Mecha

For the Chicano organization, see MEChA.

A mecha, or mech, is a science fiction term for a large human-piloted humanoid vehicle. Variants do exist, from ones on treads to animal shapes. The key difference between mecha and robots is that a mecha has a pilot, as enthusiasts are quick to point out.

A large, bipedal machine is not the most flexible of designs, and aside from occasional use in things like heavy construction work, mecha are most often built for combat purposes. As such, their status varies widely between different settings, from one type of unit among others to undisputed rulers of the battlefield.

The distinction between smaller mecha and their smaller cousins (and likely progenitors), the powered armor suits, is blurred; according to one definition, a mecha is piloted while a powered armor is worn. Anything large enough to have a cockpit where the pilot is seated is generally considered a mecha.

East vs. West

Mecha are quite popular in Japanese anime, and by extension manga. In Western entertainment, they are occasionally seen in games, especially the action, strategy and simulation genres, but the most well-known Western context for mecha is BattleTech. The original BattleTech - a table-top strategy game - has been the basis of numerous MechWarrior computer games and a role-playing game. Other products bearing the BattleTech name include a collectible card game, books and an animated TV series. Ironicly, FASA, the company that produced BattleTech was sucesffuly sued for copyright infringment by featuring several mechs that were obviously designs ripped off from Japanese anime.

Though designs vary widely in both eastern and western mecha, there is a general difference in style. Japanese ones tend to be sleeker as opposed to the rougher and more rugged western ones, and it's not unusual for Japanese mecha to perform difficult acrobatic maneuvers while some western machines would have trouble getting up. Hands are much more common on eastern mecha; western designs often just have upper limbs with permanent weapon emplacements.

An interesting compromise of the two design philosophies can be found in the Armored Core series of videogames; while the mecha can frequently be humanoid and are capable of flight and hand-to-hand combat, in the Eastern tradition, a plethora of weight, power, heat and other semi-realistic limitations are placed on them during their design and customisation by the player, more reminiscent of Western mecha design.

The word 'mech' is used to describe such vehicles considerably more often in western entertainment. In Japanese, 'mecha' is the more frequent term (see 'Other meanings' below), though in the series themselves they are seldom known as such.

Synonyms for mecha

(list is not comprehensive)

"Battloid" - Robotech
"BattleMech" - BattleTech
"Destroid" - Macross/Robotech
"Exo-Armor" - Jovian Chronicles
"Gear" - Heavy Gear, Xenogears
"Heavy Metal" - Heavy Metal L-Gaim
"MegaDeus" - The Big O
"Mekton" - Mekton
"Mobile Suit" - Gundam
"Orbital Frame" - Zone of the Enders
"Super Powered Tracer" - SPT Layzner
"Variable Fighter" - Macross
"Veritech Fighter" - Robotech
"Zord" - Power Rangers
"Wandrung Panzer(Wanzer)" - Front Mission
"Armored Shrike" - Blue Gender
"Goliath"- Starcraft

The mecha genre of anime

In anime, 'mecha' is a genre that features the vehicles and their pilots as the central characters. Here, the average mecha are usually twenty feet tall at the smallest, outfitted with a wide variety of weapons, and quite frequently have tie-ins with toy manufacturers. The Gundam franchise is an excellent example: Gundam toys and model kits (produced by the Japanese toymaker Bandai) are ubiquitous in Japan. In this genre teenage pilots are more common than would be feasible.

Mecha anime and manga differ vastly in storytelling and animation quality. As often happens with anime, many titles have a level of detail and plot dynamic that's unheard of in western TV animation. Shows tend to focus more on the characters than western ones would, and content ranges all the way from children's shows to ones containing adult material. Some mecha shows feature surprising depth of intellectual content: examples include Neon Genesis Evangelion, the three feature Patlabor films, and the more recent RahXephon series. The introduction of Mobile Suit Gundam in 1979 introduced a sort of paradox: a war show about giant war machines that was in fact anti-war at heart.

Some mecha (see Macross) are capable of transformation or combining to form even bigger ones (see Voltron). Go Nagai is often credited with inventing this in 1974 with the television series Getter Robo.

One notable console game that focuses on the mecha anime genre is Banpresto?s Super Robot Wars series (also known as Super Robot Taisen), which in each instalment of its games depict an elaborate crossover of popular and less-known mecha anime series.

History

The genre may have started with Go Nagai's Mazinger Z in 1973. It is possible to trace its roots farther back, to Tetsujin 28-go from the 1960s, though the young protagonist there rode atop his giant robot rather than inside.

The appearance of Gundam is considered to have broken the mecha genre into two subsets: the super robot show, which focused on ultratech mecha that often had elements of mysticism and tend to use a "monster of the day" format; and the real robot show, in which the mecha are shown as tools rather than semi-mystical creations, and the focus is less on the machines and more on the pilots.

Other notable series include but are by no means limited to Macross, which led to the breakthrough of anime in the USA, Gunbuster, which along with Macross is considered the pinnacles of anime in the 1980s, the police-focused Patlabor, and as examples of older shows, Gigantor and Giant Robo.

Grammar

The general consensus is that the term "mecha" is both singular and plural, as is the case in Japanese. However, there is no official line, as the word has been adopted back into English from Japanese; variants include "mechas" as the plural of mecha, or "mech" as the singular.

Other meanings

In Japanese the word mecha (or meka) is an abbreviation of the English "mechanical" and used to refer to all mechanical objects, real-world or fictional. In this sense, it's extended to humanoid, human-sized robots and such things as the boomers from Bubblegum Crisis, the similar replicants of Blade Runner, and cyborgs can be referred to as mecha, as well as mundane real-life objects such as industrial robots, cars and even toasters.

This is far less frequent among English speakers. There are exceptions; in the film 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence', the word is used to describe 'mechanicals' (robotic humanoids), as opposed to 'orga' for 'organics' (humans).