Follow TV Tropes

Following

A Mech by Any Other Name

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Mech_Group_9681.jpg
Clockwise starting left: A Megadeus, a Mechanoid, a Mobile Suit, an Armored Trooper and an Armored Soldier

"...So they gave me this spear and I said, 'What the hell am I supposed to do with that if we get attacked by giant robots?' and they said, 'First of all, they're called Guymelefs because that sounds more fantasy like...'"

In fiction, Humongous Mecha are rarely simply called such. This is particularly true in Real Robot-type shows, where the mecha in question are usually numerous. Super Robots are typically one-of-a-kind, and such are only called by their proper names. Powered Armor may or may not fall victim to this as well.

Keep in mind that, in Japan, the term "mecha" means "anything mechanical," rendering it essentially meaningless — the word "mecha" specifically means "giant robots" only in the West. Just because a series has a "mecha designer" doesn't mean it has Humongous Mecha in it — the "mecha" designed can even be something like a Magical Girl's wand (or even the Magical Girl herself, in some settings).

The name used to describe the Humongous Mecha tends to be different in just about every series that features them, unless that series is deliberately trying to reference another series.

Similar to Not Using the "Z" Word, but the naming is often a matter of trademark law as much as the Sci-Fi Ghetto; often, it's also due to Rule of Cool. See also Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp".

(By the way, the Japanese generic equivalent to "mech" or "mecha" is kitai.)


Examples:

NOTE: When adding examples, remember that we're looking for the "generic" name for the mech, not the model designation. In Gundam terms, for example, we're looking for "Mobile Suit" rather than "Zaku", "GM", etc.

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • AKB0048 has Mobile suits (nothing to do Gundam at all)
  • Aldnoah.Zero gives us Kataphrakts, named after the heavy cavalrymen of the Byzantine Empire and Ancient Persia.
  • Appleseed: Regular Powered Armor are called Protectors, while the larger Mini-Mecha are Landmates. And the giant Spider Gun Platforms are referred to as Land Master at least once.
  • Argevollen has Trail Kriegers.
  • Armored Trooper VOTOMS has Armored Troopers. And VOTOMS actually stands for Vertical One-man Tank for Offense and ManueverS. Or not.
  • AMAIM Warrior at the Borderline has AMAIM’s, coming in both piloted and unpiloted variants.
  • Aura Battler Dunbine has Aura Battlers which are humanoid-type Aura Machines. It also has the non-humanoid Aura Bombs and Aura Fighters.
  • Back Arrow has Briheights.
  • Megadeuses in The Big O. Their pilots are called Dominus Megadeus.
  • Blue Comet SPT Layzner refers to piloted models as Super Powered Tracers and unmanned models as Terror Strikers.
  • Blue Gender has Armored Shrike.
  • Brain Powerd has Grandchilds or Grand Chers (depending on your translation) on the antagonist side, and the titular Brain Powerds on the protagonist side. Universally, a machine with a pilot is called an Antibody (although the term is also used to describe the pilot himself, sometimes).
  • Broken Blade features Golems. Only the titular one is a mech in the traditional sense; modern Golems are more magical / psychic in nature.
  • B'ts in B't X, themed mostly after legendary animals.
  • Bubblegum Crisis calls the Powered Armor used by the heroines Hardsuits and their transforming motorbike / exoskeletons Motoroids or Motorslaves. Other armors are Battlesuits, and large mechs are called Battlemovers. Genom's ubiquitous synthetic soldiers are known as Boomers. Or, if you prefer mistranslations-made-canon, Voomers.
  • Buddy Complex uses Valiancers.
  • Captain Earth has Impacters and Kiltgangs.
  • Code Geass has Knightmare Frames (a wordplay between "nightmare" and a "knight's mare"). Later in the series comes the Knight Giga Fortress, which is essentially a giant flying cockpit with KMF technology (equivalent to the Mobile Armor in Gundam).
  • Cross Ange has Para-Mails, which are based on ancient machines called Ragna-Mails. The Dragons' Ragna-Mail replicas are called Ryuu-Shin-Ki, or "Dragon Sacred Treasures".
  • KLFs and LFOs in Eureka Seven. Stands for Kraft Light Fighter and Light-Finding Operation respectively.
  • Eureka Seven Ao refers to its mecha as IFOs, which is short for Intelligent Flying Object. Other airborne vehicles are referred to as FPs, for Flying Platform
  • Fang of the Sun Dougram has Combat Armors.
  • The Five Star Stories call theirs Mortar Headds. (No, that's not misspelled.)
  • Flag merely refers to them as Bipdedal Weapons.
  • Normal mechs in Gad Guard are called Heavy Metals while the entities created from the titular Gads are called Gadrians. This is futher divided into the living Super Robots the protagonists use which are Techodes, and the a giant monsters called A-Techodes that are created if a Gad falls into unworthy hands,
  • Gaiking: Legend of Daiku Maryu refers to its mechs as Giants of Flame, since they're powered by an Applied Phlebotinum called "Flame".
  • GaoGaiGar is a Super Mechanoid; its components are a Mechanoid and a set of Gao-Machine vehicles. The related Betterman mecha are called Neuronoids because their power relays and controls are affected by their pilot's nervous systems. The sequel novel GaoGaiGar vs Betterman (formerly known as Project Z) features GaoGaiGo, a hybrid design referred to as a Neuro-Mechanoid.
  • Gasaraki: One side calls their mechs Tactical Armor, (TAs). The other — (Metal) FAKES. Both were based on the giant demonic creatures dressed in samurai armor known as Kugai (the group that calls their mechs FAKES refer to the Kugai as Originals.)
  • In the Getter Robo metaseries, the airplane components are known as Getter Machines, while the actual combined unit is known as a Getter Robo. Robots that aren't powered by getter rays are simply called Super Robots.
  • Ghost in the Shell and its various spin-offs have Armed Suits, which are Mini-Mecha that have either a humanoid or animalistic design (the latter typically taking an ape-like form).
  • Gigantic Formula has Gigantic Figures.
  • Ginga Hyouryuu Vifam call them Round Vernians. While Earthling use the term to classified all mech, the alien actually call them as "machine."
  • GRANBELM has ARMANOX, which are magical constructs controlled with imagination, magic stones, and energy strings inside the cockpit. It's not even clear if the cockpit is actually in the machine, because magic, but what happens to the ARMANOX affects the pilot regardless.
  • Gravion brings us the Gran Divas, the name for the individual parts that make up Gravion, the Gran Kaiser, its central core, and the Gran Troopers, the Real Robot variants that show up in Gravion Zwei.
  • GunBuster has the Real Robot Machine Weapons, and the Super Robot Buster Machines.
  • Gundam started all this when they called theirs Mobile Suits (humanoid mecha) and Mobile Armor (jet-like, tank-like, and other non-humanoid mecha).note  A "normal suit," if you're wondering, is a regular spacesuit. (And a "pilot suit" is the Latex Space Suit version, easier to move in and fit into cramped cockpits.)
    • In other words, they're not all called Gundams. A Gundam is a particular type or model of mobile suit (typically a unique, overpowered Super Prototype or Ace Custom — the name "Gundam" was intended to evoke a weapon capable of holding off a vast number of enemies just as a dam holds back water), like how a Beetle is a specific model of car.
    • G Gundam adds Mobile Fighters, which mostly differ in their Motion-Capture Mecha controls (and the fact that they're Super Robots). Regular Mobile Suits still exist, but they're far less present in the series. They're actually more numerous than the Mobile Fighters (being mass produced for military and police duty), it's just that Mobile Suits are incidental to the story, and absolutely no match for a Mobile Fighter. Nearly all Mobile Fighters have "Gundam" in their name, though it's never specified why.
    • Gundam Wing adds the automatic Mobile Dolls...
    • ...and Gundam X gives us Mobile Bits, which are like Mobile Dolls except controlled telepathically instead of by computer.
    • The novel Gaia Gear adds Man Machines, which look like mobile suits, but with advanced technology that's on completely another level.
  • GUN×SWORD calls theirs Yoroi, Japanese for "armor".
  • Heavy Metal L-Gaim also call them Heavy Metal.
  • Innocent Venus has Gladiators.
  • Kiddy Grade has Guard Robots (which double as vehicles), and the (non-pilotable) Genetech Beasts which range from dog-sized to humongous. The Kiddy GiRL-AND Pure manga also has a variety of unnamed piloted mecha and a humanoid Humanic Frame.
  • Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne has Ovids.
  • M3: The Dark Metal has MA-Vess
  • The titular Machine Robos of the Machine Robo franchise.
  • Macross: Variable Fighters (Transforming Mecha, with the mecha mode additionally being refered to as a Battroid) and Destroids (Non-Transforming); humanoid mecha intended for non-combat use (only seen in Macross Delta so far) are Workroids. The Zentraedi also have their Battle Pods. Also, variable fighters are frequently referred to as Valkyries, which was the actual nickname of the first regular production VF.
  • Magic Knight Rayearth In Cephiro, a Rune-God is basically a mecha that's controlled by a Magic Knight's spirit. This is an attempted Woolseyism—the original Japanese Punny Name is "Mashin," both "Demon-God" and "Machine." In the LatAm dub made in LA they're known as "Genies," in the OVA's dubbed in Mexico they are just "Gods".
  • Majestic Prince uses AHSMB devices which means: Advanced High Standard Multipurpose Battle.
  • Mars Daybreak has Round Bucklers. They are further separated into Corded and Cordless, the difference being that the former are remotely controlled through EVA-style umbilical cables linked to a "Seahorse" command craft and the later have a conventional cockpit.
  • Megazone 23 has transformable Maneuver Slave.
  • Metal Armor from Metal Armor Dragonar.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion has the titular Evangelions (or Evas), later revealed to actually be articial organic humanoids wearing armor, rather than true mechas. They still need pilots, though.
  • Overman King Gainer has two different type of mechas, the mass produced Silhouette Machine which are a type of Real Robot, and the Overman which are rarer (usually only one type) and can use the Overskill.
  • In Panzer World Galient, each mech line is classified with the prefix word Panzer. For example, the titular Galient is a Panzer Blade, centaur mechs like Promaxis are Panzer Tramplers, while flyable Wingals are Panzer Gusts. Collectively, they're called Armored Soldiers (Kikouhei).
  • Patlabor calls them Labors since they're mostly used for industrial work. The series name refers specifically to police Labors, being a shorthand for Patrol Labor.
  • Pluto by Urasawa Tezuka has Brando using a Combat Suit in a war and a Pankration for championship fighting.
  • The Price of Smiles has Theurgears.
  • RahXephon has Dolems, smaller craft called Dotems and the titular RahXephon, often shortened to "Xephon." The humans also field giant Vermillion robots near the end of the series. However, the Dolems and Dotems are not actually mecha, as they are actually made of clay (and one of ice), feature no actual mechanisms and are shown to be completely solid when broken open. The Rah-Xephon itself is made of similar material and seems to operate in much the same way, bar the remote control, so while it shares a lot of mecha characteristics, it is not a mecha as such, though it still qualifies, as it features what amounts to a cockpit.
  • The humanoid robots in Red Baron (the In Name Only Animated Adaptation of Super Robot Red Baron) are known as Metal Fighters. Justified as their main purpose is to fight for sport.
  • Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars: There's the Regalia, which are young(-looking) girls that transform into giant robots and Regalia Gear, which are normal super robots that the pilots fuse with.
  • Robotech mostly uses the same names as Super Dimension Fortress Macross, although the fighters and other human transforming mecha are called Veritechs. Although the series often did refer to them collectively as "Mecha." The VF-1 Veritech was retroactively renamed the "VF-1 Valkyrie Veritech Fighter" after the Macross original in time for the 20th anniversary release of Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles in 2006.
  • Sinna 1905 (an early manga by Mohiro Kitoh) has Tomikrots.
  • Sky Girls has the Sonic Divers.
  • The Girl Who Leapt Through Space has QT ARMS (or Quantum Technology Advanced Reinforced Maneuvering Shroud) for the main girls, with the B.O.A.R Ship (Beyond Orbit Azonal Runabout) for two employees of the Space Police, and a mechanised force called Existence who were made to serve the titular Girl Who Leapt Through Space
  • In Space Runaway Ideon, the Buff Clan actually use the term Heavy Mecha.
  • Star Driver gives us Cybodies.
  • Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry has STRAINs (STRategic Armored INfantry) and GAMBEEs (General Axis Motorized Battle Exoskeleton Equipment).
  • The Galactic Alliance in Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet uses Machine Caliburs. On Earth, they call similar machines Yunboroids.
  • In Super Dimension Century Orguss:
    • In the original, the Chiram faction call mecha Devices.
    • The sequel Orguss 02 simply called them Armor in the original Japanese, while the dub called them Decimators.
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has the Gunmen, while the mass-production Gurren Lagann replicas are called Grapearl. However, the word "mecha" is actually used in-show at least once.
  • Utawarerumono has the (Eva-like) Avu Kamuu.
  • Vandread has the mecha used by the men called Bangata ("Barbarian" - although the translations call them "Van-type" instead) which the women call Vanguards; while the spacefighters that the women use are Dreads. When the two combine...
  • The Vision of Escaflowne: Guymelefs. Smaller ones were simply known as Melefs but these never played much of a role in the series.
  • Xabungle has Walker Machines. The titular WM gets the Combat Mecha due to the fact that dedicated combat WMs are rare.
  • Yuukyuu Mokushiroku Eidron Shadow calls them Shadows.
  • Zoids has, well, Zoids.
    • Its Spin-Off Soukou Kyoshin Z-Knight start with Armored Titans, six Super Prototype powered by zoid core, Battle Armor which is smaller and entirely built by Earthlings, and Metal Foot which is even smaller and unmanned.

    Comic Books 
  • Spitfire and the Troubleshooters, from Marvel's original The New Universe series, revolved around the team's escapades with the M.A.X. (Man-Assisted eXperimental) Armor.
    • Warren Ellis' rebooted newuniversal series reimagined this with the H.E.X. (Human Enhancement eXperimental) Initiative, a project to create a robotic battle suit and hunt metahumans.
  • For DC Comics, there's the Rocket Red Armor, Soviet-based Powered Armor built by Green Lantern Kilowog.
  • Doesn't matter how tall they are or if they're piloted or not, those mutant-hunting robots that give the X-Men hell are all known as Sentinels.

    Fan Works 
  • A Crown of Stars: The Star Striders and Black Knights warmech units of the Avalon Army. A Star Strider is a Transforming Mecha looks like a armored soldier/mobile suit/labor hybrid... or like if a mazinger and a valkyrie got a child, and their offspring fused with an Autobot and grew GunBuster's double cockpit.
  • The Child of Love: The Evangelions. At the end of the story Shinji and Asuka learn what those half-organic giant robots hide inside due to Gendo's actions.
  • Doing It Right This Time: The cybernetic giant robots Evangelions, as well known as "the secret anti-kaiju weapon that will work."
  • HERZ: The Evangelions, bio-mechanical giant robots. Many nations try to produce their own Evas, and one of the missions of HERZ is to prevent this from happening.
  • Last Child of Krypton: The Evangelions, humongous half-biological robots. Dr. Akagi calls them "artificial human." Touji's sister calls them "big robots."
  • Being a crossover fic, Thousand Shinji gives us two examples: the Evas of the Evangelion universe, and the Titans of the Warhammer 40000 franchise.

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live Action 
  • Avatar: They are known as Amplified Mobility Platforms, or simply AMP suits.
  • The Matrix series has APUs, standing for Armored Personnel Units. Though looking at them, 'armored' is somewhat less than accurate.
  • Pacific Rim calls its mechs Jaegers which is German for "Hunter."
  • Star Wars usually calls them Walkers or ATs (All Terrain).

    Literature 
  • 86 EIGHTY-SIX uses the term "Feldreß" for all the Spider Tank models in the story. The word itself is not actually a real term but is a Germanic-sounding approximation of "Field Dress" ("dress" as in "armor").
  • Dale Brown's Act of War duology has CID or Cybernetic Infantry Device. Other books have a skinsuit colloquially called Tin Man, or officially BERP (Ballistic Electro-Reactive Process), because its inventor has a juvenile sense of humor.
  • Fiasco has diglators.
  • Arm Slaves appear in Full Metal Panic!. Arm Slave is for "Armored Mobile Master-Slave System" and is often shortened to just AS. Arm Slaves essentially mimic the movements of their pilots, so the name actually makes some sense (although you'd think people would come up with a better name for them then that).note  In a author's note in the novel, it's mentioned that when the Americans first revealed the "AS" acronym, the general public thought it was short for "Assault Soldier". So even though Arm Slave is the official term, Assault Soldier is the popular name among civilians mostly because it just sounds better.
  • Mechs in The History of the Galaxy series by Andrey Livadny are officially called serv-machines. Alternatively, they are often referred to as "walking machines".
    • Oftentimes, they are simply referred to by their class, with the two most famous ones being the "Phalanxer" (heavy, long-range mech) and the "Hoplite" (lighter, scout mech). Others are sometimes mentioned, such as the "Raven" (between a "Phalanxer" and a "Hoplite") and the "Golden Eagle" (a discontinued model).
  • Ironclads is a novella by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Interestingly while there are military units called mechs, these are actually A.I. combat robots under remote supervision by a human commander. The type of "mechs" used in the Nordland theatre were basically styled like Martian tripods but with miniguns. In this novella, what Western pop culture thinks of as a mech are the Scions (though once in the book, they did get called Ironclads as well). Scions is both the name of the machines and the class that uses them. For in this setting, wealthy scions of powerful megacorporations have taken corporate warfare to a new level and go to war personally. So they developed armour technology to a new high as well as miniaturized luxuries so fine that Scions prefer living in their machines unless coming out for sex, while similarly defunded programs to improve anti-armour weapons so Scions can withstand most conventional weapons including heavy artillery. Most Scions use Scions that are Mini-Mecha of 7' or 8' in height though Scions of Russian ex-oligarchs pilot Scions that are the size of multi-storey buildings.
  • The mecha used by the Japan Self-Defense Force in Stone King are known as titans.
  • Mechs in The Osmerian Conflict are simply known as mechina.
  • Silhouette Knights, the Magitek mecha from Knight's & Magic are distinctly not robots, but massive, magically powered suits of armor.
  • Going a fair ways back, H. G. Wells simply called his Fighting Machines. They're also frequently refered to as Tripods, although the original book rarely used the name.
  • There was also the novel named Warstrider that called its mechs, guess what...

    Live-Action TV 
  • Power Rangers has Zords, named for the sage Zordon from the early seasons (though seasons with no connection to Zordon and company also call their Humongous Mecha "zords," and the combined forms "Megazords"). Since Bruce Kalish came along, villain-used mecha are just called "giant robots." More specifically, "Zord" was originally a shortening of "Dinozord," a play both on the sage who had created them and the ancient animals on which he had modeled several of his designs.
  • Super Sentai, the source material to Power Rangers, doesn't have a standardized name for all the mecha. Each series has its own naming convention, depending on the source of the mecha. Vehicular mecha are sometimes called 'Machines,' bestial ones are 'Animals' or '-Ju' (meaning animals), and combined mecha are sometimes called 'Robo' (usully tech-themed seasons) 'King', or the Japanese '-Oh' (meaning 'king') or 'Jin' ('god', both in the mystically-aligned seasons). However, The Super Sentai Battle Dice-O card game classifies all forms as Mecha, while the individual forms are called Machines and the combined forms are called Robos. A few existing examples are:
    • In some amusing Mythology Gags, Mirai Sentai Timeranger featured a villain mecha called the G-Zord, and Tokumei Sentai Go Busters classifies all of their villainous giant robots as "MegaZords" (with that capitalization). Come the climactic battle in the Go-Buster/Gokaiger crossover movie, both teams are given the ability to use MegaZord Keys to transform their mecha, using the term for several previous series' robos, as well
    • Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger has the titular Bakuryuu, which is translated to Blast Dragon. The Bakuryuu are sentient biomechanical dinosaurs that are able to fuse into humanoid robots.
    • In Mahou Sentai Magiranger, most of the rangers do not pilot mecha, but transform into giant mythological beings called Magimajin, who are able to fuse into a larger humanoid. These effectively fill the role of mecha despite not being so.
    • Samurai Sentai Shinkenger has the Origami, which translates to Folding Gods, but the name sounding like the form of papercraft is intentional. The core five mecha can actually fold into geometric shapes, while the rest slightly resembles creatures made from folded paper.
    • In an aversion of the usual naming system, the celestially-derived mecha of Tensou Sentai Goseiger are called GoseiMachines, despite them resembling animals.
    • The individual mecha from Shuriken Sentai Ninninger are called "OtomoNin", which roughly translates into "ninja buddies." This name is apropriate, as most of them possess sentience and fight with the rangers as opposed to them piloting the machines.
    • For a villain-only example, the mecha sold by Agent Abrella to the alien criminals in Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger were referred to as 'Kaijuuki' (literally "Heavy Industrial Machines").

    Tabletop Games 
  • BattleTech:
    • Often actually does call them 'Mechs, short for a variety of giant robot applications, but usually meaning Battlemechs or Omnimechs. Civilian 'Mechs for agriculture, Agrimechs, and industrial 'Mechs, with no canonical name given, are also known to exist. They actually hold the trademark for the term "mech", which is why one runs into "mecha" frequently. The very first edition was called BattleDroids, but someone else held the trademark for that term.
    • IndustrialMechs exist as well. It's just that they are so varied that there really is no one "category" of IndustrialMechs. You have LoggerMechs, LifterMechs, the long list even includes CattleMechs. There are even Securitymechs and MilitiaMechs, Industrialmechs built with military grade armor and weaponry as a cheaper alternative to the more advanced Battlemech in defensive roles. Industrialmechs have been a part of the setting since the beginning, but only received official rules for use and construction relatively recently, with earlier appearances being background lore or novel based only. Many of these early appearances have since had official stats created for them, and the Mechwarrior Dark Age spinoff added a number of new designs in its early waves of figures, most of which have since received official stats in the core battletech game as well.
    • In addition to various sorts of Mechs, both sides also use Battle Armor, and the Clans field Mini-Mecha called Protomechs.
  • The title of Mekton is also the default name for mecha in it, though plenty of others exist on a 'verse by 'verse basis.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • The Imperium has tons, enough to spawn the Titan Legions Gaiden Game. While it has some elements of "realism" with how it's handled, like the rest of 40k, it runs on Rule of Cool.
      • That said, the Imperium has two broad classes that their mechs fall under. The first is Knights, who come from the noble families of feudalistic worlds and have ties to the Adeptus Mechanicus. They serve as a minority part of the Imperium's military force, though there are Knights Errant roaming the galaxy, looking for other humans to help. Most Knight chassis are a humpbacked mech about 7 meters tall, though there are some rarer chassis that are up to a few meters taller. They typically have a gun, sometimes a melee weapon, on each arm, and a relatively tiny medium machine gun for support fire; and are crewed by one, maybe two pilots. Political associations aside, the main difference between Knights and Titans is that Titans are (broadly speaking) larger and have access to more, bigger, and deadlier guns.
      • Then comes the Titans of the Adeptus Mechanicus, which is fully a splinter faction of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Unlike the Knights, these things are considered actual God Machines, and they get more guns the higher up you get on the scale. Their chassis ranges in size from the 15-meter-tall Warhound Scout Titan to the gargantuan Imperator-class Titan, a 55-meter walking cathedral-fortress able to house a company of soldiers and sporting weapons rated against capital ships. And sometimes they get a few offshoots in the process, either from a lost blueprint or after one too many retrofits. The canon is massively inconsistent on actual scale; Imperators especially can be anywhere from 40 to 100 meters tall depending on source.
      • The Imperium also has Dreadnoughts. Mini-Mecha about four to about four-and-a-half meters tall, piloted by a mortally-wounded Space Marine's life-support sarcophagus. The standard is the boxy Castraferrum chassis, which looks like an ornate metal crate with arms and legs. Then there's the taller and more humanoid Contemptor Dreadnought, which has the benefit of loosely resembling the Space Marine inside. There was also the five meter Leviathan Dreadnought, which was a heavily armoured beast designed for sieges and heavy assaults and originates from the Horus Heresy; but the exotic technologies involved and limited numbers built means that the secrets of its construction disappeared into history. There are few Space Marine Chapters that have any Contemptor Dreadnoughts, and even fewer that have Leviathans, and either one is rarely used if they're present.
      • The Imperium will use these designations when referring to other races' war machines, such as Tyranid Bio-Titans or Eldar "Dreadnoughts" (which the Eldar call Wraithlords, and are actually piloted by the Spirit Stone of a departed warrior. The Eldar don't seem to have a different name for their own Titans, though).
    • Orks call their Titan-sized walking junkheaps Gargants, refer to roughly Knight-sized walkers as Stompas, and have Deff Dreads or Killa Kans for their Dreadnought analogues. That said, Ork design is so non-standardized that there's a bit of overlap between these categories.
    • The Tau consider Titans to be Awesome, yet Impractical, and favor using Mini-Mecha-sized Battlesuits that at 2.8 meters tall are a bit smaller than an Imperial Dreadnought. However, they're recently begun fielding the twice as large XV104 "Riptide" Battlesuit that comes closer to an Imperial Knight.
  • Exalted calls their mecha Warstriders.
    • Variants include the Colossus (actually Alchemical Exalts who, at an age of over 100, have grown to mecha-scale) and the Hellstrider (which is a warstrider made from living demons).
  • Jovian Chronicles has Exo-Armors (battlesuits are referred to as Exo-Suits), while in Dream Pod Nine's series of mecha Tabletop Games, Heavy Gear and Gear Krieg, pilots operate Gears. Heavy Gear's bigger mecha are called Striders.
  • Engels from CthulhuTech, which have more in common with Evangelions than they do anything else on this list. (Cthulhutech also has regular mecha, but they're simply called "mecha".)
  • Bliss Stage has the ANIMa, or Alien Numina Inversion Machine. It's not literally a giant robot, though.
  • Warmachine gets its name from its big, steam powered robots called Warjacks. The predecessors to modern warjacks were the much-larger Colossals, which were obsolete for a while but have started being produced again by all the major nations of Immoren.
  • Rifts typically uses the term Robots to refer to piloted humanoid combat machines, though the lines between them and Powered Armor are frequently blurred. The training skills are referred to as "robot combat" and the most prominent series of designs is the IAR; Infantry Assault Robot.
  • GiantGuardianGeneration has the General Enforcement Anthropomorphic Robot, or Gear.
  • The CAMELOT Trigger setting for the Fate Core System (contained in the second "Fate Worlds" supplement) simply calls them Armour. Complete with British spelling to match its obvious inspiration.
  • Outrider Studios' Remnants refers to its Lost Technology robots as Ishin. This is because in-universe everything left over from the apocalyptic war that destroyed the society is referred to as a Remnant, or "Ishi", and the giant robots are the leftovers that are most likely to be functional due to really neat self-repair systems.
  • The Mini-Mecha of Infinity are referred to as Tactical Armoured Gear, or simply TAGs.
  • Mobile Frame Zero features Mini-Mecha called Mobile Frames, which players individually build by hand from LEGO pieces.
  • The relatively unknown CAV tabletop game by Reaper Miniatures features its eponymous "Close Assault Vehicles." The game's visual inspiration owes a lot to BattleTech and Earthsiege.
  • Lancer uses mech generally, short for Mechanized Chassis, but also calls them Frames or Chassis, and different factions have their own names - Ofanim for the Aun, for example.
  • WHISPER has Whispers.

    Video Games 
  • 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim has Sentinels.
  • Armored Core has... well, Armored Cores. They're subdivided further into MT's ("Muscle Tracers") which are mass-produced precursors to true Armored Cores (used from the first game up to Last Raven), which in Armored Core 4 and for Answer are also called Normals to contrast them with NEXTs, which use the series' newest Phlebotinum Kojima Particles to make them vastly more powerful. Armored Core V and Verdict Day revert back to simply calling them Armored Cores. This is because, as Verdict Day reveals, the technology to make NEXTs has become Lost Technology since the societal collapse that followed the 4 and for Answer era.
  • Armored Hunter GUNHOUND calls its mechs Gunhounds or Hounds, though the translation is murky—it sometimes accidentally calls pilots 'Hounds' instead of the robots.
  • The mechas in Armored Warriors are called Variant Armors (also misromanized "Valiant Armors").]
  • Assault Suits Valken has the titular Assault Suit, shared with Target Earth which was properly known as Assault Suit Leynos in Japan.
  • The SNES game Battle Clash called their robot vehicles Standing Tanks (or S.T.'s for short). This is because the "Battle Game" was originally fought with outdated tanks until it got popular enough for the participants to build machines from the ground up. Even when the machines start flying, the term "standing tank" sticks.
  • Battlefield 2142 has Battlewalkers, or just Walkers for short.
  • Border Break calls its units Blast Runners. The 'Runner' part is because all of its mecha units are traditional humanoid bipeds, albeit designed to move at-speed; the 'Blast' part is probably just Rule of Cool.
  • HOUNDS of Chrome Hounds. The name doesn't actually stand for anything, it's a reference to the way squads of them act like a pack of hounds. HOUNDS are actually evolutions of Advanced Combat Vehicles or ACVs, which act as the game's Mecha-Mooks.
  • City of Heroes have the Malta's Titans (Hercules, Zeus and Cronos class) Vanguard has their HVAS (Heavy Vanguard Assault Suit) and the Longbow have their Cataphract (it's equivalent, the Arachnos Heavy Blaster, is a Spider Tank instead).
  • Command & Conquer goes for Mechanized Walkers to refer to its robots, though the Tiberian Sun preview video in the original game called its mech a "Powersuit" instead.
  • Custom Robo has Custom Robo.
  • The titular robot units from Cybattler are mechs called Cybattlers. What else?
  • Cyberbots makes use of Variant Armors for mooks, borrowing them from Armored Warriors.
  • Daemon X Machina has "Arsenals".
  • Destroy All Humans!: Pox's Big Willy.
  • Doom Eternal has Atlans and ARC Mechs
  • Exteel has Mechanaughts.
  • First Encounter Assault Recon, by the second game, settles on a somewhat confusing variant where the mecha are referred to as "Powered Armor", and the actual (presumed) powered armors are simply "Heavy Armor".
  • Final Fantasy:
  • The Front Mission series has Wanzers, which is a portmanteau of Wanderung Panzer (German for "Walking Tank").
  • Gigantic Army features the Manned Combat Robot, sometimes abbreviated MCR.
  • G-Nome has the Heavily Armored Weapons Chassis, or HAWC.
  • Terran Empire from Ground Control II: Operation Exodus has Combat Striders and Missile Striders.
  • The Gungriffon series has the AWGS which stands for Armored Walking Gun System.
  • In Gunparade March, they're called Humanoid Walking Tanks, or HWTs.
  • Half-Life 2 and the Episodes have classic HG Wells tripods known as Striders. Nearly all Combine forces are species that have been previously enslaved, surgically implanted with weapon systems, and forcibly evolved around them. These various types of semi-organic enemies are collectively referred to as "synth." As such, Dog rips the brain out of a Strider in Episode 2.
  • Dolls in Heavy Nova.
  • Heroes of Might and Magic IV has Dragon Golems as one of the two top tier units of the Order faction. A huge mechanical dragon piloted by dwarves may be called a Golem, but it is a Humongous Mecha.
  • Hyper Dyne Side Arms gives us the Mobilsuits. Which are one letter short from Mobile Suit.
  • Inverted in Into the Breach. The game calls all player units "mechs," even when said mechs are just oversized jets or tanks.
  • Iron Brigade, true to its WWI roots (and its former title, Trenched) has Mobile Trenches.
  • Ironcast has the eponymous Ironcasts, Steampunk-style mechs ranging from the normal 20 ft. models to the humongous Gargantuan-class.
  • The Atari Jaguar game Iron Soldier is named after the Iron Fist Corporation's Iron Soldiers (abbreviated IS), 42-foot tall humanoid robots with a single pilot and a modular weapons system. The player is a member of La Résistance who has stolen a prototype IS and is out to fight through the IFC's armies of tanks, helicopters, and Soldiers.
  • In Jak II: Renegade, we have the Titan Suit.
  • Kileak: The DNA Imperative and Epidemic has protect armor.
  • Lost Planet:
    • Lost Planet: Extreme Condition has the Vital Suit, or VS. Models range from simple open-cockpit machines to advanced quadrupedal models that can turn into tanks and ones with arms (with hands and mounted chainsaws) and hover jets.
    • Lost Planet 2 adds multi-seaters, tamed Akrid, and even one that can combine with another.
    • Lost Planet 3, being a prequel, uses Rigs, which are much cruder and meant for exploration and mining.
  • Mad Stalker: Full Metal Force has Slave Gears.
  • Mass Effect:
    • The security robots in Mass Effect 2 are simply referred to as mechs (although only some of them are humongous). The geth in both games use humanoid troopers, four-legged Armature support, scaled-up-humanoid Destroyer units for melee combat, and lizard-like Stalkers for ECM support.
    • Averted in Mass Effect 3, by the Cerberus commissioned Atlas Mechs, who's name is borrowed from BattleTech. They can lift a person up in the air and crush them, and Commander Shepard can hijack them.
  • MechWarrior, set in the BattleTech universe, likewise has the signature 10 meter tall BattleMechs, commonly known just as 'Mechs. A few games also feature OmniMechs, which use modular weapon pods for the Design-It-Yourself Equipment. The games also typically feature man-sized "Battle Armor" Powered Armor, but only MechWarrior: Living Legends and the modded re-release of MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries allows players to use them
  • The titular police robot from Metal Head is a single-person mecha who's referred entirely as that.
  • Mega Man X has the Ride Armors, which are largely forgotten later on in the videogame series. To a lesser extent are the Mechaniloids, self-controlled robots that are nevertheless not humanoid like a Reploid, and which are often created for specific tasks and aren't programmed to be able to make their own decisions as a result.
  • Metal Brigade Tactics calls them Vertical Armor.
  • Metal Fatigue has Combots.
  • Metal Gear: Early Kojima nomenclature (Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and Snatcher) made Metal Gears a subgroup of mechs as a whole, which were referred to as Heavy Walkers. The presence of Metal Gear Gustavs, a rejected boss from Metal Gear 2, suggested that the term "Metal Gear" was just an affectionate nickname for Heavy Walkers. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots clarified the issue by saying that the difference between a Metal Gear and a Walking Tank is that the Metal Gears are useful in terms of the global nuclear map, and Walking Tanks (like the Gekkos) are simply weapons. This was probably brought into the canon because the main Metal Gear of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was more of a submarine. Regardless, by Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance the term "Metal Gear" has essentially taken over for concepts similar to real UAVs and UGVs, as AI-controlled weapons similar to the Gekko are now referred to as "Unmanned Metal Gears", or more simply "Unmanned Gears".
  • Metal Warriors for the SNES has Battledroids.
  • The One Must Fall series of robot fighting games called 'em H.A.Rs (Humanoid Assisted Robots), though most characters in-game still referred to them as just robots or "'bots."
  • Phantom Crash and its sequel S.L.A.I.: Steel Lancer Arena International feature a variety of SCUBIs or Scoot-Vehicles, commonly referred to as "Scoobees" or "SVs".
  • PlanetSide has the BFRs, fully known as Big F— err, I mean, Battle Frame Robotics, and nicknamed Biffers by players. The Mechanized Armored Exo-Suit PoweredArmor is abbreviated as MAX.
  • Power Loaders in Power Dolls, because these vehicles were built upon heavy loader's chassis.
  • Ring of Red called them AFWs (Armored Fighting Walkers).
  • Robot Alchemic Drive gives us Meganites for the human controlled robots. The enemy aliens are all called Volgara, but this is more a species name than a type of mech.
  • Sakura Wars has what are known as "Ryoushi Katchuu", which is often translated as "Spirit Armor". Each group in the series has their own models: the original Imperial Combat Revue and Paris Combat Revue has Koubus, the New York Combat Revue has STARsnote , and all of the Revues in the soft reboot use "spiricle strikers", with the models used by the new Imperial Combat Revue called Mugens.
  • Senko no Ronde has Rounder.
  • BioWare game Shattered Steel has Planet Runners.
  • Shogo: Mobile Armor Division has MCA, Mobile Combat Armours.
  • Sierra Ops has Exoframes.
  • StarCraft:
    • In StarCraft and the single-player campaign of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, the manual uses "mech" for the Goliath.
    • StarCraft II calls the Viking's ground mode an "assault walker". The Thor and its story-only Super Prototype the Odin don't actually get a description like this, but are best described as self-propelled artillery pieces.
    • In its introductory mission in the campaign, the Odin is described as a "superheavy siege walker" (the less-humongous Thors are "heavy assault mechs"). In general, such units are referred to as "walkers".
  • The Star Siege / EarthSiege series has HERCULANs (Humaniform-Emulation Roboticized Combat Unit with Leg-Articulated Navigation), though they're generally referred to as HERCs
  • Bumpy Trot a.k.a. Steambot Chronicles has Trotmobiles.
  • Steel Battalion has the Vertical Tanks (VT). This includes Heavy Armor, which otherwise has a very different setting, down to computer-less VTs that actually look more like Walking Tanks.
  • Super Robot Wars:
    • The original game brings Mobile Suits, Variable Fighters, and Arm Slaves together in the same universe and gives you Personal Troopers (derived from the Gespenst series, which may or may not have started as Powered Armor) and Armored Modules (derived from jet fighters, with the early models being essentially planes with arms). They also have Dynamic General Guardians, Elemental Lords, Supermechanical Gods, War Machine Dolls, Assault Dragoons, Assault Scouters, Valkyries, Multi Walker and more. The names are assigned to mechs by their manufacturers. (Personal Troopers were developed by Mao Industries, the Lion series are manufactured by Isurugi Heavy Industries , etc.)
    • SRW has invented the terms Super Robot and Real Robot to provide a more general term for the units, and when an all-encompassing name is needed, they just go ahead and call them mechs.
    • The Masoukishin subseries is a more straight example, with inhabitants of La Gias using Magitek mecha called Masouki ("magically-clothed machines", usually translated as Elementals), and referring to any outside mecha they see by that name. There also exist four Masoukishin ("magically-clothed machine gods", translated as Elemental Lords) and the Chou Masouki (Super Masouki) Duraxyll.
    • And in Endless Frontier, denizen of Kagura Amahara use term Karakuri to call all mechs.
    • Super Robot Wars X: Autowarlocks, which are Magitek-based robots with magic amplifying abilities used by the Keepers of Order, the guardians of law and order in Al Worth. The original protagonist unit, Zelguard, is one of them.
  • Titanfall has the titular Titans, which have limited AI to act autonomously or can be boarded and controlled by their Pilot.
  • Total Annihilation
    • In original game, the infantry units (which are essentially mechs) are called KBOTs, which stands for Kinetic Bio Organic Technology.
    • Its spiritual sequel, Supreme Commander, features numerous variations of mechs, all called Bots. Except for the one who actually have human pilots. Those are called ACU and sACU. It stands for (support) Armored Command Unit.
  • Trails Series, (aka Kiseki Series) has quite a few.
    • The most common kind of them are Archaisms, unmanned Mecha-Mooks from 1200 years ago. The name turns into an Artifact Title after they are reverse-engineered by Ouroboros. The word "Archaism" is the product of a Dub Name Change: in the Japanese script, there is no artifact title, as they are called Orbal Muppets instead.
    • The third game introduces Orbal Gear, Mini-Mecha with an open cockpit, developed in Liberl.
    • Trails of Cold Steel has Divine Knights, sentient Super Robots that bond with their Awakeners and possess a large array of powers, like Teleportation and Flight. There are seven (later eight) of them, and they all play a major role in the Cold Steel saga.
    • Panzer Soldats are Real Robots, reverse-engineered from Divine Knights. During their introduction they manage to wreck an entire Armored Division, but after The Hero gets his Divine Knight, they're quickly reduced to Mecha-Mooks. After the Civil War, Panzer Soldats are adopted by Imperial Army, and protagonists of New Class VII in CSIII and CSIV are trained to pilot them.
    • Magic Knights are autonomous Golem-like mechanisms, used during the Dark Ages as means to oppose Divine Knights. Their Achilles' Heel is that they can work only when the septium veins are stimulated, meaning that they can't be used against anything other than Divine Knights (which stimulate septium veins by their mere presence).
    • Zauber Soldats combine elements from two of the above, combining the magical power of Magic Knights with modern technology and human-operable cockpits from Panzer Soldats. Their pilots can use magic (not Magic from Technology, usual for the setting, but the real deal) by harnessing Mana, but doing so is a Dangerous Forbidden Technique, since it corrupts the user's mind.
    • The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak introduces Assault Frames, the Republic of Calvard’s answer to Erebonia’s Panzer Soldats.
  • Vanguard Bandits has All-Terrain Armored Combatants (A.T.A.C.s).
  • Virtuaroids in Virtual-ON.
  • Vox Machinae gives us Grinders, very industrial, Real Robot mining and military mechs, for the player to pilot and slug it out in.
  • Golems in the Wild ARMs series, which have much more in common with Humongous Mecha than, well, Golems.
  • Xeno series:
    • Xenogears has Gears and Omnigears, while Xenosaga has A.G.W.S. (Anti-Gnosis Weapon System), A.M.W.S. (Assault Maneuver Weapon System) and E.S. (Ein Sof).
    • In Xenoblade Chronicles 1, they're called Faced Mechon, or Faces for short. You later learn that this is meant to differentiate the purely-robotic regular Mechon from those that are piloted by converted Homs.
    • In Xenoblade Chronicles X, the soldiers of BLADE pilot mechs called "Dolls" in the Japanese version of the game, and "Skells" (as in "exoskeletons") in the English version.
    • In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, they are called "Artifices" or "Sovereigns". All of the security bots of the Land of Morythia and The World Tree are Sovereigns, while the mechs deployed from the Orbital Station are Artifices.
    • Xenoblade Chronicles 3, piloted mechs are referred to in general as "levnises", while the city-sized mobile home bases are called a "Ferronis" ("Iron Giant" in Japanese).
  • Zone of the Enders has two names, Laborious Extra-Orbital Vehicle (or LEVs for short) and Orbital Frame. The differences are the construction and the level of technology used. Generally, Orbitral Frames make extensive use of the series' Applied Phlebotinum, Metatron, and are as such almost universally higher-performance than an LEV. (The only LEVs shown to be on-par with an Orbital Frame are hybrids of tech from both, like Leo's Vic Viper in The 2nd Runner.)

    Visual Novels 

    Webcomics 
  • Girl Genius has Clanks, which are a steampunk version and vary in size from passing-as-a-pocket-watch to roughly-human all the way up to terrifyingly-large. The most common ones are humanoid, but there have also been examples of animal shaped (both normal and mythological) and there was even an entire circus caravan of trailers that sprouted limbs (and/or wings) and brought the pain on some very surprised soldiers.
  • In Our Shadow and most of Matt Cleaver's other comics refer to mechs as "stryders."
  • My Life at War has LIMBs. Given they only have one arm, controlled by motion capture of the pilot's arm, it's somewhat appropriate.
  • Knight Run has Mechas, Walking vehicle and Personal Armor
  • Unsounded: Cresce has Firelopers, giant metal humaoid war constructs piloted by a pair of soldiers. Uaid is also essentially a mech, even though he has parts that look much more squishy, though he's intended to be a mobile base to keep rebel leaders protected from the Dammakhert rather than a weapon of war.

    Web Original 

    Web Video 
  • Vision of Escaflowne Abridged, which not only provides the trope quote, but this beauty of a conversation:
    Hitomi: What's a Guymelef?
    Van: It's sort of like a cross between a Gundam and a Gunmen.
    Allen: Nah, it's more like half Megadeus and half Magitech Armor.
    Van: Oh, good point! So would you say it's more like a Nevengelion or more like a Nightmare Frame?
    Allen: Well, they're not really mass-produced, so...
    Hitomi: Well, that's confusing. Can't we just call them all mecha?
    Allen: Ha! Good one. And while we're at it, why don't we call anime "cartoons" and manga "comic books?"
    Hitomi: Hey, yeah -- why don't we?
    Allen: ... I'm still trying to get into that tiny skirt of yours, so I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear you say that.
    Hitomi: Why? That is pretty much what they are...
    Allen: Don't test me, woman!
    Hitomi: Okay, jeez! (grumbling) Freaking crazy Otaku...

    Western Animation 
  • Exo Squad calls theirs E-Frames. This was originally short for Exo-Frames, but then the writers found out that Centurions used the name first, and compromises were made. The fact that the pilots are visible from outside is somewhat of a rarity.
  • Transformers has quite a few...
    • First up, Transformers are generally sentient robots that can transform into vehicles and animals, although in the live-action films and Transformers: Animated they're not referred in such words (save for the second film, when the former Sector 7 guy calls them that).
    • Vehicons are soulless, mass-produced models controlled by a single commander.
    • Autroopers are similar, but are each partnered with a girl who can kiss it to merge with it and increase its power. Seriously.
    • Targetmasters are a type of Powered Armor that can transform into a Transformer-scale gun.
    • Transtectors are (generally) lifeless bodies that must combine with a smaller being, often of the organic variety, to function.
    • Headmasters in the American continuity are much the same as standard piloted mechs, with the exception that the mech itself has its own mind and soul, which can cause trouble if the body and the pilot don't get along. In the Japanese continuity, it is simply the fusion a (generally) human-sized robot which forms the head of a Transformer-sized Transtector.
      • The Headmasters in the Japan-only Transformers: Super-God Masterforce manga plays like the American version above: the robots' bodies are Transtectors, and the Headmasters are the humans who transforms into their heads.
      • In Animated the Headmaster unit is something else entirely: namely, a robotic head that cuts off other robots' heads to take over their bodies (and can turn into a small full robot in emergencies).
    • Powermasters (Western name) and Godmasters (Japanese name) are similar to the Masterforce Headmasters, but instead of heads, they transforms into the Transtectors' engines.
    • Similarly, the Japanese Transformers Victory series has Brainmasters, where the smaller driver/pilot becomes the face (and brain) of the larger robot.
  • Beyond the Powered Armor in the Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, there exist the Marauders, relatively small mechs in two forms - ape or chicken. More of a Mini-Mecha though.
  • The giant robots in Robotix were called, well, robotix. It's a non-pluralizing word.


Alternative Title(s): Mech By Any Other Name, A Mecha By Any Other Name

Top