Feel the Burning #2: The Ludicrous, Wondrous Pile Bunker
I love giant robots. But sometimes, you have to step back and think about you’re watching when you watch giant robots beat the ever-living crap out of each other. And at that moment, you realize just how silly and stupid the giant robot genre is. Not that I’m complaining, of course - the sillier and stupider a show gets, the more enjoyable it can be (I liked Sousei no Aquarion, that’s about as stupid as you go).
One of my favorite mecha anime traditions, one that truly screams “Yes, this is at once cool and totally ludicrous,” is a wonderful fictional weapon known as the pile bunker.
It exists almost exclusively in giant robot fiction, and is nothing more than a large, sometimes exposively or electrically powered spike. It’s usually stuck onto the arm of a robot (though in a few awesome cases, it comes out of the robo-crotch) and is used to deliver giant robot gut punches. Its first appearance was in Armored Trooper VOTOMS in the ’80s, and it caught the imagination of enough mecha designers that it’s lived on in the 25 years since VOTOMS first introduced the concept. You can find pile bunkers in everything from Armored Core to Final Fantasy VII and Guilty Gear.
But why is it so popular? Its not a particularly stylish weapon. It’s the technological equivalent of a plank with a nail stuck in it. If a society has mastered bipedal mechanics, laser weaponry, and other highly advanced technologies, you’d think they could give their robots laser beam eyes, particle cannons, heat rays, or at least some Macross-style beer can rockets. And yet, people’s imaginations get fired up at the thought of a big ol’ nail on a stick.
I figure that the pile bunker owes its popularity to its primitive nature. Sure, people can appreciate outer space dogfights with beam rifles and drunk missiles, but when you get down to it, people like the hands-on approach on a visceral level. And when firefights start to look the same, the most satisfying thing you can possibly watch is a good ol’ punch to the breadbasket.
Take the Baldr series as an example (I won’t blame you if you haven’t played it, it’s never been translated and never will be, what with the porn and all). In Baldr Force, combat takes place entirely in cyberspace, so Shumicram weapon loadouts are a matter of whatever you want to assign a button to. Wave motion cannons? Satellite lasers? Anti-air missiles? They all just materialize on your robot when you need them, ready to wreak havoc. But the pile bunker gets special treatment in that game: the action starts to move in slow motion, the camera zooms in, and the screen freezes at the moment your giant metal spike comes into contact with the enemy with an oh-so-satisfying “CLANG” noise.
The Super Robot Wars series makes the pile bunker seem even more ridiculously outdated and savagely satisfying. The Alt Eisen comes equipped with a pile bunker attached to a giant revolver, and even its pilot admits that the whole setup looks pretty stupid. You can see the results on this convenient Youtube video, starting at 0:36.
Does it look silly? Of course it does. But is it fun to imagine driving a giant stake into someone else’s robot, hearing the crash of heavy metal and a few gratuitous explosions?
Hell yes.
Tell me what your favorite “this has no business being here but it feels SO GOOD” weapon is in fantasy or science fiction - next week, I talk about another ludicrous fiction, the osananajimi.
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October 18th, 2007 at 9:15 am
First off, I think you call it on the primative appeal of this sucker. I also have a little personal belief in that it is included as a false hope mechanism. You make an audinece OOO and AAHH over your robo-space warrior of doom, what better then to turn around and give him the most barbaric tool ever. It makes people, even if just in a very subconcious way, think, “Hmmm. If they’re still using stuff like that, maybe there’s hope for us to do that yet.”
That, and when the other guy has a metal twisting crunch of hook on face action, every primal instinct flares. You defenitely had your stuff spot on there. I mean, look at Big O. He had a 360 array of anchors on chains. Whatp ossible need does a design like that have? Nothing, except to weigh him down so when he goes to deliver the head imploding hydrolic punch, it adds a certain thrust to this gladitorial motion.
As fr as my favorite sci-fi or fantasy weapon absurdities, I have a couple:
A) 19 foot swords. Sure, I could kill a man from the other side of a bridge. But how do I not stab myself putting it away?
B) Gun arms. You can never go wrong when your Vash or your Barrett can suddenly lay down a spray of fire, or catapult a mini H-bomb from his wrist.
C) The Fenrir. There are more swords on that sucker then there are gears for him to shift to.
D) Animal Familiars. As if combat was not totally insane enough, you’re suddenly delivering carnage with a polar bear.
E) The Death Star. Enough Said.
F) Flaming arrows. Regular arrows are the foundation of hunter gatherer society. But I would love to know where along the way some one thought to themselves, “Hmmm, maybe i should tie this oil soaked rag on my already pointy weapon, and hold a torch to it…”
October 18th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Just so this doesn’t become another post with only Dustin commenting, I’ll finally speak up.
I’m not a particularly serious anime watcher, I usually only watch a few of the mainstream ones (FMA, Bleach until it put itself on infinite filler hiatus), but how did you leave Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann out of this post! The show is entirely about enormous, extravagant pile bunkers, as almost every weapon is a drill of some kind, and characters pull off the technique “Certain Death: Giga Drill Breaker” where they run at enemies with a drill the size of an apartment building. It’s the parody of all Giant Robot anime, and I can’t think of seeing human-piloted giant robots, piloting larger robots, piloting even larger robots anywhere else.
And something about the fire gloves from Full Metal Alchemist feels so silly, yet so right.
October 18th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Here’s the thing: drills are entirely separate from pile bunkers. A drill has a very specific purpose, and the design has been proven to work. Want to get through something? Stick a drill through it, and it’ll eventually give way.
But a combustion engine at the end of a spike doesn’t really have any real precedent.
(Besides, as Yamaga tells it, Japanese boys love drills and beetles)
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:21 am
It’s just a long range pik.