Humongous Mecha - Television Tropes & Idioms

Tetsujin #28, or Gigantor as it was originally known in North America, was probably the first "giant robot" anime imported to the United States. This black-and-white series was aired during the 1960s in many markets.
Go Nagai's Mazinger Z was the first series to feature giant robots piloted by humans, the convention which came to define the entire genre. It also created the Super Robot as we know it, featuring, if not originating, many of the tropes that have come to be associated with the genre. The series, along with sequels Great Mazinger and UFO Robo Grendizer, have been aired worldwide.
The Gundam metaseries more or less launched the Real Robot subgenre, and its dozen or so sequels, prequels, and Alternate Universes refined it perhaps more than any other series. The original series had Transforming and Combining Mecha, due to its Super Robot roots, but these were retconned out in the movies. Recently, Gundam SEED brought back Transforming Mecha, and its immediate sequel, Gundam SEED Destiny, features a new Combining Mecha, the modular-design Impulse Gundam.
- In Gundam Wing, a bit of Lampshade Hanging goes on for the humongous mechas in the series where Lt. Noin explains that the advent of the mechas came about when the Alliance wanted a physically intimidating weapon.
Super Dimension Fortress Macross features some of the earliest transforming mecha, with the Valkyrie jet/space fighters that could turn into humanoid robots and a hybrid semihumanoid/semijet ("gerwalk") form. The Macross itself was a huge spaceship that could rearrange itself into a pointlessly humanoid configuration.
- When SDF-1 performed Hypespace Fold at the beginning of the show, it's fold drive misteriously disappeared along with a chunk of other machinery and major powerlines. So, the whole point of Modular Transformation was to reconnect Macross Canon to the power supply.
- This, however, was completely ignored in the following series on the same universe, and "Macross" type spaceships always have to transform into some pointless humanoid form to fire their main gun. Rule of cool all the way.
  - Macross Frontier doesn't always follow this, however. Both the Macross Quarter and Battle Frontier are seen firing their primary weapons while in "ship" mode.
  - The humanoid configuration also allows the capital ships to use the Macross Attack without compromising the firepower, safety, or maneuverability of the entire ship.
- It was intercut and dubbed with with Mospeada and Southern Cross by Carl Macek to create the frankenseries that is Robotech.
Getter Robo, the first transforming and Combining Mecha, which also features some of the most humongous mecha in the medium. The mecha progressively increase in size and ridiculousness over the series, ending with the Getter Emperor which stands over a freakin' galaxy.
- On the other hand Freeder Bug, also created by the late Ken Ishikawa has some of the least humongous Humongous Mecha in anime or manga, not counting power suits. They're essentially just heads with stumpy limbs and a chair fixed to the back, and are smaller than an adult man.
Giant Robo is a descendant of a 1960s live-action series brought to the U.S. as Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot.
Subverted in 20th Century Boys. The Big Bad, Friend, holds a robotics engineer hostage so that he can construct a fifty-foot giant mecha to use on the Bloody New Year's Eve. However, throughout the brainstorming process, the aformentioned engineer is on the verge of snapping because he can't get them to understand that a robot construted in such a way probably couldn't even stand, much less cause massive havoc and destruction.
Gasaraki is a recent release which attempts (amidst an incomprehensible mass of mysticism) to show a "realistic" view of giant war robots in a contemporary setting. The "Tactical Armors" of Gasaraki are not much larger than a main battle tank, require extensive support squads, and can have their joints fouled by blowing sand.
Infinite Ryvius subverted this by having the characters burst into laughter when they first saw a giant humanoid robot because it seemed so impractical. Needless to say, they were proven wrong.
Full Metal Panic, like Gasaraki, attempts to show "realistic" robots in a "modern" setting, but is considerably more relaxed about what constitutes "realistic", not to mention much lighter-hearted. It also acknowledges that man-shaped robotic fighting machines are at the very least unlikely, but promptly handwaves the objection away with a mysterious source of ultra-advanced technology.
The Eva's of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame are pretty much this, except for them being organic, and pretty much capable of acting on their own, and even going berserk. They still require external power feed to stay active, though.
- Not precisely. It is implied that the external power supplies are a consequence of NERV's attempts to keep the Eva series under human control. Unit 01 in particular has moved without power during periods of high synchronisation. The consequences were... unsettling.
Parallel Trouble Adventure Dual gently parodies Evangelion and giant robots in general while still having an upbeat and entertaining plot. It features an Ordinary High School Student who gains The Unwanted Harem when he turns out to be the only male capable of operating a "Core Robot", an apparent Real Robot, but later updates to a Super Robot similar in appearance to the mecha of Escaflowne.
Eureka Seven also uses mecha similiar to Evangelion, where the mecha are more than simple robots. The LFO and KLF units, as they are called, have a form of sky surfing applied to their operation. Additionally, the units are Transforming Mecha, as most can change into land vehicles.
The immensely popular Martian Successor Nadesico not only features a battle mecha class called the "Aestivalis", but also incorporates a 1970s-style Super Robot anime called Gekiganger 3 as a Show Within A Show. "G3" is a clear homage to the early classic Getter Robo, and manages to hit all the classic melodramatic cliches of the genre.
The popular Japanese franchise Sakura Taisen employs not-so-Humongous mecha (only about 10-12 feet tall), powered entirely by steam (and empowered by the pilots' psychospiritual ability, or "reiryoku"). The mecha fight demons and evil spirits who, in turn, pilot their own appropriately evil steam-powered robots. The franchise's mecha are entirely super, though, with a whole list of named super-moves and various highly improbable weapons, including a revolver, gun-barrel sword, and giant psychically animated teddy bears.
Patlabor is likely the most feasible Humongous Mecha anime, featuring short, non-combat robots used for civilian purposes such as construction. The only combat robots belong to the protagonists, the police, who prevent mecha-related crimes and the military, like the Japanese Self-Defense Force.
A recent example is Soukou No Strain, which, though it may not be what it seems, is certainly about mecha pilots.
Utawarerumono has a nation composed of a religious minority who have giant mecha given to them by their god to defend themselves. Considering the rest of the world hasn't even invented gunpowder, this is probably overkill. Then again, their god is a psychotic nihilist.
Tenchi Muyo! GXP: the main character Seina, already the captain of his own ship, finds a giant mecha in a late episode, and after using it to trash a few pirate landcruisers, decides, "Ships are great and all, but real men need giant robots!" His giant robot also looks suspiciously similar to one from another anime from the same creator.
The leaders of the Nobuseri bandits in Samurai 7 are massive cyborgs, with swords the size of houses.
Sky Girls contains about every cliche in this trope, including Lolicon-like female pilots wearing extremely skin-tight and revealing g-suits.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann pushes the "humongous" part to ridiculous degrees. Each Gunman can synch to its pilot to the degree that it can power-up directly from the pilot's sheer emotional determination! The last few episodes of the series feature increasingly giant power-ups to the titular robot, each one surpassing the last, culminating in Chouginga Gurren-Lagann, which is larger than the Moon, and finally Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann, which uses entire galaxies as stepping stones!
- Stepping stones? You forget throwing stars.
  - *ahem*◊
  - And that image is too small. It's 100 times the size of the MILKY WAY. DAMN.
- And then the series broke the size record◊ again in the second movie. It almost wouldn't feel right to call it a mecha anymore...
Forget everything that is said about TTGL breaking size records, because the people who say this have never played or watched Demonbane. The titular mech (which is powered by magic, incidentally) isn't much larger than an average robot, but its Elder God form is big enough to pop the universe it was summoned in and destroys nearby universes by brushing up against them.
Gunbuster and its sequel Diebuster have Mecha even more Humongous than most- Gunbuster is hundreds of meters tall, and Diebuster is approximately the same height as the Earth itself.
- Probably worth noting that Gunbuster and Diebuster were made by the same studio as Gurren Lagann. In fact the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was probably partly to upstage the Diebuster, which in turn upstaged every other Humongous Mecha that came before, except maybe Unicron).
The Xephon from Rah Xephon, although obviously and definitely not mechanical, follows many of the genre's tropes to a T.
The Rune Gods in Magic Knight Rayearth take form of not just beastly creatures, but also Humongous Mecha based on those said creatures.
- This funnily creates a fan-wishing to include Magic Knight Rayearth in Super Robot Wars, despite the difference in theme of story. Well, who wouldn't want to see Rayearth teaming up with, say, Gao Gai Gar? This troper is actually one of them.
Let's not forget all the Humongous Mecha that Team Rocket wields in the Pokemon anime. One has to wonder where they get the money for all those giant robots, considering that they're both deep in debt and far out of favor with their boss...
- In one episode (In the recent Diamond/Pearl series), it was noted that Team Rocket stole various parts from a factory, which they used to build that episode's mecha. That seems to help keep their expenses down.
Played with in an episode of Wolf's Rain in which the wolves accidentally reawaken an ancient defensive mecha while making their way through a ruined city.
The main villains in Scrapped Princess are capable of transforming into Humongous Mecha. They are forced to use power limiters to maintain a normal human guise until they are authorized to carry out their mission.
Mecha are part of the central conflict in Code Geass. A one-sided war was won with them, and now they're being used to reclaim the country from The Empire.
In Gad Guard, the mecha aren't piloted, per se. Rather, the person they "belong to" rides around on their shoulder, or some such. While some of them occasionally give their mechs orders (especially the villain), they tend to act on their own. In battle at least...
The Armor Troopers from VOTOMS (Verticle One Man Tank for Offense and Maneuvers) are perhaps among the most perceivable (combat based) humongous mecha in real life. They are no taller than 4 meters, do not transform, don't fly, and generally don't have any unique powers. They are more like bipedal tanks than anything else.
- See also many of the other series created by Ryosuke Takahashi, such as Dougram and SPT Layzner. While they're not as realistic as VOTOMS, they are compared to the majority of mecha shows and have a similar gritty atmosphere.
Geneshaft has a very weird mecha, which looks more like a set of cranes welded together to vaguely resemble a human outline. It is also totally unclear why it should look remotely human anyway, given its function in the story.
Funnily enough, Saber Marionette J parodies this when the Imperial Palace eventually transforms into a Giant Robot, who is then used to attack and stop a Giant Bomb.
The Brave franchise is a series of mecha shows each starring a different Super Robot and their respective crews. They will often feature a pair of main characters, rather than a single one (usually a young boy and a grown man, who often serves as a big brother feature). By far the most famous of these is The King of Braves Gao Gai Gar, a series which managed to recapture the feel of fun and Hot bloodedness of mecha from the 70's amidst a wave of Darker And Edgier mecha series in the wake of Evangelion. Also had a sequel OVA a few years later which managed to be of better quality (especially the fight scenes!) than most series of its kind. And even that proved so popular it got a special edition just five years later, linking it to Betterman, a much different kind of mecha show from the same company.
The Big O puts Victorian-looking giant robots in a creepy retro-future film noir setting reminiscent of recent Batman cartoons.
Ramrod from Saber Rider And The Star Sheriffs
Dai-Guard turns its focus on the giant robot's pilots and all of the red tape they have to cut through to save the world.
The robots from Bokurano are freaking enormous. Zearth is half a kilometer tall, and is estimated to be able to destroy the entire military forces of the U.S. in two days.
Each of the different nationality random girls in Rizelmine has one, each almost more ridiculous than the last.
The mecha in Irresponsible Captain Tylor seem to be specifically designed to subvert the "Humongous" part of this trope, in fact most of their pilots are huge and shown to be very cramped inside their mecha. The big butch leader is in a pink one. The general design of the mecha is similar to the squat egg-shaped ones found in Sakura Wars.
Even a series like Mahou Sensei Negima has them (maybe the series is just like that). They were created using the Proto Type data from a sealed demon god.
- (Much) Later on, Haruna uses her artifact to create a life-size robot body for Sayo. Of course, Sayo can only use the robot body by possessing a small voodoo doll and climbing inside the robot body and piloting it Humongous Mecha style.
Zoids manages to buck the trend in giant robots by having its titular robots patterned after nearly every animal imaginable except humans. This ranges from tractors shaped like beatles to flying battleships that look like whales. A recurring theme through the various editions of the franchise is that the hero tends to pilot a Zoid based on a large feline (usually called a "Liger"), while his rival pilots a robotic dinosaur.
In "Project A-Ko" B-Ko creates these although she is perhaps better known for her Bikini Battlesuit.
Busou Renkin has an example in the form of Great Warrior Chief Shosei Sakaguchi's Busou Renkin, Buster Baron, which resembles a 57m knight armed with a pair of knuckle dusters and a jet pack and is capable of using giant forms of the Busou Renkin of alchemy warriors who are riding in it.

Close Anime and Manga

X-Men has the Sentinels, mutant-hunting Humongous Mecha. They started out small (when compared to Evangelion, Super Sentai, etc.) but worked their way up to standard mecha size. Much worse (in terms of design impracticality) is that they were created in a "Master Mold," which is actually a much larger Sentinel. Since AI Is A Crapshoot, Sentinels are known for getting out of their creators' hands in short order (Especially Master Molds, Sentinel-shaped factories which wouldn't need any decision-making ability.) It seems the government types finally learned their lesson, because lately, Sentinels tend to be standard Humongous Mecha - Sentinel-shaped vehicles piloted by humans.
- One character points out the irony when some of those human-piloted Sentinels are assigned to protect mutants; "It's like a black man being protected by a burning cross."
Does anyone remember First Comics' Dynamo Joe? (Sometimes scripted by Phil Foglio.)
The BGY-11 of Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot is secretly a humongous mecha; the world at large and Rusty in particular assume that it is a sentient robot, and maintaining this secret complicates several episodes.
Back when Marvel had licenced Godzilla as a character, they also created the Red Ronin giant robot to fight him. Godzilla has faded away from the Marvel Universe, but the Red Ronin still shows up. Occasionally.
- In Earth X, Tony Stark has secretly redesigned the Red Ronin into a Transforming Mecha that spends most of its time as his "Iron Avenger" factory. We don't know this till the end of the story (making Tony appear to be a useless recluse), when he pilots it into battle against the even larger Celestials, who are energy being versions of the same—their energy bodies need Humongous Mecha to give them shape.
- Marvel also, for a short time, ran a Shogun Warriors comic, featuring the Super Robots Combattler V, Brave Raideen, and Dangard Ace
Kazu Kibuishi's Amulet features a house which sprouts arms and legs and starts walking.
Warren Ellis' Tokyo Storm Warning.
No love for the Vaultraun Force from GoldDigger? Seriously, a bunch of shoes that merge together and make a large (for tiny Leprechauns) mecha?
- Ahem. This would be a Mobile Suit Human.
The Man-Robots from the Disney Comics story "The Giant Robot Robbers" by Carl Barks.
Jack Hawksmoor of The Authority can actually turn cities into Humongous Mecha. As in, walk into the middle of Tokyo, ask it very nicely, and come out wearing battle armour made of concrete and skyscrapers.
Amulet features one. It's a house that sprouts arms and legs.
The Guardians in Doug Tennapel's Gear.
- Nothing quite like mecha being piloted by anthropmorphic cats who look like they could have easily been extras on Steamboat Willie

Close Comic Books

Several advertisements for the Citroën C4 feature the car transforming into a Humongous Mecha.
There's also a Singapore Army ad featuring a Navy Cruiser Transforming Mecha. Now that's what I call firepower!

Close Commercials

Spaceballs has Spaceball One/Mega Maid, which is apparently so big it can take the entire atmosphere of a planet. It is also a Transforming Mecha.
The Star Wars AT-ST's (chickenwalkers) and the AT-AT's are among the most visually distinctive mecha in popular culture. The ease with which the various Imperial Walkers are defeated demonstrates the impracticality of the whole concept. Rebel fighters literally trip up the AT-AT's, and a band of teddy-bear like people set up Bamboo Technology traps in a forest to obliterate a group of AT-ST's. Darth Vader should remote-strangle the whole R&D team. There's a reason why real-life tanks are built with as low a profile and as low a center of gravity as possible.
- And then there's the Transformers: Crossovers toy line which features an AT-AT which transforms into a giant robot.
  - The same line also features a Transforming DEATH STAR.
- To be fair, modern tanks also rely on close infantry support when working in close environments to stop enemy infantry doing unpleasant things to them up close, and lets be honest the effectiveness of the Bambootechnology against even the Stormtroopers was fairly surprising and perhaps slightly over-stated, never mind the Scout Walkers. We saw heavily armed elite troops with full armour and helmets being knocked unconscious with a single hit from a small hand held rock by a teddy bear, so reality is already in the backseat. The situation should have been closer to Zulu, but that might have given the film a higher certificate. As for Empire, if you think about the amount of power it would take to move that thing, is it really likely that a little bit of steel cable (that is only secured at one end), could cause it to topple? Given that the Snow Speeders seem to be custom designed to do this (what else are you going to use that magentic harpoon and cable for?) it must have been tried before. But even if the empire didn't fit it with cable cutters on the legs (e.g. as many modern helicopters have), it moves so slowly that it shouldn't have over-balanced anyway, its not like it has much momentum built up. The driver should have just put the leg forward, realised the problem and brought it back again, while the weight was taken with the other three legs. Or maybe even take a wild guess as to why the speeder is madly circling him so close and just stop? They could then send out some infantry to cut the cable while the walker provides covering fire. Think about if you tried this trick on a walking elephant, do you think it would fall over on its face or just stop? Of course, as with all things in Star Wars, large dollops of the Rule of Cool may have influenced the outcomes.
Mecha-Godzilla.
- Also MOGUERA and Jet Jaguar, but Jet Jaguar doesn't start out humongous.
Most of WALL-E's robots are smaller than the average human (let alone the obese humans of the future), but at one point we meet two giant versions of the titular trash compactor robot.
The Iron Giant The title says it all.
Matrix: Revolutions: Humanity fights off a flood of enemy machines with 20' tall humanoid mecha. Hilariously, the pilots are almost completely exposed in the suits, making them pretty worthless once the machines get close.
- Word of God said that even with the armor, the machines tore through it like butter, meaning there was no point it keeping it there if it was just going to be useless anyway
Speaking of arthropoda, Wild Wild West features steampunk, spider-shaped giant mecha.
Robot Jox was a low budget western attempt to exploit this genre. In a dystopic future, wars are resolved by duels between two giant mecha, much like a sporting event.
- It possibly inspired G Gundam.
Aliens: Ripley in the Power Loader, leading to a Crowning Momentof Awesome.
The climax of District 9 features a rampage by a highly mobile, heavily armored and DEVASTATINGLY well armed mecha in the main character's Crowning Momentof Awesome.
A rare, non-humanoid example: in the 2005 version of War of the Worlds, it's revealed that the aliens piloting the giant tripods look like human-sized versions of their death machines, making them the extraterrestrial equivalent of humongous mecha.
A giant Transforming Mecha appeared in the latest Terminator movie.
The climax in We Are The Strange has a giant mecha fighting a giant monster.

Close Film

Empire, by Orson Scott Card.
- Built in secret by evil liberal ''pacifists'' to slaughter U.S Service personnel out of naked hatred for American men-in-uniform, no less.
  - What.
  - The mecha part wasn't actually his idea—it was made for some RTS. The rest of it, though...
The Star Wars Expanded Universe, again, features lots of big walking war machines aside from the AT-AT and AT-ST models.
Perhaps, collectively, the army of giant golems in Making Money.
- Moist also introduces the idea of thirty foot killer golems, since "If you don't invent thirty-foot killer golems first, someone else will".
William Keith's Warstrider series.

Close Literature

In live-action, giant transforming and combining mecha have been a staple of the Super Sentai franchise since its third installment, Battle Fever J, having borrowed the concept from a live-action Japanese adaptation of Spider-Man. Yes, that Spider-Man.
- Later installments of the franchise (from Dinosaur Task Force Zyuranger onwards) would be adapted into Power Rangers.
Doctor Who had a 100-foot tall Steampunk Cyberman in the latest Christmas special
A largely forgotten but Most Triumphant Example is the Swiss-army knife that is Drago from Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad, which manages to fit every category (excpet 'mini...' but then again, they're inside computer systems, so maybe it counts, too!) It can transform from plane to dragon and back, combine with Servo to make Phormo, split to make Tor and Jam, and Jam alone can transform into the Dragon Cannon to be used by Servo. The toy probably had to be a freakin' jigsaw puzzle.

Close Live Action TV

Dick Tracy had TRAZE-R, a thirty-foot high robot Dick Tracy that fought an enemy robot to the death. Like everything else about Dick Tracy, TRAZE-R was absolutely bugnuts insane.

Close Newspaper Comics

Parodied in the Beastie Boys' "Intergalactic" video.
The video for Jason Forrest's 'War Photographer' features a pair of humongous mecha. That transform out of giant robots. Crewed by vikings. Who battle it out with the power of rock and roll. No, seriously. And you know what? It's awesome.
Linkin Park's video for Points Of Authority features CGI Humongous Mecha, each of which is based on the band members. So if the trope wasn't Awesome But Impractical enough already, you have one that's as skinny as the lead singer.

Close Music

The classic western Humongous Mecha RPG is Mech Warrior, the role-playing side of the Battle Tech tactical miniature games. They feature everything from 3-meter tall battle frames to hulking 25-meter tall Humongous Mecha, and even had Transforming Mecha before their uncanny similarity of those models to Robotech's more famous mecha was noticed.
Possibly the weirdest Humongous Mecha RPG is the Steampunk/Magitek crossover Dragon Mech.
- The H P Lovecraft/Macross/Guyver/Neon Genesis Evangelion crossover Cthulhu Tech would like to dispute that.
Exalted's Warstriders.
Every race in Warhammer 40000 has at least one type of giant mech, though the Tyranids' uses Organic Technology; the sizes grow from Space Marine Dreadnoughts and Tau Battlesuits about thrice as tall as a man to at least 150 foot tall (the accounts contradict each other; some claim the heights go all the way up to 2km) Emperor-class Titans mounting cathedrals, housing a full company of troops in their legs and able to pull ground-to-orbit duty against enemy spaceships. It is said there are mechs large and powerful enough to metaphorically mop the floor with even Emperor-class Titans...
- I don't think the necrons have any Humongous Mecha. They don't NEED them.
  - Tomb Stalker. An enormous, spider-like walker, which DID mop the floor with multiple Imperators. Also, the humongous mecha that is powered by a contained star.
Even Dungeons And Dragons gets in on the act with the Eberron campaign setting. The warforged are a playable race. Their "ancestors"—or more accurately, prototypes—called warforged titans, are not.
- Some golems can get pretty humongous, as well, in particular the iron, mithral, and adamantine golems. However, the biggest autonomous constructs are undoubtedly the colossi, 100-foot tall humanoids of stitched flesh, hewn stone, or cast iron, only ever created by the mightiest wizards.
- Dating back the the first edition Dungeon Master's Guide is the Mighty Servant of Leuk-o, something of a giant mecha which is controlled from a cockpit containing something like one hundred unlabelled levers, each with a different function.
Heavy Gear, which features smaller robots than Battle Tech's average, but which are definitely more than just body armor.
Rifts features a wide variety, from the Triax Devistator which can step on things up to the size of a two-story house, to designs such as the Ultimax and Terror Trooper which stand about twice the height of a man and blur the line between powered armor and mecha.
GURPS Mecha gives players the wherewithal to design and build just about any of the above concepts. Of course, this troper (having tried just that) finds that doing this results in a quite startling mix of Tech Levels for any but the simplest battlesuit (quick note: GURPS Mecha defines a "battlesuit" as powered armour where the pilot's arms and legs extend into the suit's arms and legs. A "mecha" is piloted from a cockpit. So the Iron Man armour is a battlesuit, while an AT-AT is a mecha).
- The Pyramid Magazine adventure for GURPS Discworld "A Little Job For The Patrician" features a Discworld Mecha. Based (of course) on a design by Leonard of Quirm, adapted by a brilliant Agatean nobleman whose narrative causality tends towards anime tropes, and powered by five trolls. The trolls even go through an Invocation as the thing assembles ("Other leg troll, put it together!"), although since they're trolls in a warm climate, it's possible they'd forget which one went where otherwise.
Mekton is a tabletop RPG that is meant to run just about any humongous mecha. Admittedly, there is no size scale for something on par with the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, bust still...
- Ahem. Excessive scale. Page 113.
The Mutants And Masterminds supplement Mecha & Manga has a chapter devoted to creating your own Humongous Mecha.

Close Table Top Games

The entire premise of the Artix Entertainment game Mechquest is to fight aliens while in a giant bipedal mecha. Or So I Heard.
A Humongous Mecha in the form of a giant monkey is used in an epic battle (Unfortunately in one of the worst puzzles in a Monkey Island game) at the end of the fourth Monkey Island game. No, really.
- But if you know what to do, you can win really easily by repeating Le Chuck's lines three times.
Xenogears and Xenosaga? Humongous Mecha for days. In some cases, there are battles against giant foes where the characters have to enter said mecha, or get stepped on.
- In Xenosaga, the Erde Keiser sidequest is a send-up of the more light-hearted Mecha shows (in a game that's more dark and serious).
The Steel Kossack from early PSX videogame Krazy Ivan. As the trope description says, it approaches the line between Power Armor and this trope; the titular Ivan controls it by doing the actual movements himself. This one falls straight into this trope, however, as the Mecha is far larger than a human.
Live A Live gives us Buriki Daioh, a giant ancient Babylonian giant robot. It appears in the Near Future chapter expressly for the purpose of stomping tanks, shooting lasers at airplanes, shooting missiles at larger airplane aircraft carriers, and punching an animated bird statue that is threatening to devour the world in a wave of liquefied human hate. (video game edition!)
Super Robot Wars/Taisen and Another Centurys Episode. For the most part, the series consists of crossovers from an astoundingly large number of Humongous Mecha anime, though not all in the same game, or even timeline. Most games have also included original creations, both Real and Super, such as the Elemental Lord Cybuster. The original creations then got their own crossover with each other in the Original Generation subseries.
- These also feature in Spin Off OG Saga: Endless Frontier, but there, they tend to be less "as big as a building" and more "quite a bit larger than a person."
Metal Gear in all its stomping, nuke-launching incarnations. There's always a rationale (a missile platform which isn't limited to normal terrain) but the series makes light of the implausability anyway. Implicitly, as REX from MGS was designed by a brilliant but eccentric otaku, and the rest of the world has been caught in a REX-pirating arms race ever since. Explicitly in the prequel MGS3 when the idea of a walking tank is openly derided.
- The fourth game even features a fight between Metal Gears, with Snake piloting REX from MGS1 against Liquid Ocelot in RAY from MGS2 This is the only time the Metal Gear series has actually allowed you to pilot a Metal Gear.
- In Emperor: Battle for Dune, one of House Atreides' mechs bears a suspicious resemblance to REX.
Also of note is Hideo Kojima's Zone Of The Enders series, which plays it straighter.
Sengoku Basara portrays mighty Sengoku general Honda Tadakatsu into a Humongous Mecha, so much he got nicknamed Hondam.
The Giant of Babil (spelled as Babel in Final Fantasy IV Advance) of Final Fantasy IV. The entire plot of the game, wherein the Big Bad's forces steal the elemental Crystals, was all performed so they could use the Crystals' power to send the Giant from the Moon, through the Tower of Babil, and to the surface of the Earth, whereupon it would raze the entire planet. Although scale is difficult to convey with super-deformed characters, it is implied that the Giant is several thousand feet tall.
- Easier to determine in the 3D DS remake. One of the Dwarves' tanks barely reaches to what would be the Giant's toe.
The various incarnations of Alexander in the Final Fantasy series seem to be built out of enormous castles which were then modified into mobile robots. The first iteration, in Final Fantasy VI, even has towers and smaller castles built on top.
- And, also in Final Fantasy VI was the Magi Tek Armor
Final Fantasy IX has the summon Ark. It's not just a summon; it's a Transformer!
Not to be outdone, Dark Cloud 2 (also known as Dark Chronicle) also has a gigantic flying fortress, Paznos. Although it was only supposed to be a mobile battle station, Max and Monica's tampering with the timestream further allowed its creators to transform it into a humanoid mecha strong enough to catch, stop, and toss an equally huge flying castle which was about to fall on top of a city.
Goemon Impact of Ganbare Goemon. People tend to remember him by his Image Song, which begins with a shout of "DA-DA-DASH!" (He's actually an alien that just happens to look like a robot. All righty, then...)
- Don't forget, of course, that Impact is also an international movie star that wears roller sandals and shoots bullets out his nose. No, really. And why, you ask?
The One Must Fall video game series was designed as a fighting game where hundred-meter tall robots remote-controlled by people smacked the [...] out of each other for profit.
Star Craft has several Humongous Mecha:
- The Terrans have the odd but effective Goliath battle frame, about twice the height of a man and armed with autocannons (for ground attack) and missile launchers (for attacking air).
  - Star Craft II replaces the Goliath with the Viking, which is a Transforming Mecha that can switch between a fighter craft for attacking air and a humanoid mecha for attacking ground. The Terrans also gain use of the hulking Thor, so big it can't be built in a factory but has to be assembled piece by piece by several SC Vs.
- The Protoss, meanwhile, had the extremely useful Reavers, giant worm-like mecha that spat powerful homing bombs called scarabs, and Dragoons, a cyborg created from the body of a critically wounded Protoss warrior and a robotic shell.
  - In Star Craft II, the Dragoons have been replaced by Immortals, very similar to Dragoons but with shields that can shrug off the most powerful attacks (but let much weaker attacks through), and further supplemented with the Stalker, the Dark Templar version of the Dragoon, which has a teleportation ability. Finally, the Protoss also gain the Colossus, a towering war machine so tall it can just step up and over terrain like cliffs. This is, in fact, a realistic downside: they can be attacked by units that can normally only attack air.
  - They are all trumped by the April Fools unit known as the Terratron, a unit that consists of a bunch of Terran buildings combined into a Super Robot sized killing machine that makes the Thor look tiny.
The War Craft series gained Humongous Mecha with the third installment, which introduced large golems. The Frozen Throne, the expansion pack for War Craft III, introduced very large golems.
- The Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft also introduced the Fel Reaver, which is essentially a giant steampunk robot powered by demonic energy. And they are terrifying.
  - Not to mention the goblin-made shredders, giant robots primarily used for chopping down trees, but are also more than capable of chopping down people.
  - In Ulduar, one mech stands out... obviously I'm talking about XT-002 Deconstructor! This is an ENOURMOUS mecha, able to tear a warrior apart in a matter of seconds. Oh, and did I mention that it has the mentality and even the voice of a little child? And that it considers you, the raiders as his toys? And when he kills someone, he says, "I guess it doesn't bend that way..."? Funny, yet somewhat creepy at the same time. This troper has heard of guilds raiding XT for the first time... seeing the towering mecha and preparing for an epic battle... and wiping because as soon as the boss was aggroed, everyone started rolling on the floor laughing over his voice. "New toys? For me? Oh, I promise I won't break them this time!"
  - Also, Mimiron's final form.
  - Also, Mechano-Strider mounts
Not to spoil anything but the Big Bad in Fallout: Tactics uses robots, including ones that qualify as Humongous Mecha.
Quadraxis from Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. That is all.
The mechs in the Crusader series of video games aren't humongous, per se, but they can get bigger than any human and pack some serious firepower. Also, the end boss of No Regret wears a battle suit that appears to be about ten feet tall.
The Expanded Universe of Star Wars got its first original Humongous Mecha with the Dark Troopers in the first Dark Forces game. Jedi Outcast also introduced a new walking mech, not much bigger than a Wookiee, and one boss wears a lightsaber-resistant battle frame (as opposed to the high-level Reborn warriors wearing plain old lightsaber-resistant armor).
Golems in the Infinity Engine games—Baldurs Gate II and so on—are pretty darn big, given the engine limitations.
Mentioned below in the Tabletop section, but Mechwarrior and Heavy Gear fit this to a T. Especially when you're sitting pretty in an Atlas
After creating two RPGs set in fantasy universes, Artix Entertainment started Mech Quest. Guess what it features, though the developers already tell you that.
In Command And Conquer, GDI had plenty of mecha in Tiberian Sun, from the chaingun-toting Wolverine scout walkers, to the Titan walking tanks, to the Juggernaut walking artillery platforms, to the Mammoth Mk II, which sports railguns. C&C Tiberium Wars, on the other hand, was mostly a subversion: the Juggernaut was carried over, Nod got an Avatar walker, and the alien Scrin got a tripod straight out of The War Of The Worlds, but in-game fluff material mentioned how the factions were discontinuing walker production, because commandos kept running up and disabling the things with a well-placed explosive on a leg joint. Indeed, the factions' commando units can do just that in-game, taking down an enemy walker instantly. Meanwhile, Red Alert 3 introduces the "King Oni" mecha on the Japanese side and the official website data does some Lampshade Hanging on the concept, noting that it "flies in the face of decades of conventional mechanized warfare".
- And let's not forget of the Shogun Executioner, which has three legs, three torsos, 6 arms, three heads, 3 lightning katanas, and heals itself when attacked with Tesla weaponry!
- Or the Nod Redeemer, an Avatar on steroids with the added ability to cause a Hate Plague.
Metal Fatigue is an RTS built on this trope. There are non-mecha units, but even the one designed specifically against mecha is pretty much useless against decently armored models.
In Supreme Commander, three of the four factions get in on the act-the Aeon use the Galactic Colossus as the sci-fi equivalent of a battering ram and the Seraphim Ythotha is a relatively inexpensive multipurpose superheavy assault unit. The Cybran Monkeylord diverges from the standard Humongous Mecha type a bit, being a vaguely insectoid six-legged weapons platform, aptly nicknamed the spiderbot. They also have a crab-shaped amphibious mecha called the Megalith.
- Every walker unit in Supreme Commander is a Humongous Mecha! Even the smallest of them, such as the UEF Mech Marine, is at least two to three stories tall. Them AC Us (Armored Command Units) of each faction are themselves huge, taller then trees.
- To elaborate this: Any unit is a Humongous Mecha to humans, with the rather standard-sized and human-proportioned ACU's head alone being bigger than its pilot. However, experimental superunits like the Sacred Assault Bot are so huge they actually serve as Humongous Mecha to the other Humongous Mecha.
Tech Romancer, an obscure Dreamcast fighting game featuring humongous mecha inspired by super robot and real robot anime series. Did I mention that this game is in english? It doesn't get any better than this, folks!
- To clarify- The game's in English, but all the vocal sounds are in Japanese. Even better!
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind has Steam Punk Pint-Sized Mechas scattered across the game's Dwemer ruins.
- 'The Elder Scrolls II also had Numidium, which was so massive that the God of Time threw the space-time-continuum off-balance by accident from the shock of it being turned on. According to Back Story, Tiber Septim could never have built an empire without it to fight. The Elder Scrolls III'' followed this up with Akhulakhan, which Dagoth Ur was trying to construct using ancient Dwarven schematics and the severed heart of a dead god.
Most of the Big Bads in the Ratchet And Clank series use mechs for their final showdown with Ratchet. (About the only one who doesn't is the Mutant Protopet in "Going Commando") Semi-lampshaded by Gleeman Vox in "Deadlocked"
Vox: And now, an audience favorite-the giant mech climactic battle!
Surprising no one's mentioned the Xbox game Steel Battalion, which required a massive controller with tons of buttons costing ~~at least $100~~ $200 which was supposed to resemble the cockpit controls of the Humongous Mecha
- This Troper owns Steel Battalion and its pretty much a Crowning Moment of Awesome for video games. It's also pretty hard core. One of the controls is a red ejector button that flashes when you take critical damage and is covered with a lift up cover. If you don't eject in time your saved games are wiped and you have to start the game again.
Dr Eggman really loves these, and will usually be riding one during the non-Super final boss portion of each game.
- And then there's the Gaia Colossus (do golems count?), which is made from temples! I couldn't [...] this one if I tried.
Viewtiful Joe, as an affectionate parody of sentai, loves this trope. In particular, the escalating size of Joe's "Six Machine" mecha starts to look like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann after a while.
- First there's Captain Blue's mecha, Six Majin. It's about as big as Voltron, and towers over city buildings.
- At the end of the first game, Joe upgrades it to Great Six Majin, who is big enough to circle the earth in a few strides.
- Things get truly ridiculous in the second game, where Six Majin and Great Six Majin combine to form 6x6 Majin, who is bigger than the planets (its fist is only a few times smaller than the Earth). This is itself a counter to the final boss' Black Kaiser, which is bigger.
What? Metal Wolf Chaos isn't on this list?
You never actually fight Dist himself in Tales of the Abyss, but you do fight a series of mechs he constructs using fontech.
- Likewise in Tales of Innocence, where Mad Scientist Osbald is working on powering Humongous Mecha using People Jars filled with Reincarnated. First you free a party member being used as the fuel cell, then you find the mass-production model on a battlefield, and finally Osbald pilots one against you himself, using as the power source Ricardo's "brother", Gardle.
- Don't forget the recurring enemy Murder and his ilk, who range from dog-sized Spider Tanks to full-blown mecha that reach to the top of the screen.
In the final battle of Fallout 3, there is nothing quite as awesome as watching Liberty Prime stride purposefully towards the Jefferson Monument, crushing Enclave power armor troopers underfoot, vaporizing others with eye lasers, and tossing miniature nuclear bombs like footballs, all the while loudly proclaiming that death is better than communism.
- There's a few that show up as enemies in Fallout Tactics, too.
The first part of the final boss in Disaster: Day of Crisis turns out to be an experimental mechanised war machine, complete with arms and a missile launcher. This troper swore that Evans had stolen a Metal Gear. Though, the designers were actually sensible enough to protect the cockpit... Doesn't stop Ray from taking it out, though.
Armored Core: High-speed (in the later games) combat using mecha that you build yourself from the ground up. The biggest appeal of the game is that whatever mech you use, you built it yourself. Which of course requires the mention of it's younger brother;
- Chrome Hounds. Just as much, if not more customizable, with the major difference between it and the Armored Core series being about 300 MPH. Loved/hated because of it's speed, it places mecha combat in a more realistic (all things being relative) setting, keeping the focus on blowing stuff up while changing the game from "fly fast and shoot everything that moves" to a more tactical game. Squads that fail to utilize the different role types and don't have an effective commander quickly find themselves scrap metal.
City Of Heroes has the Titans used by the Malta Group- the Kronos Class Titan is the size of a building. But, that's nothing compared to the giant robot at the end of the Ernesto Hess Task Force, though it's sadly inactive.
- There are two equally-large giant robots in the third mission of the Imperious Task Force, although they are likewise there as window-dressing.
- Also, in the Mender Silos Task Force (Strike Force for villains), the Jade Spider is a Humongous Mecha, powered by a strongly-psionic operator, sent by Lord Recluse into Siren's Call to destroy Paragon City. This one does fight, either against the heroes in the Task Force, or as an ally of the villains in the Strike Force.
In Power Dolls colonists modified a line of powered loaders to defend themselves.
This goes to boss number 12 in Shadow Of The Colossus. After you climb up to his head You find there isn't a weakpoint, but you can hit the glowing sections of his crown to direct him. It took me forever to figure that out.
In Road Runner's Death Valley Rally, the Final Boss is the giant "Solid Tin Coyote". Remember this episode? Real Nightmare Fuel.
The Ray Series has Humongous Mecha...in ship-based Shoot Em Ups.
In Universe At War:Earth Assault, the Novus heroes Mirabel (a Human Alien with a tatoo on her head) and Victor (Her powered armor with an AI package) tower over the human sized Ohm Robots and Masari, and let her go toe-to-toe with Heirarchy hero Orlok and Grunt troopers.
In Civilization mod Next War, you are able to build Juggernauts, the most powerful unit in terms of raw Strength, which are basically walking tanks. The Civilopedia points out that the legs are far impractical and would be much more efficient to replace it with treads, but the reason people don't do that is because it's just too cool.

Close Video Games

Xuan, R2, and Sanna discover that their guardian is a mecha in this page of Between Two Worlds. Xuan then becomes the mecha's pilot.
Webcomic subversion: In Mechagical Girl Lisa ANT, the A.N.T is a Humongous Mecha... for ants. To a human, it looks more like a Powered Armor.
In Mega Tokyo, the police cataclysm division (which facilitates cataclysms like 'zilla, zombie, and alien attacks, as long as they are done in an orderly fashion) employs mecha. They turn out to be less effective than robot-girl Ping.
In this Loserz strip. Just for fun, in this case.
- You do realize that you didn't link the actual strip, right?
Sluggy Freelance parodies this a few times, most notably in the GOFOTRON arc
Girl Genius has plenty of them, given that Sparks love to build stuff like that. In fact, the first time that Agatha is without her Restraining Bolt, she builds one out of spare engines and parts in her sleep. It leads Baron Wulfenbach straight to her door.
This critter from The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob.

Close Web Comics

Transformers and the various series showcase a Western version of the archetypical transforming mecha. It's especially notable because unlike the usual mecha show, there are no pilots or crew to be the stars - the mecha themselves are the stars, being sentient robots.
- It has been speculated that the on-and-off popularity of Transformers in Japan is because it lacks pilots or other very important human characters... usually. When annoying kids are put in, the American fanbase, which is much larger and more consistent, shudders.
- The Japanese versions of Transformers appear to support the theory that giant transforming robots without pilots are alien concepts in Japan. While the Western series give reasons for their alternate modes (disguise, protection from radiation, etc.), the Japanese series, such as Transformers Armada, generally disregard them-although, as the series exist to advertise toys, they transform anyway. This reached ridiculous heights in Transformers Energon, where the Transformers, capable of flying around in space in robot mode, transform and drive in space.
Voltron was, for a time, the best-known example in America. It was a Macekre of two fairly obscure shows, Go Lion (Lion Voltron) and Dairugger XV (Vehicle Voltron), along with some Lion Voltron episodes produced by Toei especially for the American market.
Cartoon Network's Megas XLR is possibly the best Western parody, with an alien robot from the future crash-landing in a New Jersey junkyard, where the main character, Coop, buys it for two bucks...which he never actually pays.
Parodied occasionally in Dexters Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls.
Parodied in Total Drama Island, where Duncan, while trying to catch a raccoon, faces a hoard of raccoons forming a huge machine-like army by standing on top of one another. Duncan comments that it's "more than meets the eye!"
As another American example, Codename Kids Next Door had too many mecha count, probably because its creator is an anime fan. These are normally possessed by their enemies, especially the Delightful Children from Down the Lane, who have a seemingly inexhaustible supply. However, Numbuh Three (who is, incidentally, of Japanese descent) has her own mecha, Hippy Hop (A robot bunny). Then again, Hippy Hop never seems to get the chance to do anything each time it's deployed.
In one episode of South Park Chef's giant plasma TV transforms into a humongous mecha at the end and goes on the rampage.
- In another episode of South Park, Barbra Streisand transforms into a humongous mecha and goes on the rampage. However, it's not a not humanoid but a godzilla-like machine. The word 'mecha' is used in the episode to describe Ike, who's merely giant and not mechanical in any way.
- And who could forget when Brian Boitano traveled through time to the year 3010, fought the evil robot king and saved the human race again?
Challenge Of The Go Bots
Futurama got in the act after Nixon got re-elected.
The Batman builds a mecha suit in order to fight a Venom'd up Bane, and keeps it around just in case.
- Batman Beyond also had Bruce Wayne designing powerful cybernetic suits to offset his advancing age; the strain of working the largest of these damaged his heart and contributed to his retirement.
  - And in the Crapsack World of the Kingdom Come series, an aged Batman fielding an entire army of computerized mecha is the reason why Gotham City, along with the Flash's Keystone City (constantly patrolled by the Flash at ultraspeed), are the only two really safe places for a normal human to live.
Insektors had Koa the Frog/Operation Frogbucket, which resulted in an army of giant mechanical frogs.
Aladdin: the Series: Clock Punk inventor Mechanikles must have read this entry, because most of his giant mecha are based on arthropods. One exception was a Humongous Mecha shaped like himself, but he soon lost it to a boy who fell into the cockpit.
Kim Possible has plenty of giant mechas. Examples the robot from the pilot, the robots from The Movie, the robots from the Grand Finale and a big flamingo.
Parodied in Pinky And The Brain: Brain and his archnemesis Snowball the hamster are battling in their robotic human disguises when suddenly Snowball's suit transforms into a Humongous Mecha, complete with rockets blasting out of its shoulders...
In an homage to Lex Luthor's Powered Armor, resident Rich Bitch Alexis apparently built her own (relatively small) mecha-suit on Legion Of Super Heroes.
The Lizard Slayers in Godzilla The Series.
Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! is about a kid and a bunch of robot monkeys who live in a Mecha.
Parodied in The Venture Brothers. Season 1's "The Trial of the Monarch" features Hank & Dean's fanciful retelling of a battle with the Monarch in which they become "Mecha-Shiva". Season 3's "The Lepidopterists", Jonas Jr.'s team form a Voltron like mecha to take on the Monarch.
Rugrats in Paris: The Movie features a Humongous Mecha Reptar.

Close Western Animation

Bionicle's Mata Nui is a Chouginga Gurren Lagann sized robot containing the entire Matoran World. And the Great Spirit inhabiting this body was exiled by Makuta when he committed Grand Theft Me. Makuta apparently has plans to use this new body to conquer the universe.
Code Guardian, set during WW 2, has a giant German mecha duke it out with a giant American mecha as the former tries to destroy a naval ship yard only to have a giant Japanese samurai mecha show up at the end.

Close Other

Some kind of weaponized excavator would come pretty colse to a more feasible version of the same concept, as demonstrated on one double-length Scrapheap Challenge special (albeit with smaller excavators then you'd need to really be this trope). Summary here

Close Real Life

Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing Help

Tools

Toys

Examples: