Liking NGE -> liking mecha anime?

[SaltyJoe]

Upon my ongoing journey into the realm of anime, i made a discovery: i like NGE. I don't like mecha anime in the least.

I watched the Buster series and TTGL, and though they were kinda fun, i was far from being blown away, and i realized that i did it more out of curiosity inspired by NGE itself rather then genuine interest. In the case of most other Super Robot series (Mazinger stuff, Gaoi Gar Gar), seeing a few pictures taken from them put me off of ever giving them a look.

So, my question is: are there others around her like me, who loved NGE, but aren't really keen on mecha anime in general (for the record, the so called Real Robot titles i tried all seemed to be intriguing at first, but they never failed to disappoint in the long run)?

And while we are at it: can NGE really be enjoyed to it's fullest, even if the viewer isn't completely drenched in many of the tropes it's using/bending/breaking?

[Sachi]

I'm typically not into mecha anime at all, except for NGE and TTGL. Usually I don't even watch action-y/shounen shows at all, so that puts most mecha out the door for me.

[Dr. Nick]

for the record, the so called Real Robot titles i tried all seemed to be intriguing at first, but they never failed to disappoint in the long run

Shows such as...?

[losername]

Everyone likes robots. Everyone.

[SaltyJoe]

Shows such as...?

Code Geass: a masterful lesson in pissing away a shows own potential.

Gundam 00 and Wing: got bored with them. Both of them.

Full Metal Panic!: i don't particularly recall any reasons why i dropped it after one episode. But i did. Might give it a second chance.

[Sailor Star Dust]

FWIW, I avoided watching NGE for the longest time because I heard it fell into the mecha/shounen genre of anime (though I also heard it was psychological which seriously got me interested) and because I somehow had the impression Anno was an egotistical asshole. Because that was so many years ago, I have no idea if my thinking this had to do with how Anno utilized his Depression to create Eva, or if I heard something about the Gainax Cash Cow, or whatever else.

That aside, I'm really not into mecha series all that much. I'm much more into shoujo or comedy. Although I absolutely loved Gunbuster and Diebuster as well as TTGL, but all of those were still by Gainax so they might not be a good judge of "typical" mecha series.

I watched some of Robotech and Voltron growing up, both of which I loved.... But I never watched any of the Gundam series because I didn't think it'd interest me.

[esselfortium]

I've never had much of an interest in most mecha shows. Even TTGL didn't do much of anything for me. Watching action scenes for the sake of action scenes tends to just bore me.

Really, I think I kind of liked NGE more before I found out it was a subversive take on themes I don't care about from a genre I don't watch.

I like the characters, though

[CazMu]

Eva was good because it was just so much more than a mecha anime. For a start when you realise what these REALLY 'robots' are, its just OMG epic. Well, thats what I thought anyways. But to me, other mecha anime just seems quite souless and non very 3 dimensional unlike eva.

[NemZ]

Eh, it depends n my mood... Sometimes a fairly serious robot show can be worth watching, but other times I find myself wondering if the show wouldn't have been better without them.

Code Geass, for example, is probably the later. There's a good show in there somewhere but it's smothered by too many 'appeal to everyone' elements.

[ran1]

I've seen three mecha anime series (not counting Ideon because I never finished)

-TTGL
-RahXephon
-Gundam SD

First one was tolerable, but I was meh at the end.
Second one was palatable, but RahXephon is essentially Eva produced a crappy Xerox copy machine.
Thrid was suckballsman.jpg

As for movies, I've seen Oshii take a big poopy on the whole genre with his ugly absurdism, and some other films here and there that I can't remeber. NGE is the only one I considered worth doing a paper on montage for, so I suppose that validates Eva.

[BrikHaus]

The only mecha series I've loved are: NGE, TTGL, and Diebuster.

To a lesser extent I have enjoyed: Escaflowne, Full Metal Panic!, and Gunbuster.

More generic mecha series like the Gundams, Code Geasses, and Eureka Sevens, are the ones I can't get into. I think it may have something to do with story. If the show has a great story and really good characters, I can enjoy it. The story has to come first and the mecha has to come second. If the show does that, then I'm all for it. Overall, I'm less a fan of mecha and more a fan of a great story.

[Merridian]

I hadn’t seen any robot shows prior to NGE save for some of the Gundam shit that aired on Toonami (Wing & G). The Gundam stuff was OK when I was younger (I thought G Gundam was retarded, though), but when I tried to rewatch Wing last year with my friend, I just couldn’t take it seriously. In fact I didn’t even rewatch the whole thing—I dropped it after the first DVD was over with.

Since NGE, I’ve seen roughly 10 more mecha series, only two of which were real disappointments*. I dig giant robots pretty much regardless of the context, but story, characters, form, etc all take priority over mecha design usually. Plus it seems like a lot of shows weigh themselves down with unruly realism problems after introducing implausible giant robots, and that kind of inconsistency is often puts a strain on suspension of disbelief. I guess it’s just that the “mecha genre” has fused with so many other genres that it’s no longer a distinct thing—having giant robots is more or less just another aspect that can be incorporated into a work rather than being the primary focus of it like in the old super robot shows or even Gundam.

*Eureka 7, because it tried to do everything at once and in doing so fell short of doing anything well, and
Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, mostly because it was boring.

Ideon underwhelmed me but in retrospect it wasn’t too bad, but Tomino’s previous effort, MSGundam, is superior is just about every way barring the understandable improvement in animation quality.

[Ornette]

"Mecha" is a pretty broad genre that ranges from pure action to comedy to serious drama. Old shows like Go Nagai shows aren't really going to appeal to some people. It's a lot of action and the narrative is mostly driven by people telling each other what's going on. Macross is usually lumped into mecha, and that franchise is (mostly) drama. Likewise, there's a wide range of what you can get out of the Gundam franchise, some of it is pure action, some of it is drama, and some series is absurd. There's mecha shows like "Birth" from 1984 which is a little of everything, as short as it is. Or Dirty Pair, Iczer-One, Bubblegum Crisis (and later, A.D. Police), or even Gunbuster, all 80's shows that really don't fit into the traditional mecha mold.

The Patlabor movies and Virus Buster are drama, Roujin Z, Tenamonya Voyagers and Galaxy Fraulein Yuna is comedy, Nadesico is parody, Giant Robo is mostly action, and probably the best of the 90's, Escaflowne (which is in a lot of ways similar to Evangelion). I guess Big O is also part of the 90's, it's pretty unique for a mecha show.

There's a lot of rehashes of older shows like Dangaizer, Getter, Dancouga and most recently Mazinger Z which are like their old action based counterparts. I don't think there's really been a really good mecha show in the last decade. Full Metal Panic was pretty good, it's heavily character driven and the 2nd series is comedy. Diebuster is also one probably worth noting. The 2 Macross shows (Zero and Frontier) are also worth the watch. There's, of course, TTGL. Oh, and Bokurano. There's probably a dozen or so other mecha shows from 2000's that I've seen that aren't even worth the mention.

Traditional mecha fans tend to like te action arc of Evangelion more, because after that point, the narrative isn't so much driven by the action. As a whole, Eva is probably one of those "a little bit of everything". So some traditional mecha fans won't consider it "mecha anime" in the same way they probably won't consider "Kannazuki no Miko" (which is a yuri show with giant robots) mecha anime.

[J_Faulkner]

I would endorse Ornette's suggestion of the Patlabor movies (there is a series, but I never got round to watching it) if you want something more cerebral. Also:

- Orguss 02
- Gasaraki

Looking back, I don't really like any of these, but these are the ones I least dislike. Escaflowne, the movie, is not too bad either, with some top animation. However, it has boring juvenile protagonists.

Avoid Vandread though -- a true abomination from the innermost circle of hell.

[Merridian]

I would endorse Ornette's suggestion of the Patlabor movies (there is a series, but I never got round to watching it) if you want something more cerebral.

the movies are great (P2 is one of my favorite animated films period), but the TV show is more like the '88 OVA/the light-hearted aspects of the first film. If you took GitS:SAC, turned it into a more run of the mill cop-drama, and removed its over-arching narratives, the result is roughly what you have with Patlabor TV. Fun, but not anything amazing.

[J_Faulkner]

If you took GitS:SAC, turned it into a more run of the mill cop-drama, and removed its over-arching narratives, the result is roughly what you have with Patlabor TV. Fun, but not anything amazing.

When I think of anime cop-dramas, I think Dominion Tank Police, and if Patlabor the series is something like that but better, then it just may be worth my time trying to find the CDs I used to have ages ago (although I may have thrown them away). However, I watched some episodes of GitS and was not impressed in the slightest.

And how could I have missed out this series from my previous post:

- Candidate for Goddess

This is truly the Evangelion-beater. World-class characters with a world-class dress sense, fantastic computer-generated graphics, names that just roll off the tongue and so good that they didn't even need to give it a proper ending, because it activates the imagination of the viewers to such an extent that they can just make one up.

[Dr. Nick]

Code Geass: a masterful lesson in pissing away a shows own potential.

Gundam 00 and Wing: got bored with them. Both of them.

Full Metal Panic!: i don't particularly recall any reasons why i dropped it after one episode. But i did. Might give it a second chance.

So you've only watched some recent and/or super-popular shows. Geass and Gundam 00 to a lesser extent suffer from a second season trainwreck syndrome. Wing is among the worst Gundam shows ever produced, and it doesn't really reflect the franchise as a whole. Full Metal Panic suffers from its first season being made by GONZO. I would recommend that you watch some of the slightly older classic OAVs like Macross Plus, Giant Robo, Gunbuster, Gundam 0080 and the original Patlabor OAV. If none of those leave an impact, then you can pretty honestly say the genre just isn't for you.

Second one was palatable, but RahXephon is essentially Eva produced a crappy Xerox copy machine.

Yeah, if you ignore all those other works that greatly influenced it, like Megazone 23.

But I never watched any of the Gundam series because I didn't think it'd interest me.

Try the original movie trilogy, followed by 0080. Not a big time investment there.

Eva was good because it was just so much more than a mecha anime. For a start when you realise what these REALLY 'robots' are, its just OMG epic.

That's what happens in Ideon, when it finally starts getting really good veeery late in the show.

Avoid Vandread though -- a true abomination from the innermost circle of hell.

The first season is indeed dreadful, but the second season redeems it somewhat by being way more ludicruous and entertaining. GONZO repeats this same formula with Gravion.

EDIT:

- Candidate for Goddess

This is truly the Evangelion-beater. World-class characters with a world-class dress sense, fantastic computer-generated graphics, names that just roll off the tongue and so good that they didn't even need to give it a proper ending, because it activates the imagination of the viewers to such an extent that they can just make one up.

Why don't you recommend Mecha Manos and Plan Nine from Getter Dimension while you're at it?

[Mr. Tines]

I was going to say that I've not really been into mecha -- but thinking about it, I've had a fair exposure, even if it's not a genre of choice.

Back in the 80s/early90s, it was manga I collected like Appleseed (and many I didn't but just skimmed an issue or two of before deciding were crap, like Cannon God Exxaxion -- WTF, man?).

NGE I visited on the grounds that I ought to at least try a giant robot anime series, if I was dabbling in anime, and that at least had a reputation as one of the better titles.

Mecha and mecha-esque (e.g. Rayearth OVA) series I've seen since were effectively confined to the omnivorous phase of anime consumption (and even then I dropped a couple of titles, and didn't pick up all that I could have done), partly constrained by availability and in some cases primarily out of historical interest (e.g. Ideon, the little bit of Gundam that I've seen).

TTGL is the anomaly as it was the only non-historical one, and that because it appealed greatly to my inner 12-year-old.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Everyone likes robots. Everyone.

Very true. It's when that's the ONLY thing working for an anime that turns me off to the genre.

[Joseph the PRPD]

I'm not really into the mecha genre. Really these days the only mecha anime I like is NGE and Gurren Lagann.