Badass Mecha of the Week # 5: Guren Mk-II

I love the first season of Code Geass. Aside from the annoying imbalance Suzaku's Lancelot is causing, the whole show is really awesome for me. It's got more tactics and strategy than standard mech-vs-mech battles, and well, it seems I and many others can relate to the main character Lelouche. This week's BMoW is a knightmare frame hailing from that show, and it is no other than the uber-knightmare Lancelot's bane: Type-02 Guren Mk-II.

Before proceeding, let me give a quick rundown of Code Geass for those unfamiliar with it. I know it's a little too popular that people may have not missed it but there's still the chosen few who haven't been able to watch the show, so let's give 'em some consideration. Okay, here I go: in Code Geass, Japan is conquered by the imperialistic Britannians and is renamed Area-11, whose citizens are now called Elevens, some sort of racial slur at the time. Fast-forward a decade. An anti-Brit high school student named Lelouche Lamperouge received the mysterious Geass, which he use to make people obey unconditionally. So under the guise of the masked terrorist Zero, he organized the Black Knights, a mostly Japanese rebel organization, attempting to topple Brit power with his natural ingenuity and the Geass.


*deep breaaaaaaaaaaaath*

Back to the topic. Guren Mk-II is a prototype Knightmare frame developed for the Kyoto House by the engineer Rakshata Chawla. It is handed over to the Black Knights and is piloted by this hot chick Kallen Kozuki, a half-Britannian half-Japanese ace pilot whose daily life involves school and seditious activities.

The Mk-II has a build typical of agile mechs: wide shoulders, slim torso, narrow waist and slim legs. It is all red, which means it's probably three times faster than the usual knightmare. Its most prominent feature is a shiny silver arm with large claws armed with a powerful microwave radiation emitter at its palm. That palm's the last thing the Guren's thrashed enemies ever see, should they be able to see it coming.

The Guren Mk-II is considered at par with Britannia's seventh generation knightmare frames in development. The Lancelot, Brit's sole 7th-gen knightmare in active duty have so many times fought to a draw with the Mk-II, which I really am happy about since that mech keeps on ruining Lelouche's plans with god-like efficiency until Episode 10. That bastard only managed to defeat Kallen's knightmare in the Battle of Tokyo, having been upgraded with a float system, a flight pack, which makes it superior against ground targets.

So that's it. Guren Mk-II lost its awesome arm in the battle and is replaced by a less-efficient and less aesthetically appealing version, as shown in the first episode of Season 2. It received a flight upgrade and remained in operation until it got thrashed in the battle against the Chinese. The Mk-II was replaced later by the far superior Guren SEITEN.



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Badass Mecha of the Week # 4: Gelgoog

If you've ever seen the first Mobile Suit Gundam series — the almighty father of all Gundam, the founder of the real robot genre and the starter of various mecha anime cliches like the masked villain, angsty teen pilots, giant space lasers, and Newtypes (modern versions include Innovators, Coordinators, Whispereds, etc.) — you've probably noticed that new cannon fodder in the Battle of A Baoa Qu. That, my friends, is the MS-14 Gelgoog.

It's fat I know. If I were to be asked, the design's simply off my taste. I don't think I'll be picking a model kit of one unless I plan to make an A Baoa Qu diorama. That there at the left is 0083's Gelgoog Marine variant, a remake of the original which is a little worse.

Not to mention a funny name. Gelgoog? Quite goofy to pronounce really. Zaku, Dom and Gouf (no pun intended) are a lot more badass-sounding names than this. Just my opinion though. But really, I like this mobile suit for a few reasons: I have a hunch that it served as Okawara's basis for an old SEED favorite, the GINN. That and it has a badass finned head, quite a redeeming feature indeed.

Buuuuuuut, don't you ever let the looks deceive you! This here is a really agile mobile suit, what with all those thrusters under its skirt, shoulders and legs. Plus, it's the first Zeon mobile suit with a full complement of beam weapons, twin beam swords and a beam rifle. It is said that given a capable pilot, it can outmatch the Federation's White Devil, the RX-78-2 Gundam.

Yep, you bet it sort of did once. Yeah, sort of. Well there was this little skirmish in and outside the abandoned Texas colony during the One Year War. The Principality's ace Char Aznable in a red prototype Gelgoog rushed in the aid of Lady Kycillia's subordinate M'Quve who's piloting a Gyan. He got the Gundam pinned by his melee attacks, until M'Quve ordered his retreat.

That's it. The rest of the Gundam vs. Gelgoog battles can be described as the usual uber-mech vs. cannonfodder scene. Boring. Not if you patch together many of these scenes in a large battle. This owes much to the Gelgoogs piloted by student pilots who haven't even graduated from Zeon boot camps. You may also call them novices, or better yet, noobs. Meh, they can't even stand against the humbler GMs.

Point is, the Gelgoog is one badass mobile suit because it is equal to, if not more powerful than, the legendary Gundam itself, given pilots of equal skill in both mobile suits. The fact that it was deployed too late in the war when Zeon's skilled MS veterans have dwindled in number contributed to the mobile suit's failure. Interestingly, I've browsed it's MAHQ profile and it's said there that had the Gelgoog been deployed two months before A Baoa Qu, it could have significantly influenced the course of the war in favor of the Principality of Zeon. Shame, Gihren.


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Badass Mecha of the Week # 3: Stark Jegan

I've been thinking of what to put here this week, and mobile suits and a single mobile armor came into my mind. You guessed it, this week's featured mech came from the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise, and again from the Universal Century (see summary here) timeline. A prototype mobile suit actually and we call it the Stark Jegan.

The RGM-79S Stark Jegan is a prototype mobile suit based on the RGM-89 Jegan, the standard mobile suit of Earth Federation's Londo Bell Task Force, a unit formed to replace the Titans, which later fought against Char Aznable's Neo Zeon faction in what was known as the Second Neo Zeon War, in reference to the First Neo Zeon Movement led by Haman Karn.

The Stark Jegan is designed as a mid-range fire support unit, armed with a giant bazooka, two shoulder-mounted three-tube missile launcher, a beam rifle, grenades, beam sabers and four optional large missile launchers. To top it off, the mobile suit is equipped with some extra armor which allows it to take some beating while spamming missiles — oh, did I tell you it can fire one that spams what looks like beams? — and a set of three thruster-containing binders at the back to maintain mobility.

Of course, all these equipment makes the Stark Jegan a little slower than the standard Jegan, so all the missile launchers and the armor are all completely ejectable. With the binders still around, this makes the Stark Jegan highly mobile.

The Stark Jegan appeared in the OVA series Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, where it proved itself a badass. In the very first battle of the OVA, the mobile suit appeared leading a Londo Bell squad of Jegans engaging Neo Zeon's ("Sleeves" in this case, a continuation of Haman Karn's faction) powerful Kshatriya. The battle saw the destruction of the Jegans, leaving the Stark Jegan in a one-on-one match with the Neo Zeon mech. This is where I saw for the first time a grunt prototype piloted by a faceless Feddie fight well against, take note, a Newtype mobile suit. With funnels. The battle turned out an awesome match with the Stark Jegan evading the enemy's random beams while putting pressure into it with missiles and beams.

The battle culminated with a beam saber duel, and the Kshatriya only managed to defeat the Stark Jegan when it pulled off a little I-field trick.

The lovely mobile suit was finally hacked by a beam saber into two.

And that's the story of why the Stark Jegan is such a badass mobile suit. Well the unnamed pilot gets most of the credits though.


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Badass Mecha of the Week # 2: Viper 2

Ever played Virtual On? You've probably did if you've ever been to the arcade back in the '90s, or played in the Sega Saturn console like I did a few years back. This week's Badass Mech is from the Virtual On series. It is, no she is, my favorite VR in the game, TRV-06-E Viper 2.

I won't bother to bore you with its scant background and technical information. Instead I'll just tell about my own experience playing it in the game which is pretty much similar to what you'll find elsewhere in the Net. Only a little original of course.

A short description of Viper 2 is that it's a very agile virtuaroid, with some emphasis on aerial mobility. This is made possible by plenty of thrusters and a pair of wing binders.

Viper 2 is armed in its right hand with a vulcan cannon which can also launch missiles and project an energy sword in between its "claws" — yeah, a weapon that can do just about anything. On its chest is a beam launcher, a cannon that fires a powerful homing beam, a direct hit from which can shave about half off the health bar of an enemy virtuaroid.

If that ain't badass enough for you, it has a cool special attack: the SLC ram. SLC stands for "She's lost control", which is apparently the last words of a dead test pilot. When doing the SLC ram, the Viper 2 empties all its energy into its thrusters, Kamikaze crashing into it's opponent. Frankly though, given the graphics of the Operation Moongate game I played, I really thought the VR is riding it's own homing beam when performing the ram. XD

Viper 2 is extremely fast, which lives up to the Virtual On series' fast-paced gameplay. Having played with it, I really enjoyed dashing all over the arena in seconds, jumping and staying up for quite a long while, and even performing aerial stunts when attacking mid-air. It has however, like last week's Kampfer, paper-thin armor. It is not uncommon that in a single playthrough, your VR can end up like this:

Borrowed some elements of this post here.


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Neue Stahl

My first art post here would be this character sprite of Neue Stahl ("new steel"), a little bot I created for this purpose. This one's for our assignment in Game Programming. It took me almost the whole night last night until a long power interruption. I finished it this morning after a short nap. Yeah it is a little rushed, evident in plenty of bad lines and inconsistence in extreme close-up. So enjoy, and please leave critiques if you may.

Also featured in my Deviant Art gallery.


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Badass Mecha of the Week # 1: Kampfer

I'll be starting this weekly topic from here on to keep my blog updated, apart from the other fact that I simply feel like sharing an interest.

So to start off, let me introduce you to my favorite hit-and-run mobile suit of all time, the Kampfer from Mobile Suit Gundam 0080.

Before I proceed in telling you how badass this mecha is, let me give a brief history of the original Mobile Suit Gundam universe. In the near future, in an era dubbed as the Universal Century (UC), mankind started to colonize space, living in clusters of Island 3 colonies known as Sides (e.g. Side 7, Side 6, etc.). Over time, those who live in space became paranoid of those who live in Earth, a schism giving rise to the labels spacenoid (space colonists) and earthnoid (the regular Terran). Soon in the year UC 0079, colonies in Side 3 known as the Principality of Zeon declared a war of independence from the Earth Federation, the one-world government ruling Earth. This conflict is known as the One Year War.

So late in the War, the Principality developed the MS-18E Kampfer, a mobile suit designed for hit-and-run attacks. This MS sacrifices armor for multiple powerful thrusters all over its body (not excluding the head) which allows great maneuverability and speed. Why take hits when you can dodge 'em eh? The drawback however is that the Kampfer consumes way too much fuel with all those thrusters working in sync, thereby shortening its operational time.

Now its standard weapons loadout includes a couple of giant bazookas on its shoulders, a couple of huge versions of the classic panzerfaust on its waist, two head vulcans you'd usually see in Gundams, a shotgun and a chain of mines it has used once to strip a Gundam itself nude of armor. Yes that's a badass enough combo even if you have no knowledge of how the Kampfer took down an entire Feddie mobile suit garrison in Side 6 single-handedly.

Unfortunately, the Kampfer was developed too late to change the course of the War, a months-long stalemate which has finally gone in favor of the Federation. In Dec. 20, UC 0079, Mikhail Kaminsky, a member of Zeon's elite Cyclops Team, is deployed in the Kampfer in Libot Colony, Side 6 to neutralize the Federation's latest prototype, the RX-78NT-1 "Alex" Gundam. He and the rest of the Team failed, and the only Kampfer known in history is shredded by a three-barrel 90 mm Gatling.


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