Grogu's Big Mandalorian Moment Finds Star Wars Embracing Anime
Star Wars has always pulled influences from many places, including old serials, "Dune," and several of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's films. Because of this, Star Wars is both a specific vision and also a world that is recognizable everywhere. In more recent years, anime has deeply impacted the franchise far, far away and taken it towards new heights.
Whether it's "The Clone Wars" or even "Star Wars: Visions," the franchise has looked towards Japanese anime for aesthetic inspiration. But it wasn't until this year that we finally got a canonical display of one of the biggest and most iconic aspects of anime: mecha suits.
In the latest episode of "The Mandalorian," we finally see someone realize that Grogu can't just stay seated in his little stroller all day long — particularly not during big battles. He needs mobility and a fighting chance beyond his force abilities, so what do the Anzellan droidsmiths on Nevarro come up with? A rather simple yet elegant solution: Have Star Wars fully become "Mobile Suit Gundam" once and for all by giving Grogu a mecha suit so he can become this franchise's version of Ray Amuro.
Get in the robot, Grogu!
In some ways, "Mobile Suit Gundam" is the Star Wars of Japan, a massive space opera with intricate and also confusing lore (in this case, multiple timelines are involved), strong iconography and memorable characters, space wars, a conflict between shady organizations, and who can forget the laser swords! Like Star Wars, many Gundam shows are defined by a big war that ravaged a planet as well as its various colonies, with humanity itself changing in its aftermath.
The biggest repercussion of the war is the advent of the mobile suit, allowing giant humanoid robots to be piloted by people. "Mobile Suit Gundam" is not the first mecha anime, but it is arguably the biggest, with its influence continuing to resonate to this day.
Before "Gundam" turned mecha suits into metaphors for war and trauma, there was the super robot genre, which treated the giant robots more like superheroes, with stories being more cheerful and adventurous. Among these super robot anime were shows like "Getter Robo," or "Gurren Lagann," which are closer to the kind of Saturday morning cartoons and serials that influenced — you guessed it — Star Wars.
Baby's first mecha suit
Giving Grogu a human-sized mecha suit to pilot is genius in so many ways. It gives Grogu a way to move more freely and even communicate — to hilarious results. He is no Shinji, but seeing Grogu pilot his own robot is a new level of cool I did not expect from Star Wars. And from a business perspective, this is a fantastic marketing opportunity that is sure to sell as many toys as Gandai does gunpla (model kits based on "Gundam").
We have seen all sorts of dazzling vehicles in Star Wars over the years, and all sorts of robots and droids. To combine the two, and particularly in this goofy (yet still useful) way of Grogu literally pulling two levers to move the robot and pushing a button to say either yes or no, is the first step in having the little green guy conquer the galaxy.
It may seem silly at first, but bringing mecha to "The Mandalorian" shows the Star Wars franchise can try different and new things. Granted, it is not exactly a 59-foot-tall robot like the standard Gundam, but Grogu's still a baby. If it's giant to him, it counts!