51 replies to this topic

[WarHippy]

Bishop Steiner, on 19 July 2016 - 12:00 PM, said:

pretty sure there were no Dio or Hair Metal references. Gonna feel the urge to dig it up, report, etc?

No, I just thought it was strange seeing such a nearly identical thread to a really old one pop up. I don't actually care I was just commenting due to my own bemusement.

[Bishop Steiner]

WarHippy, on 19 July 2016 - 12:10 PM, said:

No, I just thought it was strange seeing such a nearly identical thread to a really old one pop up. I don't actually care I was just commenting due to my own bemusement.

well put on a fur suit and throw up some horns. It's Furry Karaoke Night!

[Coralld]

Bishop Steiner, on 19 July 2016 - 12:20 PM, said:

well put on a fur suit and throw up some horns. It's Furry Karaoke Night!

I'm calling animal control.

[Brain Cancer]

Clanners: Space Furries. (We're mercing for Clan Green Burd after all)

Actual LARPers (not the lol-lightningbolt Americans):

[Wintersdark]

Yeah, there's a reason I never get involved in the role playing stuff. It's all so ridiculous.

So very, very ridiculous.

[Void Angel]

Bishop Steiner, on 19 July 2016 - 11:48 AM, said:

Yeah..Image... another sign of the flash over substance 90s (along with grunge). There's a reason most Image titles actually reeked worse than week old fish. (and not just the overstylized lets all imitate Jim Lee's art style that it promoted)

And I'm not actually attacking Anime... some, like Macross, VOTOMS, Venus Wars, Akira, wings of honneamise, etc was brilliant stuff. But that seems like a subset of the Anime Crowd that arose in the 90s (same uprising that got us mechs with samurai sword sin frigging battletech)

How Rob Liefeld still gets hired is simply...astounding.

Do not get me started on Rob Liefeld. Image was just what happens when people like Liefeld and Mcfarlane decide that they're such good artists, they can write their own stuff, too! Marvel may have been heavy-handed with their artists, but there is a benefit to the editing process. A couple-three of the titles were good, or at least had potential, but most of it was just dreck.

I'm still not sure you can blame 'mech katanas on anime, per se; at least not apart from the general increase in popularity of Asian (and especially Japanese) culture during the 80s and onward. Samurai were cool; ninjas were cool; there was honor and bowing, and swords, and that was about all most people knew about Japanese culture, aside from World War II. Remember how many of the 'mech designs were originally licensed from anime properties? Anime and manga popularity was part of that, but not a cause. Plus, as Lily points out (and the origin of the trope suggests,) making things bigger and better until you eventually jump the shark both predates and exists outside of any anime influence.

[Bishop Steiner]

Void Angel, on 19 July 2016 - 01:09 PM, said:

Do not get me started on Rob Liefeld. Image was just what happens when people like Liefeld and Mcfarlane decide that they're such good artists, they can write their own stuff, too! Marvel may have been heavy-handed with their artists, but there is a benefit to the editing process. A couple-three of the titles were good, or at least had potential, but most of it was just dreck.

I'm still not sure you can blame 'mech katanas on anime, per se; at least not apart from the general increase in popularity of Asian (and especially Japanese) culture during the 80s and onward. Samurai were cool; ninjas were cool; there was honor and bowing, and swords, and that was about all most people knew about Japanese culture, aside from World War II. Remember how many of the 'mech designs were originally licensed from anime properties? Anime and manga popularity was part of that, but not a cause. Plus, as Lily points out (and the origin of the trope suggests,) making things bigger and better until you eventually jump the shark both predates and exists outside of any anime influence.

Licensed from Anime, yes, but it wasn't until the huge Gundam surge in the 90s we saw stuff like Samurai Swords and all added to mechs. Why? Because FASA saw that Kids wanted Gundams more than Votoms and Dougrams (the style of anime Btech was based off of originally) and tried to capture dwindling sales by going full Pôwer Rangers in their lore.

Also note the silliness of Gundam Wing and stuff like that... and the rise of overly stylized Solaris Mechs and silly completely ludicrous stylized Totem Mechs (as opposed to ones like the Nova Cat that kind of made sense). Seriously...the clans are a Spartan culture that doesn't waste resources... so now we are going to sculpt shell traps onto our robots to make them look like giant Werewolves and Teddy Bears?

And the Mechwarrior of House Kurita are so dumb that the refused to use Hatchets (too gaijin!!!) but are totally all over it if you can put a flimsy and ineffective Mecha Katana on it! Which is doubly stupid when what did the Samurai use against heavy armor?

Ono


and Kanabō


aka axes and clubs.... "gaijin" weapons according to 1990s FASA.

[Mavairo]

They are test tube freaks. If they are furries, is that really surprising?

[Rat of the Legion Vega]

Bishop Steiner, on 19 July 2016 - 01:42 PM, said:

aka axes and clubs.... "gaijin" weapons according to 1990s FASA.

Actually historical evidence suggests axes/Ono were very rarely used by the samurai class as weapons, instead being stigmatized as peasant farmer weapons. FASA got that right.

Regarding the club, well unlike the Clans I don't believe the Kurita ever had a problem with ripping the arms off other mechs and using them as clubs.

Yes, FASA (and particularly Wizkids!) got carried away with the Totem designs, but historically both Greek "Spartan" culture and Samurai culture (also spartan in its own way) did in fact "waste" resources on elaborate head plumes and crests for their helmets. Part of the reason they did this was to frighten the enemy, because as Sun Tzu emphasized time and again (and the Mongols and even ISIS have demonstrated in practice), the most efficient and least resource intensive way to win any battle is to intimidate the enemy so much they don't even want to fight you. I think I'd be pretty scared seeing a 100 ton Kodiak bearing down on me.... it's not like the Inner Sphere didn't do the exact same thing with the head they put on the Atlas and Banshee.

Finally, regarding the whole furry thing, it's important to remember that Imperial Rome, the Third Reich and The United States of America all plaster a bloody eagle across their military emblems... England until recently did the same thing with lions. Australia still paints KANGAROOS on all its fighter jets... does that make all the residents of those countries closet furries?

The giant genetically modified wildlife that the Clans named themselves after were all much much more fearsome than any of those. And of course, Kurita is in love with dragons/snakes, Liao is in love with tigers/horses, Marik is in love with eagles, Steiner is in love with griffons and successive generations of Kats, and Davion is just in love with themselves.

Edited by Rat of the Legion Vega, 19 July 2016 - 03:21 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Rat of the Legion Vega, on 19 July 2016 - 03:03 PM, said:

Actually historical evidence suggests axes/Ono were very rarely used by the samurai class as weapons, instead being stigmatized as peasant farmer weapons. FASA got that right.

Regarding the club, well unlike the Clans I don't believe the Kurita ever had a problem with ripping the arms off other mechs and using them as clubs.

Yes, FASA (and particularly Wizkids!) got carried away with the Totem designs, but historically both Greek "Spartan" culture and Samurai culture (also spartan in its own way) did in fact "waste" resources on elaborate head plumes and crests for their helmets. Part of the reason they did this was to frighten the enemy, because as Sun Tzu emphasized time and again (and the Mongols and even ISIS have demonstrated in practice), the most efficient and least resource intensive way to win any battle is to intimidate the enemy so much they don't even want to fight you. I think I'd be pretty scared seeing a 100 ton Kodiak bearing down on me.... it's not like the Inner Sphere didn't do the exact same thing with the head they put on the Atlas and Banshee.

huge difference between giving your helmet a ponytial and spending literally millions of bucks to give your robot a Hello Kitty head.

And that historical photo showed that Samurai with his club. Historically there was a huge difference between what Samurai used when dueling other samurai, and what they used in actual war.

[Bishop Steiner]

Needs more Clanner Mockery

[Vervuel]

Anything related to the cartoon is pure Golden Mockery. Made them look like meth-addled drag queens (wait, doesn't that still describe hair-metal bands?). It was glorious.