I was very skeptical when I first saw this advertised on Hulu Japan but decided to watch it with an open mind and since I'm a subscriber I was able to watch the entire season in a few sittings.
It's never been done before and though, yes, it could have been executed better I was glad to see a production house gutsy enough to present what could possibly become a new form of professional entertainment or sport. Of the negative reviews I read I noticed that many of of those people were expecting to see boxing Pacific Rim bots complete with professional Jaeger pilots and to them I say, "Please quit whining and go rent Transformers again while the rest of us watch real robots made with today's real technology beating each other into spare parts."
Despite it being peppered with the typical reality-series crap that passes for entertainment in the US I actually really enjoyed watching this. I hope that Smart Dog Media learned from the mistakes that were made and stay on the ball and keeping running with this series.
The lessons learned that RCL needs to address:
1) Final round should **always** go until one robot can no longer fight or is destroyed. The fight footage can be edited as necessary to meet TV airtime constraints.
2) Hire another robotics expert so Mr. Mark Setrakian isn't required to "time share" between the two teams during the 20 minute repair recesses.
3) Invest a bit more funding into the creation of the robots so they are more sturdy and have stronger skeletal infrastructure, particularly in the arms.
4) Take out the spark throwers and just show us the fight in all its bent steel ugliness AND streamline & clarify the rules so we the audience can understand how the judges are making decisions so no one can complain of a match being "rigged."
5) If they keep the same teams then the teams should be rotated between different robots. This will really highlight which teams are *skilled* and which are *lucky* enough to be assigned to the really well-designed robots.
Though these bots aren't of the caliber I'm used to seeing here in Japan RCL is highly entertaining and exciting and I'd pay to go to see these tournaments in person.
My final thoughts on this show are...
AWESOME!! Finally a new sport to Entertain the Masses! If I was back in California during season one I'd *definitely* have gone to see as many of these at the arena as I could.
*********** LET'S SEE RCL SEASON TWO!!! ***********