#real robot

My Albatross Pilot and his mech, Rebellion.

Mobile Suits featured in Linkin Park's Somewhere I Belong music video | 2003 | Directed by Joe Hahn

So I am turning to the wider mecha community for wisdom from those more experienced than me.

Um…yes. It very much is a Mecha anime.

There’s a few reasons I’ve seen given for this nonsense.

Apparently, according to some people I’ve seen on Reddit, because Code Geass has a focus on its characters, their relationships, and the political machinations, you can ‘remove the mechs from the story and nothing would change.’

I’m sure anyone who actually engages with mecha anime just had an aneurysm reading that. Because you can make the same stupid argument about EVERY real robot series, including most Gundam shows.

Seriously, I do not get where this idea every Mecha series outside of a few handful of shows are just mindless spectacle fights meant to sell toys or action figures comes from. I’ve heard people say it comes from the original G1 Transformers cartoon and Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, but I still call bullshit because even those shows had characters with distinct personalities. Every Mecha series I’ve ever watched, even the more bombastic super robot shows from the 70s were carried by their cast as much as the robot action.

Honestly, this bizarre backwards reasoning comes across as coming from people who hate Mecha/think the Mecha genre is stupid, but love the characters and plot of Code Geass, so they’re trying to bend over backwards to ‘justify’ why they love a show in a genre they hate.

I’ve also heard that some of the more over the top Knightmare Frame designs ‘ruins the realism’ of Code Geass. Because, it’s the robots that stretch the realistic real realism of the plot of an immortal witch with a cheese addiction giving magic mind control eyes to a flamboyant exiled prince.