Give Me Your Mech Related Questions + Last Week in Space and Mechs 9_3_18

Hi everyone! I’ve looked at the way I looked at the way I’ve been posting every week recently and it looks like I will be hitting 500 posts in early October. To celebrate this, I wanted to do something mech themed. You know, because this Mechanical Anime Reviews. I should write more mech posts eventually.

So here is the deal, please give me any of your questions centered around the mech genre and I will answer them to the best of my abilities. These could be problems that you think the mech series has and hopefully I can provide a good enough explanation for you. If not, then you can have fun with me flailing around answering things that might not have answers. I’m sure that would be fun for some of you.

Anyway, back to business. Each series’ episodes were fantastic.

Gundam Build Divers: Episode 21

This episode was pulling things that I never expected from this show. Gundam Build Divers is built around the concept of people playing a mobile game online with Gundams for fun. There was a lot of heart in that concept with people showing their passion for the activity. It was incredibly addicting watching people doing what they love. Sarah was only there as a mascot until her backstory was revealed last week. She is the first A.I. in human history by being created from each of the players love for the game. The conflict now is the Build Divers crew fighting for Sarah’s right to live. Sarah’s ever-expanding memory usage is slowly destroying the game’s server and the admin and everyone else wants to delete her. That’s not a very nice way to treat the first world’s first ever A.I.. You can always recreate or game, people.  It’s not an object or person that can only survive once. Still, I’m glad that the group behind Sarah’s inevitable destruction would listen to options for her survive because it does look like Koichi from the Build Divers crew came up with a solution. This A.I stuff is completely my jam.

The downsides of this episode involved a cool action scene that had almost no emotional resonance behind it. Does anybody remember Riku’s little rivalry with a guy called Ogre in the beginning of this show? I barely do. That was a long time ago and it barely got any focus through out the story. But yeah, here we are with Ogre fighting Riku to get Riku out of his slump after Sarah ran away. That’s the only emotional impact behind it which is why it fell flat for me. The action scene was incredibly well animated though and was something fun to look at. I just wish the fights weren’t so shonen in nature. You know, the constant one ups and power up for no reason. Why couldn’t it just be a competition of skill? Still, I love ogre’s mech’s design. Especially all damaged and everything. It looks bad ass. Still, it was a good episode. Can’t wait or more.

Armored Trooper Votoms: Episode 16-18

I’m surprised by how much I am digging into this show every week. I can see why so many older mech fans love it, because this show has some great story telling chops and has given me a lot to think about. The first thing that gets me is Votom’s subtle but not so subtle conversation that it has on the Vietnam War. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that this Kummen arc is a play on it. Especially after the first episode of these three centered around the classic traveling to a village and putting all the villagers at gun point until they reveal who the rebels are. You know, all this happened after the military’s village was attacked by Veela rebels. The difference here are the mechs. Our mercenaries and Chirico showed up in mechs and then the Veela mechs attacked our five mechs out of nowhere. Man, that moment was crazy. I am glad that nobody died from all those tense moments until the actual fire fight happened and Chirico lost his battle against a perfect soldier. Episode 16 was crazy good, but the other episodes were great as well.

Episode 17 was more world building stuff which involved Chirico getting captured by the enemy, but the situation is different this time. Kind of. I mean, we learn a lot of the Veela’s leadership like the prince whose rebelling against his own government, by having Chirico interact with them. The biggest thing is the reveal that Fyana, his love, isn’t the only perfect Soldier AND that he was fighting that other one, by the name of Ypsilon, for the past few episodes. It’s crazy, when did that happen? Where did another one come from? I guess we will find out eventually. Anyway, Ypsilon creates an interesting rivalry with Chirico by besting Chirico in hand to hand spear combat. Kind of unfair considering that Chirico is more of a blow them away and shooting them thing. Chirico is mortally wounded, kind of, but escapes with the help of Fyana and someone whose life he saved during the village scene. It’s kind of nice that Chirico only gets captured once in this arc instead of four or five. Things are improving for him.

Episode 18 had the best character moments for me. Not just with Chirico and his small group from Uoodo, but some of Chirico’s squad mates as well. When Chirico returns from the Veela’s base, he pretends to almost be at death’s door to escape interrogation from his superiors that don’t trust him. Of course, his immediately doesn’t believe Chirico and eventually begins interrogating him anyway. Or so we would think, but Chirico was owning his boss’ lousy men. Then Chirico’s squad comes in to that room after the Veela attacks our military base and made fun of their boss by following his orders anyway. After seeing how B.S. their current attack is because that wasn’t the Veela’s goal, Chirico and his squad abandon their boss and head into town with their mechs. Loved that moment. High quality stuff going on here. Also, Vanilla and Cocona have a romantic moment while their bar is being bombed. Fantastic stuff all around.

The Uoodo arc was slow and wasted a lot of time by having Chirico break into places, get captured by the police force to only break out again, and have world development that doesn’t really matter in the show’s long run. In a perfect world, I would have had the whole arc cut down to six episodes so all the emotional, world building, and character stuff would still be intact. I like this Kummen arc a lot. Seeing all our other characters in different situations and growing the cast list out by giving Chirico some combat friends to hang out with is just some good stuff. I look forward to how this Vietnam like situation is solved, because Kummen and the Melkian military have agreed to attack the Veela together in a final attack. Man, the next few episodes are going to crazy and amazing, aren’t they?

Planet With Episode 9

Well dang, I am not sure how to talk about this show anymore because the second half of this show has been solid character writing with some good action on top of it. Opening with Benika dreaming about her partner surviving being shot by the kid and then showing Yousuke, the male character with glasses in the sealing faction that has been in the background for the entire time. No wonder he was also around Benika, because her partner was Yousuke’s brother. It looked like Yousuke not having any ambitions of his own was the sealing faction’s secret weapon. He attacked the planet, fought about Earth’s three soldiers and won. The moment that the planet was sealed with an Eva like moment but had its own lore behind it with the world turning black and white with no sound anywhere. Man, that was horrifying.

The half of this episode focused on Souya recovering from his depression. Ever since his memory came back, he hasn’t been in any state of fighting. Still, when the planet was sealed away from everyone else, he discovered that he has people that still love him and take care of him. Those people, like Ginko, Sensei, and Nozo, are currently suffering the sealing effects, but he isn’t. We have that classic shonen finding motivation fight thing occur with just as much earnest as much as possible. With his own self-discovery and help of the oldest race in the Universe, Souya helps everyone recover from the sealing. He then helps the other members of Earth’s warriors against Yousuke, wins, then challenges the sealing faction directly. Episode ten is going to be a lot of fun.

Thank you for reading, everyone. Any of you watching these shows and have some opinions about them?
Please remember to drop off your mecha questions here.


  1. Wow, 500 posts huh?? That is quite the achievement indeed! Congrats!
    As for my question: “ The Mech genre has certain traits that some might say make it quite un-original in terms of variety. What would you say the Mech genre needs to remain fresh”
    Here’s to 500 more posts! I love your blog as you know, so I can’t wait to see what will be coming up in the coming months! 😊

    Liked by 2 people

  2. Wow, congratulations on 500 posts. That is impressive! Well, this is probably the most stupid question in this universe but is it mech or mecha, or perhaps both (because you write both so I’m gonna take an educated guess and answer my own question with a yes but still, consider it an honest question). And, to follow up, what is the difference between the words mech and mecha, if there is one? I know, this might be incredibly stupid but I have been pondering about this for a while now.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Part of me wants to ask whether it bothers you that they insist on making human shaped robots for flight when the design is clearly not the best for purpose, but I’m pretty sure that is just my petty issue with robot design so…
    I’d actually just like to know which robot design you feel is the most practical for one day being a reality from all the mechs you’ve seen in anime?

    And also, congratulations on the nearly 500 posts.

    Liked by 2 people

  4. Congratulations on 500+ posts Scott-san!!
    Secondly if you’re still up for questions haha, what would consist of your starters mechanical manga? As you can see this is more of a request than a question 😅

    Liked by 1 person

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