#Gō Ken'ichi

[robotshowtunes]

親にはぐれた ひなどりも いつかはやさしい ふところに

OYA NI HAGURETA HINA DORI MO ITSUKA WA YASASHĪ FUTOKORO NI

Background photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash

[laallomri]

Hey, sorry this is a kinda weird request, but you seem to have some influence in vld/this leakira AU, so, could you maybe get the word out that Hachikō is the name of a famous dog and everyone thinks of the dog when they hear it, and it's not a name used for people much at all? Common Japanese boy names are Daisuke, Kenta, Takuya, Daiki, Naoki, Naoto, Tatsuya, Shōta, Tomoya, etc. older common names are Ichirō, Ryōichi, Manabu, Ken'ichi, Yōhei, Gō, Kazuhiko. thank you!

thanks for sending this, it’s good to have input on stuff like this! I posted it to twitter too so it’ll reach as many people as possible. I’ve been told most people are changing his name to hiroshi or tadashi now depending on their own headcanons but thank you for the name list too!

also again, for clarity, this is NOT an official reboot lol it’s just an au so you don’t have to go with whatever name the majority has picked. just don’t pick the one that reminds people of the dog

[nomadicism]

Top 10 mecha anime?

Thank you for the ask!I’ve included links to series openings or good scenes when possible.

10. Chōdenji Machine Voltes V [超電磁マシーン ボルテスＶ] Voltes V is the stronger of the “Robot Romance” trilogy and several concepts and themes later made their way into Golion (and thus Voltron). It’s a straight-forward super robot/combining mecha show with sentai theming and obligatory 80s ruined earth setting that later punches you in the face with a tragic antagonist/protagonist backstory reveal. VLD Keith owes a lot to his Voltes V counterpart, Ken'ichi Gō, and I don’t even think it was intentional, it just spilled out by virtue of genre tropes.

9. Space Runaway Ideon [伝説巨神イデオン] (TV/Movies)Japanese OP here. Don’t let the upbeat opening song fool you. This is Yoshiyuki “Death Count” Tomino at his best. More mind fuckery than Evangelion (which was influenced by Ideon). I love the character designs, the Ideon combiner, the concept, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.

8.Adventure! Iczer 3 [冒険!イクサー3] from the Iczer OVA seriesJapanese OP here.Not the best mecha anime, the Iczer-verse OVAs are more of a cross-genre of body horror, mecha, magical girl (arguably), and yuri. The series (beginning with Fight! Iczer One) introduced tentacle horror ahead of Urotsukidōji and—even though I’m an Ace—I will never turn down mecha-piloting lesbian space elves. What can I say, the 80s were weird. The mecha designs were really cool and influenced later series like Evangelion and Dangaioh.

7. Aim for the Top! / Gunbuster [トップをねらえ!] OVAsJapanese OP here.Incredible character and mecha design. Ambitious mecha concepts. Soviets. OMG moments. Jupiter!? Break out the tissues because [spoiler spoiler] space physics [spoiler spoiler].

6. Aoki Ryūsei SPT Layzner  [蒼き流星SPTレイズナー]Japanese OP 1 here.I have a soft-spot for hybrid alien protagonists, Cold War settings, AI ethics, and Painfully Obvious Anti-War Themes. Layzner is a great “real robot” action series with touches of survival thriller pacing, that left its mark on later mecha shows like Evangelion and MS Gundam 00. See also obligatory 80s ruined Earth scenario + late series weirdness. Alas, Layzner is very much dated in the gender role department and it runs afoul of one of the worst (IMO) tropes in storytelling in the very first episode. Breaks my heart b/c so much of the series is fantastic. The Skull-Gunners are Aliens-level creepy.

5. Super Dimensional Fortress Macross [超時空要塞マクロス] / Robotech: Macross SagaJapanese OP here.I’ll use the Robotech names here, b/c that’s a little easier for me.

Macross is the one mecha anime that—while I think that the SDF-1 and the 3-way transforming Valkyries/Veritechs are hella cool—I love it for the ambitious inclusion of relationship storylines rather than the mecha. Which says a lot b/c I’m ship agnostic and usually prefer not to see romantic storylines outside of rom-coms or romance-specific genres. Macross gives storylines for 3 couples: one is the quintessential love triangle, the second is the first time I ever saw a biracial couple in animation (OTP: Claudia and Roy), and the third is the absurdly-rushed-yet-compelling battle couple Miriya and Max. Claudia is one of my favorite anime characters b/c Reasons.

What does this have to do with mecha? Absolutely nothing but somehow Macross made it work while launching a franchise known just as much for its moe idol singers as its mecha.

Additionally, Macross (and Robotech) influences can be seen in many series (Japanese or Western), and the Roy Fokker easter egg in the first episode of Voltron Legendary Defender was my clue that I was going to love VLD (I also suspect that Rick, Miriya, and Max were snuck in as well). LM name-dropping Robotech as having influenced the way they wrote the conflict in VLD continuing beyond Zarkon’s death confirmed my hunch that there are other Robotech influences in VLD as well.

4. Beast King Golion [百獣王ゴライオン] / Voltron: Defender of the Universe (franchise as a whole)Probably not fair to combine Golion with Voltron, but I will anyway. I love Golion and the Voltron franchise for different reasons, but overall the super sentai team concept is stronger in Golion/Voltron than in other super robot/combining mecha shows, which when combined with the lion design and space-fantasy theming makes them stand out.

3. Armored Fleet Dairugger XV [機甲艦隊ダイラガーXV]  / Vehicle VoltronCombining mecha meets Star Trek. Ambitious with its 15 member team—“I’m a foot!”—and political themes. The original has quite the body count, so the Voltron DotU version is hella sanitized with dialogue like: “Set your stun guns to maximum stun!” or “We’ll come back for him later!” LOL okay Dorma (Sirik).

It’s hard to get characterization with so many characters, but, unlike a lot of other shows, there are 4 regularly occurring female characters with speaking lines and I never felt like they were terribly slighted in the gender role department. No damsels in distress here.

2. Genesis Climber MOSPEADA [機甲創世記モスピーダ ] / Robotech: The New GenerationWhile definitely a feather-weight of the real robot mecha genre, the Cyclones are a fun take on transforming mecha/real robot battle armor. Once again, obligatory 80s ruined earth setting. Also, I’ll take all the androgynous gender bending that I can get b/c—this one’s personal—as a tomboy child in the 80s (we didn’t have access to words/concepts like gender fluid back then), Yellow Dancer was a huge deal for me and still is.Clip of Yellow Dancer spoiler scene but I don’t care.Bonus: “Look Up The Sky Is Falling” holds up surprisingly well for an 80s cartoon song about environmental destruction.

1. Mobile Suit Gundam [機動戦士ガンダム] franchise (Universal Century preferred).This is a cop-out, but I love all Gundam UC timeline series for different reasons and it’s impossible for me to pick which one is “the best”. There’s a reason the franchise is still going strong after all these years, and his name is Char Aznable, the Red Comet, Yoshiyuki Tomino (even when he’s not involved, his initial concept was so strong that it lives on without him).Clip of Char in Zaku II from MS Gundam Origins here.

Runners-up: Six God Combination Godmars, Shin Getter Robo, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, Super Dimension Century Orguss, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Vision of Escaflowne, Aura Battler Dunbine, Heavy Metal L-Gaim, and Knights of Sidonia.

[robotshowtunes]

Ken’ichi Go (剛健一)

A.K.A. Steve Armstrong

Portrait from Super Robot Wars 30

[robotshowtunes]

VOLT CRUISER-1 (ボルトクルーザー)

Code: Ph-Red balance A Model No.: Ci – J Category: Attack Fighter Interceptor Operants: AW/2M Primary: Atmos Landing: STOL Height: 6.82 m Length: 17.73 m Width: 17.73 m Weight: 95 t Armaments: Crew Missiles, Crew Arrow, Vulcan Cannon, Crew Boomerang, Crew Cutters Target Definition: Radar-Sonar-Thermal Guidance Armor: Titanium-Platinum Alloy with Diamond Reinforcement Thermal Capacity: 1.43 millisol Shock Capacity: 15 Mt Control: Guardian Computer assisted with Manual Override

Source: Voltes V Club