#....daitarn is a super robot right

[visohyenadraws]

As someone who loves the mecha genre I wish I was into any of the Gundam series but so far I have been unsuccessful.

I love the aesthetic of a giant robot with a big fuck off gun, if I didn’t I wouldn’t have gotten Armored Core VI lol, but still, I tried watching 79 quite a few times but fell off each times.

The first time was when I watched the first ten episodes of the original series off of a piracy site when they were still untamed by the feds, and just never returned to it. Then my second attempt was with the movie trilogy, I finished the first one and then dropped the second halfway through.

It’s been a while but I can try to explain why, I know what Didn’t spoil it for me: I have a stupidly high tolerance for old anime and old media in general, I was Raised on that shit, including many of Sunrise’s anime from the time, so I didn’t care because it looked old or outdated.

No I think what got me the most, and this might be an issue with the movies since I do remember some good episodes they had to cut out for time, was the characters, ironically. I’m sorry but I couldn’t care less for Amuro, he’s boring as hell and very generic… and he’s ginger (I’m kidding), when he’s not fighting he’s either ranting or getting beaten up by Bright and OH I’ll get to that cunt soon.

Idk maybe I hold up Shinji as the definitive example of how to make traumatised underage pilots, and Amuro just isn’t enough of a mess to work here despite the setting, and for the record I Like Shinji as a character.

My other issue is with a lot of the women in the cast, again, I didn’t finish the series so it prob gets better but a lot of the women in this show do nothing but stand around, cry, die, or keep repeating AMURO AMURO AMURO AMURO AMURO if they’re on the side of the Federation. I have seen films from the 50s with more feminist depictions of women ffs.

Now onto Bright, I like to think that my media literacy is good enough for me to not let characters who are bad people get to me, au contraire, some of my favourite pieces of media often involved the Whole Cast being pieces of shit, I am a massive Always Sunny fan after all. I can live with unsavoury characters if they’re done well enough.

That being said, I could never shake off the feeling that the series wasn’t doing quite Enough to call out Bright’s hardass martial approach to social interactions, almost as if the series was saying “yup, he’s in the right brah, nothing wrong here” which yeah this set the stage for me to bounce off the series incredibly hard in the second movie I think where he says some shit about women not being allowed to pilot mechs.

I really hope I’m misremembering some of this stuff because brother that’s not it. Really the only characters I really cared for where the villains like Char and the other guy, since they go against what you’d expect from mecha baddies, but even still they don’t have that much screentime and one of them famously dies in the tenth episode or the climax of the first movie.

But those were my issues with the series itself, on a more meta level, I have some amount of resentment over the series specifically the original 79 for its impact.

For those who don’t know, mecha series before Gundam were retroactively labelled as “Super Robot” since they were basically giant metal superheroes, animated Ultraman essentially, they could jump, move and run like it was nothing despite the laws of physics, and had extravagant weapons and attacks fighting whacky aliens or evil scientists.

Even Sunrise’s previous works like Daitarn 3 and Trider G7 were super robot through and through, especially the former being downright comedic at times and being closer to James Bond than science fiction, even their supposedly darker Zambot 3 was super robot through and through.

So when the original MSG came out in 1979, it really was a big deal as it was unlike everything else; it was a lot more grounded in tone and setting, the villains not only were fellow humans but had layers of complexity and weren’t just cartoon baddies, the robots carried shields and guns instead of cock-rockets and roketto-panchi, it was less a superhero Kyodai/Kaiju romp and more like a war drama, the severity of the conflict was made front and centre and not brushed aside for the cool fights.

That’s brilliant, even to this day it’s a great premise and deconstruction of the mecha genre, the problem is that this series became So popular that basically every single fucking mecha and scifi anime had to model itself after Gundam or be seen as outdated. Super robot was killed overnight, because god forbid we have some fucking fun with the concept of GIANT ROBOTS BEATING THE BRAINS OUT OF EACH OTHER.

Like Gurren Lagann being modelled after super robot shows as a fun throwback shows how utterly dead the genre is.

I understand that by the time Gundam came out the genre had run its course, you can only rewrite Mazinger/Grandeizer so many times, but fuck’s sake surely there’s ways to do it just be creative. I love the things Gundam helped create but the fact that it had to exist at the Expense of super robot is what bothers me.

Let me explain it by comparing it to Godzilla ok? There’s two kinds of Godzillas: serious war drama Godzilla and KWE standing for Kaiju Wrestling Entertainment. There’s fans that prefer one over the other but both Godzillas exist without cancelling each other out.

Now the 1980s movie The Return of Godzilla was the first movie in the series in a while, and it was a grittier more serious return to form that just had Zilla destroy a city without all the other monsters duking it out. Now IMAGINE if after that movie Toho went “right, it’s clear, people only want serious Godzilla it’s very clear” and from then on we ONLY got movies like Godzilla 54, Minus One and Shin Godzilla, yes they’re peak, but after a while a part of the fanbase is gonna get seriously tired of them and wish they would just get “Godzilla vs Mothra vs Kong vs Gheedora All United Brawl” already.

Now if you know me personally you’ll ask “but what about Evangelion” and yes, if Eva is not my favourite anime ever it’s in the Top 3, but honestly? Calling Eva just a mecha show or any of the sub genres is seriously selling it short, it is SO much more then robot fights and thats why I love it, watching Eva just for the robot fights is like playing Silent Hill 2 for the riveting combat.

So those are my thoughts, I still haven’t given up on the series as I plan to revisit it through War in the Pocket since fans quite like that one in particular, hopefully it’s more up my alley lol.

[over-the-time-flow]

...where were we?

Both happy to meet a fellow Gai, Daido and Daigoji pledge to get along well.

The rest of the Nadesico's pilots introduce themselves as well. Akito is both a pilot and a cook, and the rest are the sporty Ryoko, the quirky Hikaru and the gloomy Izumi.

The bridge crew introduce themselves as well; Megumi Reinard is in charge of comms, and Haruka Minato is the helmswoman.

As is standard at this point, Uribatake Seiya, the Nadesico's mechanic, shows interest in tinkering with the Excellence.

Finally, Banjo Haran, who spoke up earlier, finally formally introduces himself. He's one of the richest men on the planet, and he's accompanied by three assistants; Reika Sanjo, an ex-Preventer, Beautiful Tachibana (ACTUAL BIRTH NAME), the daughter of the head of a tourism conglomerate, and Garrison Tokita, the eternally coolheaded yet noticeably quirky butler. Together, they use the Daitarn 3 and their various skillsets to crush the ambitions of the wicked Meganoids.

Raul is aptly stunned at the idea of someone having a personal butler in this day and age, especially one as stereotypical looking as Garrison, but that's rich people for you.

So from now on, the group will remain here at the GEAR HQ and act as needed. Until then, they'll just remain on standby, hanging out at the base, which is rather large and has a lot of ways to pass the time.

It's a VERY old-timey Super Robot setup, and one that i'm surprised isn't more common in SRW games; it makes for a very comfy feel all throughout, and i think if this game was properly translated, the setting would be a lot more appreciated. It's a lot easier to imagine Ryuugo "Nightmare Delinquent Boss of Hokkaido" Netsuma and NeurodivergentTeen McRealRobotProtag sitting around and talking about the weather around the water cooler when just hanging out and shooting the shit at the base is their status quo than on a grand continent spanning adventure where every single day they have to emergency deploy and fight 5 waves of enemies from 8 different shows (though they will definitely be doing that in this game still).

The group only has one issue. Right now, having been merged, they're not really the "Nadesico crew" or the "Frieden crew", or the "Preventers", nor are they even "GEAR"; the official denomination for their group is the Earth Sphere United Nation Defense Force, or ESUNDF for short. While certainly functional, it's very long (ESPECIALLY in japanese), and, well... it just doesn't sound cool. Shibuya concedes that this is true, and they decide to try and pitch names. How long could it take?

...no, seriously

Ruri: "...8 hours later..."

Well, everyone's at an impasse. No one can settle on a good name. Which means it's up to the player!

The default (and canon, probably) name is Round Knights, which to me evokes less "The Knights of the Round Table" and more Gladimon from Digimon, but it certainly sounds cooler in japanese. Plus, it has an R in the name to match the game's name, and alluding to the Knights of the Round Table is particularly apt considering some later plot implications.

All that said, however, when i'm faced with the option to rename something, i can't help but feel the urge to be silly with it overtake me. Imagine naming the team something stupid like "TUMBLR" and having the final 15 chapters be full of villains saying shit like 「おおのれTUMBLR…貴様たちさえいなければ…！！」 in their dying breaths... Still, i wouldn't want to pull a Shirogami Kodama just because of a fit of contrarianism, so you can all rest easy; we're going with Round Knights.

Onto the rollcalls!

[scope-dogg]

They are. Daitarn 3 from the show of the the same name on the right, Gespenst on the left is a Super Robot Wars original, I assume this artwork was released to coincide with an SRW game that had them both

Muteki Kyojin Daitarn 3 by Kunio Okawara

[scope-dogg]

I want to play super robot wars. Where do I start?

Well, each one has its own story, so there isn’t really a “right place to start” from that point of view. There is, however, a limited selection available to play in English, as you’re limited to the last couple of games that have gotten English language releases in Asia and the small handful of fan translations out there. That is, at least, if it’s a game featuring a wide array of anime titles you want to play. The OGs series featuring Banpresto originals mecha only have all been available in the west. If it’s anime titles you want on the other hand, it’s just a matter of picking the one you think has the best roster, versus how much you’re willing to put up with in regards to primitive graphics and sound work, or whether you own a PS4 or Vita or think it’s worth it to get one.

Your options are:

Super Robot Wars J (GBA - pixelly graphics, kind of shitty sound with no voice acting, but has a pretty strong story.)

Featuring: Mazinkaiser, Gundam Seed, Brain Powerd, G Gundam, SPT Layzner, Tekkaman Blade, Martian Successor Nadesico, Hades Project Zeorymer, Combattler V, Voltes V, Dancouga, Full Metal Panic

Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden (PS1 - fairly decent graphics, though units have very super-deformed sprites and some of the animation feels a little stiff. Music is okay, game has a good array of voice work. The story is actually a follow up to the as-yet untranslated SRW Alpha, and while it’s not too hard to pick up the gist of what’s going on some confusion is to be expected.)

Featuring: Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, Mazinkaiser, Getter Robo, Getter Robo G and Shin Getter Robo (manga,) Macross, Macross Plus, Char’s Counterattack, Stardust Memory, Zeta Gundam, ZZ Gundam, Victory Gundam, Turn A Gundam, Gundam X, Gundam Wing Endless Waltz, Combat Mecha Xabungle, Voltes V, Combattler V, Brave Raideen, Dancouga, Galaxy Cyclone Braiger, Daitarn 3

Super Robot Wars A Portable (PSP - probably the nicest graphics of the fanslation games, with great sound and voice acting. I’m still playing through the story but it seems quite good.)

Featuring: Martian Successor Nadesico, Gundam 0079, Zeta Gundam, ZZ Gundam, Char’s Counterattack, Stardust Memory, the 8th MS Team, Gundam Wing Endless Waltz, G Gundam, Metal Armor Dragonar, Daitarn 3, Zambot 3, Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, Grendizer, Getter Robo, Getter Robo G and Shin Getter Robo, Combattler V, Voltes V, Brave Leader Daimos.

Those you can all play for free with an emulator. J is probably the easiest and is a good training wheels SRW game, Alpha Gaiden has the widest array of rep, and A Portable looks the nicest. Of course, if you have a PS4 or Vita and are prepared to shell out for an imported asian english language release copy, then you also have:

Super Robot Wars V (PS4 / Vita - HD graphics and sound with great animation and voice acting)

Featuring: Zeta Gundam, ZZ Gundam, Char’s Counterattack, Gundam Unicorn, Gundam Hathaway’s Flash, Gundam Crossbone, Gundam 00: Awakening of the Trailblazer, Gundam Seed Destiny, Nadesico: The Prince of Darkness, Cross Ange, Brave Express Might Gaine, Daitarn 3, Zambot 3, Full Metal Panic, Getter Robo Armageddon, Shin Mazinger Z, Mazinger Zero, Neon Genesis Evangelion (rebuilds) Space Battleship Yamato 2199

and

Super Robot Wars X (PS4 / Vita - same applies)

Featuring: Zeta Gundam, ZZ Gundam, Char’s Counterattack, Gundam F91, Gundam Crossbone, Gundam Reconguista in G, Gundam Wing Endless Waltz, Brave Express Might Gaine, Daitarn 3, Aura Battler Dunbine, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, Gurren Lagann, Mashin Hero Wataru, Shin Mazinger Z, Mazinger Zero, Cross Ange, Buddy Complex, Nadia: the Secret of Blue Water

And then of course, if you’re prepared to wait a little while there’s the upcoming:

Super Robot Wars T (PS4 / Nintendo Switch - same applies, out March 20 2019)

Featuring: Zeta Gundam, ZZ Gundam, Char’s Counterattack, Gundam Crossbone, G Gundam, the King of Braves Gaogaigar, Brave Express Might Gaine, Tryder G7, Aura Battler Dunbine, Nadesico: The Prince of Darkness, Getter Robo Armageddon, Mazinger Z Infinity, Gun X Sword, Armored Trooper VOTOMs, Gunbuster, Expelled from Paradise, Magic Knight Rayearth, Arcadia of My Youth: Endless Orbit SSX (ie; Captain Harlock) Cowboy Bebop

For what it’s worth, I started with J and really enjoyed it, though I think A Portable is on track to becoming my favourite. One more piece of advice I’d give is that it’s probably a good idea to pick a game that has your favourites, but if it also has one or more series that you plan to watch in the future and don’t want to be spoiled on before you watch it, exercise caution.

[bugeyedetective]

I’m trying to force myself to finish one of the English-language Super Robot Wars games before I buy the latest one.  I might post funny stuff that happens. I’m at stage 17 of Super Robot Wars V.  Right now it’s funny that the 6-Meter tall Super Aestivalis is willing to jump in to support defend the 120-Meter Daitarn 3.  It’s about as good an idea in game mechanics as it sounds on paper.  Terrible. Also, I’ve mostly only played and beaten the GBA and DS games, so it’s great to see how animated these robots are.  And the voice acting, whoo.

[entergamingxp]

Super Robot Wars DD Next Update Adds World 5, Amuro Ray Piloting Mazinger Z

December 12, 2019 10:09 AM EST

Aldnoah Zero gets in Super Robot Wars. Amuro Ray in Mazinger Z is the first new Crossing Pilot event, written by Takanobu Terada and Project X Zone’s Souichiro Morizumi. New toys revealed.

Bandai Namco held a new Super Robot Wars stream on December 12. You can access the stream’s Youtube page here. These streams, called the Nama Suparobo Channel, are mostly monthly and feature new information on the ongoing mobile games Super Robot Wars X-Ω (pronounced Cross Omega) and Super Robot Wars DD, and new info on mecha toys. This is also where new Super Robot Wars games are announced, but this time’s stream didn’t have a new game announcement. In fact, they kept joking through the stream that Producer Takanobu Terada doesn’t have much to say this time. The biggest and most shocking announcement was SRW DD adding Amuro Ray piloting Mazinger Z.

The stream started with the SRW Cross Omega corner, where it was announced Jushin Liger, and Gundam Build Fighters Battlogue are the next time-limited additions to the game. Code Geass first season is also coming back for a time-limited event to celebrate Lelouch’s birthday.

They also chatted about the upcoming Project Sakura Wars/Shin Sakura Taisen time-limited event in SRW Cross Omega. New illustrations were specifically made for it, seen above. A short trailer showing each member of the New Flower Division was shown too:

SRW Cross Omega is a mobage, and just like most mobage it uses sexual fanservice to sell , so they funnily added a breast bouncing animation to Sakura Amamiya’s cut-in. Seijuro’s seiyuu Yohei Azakami was present too, and he stayed the whole stream seeing he also voices SRW DD‘s protagonist. During the stream, Terada again mentioned how he often gets mixed up with Sakura Taisen producer Takaharu Terada, and how people tend to say even their voices are similar.

Next was the SRW DD corner, with Producer Red making multiple announcements, shown in the trailer below.

First off, Super Robot Wars DD is getting its first major update, adding a World 5 with new series.

Martian Successor Nadesico: The Prince of Darkness

Invincible Steel Man Daitarn 3

Gundam Wing Endless Waltz

UFO Robo Grendizer

Aldnoah Zero

This is the first time ever Aldnoah Zero is appearing in the Super Robot Wars series.

A new OG girl named Eunice Airy was also revealed. She’s voiced by Misaki Watada and designed by Keiji Yamamoto, under his pen name Chou Niku. Eunice is an excellent software engineer and is a positive-thinking woman. She’s the OG character in World 5 and is piloting a Graphdin like the other girls.

Terada said Eunice is older than she looks and not a loli character. Misaki Watada, while chatting about Eunice, accidentally read the profile she got for the audition, spoiling Eunice is an alien or related to aliens.

Terada also mentioned you can’t see it on Eunice’s illustration and it probably won’t be seen in the game, but her outfit has high back exposure. They joked that maybe they’ll do a back-focusing cut-in for her. Terada also said in the first draft Chou Niku did, you could pretty much see all down to her butt, so he told him to change it a little. Misaki Watada said she likes Eunice’s design and how cute it is, especially the ribbon. It’s also her first time ever voicing a mecha pilot character, and the first role where she had to shout so much. Watada also asked if she could tweet about Eunice right away now that she got officially revealed, making the others tease her about being a “Reiwa person”. Kenji Akabane mentioned himself and other seiyuu at her age didn’t have the guts to ask something like that during a stream.

The trailer also revealed Super Robot Wars DD will add Masaki Ando and Cybaster. Just like with Kyousuke, Masaki got a new illustration by Sachiko Kouno. It’s the first time in a while she drew Masaki.

Lastly, the trailer reveals Super Robot Wars DD is getting brand new events called Crossing Pilot events. For the first time ever, the Super Robot Wars series will make a playable character from one series pilot a playable mecha from another completely unrelated series. The first Crossing Event will be Gundam’s Amuro Ray piloting Kabuto Kouji’s Mazinger Z.

Producer Terada explained the Crossing Pilot events. Amuro has specific lines for the event which Tōru Furuya recorded. Crossing Pilot events will be standalone stories with no relation to the main story of SRW DD. Moreover, each story will be kept pretty simplistic, but it’ll still be interesting. Terada wrote the story himself, with advice from Souichiro Morizumi, who used to work on SRW OG games in the past, took a break from the series, but is now back on SRW since 2019. Souchiro Morizumi used to work at Monolith and was also the producer of Namco x Capcom and all its sequels/spiritual successors: Mugen no Frontier SRW OG, Mugen no Frontier Exceed SRW OG, Project X Zone, and Project X Zone 2. As a side note, Mugen no Frontier Exceed recently got a translation patch.

Akabane jokingly said he wanna see Gundam OO‘s Setsuna pilot Mazinger Z too so he’ll say “I am Mazinger Z”. Terada said he shouldn’t have expectations that high. Seeing they picked Amuro Ray in Mazinger Z as the first event, I believe he’s hinting that they’ll only do the most iconic crossovers possible.

Next was the toys corner, where they showed some of the upcoming Sakura Taisen HG toys, and announced new Soul of Steel toys. I won’t be translating the details for each toy but those interested can find screenshots below.

The stream ended with the “I hate when this happens in SRW games” corner by the comedy duo MCs. It’s the first time in months they did that.

When everyone said their goodbyes, Terada said he doesn’t yet when the next SRW stream will be, meaning there shouldn’t be one in January 2020. Just like I hoped, the SRW series seems to be taking a break from yearly releases.

December 12, 2019 10:09 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2019/12/super-robot-wars-dd-next-update-adds-world-5-amuro-ray-piloting-mazinger-z/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=super-robot-wars-dd-next-update-adds-world-5-amuro-ray-piloting-mazinger-z

[gaignunkukai]

thinking about. potential super robot wars au where kamina survives the fight with Thymilph.

it's a stroke of sheer luck that could only come about because of who's there. thymilph is distracted just the slightest bit when trying to attack kamina, mazinger or getter-1 lunge at the perfect time, big o manages to halt viral in his tracks, shinkiro slows thymilph down just enough--

the spear still pierces the cockpit. kamina screams, simon believes it's fatal for a brief moment, but then kamina gets back up.

thymilph goes down to giga drill break. just as before. the team holds their breath...

it's one of the super robot pilots who reach kamina first. maybe banjou or ryoma. kamina still stands--well, sits, really. one of his arms dangles, useless--it's almost been severed at the elbow. he's barely conscious.

but despite everything, kamina lives.

[over-the-time-flow]

Super Robot Rollcall: The Haran Conglomerate

Banjo Haran

"For this world and its people, Daitarn 3 will crush the ambitions of the Meganoids! If you don't fear the brilliance of the sun itself, bring it on!!"

Source Material: Invincible Steel Man Daitarn 3 Age: 17/18 Voice Actor: Hirotaka Suzuoki Character Designer: Norio Shioyama

One cool customer, Banjo Haran is one of if not the richest man on Earth, and he dedicates all of his fortune and free time torwards a single goal; eradicating the Meganoids who took his family from him. Alongside his wacky team, he'll go to any lengths necessary to keep the world safe and crush their wicked ambitions with the Daitarn 3.

SRW tends to adapt his coolheaded side and his hot-blooded, hateful side that shows whenever he fights Meganoids, but one big complaint i've always had is that they never adapt his more comedic side, which is strange, as watching the actual show, he's full on Jiron Amos levels of Tomino comedic protagonist. SRW Banjo feels like an entirely different entity from anime Banjo, being written almost like he's super robot Batman, and with his riches being often used as a plot device to explain where the team is getting its funding from. I don't like it very much, but i didn't like Daitarn 3 all that much either, so it's not that big of a deal to me. For what it's worth, R's is probably my favorite Banjo i've seen in SRW so far.

Even if i'm liable to bitch about Banjo's writing in SRW, there's no way you could get me to complain about the gameplay side of things. Absolutely monstrous Melee stat, high Defense, surprisingly decent Accuracy, and while his Spirit learnset isn't too impressive just yet, take a look at that maximum SP pool. Most of everyone else who isn't a support unit is hovering around 80-90 max SP, and he's already barrelled past into 120+. Banjo is a machine that eats bosses.

Fun Fact: Terada, longtime producer of SRW games, stated in Umasugi Wave #822 that despite knowing Banjo is meant to be 17 to 18, he ends up writing him as a late-20s man. Even when he tries to write him more age-appropriately, it doesn't feel right, and he thinks it's because of the influence of how Suzuoki always played the character in SRW.

Daitarn 3

Source Material: Invincible Steel Man Daitarn 3 Height: 100 meters Energy Source: Solar power Real World Designer: Kunio Okawara

Originally a prototype Megaborg (Megaborgs being the giant forms that Meganoid commanders are capable of transforming into), Banjo stole it when his mother helped him escape Mars during the initial Meganoid insurrection. Now Banjo uses it to fight against the Meganoids, beating them at their own game.

The Daitarn 3 is a perfect fit for Banjo, Tanky and hits like a truck. It has a few issues, namely that its post-movement options all come with one or another caveat (small range, high EN cost, the like), but at the very least movement issues can be solved by changing into the Daifighter.

The Daitank is completely worthless as per usual SRW fare.

[scope-dogg]

I'm looking for some 70's/ early 80's super robot stuff. I love gundam, nadesico, Gunbuster, Eva, etc., but I've never really been able to get into early super robot stuff. Recommendations?

Honestly I’ve yet to watch a lot of those series myself, obviously they’re mostly antiquated now so it’s not been the sort of thing I’ve been willfully hunting down. That said, I can give some second-hand recommendations for series that I’m told are good. Aside from Zambot, I hear the robot romance trilogy of Combattler, Voltes and Daimos are all pretty good, Voltes in particular is interesting because of the story of how it became a political symbol against the Ferdinand Marcos regime in the Philippines. Also I’ve heard that UFO Robot Grendizer is probably the best out of the classic Mazinger TV series, it managed to get really popular in French-speaking territories and various other parts of the world. Tomino also did Reideen and Daitarn as well, both of which are iconic in their own right.