Played the final ascension DLC and was pleasantly surprised to see my fave Mechajuras show up in Gigaman's story mode

Although Mechajuras only has three lines of dialogue in this story,which makes perfect sense because it's Gigaman's story mode,it is nice to see Mechajuras get some attention,and the picture displayed isn't the captain who pilots Mechajuras,it's a picture of the Mech,so can Mechajuras talk? If so then that is awesome! As it helps Mechajuras get more involved in the story (I'm not saying mute characters can't be used in stories,I'm saying Mechajuras may have been given a personality now) before these lines of dialogue,Mechajuras was just a enemy to defeat and his pilot,the captain was doing the talking. Pretty much I think Mechajuras just got upgraded from a mech suit controlled by a human with no character,to a character on it's own now with a personality!

Also bro got rekt by Balzarr 😭 (I think it was Balzarr since he showed up right after that line was said)

Hopefully Mechajuras has become it's own character now instead of just a mech suit for the captain to pilot. Hopefully it gets it's own story mode to!

I drew my favourite gigabash kaiju,MECHAJURAS!!!

Remember in the Pipijuras review where I mentioned that Passion Republic Games could add Pipi’s mechanical doppelgänger to the roster like they originally envisioned in order to add content?

This is so corny it’s great

I suppose it was a matter of time before they added it, although I’m surprised it’s free, then again maybe it’s a consolation for the fact that MJ was intended to be in the original roster.

Mechajuras is the fourth mech in the roster and is a bit of a tank (literally). It lacks a lot of movement options outside of the standard dodge and a rush attack you have to charge, and doesn’t have great air game. But MJ does hit decently well, has a grappling hook to bring in opponents from halfway across the arena, a ranged drill attack, and an anti-air attack (that aims a little low so it can be tricky to use).

Mechajuras also has rocket boosters that can allow for slight hovering and surprisingly give it one of the highest jumps in the game.

Design

In some ways Mechajuras was definitely easier to implement into the roster than other characters. As a scrapped fighter repurposed into a stage boss, PRG already had a model and many animations to work with, so they didn’t actually need to make something from the ground up. I will say though that playable mechaJ is smaller than the stage boss version, but is still very large compared to the rest of the cast. Also the tank treads don’t actually move so it sorta just glides along the ground, but I think we can give PRG a pass on that since they are a small indi team.

As for the character inspiration itself, it’s pretty obvious. MechaJuras is to Pipijuras as Mechagodzilla is to Godzilla. MJ specifically has a sort of bolted together steel look that showa MechaG had.

It might be worth mentioning though that as a mech with drill hands and tank treads, there might be some Moguera inspiration.

Here’s some concept art.

Also one of its skins turns it into a minion

Lore

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like that we had to wait for lore in a future update when the mighty dlc character pack came out, because we get character files for Mechajuras right off rip.

Apparently the playable MechaJ is actually the fully complete version while the larger arena boss is a prototype, both being products created by the Global Titan Defense Initiative. There’s actually quite a stretch of time between the creation of the two versions, with the project having been circling the drain for years and about to be axed by higher ups in the GTDI. But it was suddenly revitalized and given way more resources, and for a particular reason. Apparently the GTDI’s Giga Counters have been going crazy and picking up massive spikes in Giga Energy, meaning a bunch of kaiju might be waking up.

Now we don’t actually know when this is as the character files for MJ don’t have any dates on them. So production of Mechajuras 2.0 could have started at the beginning of the 2020s before the story modes started and Thundatross was revealed to the world, or it could have started after the decimation of the Aegis Program at the paws of Balzarr and by extension after the story mode. So either production started in preparation for the second kaiju crisis, or it was started in response to a future third one.

Creation of the fully realized Mechajuras was overseen by Dr. Adler, chief of weapons research and the person put in charge of the Pipijuras mind control program after Dr. Reiner left for OtamaTEC in 1998. The higher ups gave him about a year to get it done despite his begging for a 2 year roadmap, so the crunch time the MechaJuras department was facing must have been ungodly. An offhand comment even mentioned that new coffee machines would be given to the department just to speed things along. I have no doubt someone probably died working to death just because of these unfair working conditions.

But it paid off, and despite being the most technologically crude of the mechs in the game, it’s the only one that’s mass produced. The second character file is literally just a massive advertisement for MechaJuras, because of course countries have to buy their own mechs on top of paying the GTDI for other protections. I think the GTDI might be a little spiteful after the world made the Aegis program in an effort to be extorted less to rely on them less. The trailer also mentions that various weapons for MJ are sold separately too hilariously enough, so if you want any weapons on your MechaJ then you’re paying extra.

The Global Titan Defense Initiative is going all in on MechaJuras though because apparently they’re gunning for it to dominate all entertainment industries and have already agreed to five movies with Universal, or I’m sorry, Universell Pictures. It’s absolutely hilarious that GTDI is trying to pull a helldivers and make their mech some big patriotic thing everyone will be obsessed over.