Beams Are So... Unisex

Pictured: The "Beam Sample Set"

Everyone knows them, everyone loves them, they're beams. Whether in the form of a single massive blast or a million tiny lines, you can find beams everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. It raises the question of what it is that draws our cultures towards the concept of beams? Well, at the very least I can share my opinion as to why beams are so common in pop culture (and as science advances, real life, too!)

Technically missiles, but they LOOK like beams.

First, the question must be addressed: am I looking too deep into this? Are beams really so universal, or am I looking at the world through the eyes of a mecha fan? Well, then, sit back and let me give you a quick look at where I'm coming from. No matter where you look in fiction, you'll see beams or at the very least something that behave similarly to beams. Ancient mythology frequently would give Gods the ability to smite mortals with divine lightning (and we could easily argue that lightning was just the ancient-world's version of the beam.) However, the modern concept of "beams" really kicked off in the early 20th Century and just escalated further and further from there.

Two of the most popular American comic franchises both use beams! (PS: Credit where credit it due)

Whether it be heat vision, concussive blasts, lightsabers or whatever, beams are incredibly common in American media. Even though these technically could be classified as something else, the fact is that they are still presented the same as other beams in fiction. Granted, there aren't too many different ways to portray beams. We'll naturally see some overlap. I won't go into all the various ways beams are used in the media, as that'll take all day. Instead, I'll give some examples of vastly different genres that all use beams.

Honestly you could probably fill a book with beam use in Gundam alone.

It goes without saying that robot genre works use beams. After all, laser (though beams in mecha series aren't lasers, they're almost always highly condensed and superheated particles - but I digress) beams are extremely sci-fi and futuristic. It makes sense that as technology improves, especially when we start going into space travel, concussive weapons will be traded out for something that's more reliable in a vacuum, i.e. beams. Brief tangent: not that guns wouldn't work in space, but more that you don't want to be having huge battles with live ammunition, as that stuff will just keep going and going and probably hit something eventually. *ahem* Back on topic: beams in mecha series, obviously. But it's not just mecha that use beams, fantasy series use them all over the place, too.

Especially martial arts series.

Now, fantasy and martial arts are about as far from robots and space that you can get. Yet here we find beams are just as prominent as ever. The key difference is that the exact reasoning behind them is different: rather than being a weapon devised for a machine, the beam is either ki or magic. The end result, however, is the same and a viewer could easily swap out Goku and Getter Robo and you still could toss beams around no problem. Heck, Getter Robo even has a "Kamehameha" type attack!

But wait! These are all series that ooze machismo and are aimed at men! If the point of this argument is to explain how beams are universal, what about a series that's less about masculinity and aimed at girls?

Technically the target audience is adult men, but still.

Magical girl series tend to toss around beams with the same gusto as Super Robot series, actually. Okay, I'll admit that my main exposure to magical girls is through Nanoha (okay, ALL my exposure), but it doesn't take a lot of digging to find a ton of them who are just as beam happy as your average mecha pilot. Examples include Sailor Venus and the Pretty Cure franchise. Okay, I'll admit that tossing Magical Girls in here was mainly an excuse to have Nanoha on the list.

Before this tangent continues pointlessly, time to address the main points, questions regarding beams: Why do we love beams so much? Is it as simple as the fact that we think they look cool? If that's the case, why do we think they look cool? Or could it be that the bright light that beams possess is associated with the sun and lightning, two of the most powerful forces of nature and oftentimes two of the main features of ancient deities? For that matter, if one looks at media, they'll find a large majority of beams are colored pink (at least in Japan). Is this because of something that is liked about the color, or is it just because the most iconic beam-user in Japanese media (the RX-78-2 Gundam) had pink beam weapons? At the same time, red seems to be the go-to color in America for another obscure reason. Is it due to Superman's heat vision? How about blue? That's common everywhere, why is this color so popular for beams? I honestly can't come up with any solid answers to these numerous questions, at least nothing that I feel can answer the question for good. All I can say is that beams are awesome, and I'm glad that everywhere we go, we can see them.

For good measure, one more Nanoha image.