>>15626601
Westerners are intimidated by robots.
Have a pasta:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/07/22/grim-tidings
>it's giant robots, giant robots are japanese, and japanese people are stupid
http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/pacific-rim
>giant robots are for NERDS, fuck nerds they make me sick
>pic related
>they aren't mechs! yah you get into them and they are giant and robotic and are piloted but they aren't mechs! MECHS IS A BAD WORD
The industry is fully aware that giant piloted robots make regulars feel uncomfortable. We've talked a shitload about this before. I don't remember the technical term, but it's the term for the threshold a fictional element must cross in order to be "just accepted" by the audiences suspension. Like in x-men, everyone more or less understands there is no meaningful explanation for their powers, but because it's fantastical enough people just buy into it for the movie. Some people can shoot fire and some can fly. It's whatever.
But when something is directly analogue to the real world, people expect a proper explanation. It isn't strange enough to just accept as being part of the fictional worlds rules (internally logical for the story), and it isn't part of real world activity, thus it demands an explanation. Here is where the problem comes though. It's a giant, complex machine. Any explanation will inevitably be equally complex, or at least the person expects it to be. This is, ironically, what a lot of people who are into mecha really like. There tends to be a caveat that explains it all (miniaturized nuclear power packs, or a special metal, or some sort of new tech that allows for all sorts of things).
People (normalfags, as people might reference them) don't see piloted mechs as "larger aircraft/spaceships", they seem them more akin to say a giant reactor mixed with a computer. They have no idea how to work the dials or make sure a power plant runs efficiently. They don't know how to pilot a spaceship either, but it seems more or less analogous to driving a car, and so it's not really seen as complex or urelatable. If you made a movie about a guy taking care of all the nitty gritty of say, an electrical distribution center, the jargon would make regular people feel incredibly alienated, and stupid. This is what people expect with giant robots (regardless of it happening or not). They just see a giant gulf of knowledge between them and understanding how a giant robot works. It's a giant machine, and the audience expects to feel stupid. Simply because it's not seen as a fantastical element.
Hence, the innate reaction to them.
There is also a racism aspect: giant robots are seen as a jap thing. People see jap stuff as weird and fetishized (well they aren't wrong). Hence they don't want to be seen as weirdo's either for liking jap stuff.