Mecha and how to use it in your stuff

Ok, this is going to be a fun thread, but so was the Boob plate debate and that got derailed. Also I know realistically, most mecha probably would suck in the real world BUT sometimes reality isn't realistic. Sometimes rule of cool works, and if you can make it believable (make you suspend your disbelief) long enough, it can work. 

Most are huge, several stories, but then you have something like Patlabor where they are about the height of a decent house, or Appleseed and EXO Squad where the mecha are more the size of a pickup truck.

So What is a mecha? Its motorized vehicle that is usually humanoid shaped, but other forms such as animals can also be used. Some popular franchises that use them are Gundam, Roboteck/Macross, Megas XLR, Voltron: Defender of the Univers, Power Rangers, Mech Warrior, Armored Core, Front Mission, Metal Gear, EXO Squad and more.

The main split in in two different divisions: That of Real Mecha and Super Mecha, and Western and Eastern Designs.

Real and Super Mecha come from anime and Super Sentai type stuff. Super Robots are the oldest style and seem to work more on rule of cool or magic than any rules of physics and consequences. Alot of the giant robots are in this area. Think Mazingar Z, Power Rangers, Voltron, and Megas XLR. and the like. Its bread and butter is the cool monster fights, and often over the top characters. You watch it for rule of cool, and while it can have some deep story telling moments, its more or less there to be fun. 



Real Mecha basically askes what would happen if we did make something like this, and how would it be used. Machines and people break down, and ammo runs out, good guys don't always win. It focuses on more character and story details, but also runs on rule of cool in the same way alot of military films involving military hardware do (you are there for the dog fights in Top Gun and the killer sound track, the good story and acting is a bonus). This does not mean its devoid of humor. Patlabor the TV show is a different beast from the super serious movies, and is basically Police academy or Brooklyn 99 level goofball comedy in a world where a police unit is made to deal with criminal elements that take construction equipment and do crimes with it (in machines that have a limited battery pack and a light jog could damage them).



Because laws of physics and rule of cool, sometimes there is a soft division between the two. Gundam Wing, the show that got me into anime when it premiered on Toonami, had the namesake gundams more powerful than the common mecha they were facing, being one man armies in and of themselves. The namesake Wing Gundam, and its later variant the Wing Zero, had the buster riffle that was a mini deathstar cannon. Yet, they could run out of ammo, the buster riffle has a long cool down and maybe three shots max so if it misses it misses, and new things were made to deal with them.


In the other its the popular depictions. Western Ones (mostly American) Tend to be bulky and blocky, more like walking tanks than anything else. Eaaster one (namely Japanesse Anime ones) tend to be more elegant machines. You can see this when we finally got to see one made by an USA team of engineers and one by a Japanese team of Engineers.





So are there any shows, books, games and other media that you like in this genre, and how would you do this.



I would probably go with a real robot in my settings, but i do have an imperial knight expy in one of them based on one person's powers.