This is a very subjective topic. Some pre-puber boy/girl/a mix of both wielding a giant sword and yelling in a badly dubbed Japanese to English translation while flying through the air to have a giant aerial fight to a backdrop of flashing colours does not amuse me. I fact, it makes me want to rage really badly. What's with the giant hairdo and sword, anyhow? Most of those characters could drop the 1-ton hunk of metal and use their spiky hair to head-butt their enemies to death.
On the other hand, at least the gruff marine carrying a gun is doing the smart thing. A 8-foot long sword is great if you subscribe heavily to the "bigger is better" theory, but once you try lifting it, you'll realize how dumb an idea it is. A modern gun not only has a far longer range, but a human can actually hope to carry and use it.
Also, the marine is usually easily identifiable as a male (or rarely, female), and his eye sockets are the normal size, instead of being roughly the size of saucers. If the marine is male, he'll be pretty bulked up, but not impossibly so, and if female, she will have at least a DD cup size, and usually armour intended to emphasize that, so that enemy combatants will try to hit on her instead of shooting her... genius!
Seriously though, I find Japanese characters weird, boring, and unrealistic beyond any level of belief. At least western characters tend to stick somewhat to realism, except perhaps having a few too many muscles or extremely large breasts.