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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Big Mecha - your recommendations, please

15:01 / 24.07.07

So, inspired by the Transformers vibe that's everywhere and giddy with excitement at the prospect of the Evangelion Rebuild, I'm in the mood for some new big mecha action.

With that in mind I returned to Patlabor (the first one, a favorite from my youth - never seen the sequal; any good?) and, while I enjoyed it as always, it didn't really fill a hole.

I think I'm looking for something more adult, as crass as that sounds. Not Underfiend tentacle-hentai adult but still something for a more mature audience. A bit more 'whoah!' than 'wheee!'.

I know there are loads of you with the manga knowledge - grateful for your advice.

Cheers!

16:36 / 24.07.07

Long time since I last watched it, but I remember Patlabor 2 being a disappointment compared to the first - more muddled, not as interesting, more generic.

16:38 / 24.07.07

Giant Robo, if you can find all seven episodes, might fit the bill. It's got big smashy robot action set against a backdrop of conspiracy, murder, enviromentalism, alternative energy and dodgy saviour worship. All of that filtered through a rumination on the legacy of absent fathers and the cost of happiness.

As a limited series it's got a pretty high, but not gratuitous, death toll by the end.

And it's in a neo art deco stylee throughout.

"ROBO!"

17:00 / 24.07.07

I know you're looking for more adult - and I know you're looking for anime - but can I recommend Megas XLR?

It's an anime-influenced American cartoon. And lo, it is funny, and lo, it does adept pisstakes of other cartoons.

Still not sold? It also has Bruce Campbell in it as Magnaminious for several episodes.

Mysterious Transfer Student

17:03 / 24.07.07

Darn it, Triplets beat me to the punch. So...

Talking of the legendary Evangelion, I'd like to give some props to one of the shows that emerged in its wake around five years ago, RahXephon. Be aware that when I say it's in the shadow of Eva, I mean it - it has an infuriatingly passive teenage male protagonist, hefty prog-rock philosophical content, unplumbed angst, disturbing monster design, a sexy but troubled older woman, inter-governmental intrigue, one regulation cute animal and just to be different, two Mysterious Girls. What RahXephon has going for it is a refreshingly exotic Okinawan setting, some interesting sci-fi themes revolving around music, Mayan chronology and the "Asian Atlantis" of Mu, engaging characters and some terrific design and scoring - and the whole thing was made by director Yutaka Izubuchi and Studio BONES, creators of the beloved Eureka Seven. And if you haven't seen that, see it first in order to be assured that it's a very high recommendation indeed.

18:54 / 24.07.07

Both Raxephon and Gasaraki have a very serious vibe to them, for the most part. And, they're both pretty watchable.

Middle-ground, would be the Escaflowne movie, which is a weird notion. Or, Robot Jox.

Personally, I found the Patlabor TV series to be more mature than the movies, in the same way something like Nadesico or Dai-Guard ends up reflecting my adult life more than Blue Gender or the Ghost in the Shell movies.

19:12 / 24.07.07

Patlabor movies: Serious. Political. Intrigue. And. Highly. Detailed. Mecha. IMPORTANT RUMINATION!

Patlabor TV: I know we can't drink on duty; this is... foamy tea.

Oh, and Macross Plus or, if you can get hold of it without the bad dub, there's the oldschool Do You Remember Love, too. Macross Zero, if you must, does have some interesting material. Cutesy is limited to occasional moments with pop singers and sturdily continuous one-upmanship amongst pilots. And that beer-can missile in the first movie. All very 'wheee!' on one level, and on an emotional level, looking at how confused, desperate, or bassackwards these folks are, it's a little more 'whoa.'

20:13 / 24.07.07

Voice of a Distant Star is very short, but it is, in its way, adult and serious, with very little 'cutesy' at all. Following a boy and girl as one goes off to war in a mech, and the other stays on the ground and checks his cell repeatedly for messages from her, that grow inevitably rarer.

I'll stop now.

10:35 / 25.07.07

Wow. Thank you all, for these recommendations.

Loads to be going on with here; Giant Robos and Megas XLR look proper cool. Can't believe I overlooked RahXephon - that's always trailered on every Evangelion DVD and I make a mental note of it each time.

Voice Of A Distant Star, in particular, sounds right up my street - will take it on as soon as possible.

Thanks again - if anything else occurs to you, please just let me know!

15:39 / 30.07.07

Nightfalling, you didn't do a good enough job recommending Macross Plus.

Two pilots are pitted against an AI in the fight for a future in the military. The AI has everything: precision, less training time, and no emotional bias to interfere with it's perfect circuits. The men? The one thing in their favour is ego. It could also be their undoing.

Soundtrack by the excellent Yoko Kanno.

18:27 / 30.07.07

Actually, I think what sells Macross Plus for me is how denial can work, or how, sometimes, we feel it's best to let ourselves appear as crueler or worse than we are for the sake of others. But then, I saw the movie first, OAVs second, so I got more emphasis on that than on the dogfights. Every major character in that, and even many of the minor, all demonstrate interesting mixtures of maturity and childishness, and it really does break their lives.

I can'r quite recommend Voice of a Distant Star enough, though. Horrid drunken panda subbing on the first copy I ever watched made it infinitely more spiritual and layered than the short could ever hope to be, but even stripped down to what's actually in the film, it's heartbreakingly lovely, has some ace little action sequences with real emotional fallout, and a double-header of an ending thanks to a last-minute background element.

18:44 / 30.07.07

Two pilots are pitted against an AI in the fight for a future in the military. The AI has everything: precision, less training time, and no emotional bias to interfere with it's perfect circuits. The men? The one thing in their favour is ego. It could also be their undoing.

Isn't this the synopsis for STEALTH?