Sage's Top 20 Giant Anime Robots

[DuelGundam2099]

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/bt/the-sage/anime-abandon/41667-top-20-greatest-giant-robots

Guess what is at number 6.

[Duke Togo]

No Gunbuster? LAWL. Whatever, man.

[DuelGundam2099]

Maybe this forum should make it's own top twenty? Dun dun duuuuuun.

[Mr March]

Work is absolutely dead today and I'm bored out of my mind so I sat through this poorly rationalized, absurdly long video (40 minutes for a top 20 list? Retarded). Though he did use the SDF-1 Macross image from my website, so I guess I have to give him some credit for taste

Here's Sage's List so no one else must suffer as I did:

20. Jehuty (Zone of Enders), 19. Omega Weapon (Final Fantasy V), 18. Raxephon (Raxephon), 17. Megatron (Transformers), 16. Mazinger Z (Mazinger Z), 15. Metal Gear Rex (Metal Gear Solid), 14. Gurren Lagann (Gurren Lagann), 13. Liger Zero (Zoids), 12. Zaku II (Mobile Suit Gundam), 11. The Iron Giant (The Iron Giant), 10. M.E.G.A.S. (MEGAS XLR), 9. BGY-11 (The Big Guy and Rusty), 8. Tetsujin-28 (Tetsujin-28), 7. Lion Voltron (Voltron), 6. SDF-1 Macross (Super Dimension Fortress Macross), 5. EVA Unit 01 (Neon Genesis Evangelion), 4. Big-O (The Big-O), 3. Optimus Prime (Transformers), 2. Giant Robo (Giant Robo), 1. RX-78-2 Gundam (Mobile Suit Gundam).

Patlabor got an honorable mention, clearly the fodder to cajole anime fans into providing his video views and to post angrily in the site comments

I know my stomach will suffer for it, but I agree with Duke Togo that Gunbuster is a glaring omission. I'm no fan of super robots, but Gunbuster has to be acknowledged on any top list simply for it's moment in history and lineage to the biggest 1990's mecha show. Gunbuster was a super robot that attained popularity during the height of the real robot genre and was featured in one of the best-animated OVAs produced in the benchmark era of 1980's hand-drawn animation. When we talk animation achievement, productions like Macross: Do You Remember Love? Akira, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Aim for the Top! Gunbuster are the poster children for defining that era's best animation. Of course, there's also the fact that Gunbuster was Hideaki Anno's first director credit and was both a precursor to Neon Genesis Evangelion in terms of both storytelling and visual/mechanical design. If I were ever to include a super robot on my own fansite, it would only be Gunbuster.

Don't know if I like enough unique anime robot shows to do a top 20 list of my, but any list of mine would likely include the Macross mecha on my site and the More Mecha section.

VF-1J Valkyrie, YF-19/VF-19A Excalibur, YF-21/VF-22 Sturmvogel II (Macross)

AV-98 Ingram, AV-XO Type X-O "Zero" (Mobile Police Patlabor)

Junchoon, SR-4 ODK Last Junchoon, LED Mirage, Knight of Gold (Five Star Stories)

RX-78NT-1 Gundam Alex, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai, MS-18E Kämpfer, MSN-04 Sazabi, MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam, RX-78GP02A Gundam "Physalis", RX-93 ν Gundam (Mobile Suit Gundam)

EVA Unit 01, EVA Unit 00, EVA Unit 02 (Neon Genesis Evangelion)

Escaflowne, Scherazade (The Vision of Escaflowne)

Gunbuster (Aim for the Top! Gunbuster)

Edited December 16, 2013 by Mr March

[Noyhauser]

This just seems like some guy's list of animes he's watched + things he thinks are influential. Gunbuster is a huge omission, but where is Armored Trooper Votoms? Instead we have "omega weapon" from Final Fantasy?

Right.

[myk]

This just seems like some guy's list of animes he's watched + things he thinks are influential. Gunbuster is a huge omission, but where is Armored Trooper Votoms? Instead we have "omega weapon" from Final Fantasy?

Right.

Bah, that's what most "top" lists, be it for anime, cars, boob jobs, whatever, are all about; egocentrical musings and preferences of whoever made the list in the first place. At best, I use top-lists to learn about something I may not have known much about prior to seeing a list. For example, I never knew that September Carrino was a JJ size cup until I saw her on someone's "top" list...

[Funkenstein]

Omega Weapon? Really? That was like a sideboss that you never had to fight right?

[Twoducks]

No Gunbuster? LAWL. Whatever, man.

Work is absolutely dead today and I'm bored out of my mind so I sat through this poorly rationalized, absurdly long video (40 minutes for a top 20 list? Retarded). Though he did use the SDF-1 Macross image from my website, so I guess I have to give him some credit for taste

Here's Sage's List so no one else must suffer as I did:

20. Jehuty (Zone of Enders), 19. Omega Weapon (Final Fantasy V), 18. Raxephon (Raxephon), 17. Megatron (Transformers), 16. Mazinger Z (Mazinger Z), 15. Metal Gear Rex (Metal Gear Solid), 14. Gurren Lagann (Gurren Lagann), 13. Liger Zero (Zoids), 12. Zaku II (Mobile Suit Gundam), 11. The Iron Giant (The Iron Giant), 10. M.E.G.A.S. (MEGAS XLR), 9. BGY-11 (The Big Guy and Rusty), 8. Tetsujin-28 (Tetsujin-28), 7. Lion Voltron (Voltron), 6. SDF-1 Macross (Super Dimension Fortress Macross), 5. EVA Unit 01 (Neon Genesis Evangelion), 4. Big-O (The Big-O), 3. Optimus Prime (Transformers), 2. Giant Robo (Giant Robo), 1. RX-78-2 Gundam (Mobile Suit Gundam).

Patlabor got an honorable mention, clearly the fodder to cajole anime fans into providing his video views and to post angrily in the site comments

I know my stomach will suffer for it, but I agree with Duke Togo that Gunbuster is a glaring omission. I'm no fan of super robots, but Gunbuster has to be acknowledged on any top list simply for it's moment in history and lineage to the biggest 1990's mecha show. Gunbuster was a super robot that attained popularity during the height of the real robot genre and was featured in one of the best-animated OVAs produced in the benchmark era of 1980's hand-drawn animation. When we talk animation achievement, productions like Macross: Do You Remember Love? Akira, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Aim for the Top! Gunbuster are the poster children for defining that era's best animation. Of course, there's also the fact that Gunbuster was Hideaki Anno's first director credit and was both a precursor to Neon Genesis Evangelion in terms of both storytelling and visual/mechanical design. If I were ever to include a super robot on my own fansite, it would only be Gunbuster.

Don't know if I like enough unique anime robot shows to do a top 20 list of my, but any list of mine would likely include the Macross mecha on my site and the More Mecha section.

VF-1J Valkyrie, YF-19/VF-19A Excalibur, YF-21/VF-22 Sturmvogel II (Macross)

AV-98 Ingram, AV-XO Type X-O "Zero" (Mobile Police Patlabor)

Junchoon, SR-4 ODK Last Junchoon, LED Mirage, Knight of Gold (Five Star Stories)

RX-78NT-1 Gundam Alex, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai, MS-18E Kämpfer, MSN-04 Sazabi, MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam, RX-78GP02A Gundam "Physalis", RX-93 ν Gundam (Mobile Suit Gundam)

EVA Unit 01, EVA Unit 00, EVA Unit 02 (Neon Genesis Evangelion)

Escaflowne, Scherazade (The Vision of Escaflowne)

Gunbuster (Aim for the Top! Gunbuster)

Guys, Gunbuster can’t be on that list because “Anime Abandon” is a show about anime that was imported to the US mainly during the 70s-90s. That means that all have a dub version and that is the version they review in each episode; so much so that some of the analysis, gags and critique revolves around the dub. The show sometimes has actual professional voice actors doing cameos. Gunbuster is yet to get dubbed.

In other words, the show is about anime or derivative work you could have gone to a video store and rented when you were a kid. Which is how Japanese animation entered the west before fansubs and the like came to be. So it is a nostalgic fulled type of show. It also serves as an historical look on the crazy stuff that was imported over the years to the west.

Some of these “WTF were they thinking when they bought the rights” examples make for some great viewing. Ben takes the show seriously and gives nice historical references and sometime some very interesting takes on what he reviews. The show goes so far as to only using footage from the original source, not downloaded or from torrent, which means that sometimes the video comes straight from VHS if no DVD version is available.

And maybe their “only imported anime from last century” is a bit strict but it keeps the show centred and, as Ben says, is also about his personal experiences watching anime when he was younger anyways. For example, Ben is doing a Macross month on March but Ben and his editorial editor have commented that they have basically written themselves into a corner since they only have M+, MII and Clash of the Bionoids to work with.

So no need to get snooty about the choices, after all, it is called “Anime Abandon’s top 20 giant robots” not the “The ultimate robot list that negates any other possible list”. It is just their opinion and the video was actually done on a whim and not part of the planned schedule of Anime Abandom. And it was nice to discover some robots I didn’t know instead of just the usual suspects in a different order.

Try and see some of the older reviews. Like I said, some are really good.

[TehPW]

Thank You Mr March (for being bored and volenteering to take point on that Op).

[treatment]

Guys, Gunbuster can’t be on that list because “Anime Abandon” is a show about anime that was imported to the US mainly during the 70s-90s. That means that all have a dub version and that is the version they review in each episode; so much so that some of the analysis, gags and critique revolves around the dub. The show sometimes has actual professional voice actors doing cameos. Gunbuster is yet to get dubbed.

In other words, the show is about anime or derivative work you could have gone to a video store and rented when you were a kid. Which is how Japanese animation entered the west before fansubs and the like came to be. So it is a nostalgic fulled type of show. It also serves as an historical look on the crazy stuff that was imported over the years to the west.

Some of these “WTF were they thinking when they bought the rights” examples make for some great viewing. Ben takes the show seriously and gives nice historical references and sometime some very interesting takes on what he reviews. The show goes so far as to only using footage from the original source, not downloaded or from torrent, which means that sometimes the video comes straight from VHS if no DVD version is available.

And maybe their “only imported anime from last century” is a bit strict but it keeps the show centred and, as Ben says, is also about his personal experiences watching anime when he was younger anyways. For example, Ben is doing a Macross month on March but Ben and his editorial editor have commented that they have basically written themselves into a corner since they only have M+, MII and Clash of the Bionoids to work with.

So no need to get snooty about the choices, after all, it is called “Anime Abandon’s top 20 giant robots” not the “The ultimate robot list that negates any other possible list”. It is just their opinion and the video was actually done on a whim and not part of the planned schedule of Anime Abandom. And it was nice to discover some robots I didn’t know instead of just the usual suspects in a different order.

Try and see some of the older reviews. Like I said, some are really good.

I dunno, mang.

I don't see any of the Force Five robots on the list quoted by Mr.March.

I mean, you know, those so-called "JAPANIMATION" vhs-tapes in the local mom-n-pop rental-shops, blockbuster and suncoast back in 90's. In English! Couldn't really miss them. They were usually like next to Macross Plus or Ninja Scroll or Ghost in the Shell shelves, iirc.

So, with that, Sage's "list" is still a FAIL.

[Twoducks]

I dunno, mang.

I don't see any of the Force Five robots on the list quoted by Mr.March.

I mean, you know, those so-called "JAPANIMATION" vhs-tapes in the local mom-n-pop rental-shops, blockbuster and suncoast back in 90's. In English! Couldn't really miss them. They were usually like next to Macross Plus or Ninja Scroll or Ghost in the Shell shelves, iirc.

So, with that, Sage's "list" is still a FAIL.

“FAIL”…. Really, I know that opinions are like ass holes (everybody has one) but why is not mentioning what you like immediately turn a video that has to first be scripted, then all the footage found and edited and then put together a "FAIL". You didn't even bithered to see the video!!

As for the force five bots, the list was made with a desire to group things if a there wasn’t a very iconic version of a type of giant robot by itself. Sage calls Mazinger Z and the older Tetsujin-28 “legacy robots” as in robots that are the inspiration and set the base for a lot of other famous robots and tropes of the genre. So with that said about Mazinger and Lion Voltron having its own place (which is iconic as you can get) it pretty much covers classic Super Robots and those appeared in FV,

Same way the monoeyed Zaku II is the basis for almost every bad guy mech in a Gundam series, or the way that the first place was to the RX-78 family, not just the original Gundam since every other Gundam ever made takes design cues from good old RX-78.

Was the video too long? It’s a bout 20 freaking robots! That’s just 2 minutes per bot and not counting the honourable mentions and intro. Why so many? Well, if with 20 people are bitching about this or that robot not included imagine just a a top 10 list or top 5 .​ Could it have been split into two videos? Yeah, but you can also stop it anywhere you feel like it and continue later… Plus people that do New Media Entertainment like Sage don’t get paid directly for their work, any money they get comes from ad revenue and long videos get more ads than short videos. For that reason Sage stopped doing videogame reviews since they were short 7-10 min videos that took a lot of work to do versus the revenue they got.

[Duke Togo]

This discussion ended when we discovered Gunbuster was not on the list. Truly.

[Vifam7]

The problem with lists like these are that most of them fall back on personal likes/dislikes and experiences. However, if one were to objectively think about what giant robots have had the most impact on fandom, the list will likely be shorter and different.

[Mr March]

TwoDucks

Fair enough, but much like myk has touched upon, there's very little to get out of the list other than masterbation. The choices do nothing but reinforce the insular behaviour of the list makers and only server to understandably anger other anime fans. The context within they want to explore anime robots as a top 20 list has no sensical context beyond what SOME fans of anime were doing in the 1980s and 1990s, but there's nothing to learn here. Which is fine if that was the original intent they successfully implemented, but they will be justly criticized for doing so. However I will digress that in their defense this is not a video I would have even looked at were I not so bored during a dead day at work just prior to my holiday vacation. So I'm equally to blame

TehPW

You're welcome. It seemed the least I could do

Vifam7

Perhaps. But also consider the flip side of such a list; which pretty much just reinforces the major touchstones and benchmarks of anime mecha from the past few decades that doesn't really tell us anything we don't already know. I mean does Evangelion, Gundam, Macross and Patlabor need anymore praise and mention than the vast resevoir of such they already have? Again, I'd go back to myks post and say an opportunity to perhaps say more about lesser known anime mecha was a good concept for a favorites list.

[DuelGundam2099]

Maybe Macross World can have its own Top 50 Giant Anime Robots to put it all to rest?

[Mr March]

It would probably be treated like a "favorite" thread and discouraged and/or locked. Yay for MW!

[DuelGundam2099]

Yeah well, you never know.

[Temjin]

Maybe Macross World can have its own Top 50 Giant Anime Robots to put it all to rest?

Well, let me get start...

VF1

Iron Giant