America did try their own works, like the aforementioned Orbots, The Iron Giant, a few comics, the anime love letter of fun that is Megas XLR, and the Gundam-inspired Exo-Squad. You can even count the Transformers and GoBots, both having combiner teams ala Voltron. However there is this whole world of super robot mecha shows I have not been properly exposed to, and when you want to create a superhero show with Godzilla-sized piloted robots you bet your giant metal butt I want to at least give it a look.

However, the days of the super robot are pretty much gone, while the war stories have mixed with other genres like it was the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “It’s a coming of age story, but with mecha.” “It’s a slice of life comedy…in the middle of a giant robot battle.” That sort of thing. What happened to the genre? YouTuber Gigguk explores the rise and fall of the mecha genre, as well as its future. Note that there is some occasional cursing.

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