121 replies to this topic

[Koniving]

Not every anime revolves around teens. What you should look for is a Seinen. Ghost in the shell. Cowboy bebop, Attack on titan (though the main trio of heroes are young.) Goblin Slayer. Stein's Gate is a really impressive one. Black Lagoon is basically a Battletech story without mechs. (Seriously, group of mercy doing odd jobs for numerous different factions and powerful crime families and getting out by the skin of their teeth... Actually the Battletech game by HBS is basically Firefly, which is basically Black Lagoon, which is basically Cowboy Bebop...)

Speaking of Cowboy Bebop... The inspiration for Rhonda Snord, a canon pilot of notoriety in Battletech as well as pilot of both a Shadow Hawk and a Highlander, both outfitted with speakers and known to play heavy metal rock... came from this character from Cowboy Bebop, known as the "Heavy Metal Queen"...hence "Heavy Metal."

Ghost in the Shell overall is another good one, though there's a number of "alternate" time lines going on which keep changing the origin stories. GitS actually took a page from BT by taking a Battletech short story called "The Hangar Queen's Gambit", which is a story about the King Crab and in a standoff in which the King Crab appears to be reloading, do you shoot or is it bluffing that it has ammo ready when in fact it is reloading? In the end of that short story, your choice doesn't matter; you're not facing a KGC-000, you're facing a KGC-0000, which doesn't have down time for reloading its fully automatic AC/20s. GitS's version, however, has the bluff about whether or not the sniper's opponent had the software to make a precision shot or was in the middle of downloading it. In both the BT short story and in that Ghost in the Shell episode, the exact phrase "Get there first" was the choice made before the folly was realized. (Another interesting thought, BT's lesser known elements are filled with cyborgs, so this was a fun thing to throw in..)

Patlabor, though filled with quite a bit of comedy in the overall series, is also generally a Seinen. The movies reflect this better. This scene, clearly inspired by War Games is about keeping the airforce busy with fake enemies and marking jammed allied craft as hostile craft, where they are nearly tricked into destroying their own craft. Another scene, about a coup... happens to include the hangar. Though the TV series version (more brightly lit due to non-winter days) better reflects it, might seem awfully familiar in this Battletech art piece.


(From the video, just how familiar is this? It's only missing the rafters and has a different exterior, it even has the same windows. Also take note of the uniform. Familiar?)

Though of mech anime, 08th MS Team and things set in the same universal century universe tend to be in the same boat as Battletech. (Where do you think the ax of Axman came from? Also love the Patlabor-esque paintjob on that Axman.)

Edited by Koniving, 23 February 2019 - 12:30 AM.

[arcana75]

Wanted to respond to that fella with the poor understanding of anime, but Konniving said all that is needed.

[Variant1]

Id prefer if we had these kinds of movies/show for mechwarrior instead of anime:

arcana75, on 23 February 2019 - 05:54 AM, said:

Wanted to respond to that fella with the poor understanding of anime, but Konniving said all that is needed.

I dont know hes seems pretty dead on about anime, even gundam had high school kids mowing down droves of space dudes. not all anime takes place in high school but 90% of it does, and ghost in shell are very few and rare to come by. I was okay with darker than black though it was alright

Edited by Variant1, 23 February 2019 - 09:37 AM.

[Bombast]

Variant1, on 23 February 2019 - 09:36 AM, said:

Id prefer if we had these kinds of movies/show for mechwarrior instead of anime:

God, an anime version of the MW3 intro would be terrible. They'd dedicate two whole episodes to the teenage mechwarriors crying and swearing vengeance on the Summoner after it steps on an infantryman, then get sidetracked by that season's beach episode.

Edited by Bombast, 23 February 2019 - 06:38 PM.

[Koniving]

Bombast, on 23 February 2019 - 06:37 PM, said:

God, an anime version of the MW3 intro would be terrible. They'd dedicate two whole episodes to the teenage mechwarriors crying and swearing vengeance on the Summoner after it steps on an infantryman, then get sidetracked by that season's beach episode.

You know, Seinen anime actually occasionally takes the time to make fun of kid's anime.


This clip makes fun of the very thing you're talking about.
Its apparent some people are watching Shounen anime, which is targeted at teens in middle to high school.
There's a number of differences: One shounen almost always features high school aged kids (unless they're even younger or its Dragon Ball). Two, regardless of whether they're the majority or the minority, one or more teens are the heroes doing stuff that nobody else can do because plot convenience. And three, yes combat usually takes about 3 to 9 episodes and has a lot of talking about random nonsense, memories, the power of friendship, etc... basically what you see in any kids cartoon.

Seinen, well...There's the 08th clip I shared, the GITS clips, there's these for something a little more in the mech field.

Spoiler

There's this, but it uses more Heavy Gear / Front Mission style mechanics. A lot of BT scenarios that can be found in the mercenaries handbook is covered in the first series of this show made in the 80s.

Found this; but have yet to figure out what it is..

Then we have gundam, so long as we're in the UC universe its good; it's when we get into stuff not made by the original creator in the other universes that it becomes a crapshow.

Edited by Koniving, 23 February 2019 - 07:01 PM.

[Bombast]

Koniving, on 23 February 2019 - 06:41 PM, said:

This clip makes fun of the very thing you're talking about.
Its apparent some people are watching Shounen anime, which is targeted at teens in middle to high school.
There's a huge difference.

I know anime enthusiast like to boast about how there's multiple examples of the genre rising above it's stereotypes... but fact is, most anime is terrible and falls in line with all the hilarious criticisms leveled against it. Just like huge swathes of American television lives up to the terrible sitcom tropes we all hate but still watch for some reason.

The only big difference is that it's largely impossible for American 'layman' to wade through the 90% trash that is anime to find the good stuff due to the language and cultural barrier, and both anime producers and consumers seems weirdly proud of the trash. You don't see many people getting excited about Two Broke Girls. Unless it's after after 11pm, the internet is out and one has the urge.

[Koniving]

Bombast, on 23 February 2019 - 06:54 PM, said:

The only big difference is that it's largely impossible for American 'layman' to wade through the 90% trash that is anime to find the good stuff due to the language and cultural barrier

Literally use the subgenre "Seinen."
That's pretty much it.
Similar to how you can look for TV shows rated G or PG.

Think of it like looking for shows rated R.

[Koniving]

Variant1, on 23 February 2019 - 09:36 AM, said:

I dont know hes seems pretty dead on about anime, even gundam had high school kids mowing down droves of space dudes. not all anime takes place in high school but 90% of it does, and ghost in shell are very few and rare to come by. I was okay with darker than black though it was alright

Darker than Black is a Seinen. If you want more like it, just look up Seinen anime. Its basically anime targeted at adults, or rated R. As opposed to Shounen, which is anime targeted at ages 13 to 15. Most of what the misconceptions have described, and the majority of anime easily found, is Shounen or Shojo.
https://kotaku.com/h...anga-1538285518
And I guess they're not really genres, just literally the target audience. For example Robin Hood, the disney cartoon, is aimed at kids, while Robin Hood the latest live action movie is aimed at adults.

Edited by Koniving, 23 February 2019 - 07:20 PM.

[Bombast]

Koniving, on 23 February 2019 - 07:08 PM, said:

Literally use the subgenre "Seinen."
That's pretty much it.
Similar to how you can look for TV shows rated G or PG.

Think of it like looking for shows rated R.

After a lot of experience on the matter, I accept anime recommendations from exactly one person. Got tired of shoddy curators.

Sorry.

[Koniving]

Bombast, on 23 February 2019 - 07:20 PM, said:

After a lot of experience on the matter, I accept anime recommendations from exactly one person. Got tired of shoddy curators.

Sorry.

Don't need to take recommendations, just look them up by the term Seinen and the genre. I'm not giving you recommendations, just telling you how to tell if it's rated R and intended for the 20 to 50 age market.

As you won't find any of the issues you described. Well some will still have long winded conversations but more on the philosophical side rather than the power of friendship.

[Anjian]

Variant1, on 23 February 2019 - 09:36 AM, said:

Id prefer if we had these kinds of movies/show for mechwarrior instead of anime:





I dont know hes seems pretty dead on about anime, even gundam had high school kids mowing down droves of space dudes. not all anime takes place in high school but 90% of it does, and ghost in shell are very few and rare to come by. I was okay with darker than black though it was alright

By today's standards those clips look pretty horrid.

Compare this to the last mecha anime Netflix has run. Sort of an anime, with Shoji Kawamori of Macross doing the mechanical designs.








I don't see a teen mowing down mobs of space dudes. All the people that pilot the mechs are adults, the only teen in the show does not pilot a mech. The mechs are fighting inter dimensional monsters. Contrary to most anime settings, this takes place on a reconstructed Chinese city, and the characters have Chinese surnames.

I'm not a fan of Gundam either. I think that franchise is already creatively bankrupt based on the last few series they run.

If I am looking for an affordable digital FX company, I would hire the guys who did the War Robots trailers in a heartbeat.




Samples of Realtime UK's work.

For War Robots



For Dreadnought



For Elite Dangerous

Edited by Anjian, 23 February 2019 - 07:59 PM.

[Koniving]

My issue is...
Last Hope is a Shonen... >.> Far as the Chinese elements, its a Japanese-Chinese collaboration. You'd see something similar in Japanese-American collaborations or simply in American-anime (which, unfortunately, I've never seen any non-shonen examples).

As a visual example the 3D visuals are much better than the old 1990s, but.. meh. Logic, physics, things of that nature tend to be secondary to a number of other things, and what we seen of the vehicles, we have a wide vehicle doing donuts without skidding in just one trailer. I don't think its Shonen style extreme action first worry about realism later nature really helps in the argument against how 'any anime is gonna have them move like (shonen) gundams' in the super robot genre as opposed to the real robot genre.

Spoiler

(I know Armored Troopers in VOTOMS do the power slide, but there's a very strict and rigid set of physics in what they can and cannot do, a time limit/fuel limit on it, as well as a number of other things that govern it into a realm of reality as opposed to simply "it can perform better than anything else because its a gundam made out of gundamanium and can survive a nuclear explosion from its own reactor and protect its pilot by some miracle when anyone else takes a bullet and it goes through the armor and into the cockpit.")

You probably could have tried Knights of Sidonia, Godzilla OVAs 1 through 3, or "Blame!" (which is really good.) So you'd at least have Seinens to reference. Though they go that full 3D aspect.

--------
Also on the preference to have something more 3D, well, I did mention Roughnecks as a possible non-anime Western style.

A personal love I have for Roughnecks, is akin to the BT Mercenaries handbook and the Mechwarrior RPG... "intel is never right." I'm actually surprised there isn't a whole meme on it considering how often intel was completely wrong.

Its from 1999, so something more modern would be along the lines of either Appleseed, or for a purely western take, the Dead Space movie. There's also Captain Harlock. At least here we're into shows aimed at adults which would give us a far better feel for how a BT animation would turn out, if it, too, were aimed at a higher age bracket than the original BT cartoon.

Appleseed

Deadspace Aftermath

(Dead Space Downfall is also an interesting case for/against a purely Western animation style, but is the closest art style to literally every Battletech-style attempt at cartoons and animated shorts.)
Captain Harlock

Edited by Koniving, 23 February 2019 - 08:44 PM.

[InfinityBall]

Prototelis, on 18 February 2019 - 08:18 PM, said:

BT needs a reboot in order to appeal to modern western audiences.

Things need reboots if they have alienated their potential fan bases or gotten stale.

Battletech simply isn't well enough known for either condition to apply.

[ImperialKnight]

https://youtu.be/WzMeWxZvmwA

The closest we'll probably ever get to an anime style Battletech

[Koniving]

These were attempts at turning a fan comic into a BT cartoon. But they couldn't be done due to licensing reasons.



There was also this attempt to make a trailer for another fan-animated series; it got shut down, but was able to go back up as a fan trailer for MWO.


So some other ideas.
But ultimately, the BT license is so chopped up due in large part to just how many different parties own pieces of it (BT, Mechwarrior, etc., there's a reason the Mechwarrior RPG series had to be renamed; Microsoft owns the MW license, as such it is now Classic Battletech RPG)...

[Anjian]

InfinityBall, on 23 February 2019 - 08:58 PM, said:

Things need reboots if they have alienated their potential fan bases or gotten stale. Battletech simply isn't well enough known for either condition to apply.

You have a problem if it does not appeal both to eastern and western audiences.

Plus appealing to eastern audiences might even be more important because of the bigger size of the market matched to deeper wallets.

Note that China, like Japan, has an obsession with robotics and even hold an "olympics" for it there.

[Koniving]

For fun...
Consider watching Adam, it currently consists of 3 individual episodes around 6 minutes each. Western enough?

Its worth a read about, too.
https://unity.com/madewith/adam

[InfinityBall]

Anjian, on 23 February 2019 - 09:26 PM, said:

You have a problem if it does not appeal both to eastern and western audiences.

Plus appealing to eastern audiences might even be more important because of the bigger size of the market matched to deeper wallets.

Note that China, like Japan, has an obsession with robotics and even hold an "olympics" for it there.

Sure, but that's not a "we need to reboot this" problem, it's either a "people don't like this" or "people don't know what this is" problem

[Koniving]

Anjian, on 23 February 2019 - 09:26 PM, said:

You have a problem if it does not appeal both to eastern and western audiences.

Spoiler added.
BT had a fan base in Japan, but there's a problem. There's even a Japanese remake of Mechwarrior 1

Sadly the remake didn't really update the actual game graphics or gameplay, just the 2D art...
The problem, though, is that Japanese BT...is largely nothing like Western BT. Much like German BT has also become its own thing.


For example,

Spoiler

here's a Locust.

For comparison to old western..


Here's an Archer.


Warhammer


Hunchback 4G


This awesome looking thing is a Commando

An Enforcer

Think the Dragon's fat even though its fast? Try picturing THIS thing running...


Wanna see a Marauder 3R?

Holy heck! Might confuse it with King Crab.. Least it isn't a Stalker.... but this is.

Now if you grew up with that... then play western BT games...
You're probably like "What is this crap?"
Sadly, I had seen some Japanese Battletech games. They play very similarly to tabletop... but have teenage girl pilot syndrome. They sort of resorted to that to push it and as such, alienated it a fair bit. Will say the cockpit designs are pretty sweet, but look similar to what was in that Lost Hope trailer.

Edited by Koniving, 23 February 2019 - 09:47 PM.

[Koniving]

(Random note: The same people that did the original Destroids that we know as the Marauder, Archer, etc... also drew those..'things'...)