Why are western mecha a cursed genre?

I don't think it's necessarily that they don't like mecha, it's more that American design sensibilities are at odds with what makes Japanese mecha design so cool.
Japanese approach to mecha comes from making a cool design, then figuring how to make it feel like a workable piece of machinery. The first Gundam is a very cartoony design not too far from Tetsujin/Gigantor in how it's not necessarily considering realistic joints, but later iterations and redesigns aim to figure how to make it a workable design while maintaining the general look.
An American design will figure out how to make a "grounded" design first, and then try to give it some flair. So it's working on the base of a pretty bland design as is.
The obsession with silhouette based character designs also hurts mecha. This emphasis to make things "read" as a piece of machinery or look very distinct, where as Japanese mecha design is ok with having similar body silhouettes across different designs because they trust things like colors and heads go a long way to changing how a mecha is made distinct. Think of something like Macross where the grunt units are often the same as the lead mecha, but with duller colors and less humanized heads.

You've got it backwards. Gundam was originally intended to be a very realistic (at the time) design, similar to Kazutaka Miyatake's illustrations for Starship Troopers, but the studio execs wanted a more garish design. Tomino and Okawara compromised on the designs we know now, but Guncannon and the GMs lean more towards their original intentions. Japanese mecha designers are forced to be more considerate of how a robot can move physically because they have to produce model kits. Meanwhile western designers aim for what they think looks cool, and their idea of what looks cool is "grounded", but they don't actually understand what it means for a design to be grounded, resulting in clunky designs that mimic the superficial shapes of real machines but don't work at all physically.

I know real robot was the intention, but colors and design are still in the wheelhouse of Japanese robot design of the time. Even if they went in the original direction, it was still going to be a cool design that would’ve looked different from an American approach
The RX-78, while more realistic than other designs of the era, still has flourish that’s there simply to make it cool. Trying to figure how to make that design work as a realistic robot came after.Syd Mead, when he was hired to do the cancelled 80s Gundam movie, was tasked with “ de-kabuki-ing” the designs, which says a lot about the American studio approach vs Japan. Japan will make a robot with a cool samurai helmet then make it work as a realistic design, realistic American mecha would avoid the helmet look entirely.

Why are western mecha a cursed genre?

Because they won't let a mecha obsessed autist be a mecha obsessed autist. They'll only hire generic portfolios with a long imdb list over someone that devotes themselves into mastering a niche. That's why japan can have names like Shinkawa and Obari instead of "artstation sci-fi slop #54436". We can have great mech designs but toxic corpo culture won't let us.

I hope I can find an artist familiar with this one day

Why didn't you support Dawnrunner when you had the chance? You could have voted with your wallet.

The mecha genre in Japan is fairly dead with younger audiences seeing it as old fashioned and something their parents were into. The heyday for the genre ended 20 years ago and it limps on through legacy franchises.

Bruh, even the "superior Japanese designed folded 1000 times" cocksuckers posting , , and admit that mech design is downwind of toy company mandates.

If you want a real mecha cartoon watch this on Netflix

Ask an Ai

I miss Pacific Rim era before that sequel

admit that mech design is downwind of toy company mandates.

and that's another problem- America acts like that's a bad thing instead of understanding that toy companies have an understanding of what makes a cool, appealing design.
It's like the Transformers 2007 movie was going to do all silver, scrapmetal designs until Hasbro and Takara made a kitbash of what they'd prefer the movie designs to look like, and then they understood why having parts like recognizable windows and colors made for a better design.

It's for a couple of reasons:

1. Traditionally, Japan likes their giant robots to be controlled by humans while in the US, we like our giant robots to be sentient and have personalities, quirks, fears, flaws, and basically behave like humans. Hence why Transformers are so popular; they are just like humans.

2. Modern writers meanwhile who make Mecha shows HATE the genre with a passion and would rather write gay drama with the pilots than actually show them get into the robots/mecha and fight giant robots.

3. The best Mecha shows have super sexy pilots. It's why Pacific Rim was a hit and the sequel with John Uga-Buga Boyega flopped, why the popularity of Power Rangers often comes down to which show has the hottest looking Rangers cast/lead Ranger, and why Nu-Voltron and it's various clones on Toonami flopped

all design sensibilities must conform to whatever is cheapest for toy companies to shit out, preferably something that can reuse an existing mold

The CEO of Bandai isn't going to give you handy and free gunpla for dickriding them.

I think in the west, mecha is just one of those things where the vast majority of the general audience will view it as inherently silly or childish. That's why, if a western geek finds mechs cool but isn't a mecha fan, they cling onto the depictions featured in the MechWarrior games, as the idea of these big, stompy, slow, heavily mechanical constructs step close enough into the world of realism--the irony being that BattleTech itself has those mechas actually sprinting around, being nimble, doing somersaults, and even the chicken legs getting some jumpkicks n' shit in.

So the big stuff is all gonna be for kids, and the stuff for actual mecha nerds isn't gonna get any traction. The closest we got is Pacific Rim, which just perfectly straddled that line of moving like a machine that people liked it despite being nimble giant robots wrestling with giant monsters.

gay drama with the pilots

So the majority of Japanese mecha shows?

Ironically it was the opposite case here. Movie studio wanted a bunch of indistinct models they could reuse, the toy company wanted a distinct cast

The thing about Pacific Rim is that it's shot accurate to parallax and how the brain perceives motion in large objects. It's why the Striker Eureka/Mutavore fight has much faster movement than the rest. It's actually a major issue with mecha shows, the mechs move in a way that comes off as unnatural and weightless the moment the audience has anything that allows them to compare size and distance.

In what case? Transformers or Pacific Rim?

It's why Pacific Rim was a hit and the sequel with John Uga-Buga Boyega flopped

That's not the reason the sequel flopped.

lol
lmao

Transformers. Original plans were entirely silver robots that didn’t talk and didn’t have their vehicle mode parts in robot mode.

Lol
Idiots that don't get men want cars colorful to show

One of the causes, they expected us to care about this OC Pentecost son

Why are western mecha a cursed genre?

Child animation ghetto. Giant robots are for children. And since they're for children, they need to have children piloting the giant robots. Because children only want to watch shows about children. And since the shows are about children, the only people who watch it are children and people who don't mind looking like pedophiles. Ergo, giant robots are for children.

Japan has the school culture subtext, walkable urbanism, everyday life is much different, kids are more mature, more independence , expected to be smart. is part of it too

Americans are randumb dumbasses with ADHD or social media brainrot obsession. Opposite of Anime protagonists without being a woke diversity protag. Children are skeptical of government and woke in America, why would they waste time getting involved

There is a subtext of cybernetics and control over human bodies, human evolution, space exploration, biology/aygmentation and morality that American culture is not ready for

A deeper subtext could also be Japan's defense industry is not really allowed really make tanks or aircraft due to peace treaties, so Mecha is kind of a loophole that is believable because mechs have non military applications too, so that is a driving factor for making them and then having a secret military program no one knows about.
Japan has different enemies than the US in the world, the US doesnt need mechas, the US has better ways of doing shit. the US has to do shit Japan does not need to

More people went into pacific rim knowing idris elba and not literal fucking who charlie hunnam lmao.
This. A lot of western mech fans tend to be insecure about this kinda shit. Ive met Mechwarrior fans who watch gundam stuff only about the non gundam mobile suits cause they hate gundams and have nothing else to watch. Its not like theres ever going to be a mechwarrior anime or anything. We got a fucking armored core animation before that lmao

Gundam was originally intended to be a very realistic (at the time) design, similar to Kazutaka Miyatake's illustrations for Starship Troopers, but the studio execs wanted a more garish design. Tomino and Okawara compromised on the designs we know now

This isn't even close to true. Gundam looks the way it does because Okawara designed the robot toys for Clover, and Clover was the main sponsor of Tomino's shows.

I wouldn't give them any credence by calling them the western mecha fans. Again, it's people that aren't even familiar with the wetsern source material of the few mechs that they actually care about. There's actual western mecha fans and then there's western nerds that like robots, and it's the latter that get super obsessive over only Mechwarrior and hating anything faster than a lurch.

I know its cheating, but iron man sorta too? Given how popular it is, its weird that wasnt used as a springboard for more western mecha stuff.

Anon means well, he's just thinking too hard on the "real robot" angle, which is more about how the robot was portrayed than hardline realism. Sure they tried to make it more grounded, but inherently making it a bipedal mecha with a heroic figure steers to a sort of fantasy depiction American mecha designs would rarely touch.

They're destined to fail because western people don't love them enough.

we like our giant robots to be sentient and have personalities, quirks, fears, flaws, and basically behave like humans. Hence why Transformers are so popular; they are just like humans.

Shut up, Transfomer fag.

Posts a series from a franchise that ended almost 30 years ago

Right because Transformers is a famously brand new franchise and we totally haven't been coasting on single minded nostalgia from a show from the 80s. You're an idiot.

The long and short of it is that Western mecha really doesn't understand mecha. When the heckin' Voltron reboot decided not to have Voltron in every episode in the giant combining robot show, you got problems.

We don't understand how to have some fun with mecha designs, which is a shame because we were going there with Pacific Rim.

They literally cant design a cool robot, just look at those stupid fuck wide eyed 'mechs' behind the kids. Secondly they cant write a good story and when they do get close its directly ripping off anime, they just cant do it, the idea of a cool robot suit is alien to them because the american attitude is narcissistic so even in Pacific Rim they make it about the feelings of the pilots and have a helmet specifically designed to show the face, they cant have the protag just be a pilot who is piloting a advanced vehicle, america also hates military service, they wont do a "young gun" amateur pilot story, I could go on and on. Megas XLR was ok but even then its half comedy. And as someone pointed out with Transformers that is just an extension of making the personality more prominent, still refusing to have a pilot who pilots the robot as a big vehicle, optimus is a leader and your friend first and giant robot second.
The last biggest issue too is western designed monsters suck ASS. Whats the point of making a cool robot when it has nothing but big insects to fight or variants of the cloverfield monster in different forms? Its always ultra generic and lame as fuck. If Evangelion was a western show I think everyone in town would see shinji as a hero and piloting the mech would be the greatest honor.

you don't need to be salty about your mecha anime not getting new series.

The biggest problem with mecha series of the last fifteen years (including yippanese ones) is that they all try to be "about the characters and not the robots", which is completely retarded thing to do. Every work of fiction ever is about the characters, so what this means in practice is that whatever drama occurs outside of the main plot has no relation or bearing on it. Even in Eva, the series that is famously said to "be about the characters and not the robots" there are a multitude of connections between the main plot about giant cyborgs killing aliens and the interpersonal drama of the characters. Each one directly affects the others in obvious and immediate ways. Meanwhile more recent shows just bolt on stock relationship dramas thoughtlessly.