3. They Represent The Best of Humanity
Jaegers represent the best of humanity, as not only does cooperation allow the Jaegers to function, but also there would be no Jaegers all together if it weren’t for the powers of cooperation. Just as Oxymandias predicted in Watchmen, the appearance of the first transdimensional giant monster, or Kaiju, which is Japanese for giant monster, instantly snuffs out all conflict between nations, ushering in a global coalition to pool resources for Kaiju-countering Jaegers.
Don’t get me wrong now, this ain’t some pinko Commie mecha movie. Every nation may help one another fund the Jaegers, but every nation still gets their own customized and not-stereotypical Jaeger to represent their homeland without ever being too in your face about it.
Basically, do you remember G-Gundam? It was a show about an Earth where every nation had a national Gundam mech to fight for control of the galaxy in a world tournament. Basically, it was Street Fighter but everybody had a mech, and a politically incorrect mech at that. Take for example Sweden’s Gundam, the torrential horror born from beyond the gales of cruelty, hardship, and when Subway runs out of peanut-butter cookies — the Windmill Gundam (!). If you imagined a windmill with arms and legs sticking out of it, then congrats, you are an official anime character designer. The American Gundam wears a football helmet, just to remind you that they don’t discriminate with their discrimination.
Wait is there even wind in space?
Fortunately, the Jaeger designs run somewhere in between generic grey automatons and humanoid windmill. Each country’s representative Jaeger seethes from head to toe in unique quasi-nationalistic pride. The Russian Jaeger for example, Cherno Alpha, is a big, blocky and heavily plated death engine with nary a paint-job and a retro-fitted cyberpunk pilot interface, but for what Cherno lacks in aesthetics, it over-compensates with firepower, not unlike many Ruskaya Machina. Even its name reflects its pride, as the Cherno refers to Chernobyl, and the Alpha reflects that it’s a Soviet-built Mk. I Jaeger — ugly, but gets the job done.
