My default response when asked “why anime?” is to champion animation in general, and proceed to argue that Japan is where it’s at in terms of range and quality of product. This is somewhat deceptive. I don’t think anybody could, in practise, get all that into anime without having a penchant for certain factors common in these shows. They might be very specific conventions of style, narrative, or character – but it’s most likely a cocktail of magical bits and bobs which can only be found in Japanese cartoons.

But, unless one is very special indeed it is not possible to adore all the things to be found in anime. Somewhere out there is a being which derives equal and overwhelming pleasure from all yuri, yaoi, shota, loli, futanari, omarashi, guro, naruto etc. But this creature is possibly some kind of demi-god, and irrelevant here. So different strokes for different folks then. To get to the point, mecha does not do all that much for me.

I can see, to some extent, how a piloted giant robot might be so pleasing in and of itself. There’s a natural grandeur in the sheer scale of these creations – and this comes alongside the appeals of high technology and its merger with man. In addition to this, there are a number of mecha shows which I have enjoyed greatly – but not really because of the robots. Is this just because I never watched Transformers as a kid?

It’s been argued that the root appeal of mecha shows must be understood by taking into account that the robot is primarliy a stylistic growth from a heroic root. The appeal of the story itself is in its structure – the robot is a stylistic element. Which covers why I can like these shows without loving the robot – but not why I like swordfights more than robot-on-robot action. What exactly do the flowers of the mecha tree smell of?

There’s a distinction within the genre between the “super” illogical magical robots and the “real” scientifically logical ones, although neither really works for me. As far as I can see, these magnificent men in their walking machines are an inevitably contrived product – more decided by fantasy than science. The real robot is above all else a unique flavour within the non-sense spectrum of mecha – realism as a style of fantasy. What this “real” distinction does demonstrate is the importance of the manifestly mechanical aspect of mecha.

Now I’m not the worlds most mechanical man. I don’t like cars much, and factories scare me. Man transferred into machine is no fantasy for me. I wouldn’t deny the appeal of some sci-fi, but for me the technoerotic (lol) appeal requires certain shapes. The Major in GITS is clearly an acceptable shape. Most mecha are suits of armour – which to me spells out lumpen and blocky. In fact, in so far as I had preconceptions of mecha, they were of big clumpy plastic toys.

And so to my first ever mecha series – it was Evangelion. As it turned out Eva had little to do with the classic robot design (phew), or with robots really (yay). So my enjoyment of Eva (I am amongst those who persist in taking it seriously) didn’t change my mind. A few shows later, I found Gurren-Lagann. A series in which everything was so infused with joy that even the thunderous clunkings of the titular construction brought an automatic smile to my lips. Could it be, I pondered, that I had been a repressed mechnosexual all along?

If so, I was merely to retreat back into the hangar. No robot since then has quite brought the same excitement. The more I thought about the show the more I realised that the roots of my enjoyment were to be found elsewhere within it. I was basically ambivalent. And this neutrality goes both ways – just as I could venerate a mecha show which satisfied in a broader sense, the presence of large metal suits did nothing to persuade me to stick by the dull fantasy of Escaflowne.

For certain, the machines can’t really steal the show from other elements. When I first heard of Code Geass – dubbed “robots-with-rollerskates” I didn’t think “ooh, new robots!” I thought “wait.. rollerskates?”. Now here the robots were slightly more fun, being so kinetic in action. But the pleasure of the series (season 1 is all I’ve seen) was in the delirious excess of elements, the robot’s a nice flavour as backup, but I wouldn’t have wanted them predominant. For me the ideal Geass episode would be the school festival on ep21: silly drama, slightly unhinged Lelouch, bonkers plot twist, robot makes a pizza.

Bearing in mind the content of these last two series, I was interested to see a connection being made between the mecha hero and the knight. After all, when the man becomes the machine, the story becomes focussed on the armed individual above all else. If the mythos of knighthood derives from time when good equipment was bloody expensive, surely a mech age suggests the same thing? Only in the modern day fantasy the singular hero is a talented kid, a plucky oddball. Of course, I like Bleach, and can see much of the same chivalrous, heroic, mano-a-mano stuff in there. So my problem must be with the machines rather than the elitism.

For omo, the machine isn’t just a fancy costume, it’s definitively separated from the hero character. Perhaps that’s why mecha chivalry is different, because it’s more massively transparent that the knight needs his horse more than his nobility. Science, unlike a fighting code, is something that we and the hero meet on its own terms. The upstanding robot is in fact an idol, a concrete myth.

That myth is invested with the stylings of science, our external saviour, and our protagonist perfects their understanding of robotic theology. In this process the variant designs change with the function of the hero, so our god isn’t just technology in general – if it’s a mass produced realistic robot, then it’s less knightly and more democratic and so forth. So the mecha god is not a singular product of our age, the significance of the robot varies. Meaning that my problem is not really with an ideological construct inherent in mecha.

Of course this idea of godhead raises questions. The god of science, as shown here, is humanoid – it is the body on a grander (and, y’know, metaller) scale. Which is to say that the worship takes the form of a sort of transference. Entering the cockpit is kind of like drawing the magic sword – only it involves a body exchange. This aspect makes me think that worship is perhaps less relevant than aspiration, and that the key is the movement to this second body. In fact, for the hero, it’s not far from a formalised high-tech version of good old Super Saiyan.

The entire mecha process – the piloting, the entering of the machine, is formal. This formality decreases my excitement. Looking at my favourite ‘people fighting’ programs we see the heroic power as personal, internal – even imperceptible. But for me the appeal isn’t just in the fact that heroics are more about the hero in the flesh, it’s also in the ideals I bring to the table at any combat exhibition. I like the flesh, I like brutality. Not only do these fleshier visions appeal more as fantasy, they bring to the table conventions of combat which satisfy me more. And I think that’s the key to my preferences here – a combination of straightforward aesthetic preference, tastes in terms of the mechanics, and the nature of the deep-rooted appeal in the fantasy.

I suppose that it’s a bit silly to write a post which complains about an aspect of anime which, as it has turned out, doesn’t actually stop me from enjoying a given series. It’s an issue of realising that not all of my magic buttons are in sync with the ones that anime shows like to press. Which comes down to a slightly pessimistic take – that anime is after all not inherently good, my enjoyment is often superficial. And when it comes to shallow entertainment, my tastes may be rather more restricted than I had thought.