At a very early age I discovered a fundamental fact. Big walking robots are cool. Now don't start clapping, apparently I wasn't the first or last to discover this. Maybe it's a guy thing, maybe it's our fascination with the tool-making side of our ape like nature. But in all of sci-fi and anime, I doubt anyone can discredit the appeal that large mechanized systems have had on fans.
| Mecha -- Phrase associated with Anime robots often manned, some unmanned. Some of the most famous examples are the veritechs and other mecha found in Robotech (or if you're a purist, Macross) I think at some point in time, most young boys and even girls have looked at a form of mecha and thought to themselves "wouldn't it be cool to pilot that?" While I doubt anyone will have a chance to in my lifetime there's a sense of hope that one day we'll have such devices at our disposal |
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| Veritech and Battlepods from robotech | ||||||||
| Mechs -- Westernized variant of mecha. I've listed these as being different if only because we bastardized it. One of the earliest attempts to bring the mecha idea to the US was in the form of Battletech, a Pen-Paper role playing game which utilized artwork from Harmony Gold (the distributors of Robotech in the west). While their business relationship means that some classic mechs will never be seen, they started a firestorm which continues to hold popularity amoung RPG fans, sci-fi readers and game players. Pictured to the right is an example of a Battlemech. |  |
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| MadCat/Timberwolf battlemech from Mechassault game | ||||||||
| DISCLAIMER: All images depicted here are the property of their respective owners. Robotech is a registered trademark of Harmony Gold, Battletech is a registered trademark of FASA Corporation/Wizkids Intl., Mechassault is a copyrighted title of the Microsoft Corporation. | ||||||||