Generally I don't care for mecha series, which is why Suisei no Gargantia was a pleasant surprise. There have been mecha series I liked, but in general it's not a genre I go for.

It just now occurred to me that there may be a simple heuristic for sorting the good from the bad: If the name of the mecha appears in the title of the series, then it probably sucks.

My issue is that in the generic crap mecha series, it's the mecha which is the star, the focus, of the story telling. The series is probably wish-fulfilment for young guys who think it would be awesome to be the pilot of a giant war machine. And thus it's likely to dispense with things like "telling a good story about interesting and complex characters".

And if the series title includes the name of the mecha, then that's what they're telling the story about. Myself, I find mechas as such to be silly and boring. I don't mind if they're around, though, as long as they don't get in the way.

UPDATE: As a heuristic it isn't perfect: I did enjoy Vandread. But then, as the old joke goes, if a heuristic was never wrong it would be an algorithm.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 03:43 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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