I like lots of different types of anime, but mech anime have always been special to me. In fact, the prevalence of mechs is one of the six key factors on FanCruft. A god-robot just dramatically changes the feeling of anime – there’s no question about it. Against the backdrop of such awesome and massive machines, characters, countries, even the whole world can seem insignificant. Ultimately, though, mechs have pilots, and the way that those pilots deal with such power is just one more thing that makes this type of anime so interesting. Here’s ten animes that have especially interesting mecha.

10. My HiME


So the “Children” that the HiMEs can summon are technically not mechs. It’s hard to really believe that when you see a giant mechanical wolf named Duran about to blow up anything in its way.

09, Voices of a Distant Star


There’s generally a archetype of a young, troubled boy as a mech pilot, struggling with more or less success to prove himself. Voices of a Distant Star rejects this stereotype completely with a girl who has little to prove and wants to go back home. Given that all of her messages are sent from the cockpit of her mech, it has a very different feel from the mechs of other shows – it’s just a much a prison as it is an empowering extension.

08. Zone of the Enders: Idolo


Have you ever wondered what happens when things don’t quite go right with a mech? When the pilot isn’t quite up to snuff, and the technology doesn’t quite work the way its creators thought it would? Idolo examines this issue in terrifying detail.

07. Big O


Cast in the name of God, ye not guilty. A hard mech anime, the whole show is about the O – Big O, that is, a skyscraper-sized robot, who can solve all sorts of problems with a good punch. It’s hard to forget a mech like Big O.

06. Appleseed (2004 Movie)


Giant sentinels whose lanky movements would make the Galactic Empire of Star Wars proud “guard” the city of Olympus. But never mind that, there’s a guy walking around who got turned into a robot.

05. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex


The Tachikoma – has there ever been a mech quite like it? While more traditional power suits are present in GITS, it feels sometimes as if the Tachikomas are the real stars of the show. Referred to as “think-tanks” by those outside of Section 9, the Tachikoma’s ever improving AI gives them unique personalities and allows them to act mostly on their own – even if they can and do carry a passenger from time to time.

04. RahXephon


The RahXephon – the mech to tune the world. Shrouded in mystery, born out of a giant egg, and possessing incredible power, the RahXephon is not a mech to take lightly. While we mostly see the RahXephon pitted against the equally enigmatic Dolems, it’s clear from the beginning that there’s more than meets the eye to the RahXephon.

03. Full Metal Panic


As a secret organization, Mithral has some cool secret mechs. While mechs in other series seem nearly invincible until blown up, these mechs break down, have mechanical malfunctions, and can be damaged or put in a compromising situation. They’re just not the answer to everything in FMP – although they are a nice touch.

02. Aura Battler Dunbine


Answers the question “What would happen if you added mechs to a medieval feudal environment?” with the the obvious answer of “War”.

01. Neon Genesis Evangelion


NGE is the granddaddy of them all. Sure, you might make an argument for a Gundam or some older, more groundbreaking classic to appear here, but for a mix of plot and action, I don’t think you can actually get much better than this. Remember how I said earlier that mechs and their pilots have a special relationship? Let me expand on that – mechs amplify the personalities of their pilots, and no mech pilot’s personality has every been more magnified than that of Shinji Ikari. Shinji’s passive and angsty nature ultimately leads to tragedy, not only for him, but for others as well…

A lot of people don’t really appreciate fanservice. It’s said to be a distraction from the plot, other visuals, whatever else is really important about anime. Fanservice gets a bad rap. I’ve said a bad thing or two about sexual content in anime in the past, and a most of the time, it’s well deserved; nothing will ever redeem Big Wars, least of all its awkward sex scenes. Divergence Eve shows that, regardless of whether fanservice is good or bad, you can have far, far too much of it.
At this point, I suppose I should clarify something: I’m not talking about all-out hentai. While it’s difficult to say for sure, both of the titles above would, IMHO, most likely get a R rating if reviewed by the MPAA. Although it’s not called fanservice, there’s equivalent content in American works: the way that the police on a cop show go to a strip club to conduct their investigation, a princess captured as a slave by an alien and forced to wear a metal bikini, the woman that jumps into the water in her underwear to swim across the lake; all of these are “American fanservice” that have appeared at one time or another in live action works. I can’t really say that I see any huge difference in the level of “voyeurism” between these examples and the exaggerated character designs or the nudity that appears from time to time in Japanese animation.
If it’s not a difference in the nature of what’s actually shown, then maybe it’s the media itself that turns people away, sometimes violently, from fanservice. I think that this may be a remnant of the association of animation in America with cartoon aimed at children. Any overt sexual content in anything aimed at children would indeed be extremely troublesome. However, even when it contains no sexual content and character designs are realistic rather than exaggerated, anime is not usually for children. For a good set of reasons besides sex and violence why children and most anime don’t mix, I would suggest reading The Librarian’s Guide to Anime and Manga by Gilles Poitras. At any rate, anime are not cartoons. The fact that the uneducated may be confused by this is no reason for anime fans to be confused. Some people will not like anime no matter what; that’s their right, but they shouldn’t grasp at the straws of fanservice to condemn the whole media or all works. It because of gross ignorance that we have such disasters as the Canadian Government’s recent report on anime (now withdrawn). The visual elements of anime are essentially simplified visual art, and nudity and sexual themes have had a place in in art for a long time. If we have any real respect for free expression and art, then this must be accepted.
Anime is fantasy, a caricature of real life. Fanservice, or what may be easily mistaken for fanservice, isn’t just eyecandy for the audience; it allows characters to deal with extreme situations in different ways. In Please Twins, the ever-popular beach episode allows the characters to fight over Mike’s attention in a particularly charged environment. In RahXephon‘s beach episode, some of the characters find out about about Ayato’s “tattoo” when his shirt is open, and he wanders away from the group while the rest are swimming (and, thus, don’t notice him). In HiME and Otome, Natsuki suffers embarrassment and worse from various fanservicey actions while trying to get a ride. The nudity at the beginning of Elfen Lied gives Lucy a dehumanized feel as a character. So “fanservice” isn’t really pointless after all, as long as it allows the characters to develop and face situations that (thank goodness) quite a few real people don’t. All of these are deeper than just a “dirty joke”, and have real meaning. That’s why fanservice is sometimes OK – because sometimes its important to the plot, to the characters, to the very heart of the anime. This isn’t “content, epecially sexual content, which does not add artistically to the value of a an anime” – it’s quite artistic depite anything else that may be said about it.

Funimation has been going out their way lately to promote Funimation Films, buying ads on major anime websites and in print. While Funimation is acting as if no one has heard of such a thing as anime in a theater, it was only a few years ago that Spirited Away won its Academy Award. And unlike the repackaged work that compromises the majority of what Funimation is going to put in movie theaters, the works of Hayao Miyazaki are real, full-length features, not just a teaser for a set of DVDs. As an aside, actual Dragonball movies are going to shown, but while I acknowledge that the series has its merits, I refuse to believe that anything involving Dragonball is an advance for anime in the United States or elsewhere*. Funimation is attempting to promote this program as an experience – you wouldn’t go to an anime in a theater just to watch, but also to socialize with other local anime fans.
Meanwhile, not all that long ago, Central Park Media put a little extra push into their campaign for the small screen, with both PSP and iPod formatted trailers and episodes available on their website. This is analagous to ADV’s experiments with Bittorrent, with lots of trailers and just a few full episodes. The “watch anywhere” appeal is obvious.
So, what is the future of anime promotion and distribution? Is it in the small and portable? Or is it in the large “crowd bringers”? I think that any attempt to get into movie theaters at this point in time is not such a great thing. Some months ago, I went to see the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe at the local cinema – I was one of maybe 6 or 7 people that was in the theater, and I don’t believe that anyone went to see a different show. There were 4 employees visible throughout the building; even assuming that they were all paid minimum wage, it’s clear that the theater lost money just by being open that night, or, assuming people really splurged on popcorn, marginally made a few dollars. This isn’t an isolated case – the entire industry has been hurting for a long time. When viewed from this perspective, it’s clear that Funimation has been sold an attempt by the theaters to bring in more people. An article at the Motley Fool by Rick Aristotle Munarriz argues that movie theaters must change or die, specifically that they must become social locations with an emphasis on cross-selling (he says “in-theater merchandising”). Having anime nights is a step in this direction, but not a strong one, unless there are going to be box sets of anime for sale at the exit.

*I’m joking here.