Markup View

Author: hbi2k

Oct 4th 2013 at 9:25:49 AM

This trope seems to have some serious identity problems.  From the first line:

"Giant creatures have been attacking mankind for hundreds of years."

Is it important that the creatures have been attacking for hundreds of years as opposed to, say, a decade?  If it's not, this line needs to change, because as the first thing the reader sees, it colors everything that comes after.

The Claymore example is problematic because they were formed specifically to fight yoma, which are not kaiju but human-sized demons or monsters.  IIRC the Awakened Ones came later and were not what they were specially designed / trained to fight.  Also, their most signature advantage is not specialized equipment but bioaugmentation.

The Gurren Lagann example is problematic because the enemies they fight are human-sized beastmen in giant mecha of their own.  So it's not mecha vs. giant monster like Evangelion or Pacific Rim, it's mecha vs. mecha.

I think both those examples should be dropped unless the trope description is radically rewritten in such a way as to include them or the example descriptions are rewritten to make it clearer how they apply.

I think the thing that makes the most sense is to think of this trope as WhoYouGonnaCall except for kaiju instead of supernatural threats.

I think the paragraph about equipment / powers should be rewritten to de-emphasize ''mobility'' specifically and emphasize that it is in some way ''specialized'' to fight giant creatures.  That could mean mobility, that could mean targeting a weak point, or that could mean (as in the Pacific Rim example) functionally sizing-up humans to fight the monsters hand-to-hand.  ''Specialization'' is the key.  Giant mecha in a setting where giant mecha make up the majority of any given nation's conventional forces and are used for standard human vs. human warfare wouldn't count.  A squad of giant mecha that fire DepletedPhlebotinumShells specifically designed to target a monster's KryptoniteFactor, or a setting in which they were designed for the express purpose of fighting giant monsters (a la Pacific Rim), ''would'' count.

As for names, I like KaijuKillerCorps but agree that it's too close to KaijuDefenseForce for comfort.  If we want to use it I think we should seriously consider starting the process of renaming KaijuDefenseForce, since as it stands it has little or nothing to do with defending against Kaiju and should probably be called JapanSelfDefenseForce (the actual name of the organization in question).

Otherwise, I think something like GiantMonsterDefenseForce works fine.