"Genre" screws up references: Super Robot Genre

Its been pointed out and proven in at least three threads now. But it doesn't matter, logic loses because the anime fans will whine, type in caps and make noise until no one else cares to respond.

I could go on but I shouldn't have to. All the arguments have been made a long time ago, they don't have to be made again. Just because the anime fans keep arguing long after the point has been resolved doesn't make them correct. Monster of the week is more of a genre and "Super Robot" and "Real Robot". Super Robot is a trope about a type of machine, not a type of story.

edited 25th Nov '11 7:09:01 PM by IndirectActiveTransport

If you're going to keep bashing at strawmen, I'm not going to stop you. But there have been legitimate arguments made that there is indeed a Super Robot Genre, and that Real Robot Genre can be considered a subtrope of Military Science Fiction (even if it's not a genre of its own). I am anything but an anime fan, and I'm pretty sure Debosss isn't one either, yet both of us have argued in support of keeping these genres separate. If anything, I think that there might be more evidence against the existence of the pages on the robots themselves.

I'm not sure how much it is "straw manning" when people on this site have already done this three times over. More like "names omitted to protect the guilty" as calling them out would lead to flame wars.

The two robot types can both work in military science fiction, a genre people actually reference, that wasn't named after a unit type in a video game. You have proof that both robot types can be in an action adventure story. It is pointed out that hardly any show fits into the "genres" tv tropes created cleanly but many of them fall into other genres, character types and settings not created by tv tropes just fine. ex: war story, Not Wearing Tights, Sports Stories, Superhero...or the fact the terms were the result of an attempt to classify individual machines(piloted robots) not the series they came from(which would be genre and other story telling devices).

It is pretty easy to have a monster of the week story about an amazing machine that fights the monsters who is pretty unique but not a super robot.(Astro boy, Megaman, Metroid, Swat Kats, ect, ect). Which is supposedly the core concepts of the super robot genre, even though you can do everything in them even if you replace the super robot(the machine) with a different one.(Ridiculously human robot, robot maid, power armor and cool plane respectively)

We're not talking about theory, though, we're talking about reality - and in reality, there are, according to the page, a large number of shows where that "amazing machine" is a super robot - enough that I think it's a valid genre on its own, even if it may be a subtrope of something else. Likewise, as Deboss and I said last page, there are enough distinctive points about "real robot" military SF that it also can be considered a subgenre. "the robots replace everything but The Battlestar" seems to be a legitimate distinction, for instance.

And for the record, it's very hard to see how

can be construed as anything but straw-manning.

I am in fact a fan of Anime, however I view it as any other type of media. So, I'll watch it if it strikes me as interesting, but it doesn't win any extra points for being Japanese. I do, however, consume a wide variety of other types of science fiction, particularly the Military Science Fiction subgenre.

If I were to say where Real Robot Genre falls, it would probably be in a subgenre of the Military Science Fiction subgenre, specifically the vehicle oriented kind, paralleling things like Bolo or Hammers Slammers as opposed to Naval oriented like Honor Harrington and The Lost Fleet or infantry oriented stuff like Halo and Posleen War Series, or espionage (don't know any of the top of my head, might be related to Cyberpunk), or space fighter (although you could probably swing that as a subset of vehicle or naval depending on the series in question.

However, subsubsubgenre doesn't roll of the tongue, so simply calling it a genre or subgenre makes sense to me. What we can say is that there are certain characteristics that you could call stock Real Robot Genre plots and setups, which makes a fairly good dividing line between simply being an interesting take on a genre and a subgenre.

A Genre is a Genre it doesnt matter if its subgenre or yada... distinctions are made between Magical Girl, Super Hero, Sentai and such even though they are all the same damn thing. Urban Fantasy vs Fantasy, Kart Racing vs Racing Game, JRPG vs WRPG.

The fact that Real Robot was made into a genre due to Genre Launch does not make it less of a genre and TV Tropes did not make the distinction the masses who actually watch the shows did.

edited 25th Nov '11 9:29:35 PM by Raso

The masses really can't tell you what makes the genre, they can only tell you what makes the machine. There are no tropes inherent to Super Robot show, just the super robot machine.

If there is any sub genre to find then it is Robot show...or if you want to be more specific, robot pilot show. Big Guy And Rusty The Boy Robot and Exosquad are both robot pilot shows, and both feature a "Real Robot" as in the machine but beyond being Science Fiction there is almost nothing else they have in common. Magic Girl is more about a type of Superhero anyway, Sentai is more about a setup and toku(basically super hero who "transformers into their costume") or however its spelled is another superhero that usually appears in sentai.

Real Robot is a Super Robot Wars unit and so is Super Robot. They are different types of Giant Robot as much as Mini-Mecha is a related type of machine.

edited 27th Nov '11 10:30:30 AM by IndirectActiveTransport

"Real robot" has long since come into its own since it was coined for Super Robot Wars and "super robot" had been the term for a while before the first game was ever made; insisting they have no meaning outside of the games is a major case of Did Not Do The Research.

I'm not entirely sure what your argument is, here. We have a definition, we have a name, and we have plenty of examples. It satisfies the Three Rules Of Three criteria for making new tropes — so why shouldn't we make them separate tropes?

I don't see why they were changed in the first place. From what I've seen out and about, the links are referring exclusively to the various mecha themselves, and not to the genres. Further, as people have kept mentioning, it is possible to have Super Robots and/or Real Robots in a story without having to be in their respective genres, or even either genre. Examples would include the various mecha in Super Sentai, Power Rangers, the mech in Japanese Spider-Man, and also MechaGodzilla, Jet Jaguar, and MOGUERA. Neon Genesis Evangelion is a wierd example because it has Super Robots in it, but is generally more about the character than the mecha themselves, which kinda skews the whole Super Robot Genre part. Also, regarding Getter Robo, it has a Super Robot in it, but apparently has a lot of Real Robot tropes. So, in summary.... I propose that TV Tropes get off its lazy butt and decide on an Author's Saving Throw already. Either separate Super (or Real, as the case may be) Robot from the "Genre" (and really, Real Robot has more of a "genre" characteristics than Super Robot does), or put it back to the way it was, with just "Super Robot" and "Real Robot".

And, since someone brought it up, do not change Super Hero to Super Hero Genre. The vast majority of stories that have Super Heroes in them make that pointless, and the "Genre" part is kind of implied. Also, berserk fanboys.

There is very little distinction in the so called genres.

Mohs Scale Of Sci Fi Hardness, no, not really. They all tend toward the soft side because they are giant robots. Even Votoms had super natural stuff in it, despite being touted as one of the more "realistic" takes.

Superhero? No, both can be used as such.(Big Guy to Power Rangers)

Military fiction? No, both can be used there too.(Gurren Laggan features mass produced units in a series that run on en weapons and spiral energy. Exosquad had military conflict with robots who needed fuel and ammo)

Blood Sport? Nope not that either. Zoids to G Gundam.

Minovsky Physics? There is no reason not to make a Super Robot out of, say, adamantium or fuel it with energon and then base its strength and drawbacks around that material. Titans in War Hammer can be made of consistently portrayed material like Adamantium but otherwise run on Magic or psychic powers.

The only dividing line is the robots themselves, which can appear in any number of genres. I'd be happy to see the pages reverted to the way they were before. Sure, it'll be called a genre anyway but we are not the fan speak wiki. We look at how tropes are used. The consistency is only in the machines themselves, even then not a whole lot of it but a lot more to be found than trying to iron out two genres. If there is a genre here Robot Pilot.

edited 16th Dec '11 7:04:25 PM by Cider

Cider, read this post for the difference between the robots and the genres. It's possible to have a real robot in a super robot genre show and vice versa. For example, Dai Guard is a real robot (much attention is paid to not only repairs and maintenance, but also things like insurance and liability) in a super robot show (every episode they fight the Monster of the Week Kaiju that's attacking Japan for no apparent reason). Meanwhile, Neon Genesis Evangelion has super robots (unique mecha with wills of their own that can only be piloted by a very specific group of people) in a real robot show (realistically portrays how resting the fate of the world on the shoulders of maladjusted teenagers would seriously mess up the teenagers in question).

The proposed "Real Robot Genre based on story style, separate from Real Robot" has a few problems. For one, it's based on the robots being in the background compared to characters. So if there's a series about, say, doctors 20 Minutes into the Future, and manual laborers are depicted using Powered Armor as a background detail does that make it a Real Robot series? Is Code Geass a Real Robot series? If it is, then the manga adaptation where the plot is the same but the robots are removed is also a Real Robot series, at which point you could just as easily call Tom Clancy's works Real Robot series.

If you object "but Tom Clancy doesn't have robots", well yes, that's the point. If you edited a Tom Clancy book to add "And they did this while piloting robots" to a few pages, then it would be a Real Robot story - the robots themselves are the only point of difference. And if "Real Robot Genre" is identical to "story using the Real Robot trope more prominently than the Super Robot trope" then there is no reason for it to exist. See: Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha!

In any case, the current pages are not about genres but robots - maybe pages about genres can be written, but they should be launched separately. For now the pages' names should be reverted to "Real Robot" and "Super Robot".

edited 10th Feb '12 3:27:06 PM by Prime32

Can someone remind us why and who decided that those two tropes should be renamed to include "genre" in them?

See this? This is why the references shouldn't include "genre" automatically!

Even if it sticks with a redirect, could still undo the custom thing where it autocorrects itself.

Clocking as requested.

Soo...... does anybody have any idea of what the conclusion is thus far?

Well, I certainly don't. And my previous question has yet to be answered, BTW.

I vote make pages about the actual robots separate from pages about the genres. Code Geass started out as a military/terrorism thing, but went on to have less realistic (and far more powerful) robots. It's not impossible for the shows to have robots that don't match the genre. Or to have giant robots, but not be a giant robot work.

edited 10th Apr '12 6:33:56 AM by ThatHuman

It is, actually. It's just insanely uncommon. As I keep suggesting, it's okay to keep it as a redirect, but please reverse the autocorrecting link. It's just fine (the way I see it) if Super Robot goes to Super Robot Genre and Real Robot to Real Robot Genre, but don't make it so that it automatically changes itself from RealRobot to RealRobotGenre, because that makes it incredibly awkward in a sentence that reads "Koji Kabuto is the pilot of the Super Robot Genre Mazinger Z". In that case - and most other cases follow it - the link is a reference to the robot itself, but something or other automatically changes it to refer to category of story that they're in. Last time I checked, you can't really get in the head of and control a genre.

I don't watch these shows at all, but the argument above makes sense. I see no reason to force custom-titling. Unless there was some administrative reason for that I don't know about.

I personally think that the robots themselves and the genres are splittable (as argued here and here), but I agree that we should get rid of the custom title at the very least, if only because it's making potholes weird. It's rather jarring to see a sentence that refers to a Real Robot Genre punching aliens or something.

Crowner hooked per request.