Today’s topic is mechs and Nintendo. Let’s start with mechs. Mechs. Mechs, mechs, mechs. I’ve grown up watching mech shows my whole life. When I was five or six, I used to watch a show called Force Five, which consisted of five popular mecha anime from the ‘70s, each one with a different approach to the mech genre.
I can’t say I remember a whole lot about these shows, but two of them were Getter Robo and Dangard Ace. There were two more that I don’t remember the names of, and one last show that I don’t remember at all, from the list of five. That said, all of these shows did instil one idea in me that has stayed ever since: mechs = customization.
Getter Robo especially really drilled this point home. Depending on the situation, three smaller aircrafts could combine into one larger mech. One would make up the head, one the torso, and one the legs. Depending on how the three of them combined together, you would end up with one of three configurations—Getter Liger, Getter Dragon or Getter Poseidon. How the three protagonists chose to combine with one another depended on the situation at hand. My favourite of the three was Getter Dragon at the time.
As I grew older, I began to watch other mecha anime. Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs came next. A few years after that came Ninja Robots (known to some as Ninja Senshi Tobikage).
