Mecha part 2: An overview of Mecha's history
We can spend all day arguing about what the first mecha anime is, but the first Robot anime is none other than the arguably first anime itself, Astro Boy (1963). based on the 1952 manga of the same nameI. It’s successor the first giant robot anime Tetsujin 28-go/Gigantor has explicit anti-war themes while Astro Boy is a more fun and light hearted super hero story. Both were written after world war II. They reflect a nation trying to heal. Other titles of the 60s include 8-Man (1963) the first cyborg hero in anime/manga, and the much more famous (at least in the west) Cyborg 009 (1966). Of all these titles only one is a giant robot Tetsujin 28-go. Giant Robot anime like we know didn’t take off and become a thing till Mazinger Z in 1972 when a small explosion of meach titles happened going from the 60s modest 7 titles to approx 50 titles in the 70s. And before you start thinking it was all new ips there were many sequels and movies forecasting what was to come. Many of the titles that came out of this period of Mecha history are what we now refer to as Super Robot shows called such because of their super hero aesthetics and tone. Though I should point out the 70s is when we got super sentai esk shows like Zero Tester (1973).
The next big moment was with not the gundam series ,which failed to take off, but it’s follow up movie in 1981 which sparked it’s popularity alongside it’s plastic model kits lovely referred to as gunpla. Highlighting a fact that was as true in the 70s as it is today, a mecha show lives and dies by merchandising. Well any who Gundam gave birth to are now referred to as Real robot titles inspired by the Military space opera trend of the mid-70s into the 80s. Real robot shows took awhile to gain their footing but now dominates the landscape of robot anime. The next title to touch on would be Super Dimension Fortress Macross which is notable for not only being the first in the macross franchise and highlighting the space opera influences in the genre but also for being the spark that started the idol genre. Talk about influence. Naturally we must move on from the 80s to the decade most of my readers (I have readers 0_0) would be familiar with Neon Genesis Evangelion the famous/infamous deconstruction of the genre in both it’s super and real robot forms. The early 2000’s gave us the ever popular Code Geass & Gurren Langen one being a smaller scale real robot and the other being a oh so rare Super Robot series but other than their popularity It’s hard to say what effect they have had maybe bring the scale of the conflits down from the galaxy spanning affairs to more global level ones?. This is not a slight on either title but pry just a part on a genre that has been around for 80 year and whose titles number over a thousand. That’s a lot and more just keep coming. Just in this oh so very young decade we have about 50 titles that have either already aired or are slated to start airing by the end of 2021. There is definitely plenty to enjoy for fans old or new.
