[quote post="1167"]One thing that GL will be remembered for is the whole belief aspect, believing in you who believes in himself. That’s something that’s been lacking in mecha - your average mecha pilot is angsty, suffers inferiority complexes, and - as in Shinji - suffers a painful lack of belief in himself. Gainax deserves a big thank you for bringing this to anime.[/quote]

Except….that’s a relatively recent occurrence in anime.

Most giant robot pilots are like Kamina and Simon…Bombastic, over the top. Look at Kouji Kabuto of Mazinger Z/Mazinkaiser, or Ryouma Nagare of Getter Robo. Then there’s the pilots of Gravion, most of the pilots of Aquarion, Nono of Aim for the Top! 2, The Combattler V and Voltes V pilots, Guy from Gaogaigar, it’s been a while, but the guy from Kenran Butoh-sai: The Mars Daybreak, the cast of Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventures, even Heero from Gundam Wing! (Though he’s included because being angsty would mean he has emotions, and we all know he hunted his emotions down one by one and slaughtered them, their family, and their friends and their friends’ families when he was eight.) And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head from the series I’ve watched!

Anyway, my point is…the angsty giant robot pilot thing is fairly recent, and is in no way universal, even now.

That said, there is a reason there’s a lot of angsty giant robot pilots…the giant robots are usually so invincible the only way to hurt them is to get to the pilots themselves..If it was just the good guys beating the bad guys every week with a hero that has nothing wrong in their life, and is thus pretty much invincible, that doesn’t really make a good series to watch. Look at any number of american TV series, both animated and non, and you’ll see one reason why they seldom last more than a season or two, and are rarely more than vehicles for selling toys or actors.

Except….that’s a relatively recent occurrence in anime.

Most giant robot pilots are like Kamina and Simon…Bombastic, over the top. Look at Kouji Kabuto of Mazinger Z/Mazinkaiser, or Ryouma Nagare of Getter Robo. Then there’s the pilots of Gravion, most of the pilots of Aquarion, Nono of Aim for the Top! 2, The Combattler V and Voltes V pilots, Guy from Gaogaigar, it’s been a while, but the guy from Kenran Butoh-sai: The Mars Daybreak, the cast of Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventures, even Heero from Gundam Wing! (Though he’s included because being angsty would mean he has emotions, and we all know he hunted his emotions down one by one and slaughtered them, their family, and their friends and their friends’ families when he was eight.) And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head from the series I’ve watched!

Anyway, my point is…the angsty giant robot pilot thing is fairly recent, and is in no way universal, even now.

That said, there is a reason there’s a lot of angsty giant robot pilots…the giant robots are usually so invincible the only way to hurt them is to get to the pilots themselves..If it was just the good guys beating the bad guys every week with a hero that has nothing wrong in their life, and is thus pretty much invincible, that doesn’t really make a good series to watch. Look at any number of american TV series, both animated and non, and you’ll see one reason why they seldom last more than a season or two, and are rarely more than vehicles for selling toys or actors.

I’m fairly glad I didn’t see that news. *shivers at the thought of it.[/quote]

Well, it tanked for technical reasons. Apparently there was a bug in the game that was discovered when they were in closed beta. The bug caused the corruption of the Windows OS. It was so bad that people had to re-install windows. The details of this is already on the Gurren Lagann wikipedia page.

I’m fairly glad I didn’t see that news. *shivers at the thought of it.