Mecha are quite popular in Japanese manga, and by extension anime. In those cases, the mecha designs are usually based on some alternative steampunk technology or 'lost' science-fiction technology from ancient times.īattlemechs from cover of the book The Legend of the Jade Phoenix by Robert Thurston
Rarely, mecha has been used in a fantasy convention, most notably in The Vision of Escaflowne and Maze animes. Anything large enough to have a cockpit where the pilot is seated is generally considered a mecha. The distinction between smaller mecha and their smaller cousins (and likely progenitors), the powered armor suits, is blurred according to one definition, a mecha is piloted while a powered armor is worn. As such, their status varies widely between different settings, from one type of unit among others to the undisputed rulers of the battlefield. Very often their power is abused and manipulated by the commanders, often to the psychological detriment of their pilots.Ī large, bipedal machine is not the most flexible of designs, and aside from occasional use in things like heavy construction work, mecha are most often built for combat purposes.
Mecha, being war machines, are subject to the machinations and political intrigue that characterises human conflict. Mecha are generally war machines, sometimes mass-produced, and are seen as a component of a whole military body and do not act alone in their conflicts, although it is common that only mecha fight mecha, much in the same way tanks and fighter planes do, even in large scale battles. The original Japanese term of mecha has the broader denotation of all mechanical objects, including cars, guns, computers, and other objects without pilots or limbs. The term is derived from the Japanese abbreviation for the English term " mechanical," although English speakers have repurposed the term to mean only the vehicles described above. The key difference between mecha and robots (in the English usage of these terms) is that a mecha has a pilot or controller. In some works of science fiction, mecha (singular or plural) or mechs (singular: mech) are piloted or remote-controlled limbed vehicles.
The title mecha RX-78-2 Gundam from the popular anime Mobile Suit Gundam
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