Recently on Twitter, I listed my top 10 favorite mechs. This was in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Gundam a well known mecha anime that I particularly love. And mecha meaning media about giant robots. Well, giant mechanical suits that people pilot. A lot of this is Japanese so a lot of it is anime. Which gives me time for a brief segue into a rant about anime. Luckily no one reads this so I won't get blasted off the Internet.
I like certain animes. I don't like it (nor think of it as a genre) in general. Its a medium. That is saying "I LOVE ACTION MOVIES!" and thinking you appreciate Die Hard as much as Agent Cody Banks. Maybe because it is foreign it got pigeonholed into that but it needs to, like any other media, impress me for me to go ga-ga over it.* So just because something is anime I don't think its a reason to go bananas for it. And note I am dirty filthy plebeian anime watcher who likes dubs against subs and learned most of mine from whatever was in syndication on cable. So, yeah, a lot of Toonami stuff and, yes, my first Gundam was Gundam Wing like pretty much any young male with cable and time after school in the late 90s. This list, or my experience, is not comprehensive. Its one guy on a blog no one reads going on and on about giant suits of armor. Why!
BECAUSE THEY ARE BAD ASS!
Number 10
The Power Loader from Aliens.
I am in a minority of liking Alien 3 over Aliens albeit the second one has so many more cool and memorable moments. I'm just a fatalist I guess and wonder what could have been with Alien 3. But, this is about mechs...and this is a mech. No, it is not a weapon of war but I did a brief stint as a tow motor (fork lift outside of Ohio) driver and...Yes, I did imagine batting away little gremlins with the forks. Or just plowing through some blob only to get stuck in its gelatinous molds and escape via a convenient low hanging rope.
The power loader is amazing. Its a Chekov's gun. It's something earned. It shows the versatility that lets Ripley survive in the Alien universe. Its practical effects. Somewhere/sometime someone had to bash some miniatures together and play out what we all do with dolls and actions figures.
This is also the closest thing we ever may get to a mech so keep hoping for your power armor exoskeletons ala Starship Troopers.
Number 9
The Dragon Zord from Mighty Morphing Power Rangers!
Look, Power Rangers is inherently silly. This mish-mosh of Japanese footage with American footage (Sometimes spanning decades. Why does the picture quality drop when we start fighting?), the corny jokes, the colors, the leaping and spandex. This is beyond silly but it made A LOT of money in the go-go 90s and it is still going on. There are dozens of varieties but they all have Zords, giant robots the Rangers use to fight when the villain inevitably decides to "go big" and try to Godzilla the Rangers.
These are all mechs in the truest sense but the coolest is the Dragon Zord belonging to OG Green Ranger. All the the Zords had to combine into the one Mega Zord to really kick ass but this guy could go toe to toe solo. And you needed a knife flute to summon it! A KNIFE FLUTE!
Number 8
Megas XLR
This one really is all about the theme song
Beyond that (why would you need more?) Megas just looks cool what with the cool blue and warm flames and that big bulky frame. It shouldn't work but it does! The head is a bit wimpy but I think that is the joke. Shame this show got shafted especially since it pokes fun at a lot of mecha quirks.
Number 7
The Zeon Gouf Custom from Gundam 08th MS Team
Gundam is 40 years old but not all of it takes place in the same timeline. Many series do and this is known as the Universal Century which in general re-hashes (like six times) a battle between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon. Look...Zeon are space Nazis. Like if Trump really made Space Force a thing then it would be Zeon. And don't give me that "both sides did mean things in the war" crap that Gundam sometimes does (Which I guess has something to do with Japanese feelings about its role as an aggressor in WW2?) Zeon are space Nazis. And they make a heck of a mobile suit. Just like the real Nazis!
So while I love any Gundam series where the good guys mow down all the Zeon Zakus and what not there is something cool about the Gouf Custom and its final battle with the 08th MS Team. Note this series has a wee bit more verisimilitude than others. No one is psychic (New Type in Gundam parlance) and its just pilot vs pilot. It is very visceral and intimate, something you can use to describe Gundam battles where one suit wipes out whole fleets with their SUPER BUSTER CANNON!
This is just a cool scene and it can't be denied albeit I am too goody good to root for the bad guys
Number 6
Nu Gundam from Gundam: Char's Counterattack
The problem with re-hasing the same story every few years (To the point where villains, while not the same person per se, still dress and act like the original version they are supposedly NOT copying. No, not at all) is that you need something to be different. I don't like a lot of the late UC Gundams because like many animes they start to meddle in the abstract and that is just beyond me. Especially since this is a show about giant robots punching each other. But Char's Counterattack is a newer-ish one and boy is Nu Gundam gorgeous. The contrasts on the yellow, white and black and the shoulder flare.
I remember this scene where it just tears through Zeon and it does using all kinds of clever tricks and not some wild super attack. It just looks damn sharp
Number 5
Sandrock Gundam from Gundam Wing
I know this is not the coolest Gundam in Wing, which is arguably the series most casual fans have some exposure too in the US. And I took a lot of heat for liking this suit as a kid. "Its lame. It's gay. The guy who pilots it is gay/too feminine, etc, etc" and I am...1)The guy who piloted it is super rich and has a literal army at his command. Wouldn't that be helpful in a giant intergalactic war? 2)No one was scoring in this series because everyone else was the typical brooding stoic type (Which is fine. I brood a fair bit. Usually at work) and 3) Sandrock has giant curved knives and that stood out where everyone else had some giant light saber. The suit also showed a bit of self awareness at times which happens all the freaking time in other Gundams but here it was neat.
Thank God for other maligned nerds and for whomever made this tribute video to my Sandy Boi
Number 4
Union Flag Custom 2 from Gundam 00
Gundam 00 was the first Gundam series where I could not stand the "heroes." I am way too much of a goody good to ever really go for the bad guys but wow did this series stretch it. The whole Celestial Being crew was way to overpowered and their mission (end all wars by starting a billion of them) felt way too silly even for a show with giant fighting robots.
Thankfully this series has a lot of decent supporting characters even though they are the "bad guys." And these folks are woefully under-gunned so anything that can go toe to toe with the annoying heroes gets a plus from me. In comes in the Union Flag Custom 2 which looks bad ass and in the clip keeps up a good fight even when it...well...goes to pieces. I also dig that that pilot swears he will beat the Gundams in his Flag suit which is akin to saying you want to win the NBA Championship wearing the New Balances your dad wears to mow the lawn.
Number 3
Jehuty from Zone of the Enders
This is from a PS2 game and the only mech here you could technically control. Unless you build your own thing. Zone of Enders feels like a cult game to me and I find it odd it hasn't had some re-issue. I honestly can't remember much of the game play save that some of the end bosses were beyond the wall hard but i remember how to main mech (or frame in its parlance) moves and it moves beautifully. Driving Jehuty around these abandoned space colony cities feels like ballet and I love how the sparks emerge from the "feet" as it sparks along the ground. Sometimes suits in mechs feel like they should not move as fast as they do. Like, for real, look at these things. They are going to move like the Flash? It will make more sense with the next entry but Jehuty feels right with its speed and fluidity. It just looks and feels kinetic, something that should be in shaky camera.
Number 2
Gypsy Danger from Pacific Rim
Pacific Rim is a good movie. C'mon Guillermo Del Toro directed it! Big robot vs monster movies don't get that sort of pedigree. It is a labor of love. And the mechs steal the show (as they should). They have a serious weight to them that comes across the screen. They are all CGI but they "feel" very real and very weighty. So do the monstrous kaiju. Everything seems to snap and creak and groan. Feel alive and tense. Its the Nostromo from Alien albeit in mech form.
Gypsy Danger (What a name btw. Real old school bomber group vibe) deserves the star billing. That old gun slinger look and the intro in the rain. The movie is also full of over the top one liners like "Cancel the apocalpyse" and "Fight the hurricane" that I just find endearing. I also appreciate how this is an original creation/IP that is uniquely from the Americas in what is a field dominated (rightfully so) by Japanese pieces.
Number 1
The Veritech from Robotech
And, yes I call it Robotech not Macross because filthy casual and yada yada
This is all pure nostalgia and a first for me. This was the first mech series I watched. And, no, the animation (also pushing 40) does not hold up but nothing can dissipate 7th grade feelings of watching this. It really takes me back to spending afternoon in my mom's boyfriend's high rise condo (because it was so close to my school) and jamming this sitting on a blanket on a bare floor. And it was awesome.
The transforming was cool. I was just old enough to remember Transformers and this was before the gimmick of Gundam Wing's transforming suit. It could be a sweet jet fighter like Top Gun and then a humanoid robot blasting and punching away! The gun that sat on the bottom of the plane when in play mode pops up and then becomes the gun it can hold when in robot form!
It is so...as the kids say...OG and for that I will always love it.
Thanks for reading and suit up everyone!
*If curious....some animes I do enjoy (that are not obvious from this list): Outlaw Star, Sailor Moon (no I have not seen Stars or the Viz version because see above filthy casual), Digimon, Big O (another mecha), Blue Sub No. 6, Grave of the Fireflies (Holy smokes is this a sad movie), those Second Renaissance bits from the Animatrix, Pilot Candidate, and SAMURAI PIZZA CATS!
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