Chicks Dig Giant Robots

Steven Den Beste (formerly of USS Clueless fame, now anime blogging at Chizumatic) has posted a Too Many Words™ about why mechas in anime are stupid... big, impractical, and almost impossible to build, giant robots are extremely unlikely to ever see the fields of battle in the real world, he's absolutely right. However, as he points out:

So what's this big exception? That's easy: telling a fun story in animation. None of the problems described above are at issue because you don't actually have to build or operate the mecha. You just have to draw it. In your virtual universe you can ignore the Second Law of Thermodynamics. You can conjure power out of thin air. You can create perfect bearings. You can construct your machine out of materials which can't possibly exist without changing the universal electrical constant. You can ignore gravity, too, if it's inconvenient. And phlebotinum is available in unlimited quantities.

The only place where mechas are practical is a place that doesn't exist. And they're a good solution because they look really cool. Or at least some of them do.

That's pretty much all the argument one needs... they're cool. Giant robots appeal to the 13-year-old-boy in all of us, and that's why they're so common in anime (as well as American animation).

As for me, while I'm only a casual anime fan, sometimes you just want to see a city levelled.