So we almost always talk about fictional mecha here, occasionally dipping into real mecha whenever there's news on that front, but has it ever been established what the first real-life mecha was? Obviously fictional mecha existed in literature as far back as the mid-1800s and then we have film/manga/animated examples like Metropolis, Tetsujin and Astro Boy, respectively. But at what point did man take fictional mecha and use it as an inspiration to construct an IRL fully functional mecha?For the purposes of this discussion (though obviously we'll stray from it the longer the thread goes), let's define mecha as having a humanoid shape that can walk (not roll on wheels/treads) and has arms and hands/fingers that can manipulate its environment (no excavator buckets or the like), and can move independently of itself without strictly following the commands of its master (no remote controls). I won't say independent power source yet, but it would be a bonus.
>>22580479The word robot itself comes from a Chzech play in the 1920s called RUR and the word for forced labor "robota." >"R.U.R." stands for Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum's Universal Robots.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein
>>22580479>weFuck off you don't belong here.
>>22580479If we include myth, there is a Sumerian story that is recorded of a war "before men had been flushed and the Gods war'd with another" that Enki had a dispute with Enil that involved "metal men"
>>22581390I would imagine that the discovery of metallurgy made someone how was bored enough to imagine humans made from metal, dating back from 7000 BC.
>>22584337That shot lighting from rods and could fly?
>>22580479This question cannot be answered here, because there is no agreement here — on 4chan’s fucking mecha board — what actually qualifies as mecha. (Or, for maximum cringe, “A MECHA”.)
>>22584337We've also got Hephaestus's automatons including "golden handmaidens" in the Iliad and Talos the Bronze Man.
>>22585252Yeah Talos. Also in the lore of my Tribal Confederation Unsen created an automaton to fight a monster that was terrorizing the people but he just pulled a Jet Alone and walked off. There is no real moral to the story he just said "fuck all ya'll" and nobody ever brought it up again.
>>22580479The powered armor in Starship troopers.Mobile infantry on the bounce!
There was a piloted mecha manga from 1967 called Dai-Machine.
>>22581390>Enki had a dispute with Enil that involved "metal men"aaa--nd now we know what Symphogear NEXT is going to be about, and why the god that Finè fell in love with was finally named Enki in Symphogear XV.
>>22585297>Also in the lore of my Tribal Confederation Unsen created an automaton to fight a monster that was terrorizing the people but he just pulled a Jet Alone and walked off. There is no real moral to the story he just said "fuck all ya'll" and nobody ever brought it up again.I wanna hear more of this
>>22587365>>22587693OP meant "real-life", so I assume like live-action movies like Metropolis and plays like RUR, and real attempts at making robots. He defined mechs as humanoid but I'm going to say fuck that, there's reports that Leonardo da Vinci made some kind of small walking lion automaton
You really have to define mecha since a suit of armor would qualify as mecha.
>>22589155Definition: staff involved with illustrating machinery of Japanese animation.
>>22589157bunraku dolls are mecha
>>22589153By that definition the automata of the early renaissance would be the first "Mecha">>22580479Are we delineating between "real robot" and "super robot"?Mecha is a nebulous term we baka gaijin use.
>>22589736>Are we delineating between "real robot" and "super robot"?False dichotomy.
>>22589736>By that definition the automata of the early renaissance would be the first "Mecha"And I would definitely throw that in the ring Also the Golem of Prague
>>22589151Keep this thread up. I will but I am heading out to a midnight showing of Dawn of the Dead 79.
>>22589743No it isn't. >>22589828How vague do we want to get then? Is god making adam from clay the first mecha story?
>>22589921We got this. We go this by the ass!
Still don't understand what is the real point of this thread, but technically the first REAL mecha is the first robot built by human.So likely something older than Honda ASIMO.
>>22589973It is.>>22589985>what is the real point of this threadNewfaggotry.
>>22589976Indeed. Long story short. Antelope Monster, one of the Four Monsters was terrorizing the shit out of the people and being an asshole. The Young Braves go one by one to fight to kill Antelope monster. You know how that ends. The people pray to Unsen. Unsen makes a killer of enemies out of Basalt. When said killer shows up to kill Antelope monster he walks right by him and walks off into the sunset. My headcanon is he held up two middle fingers high in the air while walking away. Anyway Antelope Monster is finally killed by a young warrior who prays for the Lifegiver to take away his warbow. Challenge accepted. Antelope attacks him but bowless warrior ducks and Antelope monster slams his horns into a tree and gets stuck. He goes bonkers and beats himself senseless trying to run forward instead of backing out (the Antelope Trap). Warrior kills him, takes his last breath and yay man prospers. Also according to legend Killer of Enemies Basalt robot turns himself into a dead tree and lived in a lake for a long fucking time. More on that later. So yeah.
>>22591724Finishing this after a few drinks. basalt mecha is now a fucking floating dead tree and lives in a a lake. He occasionally roars and yells at the people because fuck us apparently. This lines up with a Seneca (other Nations) tale of a tree that floated around since they could remember. Now this is actually factual. After the white men came they asked the Seneca old timers about that fucking tree and the fucking godawful noises they heard. So the the tale goes on and on and on. The white men named the floating tree "The Wandering Jew" and never had a name for the noises except for "The Lake Guns". Of course the tree eventually sank. Not sure when but some time after the Civil War.
>>22591724>>22591838I was the original asker >>22589151 so thanks, I don't know if there's more I can read, but I'll be fantasizing about ancient native kaiju mecha battles for a while, the floating dead tree is cool imagery
