By 1975, Go Nagai had singlehandedly defined almost all of modern mecha's gimmicks: Piloted robotic vehicles, mecha whose command modules could serve as mini-vehicles, vehicles which combine to form a mech, and Mecha which could be "powered up" by add-on parts (Mazinger Z's Jet-Scrander backpack and Grendizer's UFO-like Spazer Booster). The only vital ingredient that Nagai didn't personally add to the mecha recipe was transformation; that honor belongs to 1975's Brave Raideen, which could shape-change into an avian God-Bird mode.
— Animerica magazine, "A History of Mecha Anime"
Tropes about Mecha, often called giant robots, even if that term is only occasionally accurate (many of them are human-controlled)
Almost always involves Rule of Cool.
See also Tank Goodness.
Related:
Tropes:
- Ace Custom
- American Robot
- Animal Mecha
- Arm Cannon
- Armored Coffins
- Bell-Bottom-Limbed Bots
- BFS
- Caped Mecha
- Chest Blaster
- Chicken Walker
- Combining Mecha
- Cyber Cyclops
- Deflector Shields
- Doomed Upgrade
- Eye Beams
- Falling into the Cockpit
- Fem Bot
- First Church of Mecha
- Giant Robot Hands Save Lives
- Giant Scrap Robot
- Head Blast
- Hover Mecha
- Hover Skates
- Humongous Mecha
- Idiosyncratic Mecha Storage
- If It Swims, It Flies
- Impossibly Graceful Giant
- Instant Armor
- Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha!
- Kibbles and Bits
- The Kid with the Remote Control
- Leader Forms the Head
- Machine Blood
- Machine Empathy
- Mecha
- Mecha-Enabling Phlebotinum
- Mecha Expansion Pack
- Mecha Game
- Mecha Show
- A Mech by Any Other Name
- Mech vs. Beast
- Meta Mecha
- Mini-Mecha
- Motion-Capture Mecha
- Only the Chosen May Pilot
- Power Fist
- Power Harness
- Powered Armor
- Real Robot Genre
- Robeast
- Rocket Punch
- Rollerblade Good
- Sapient Tank
- Schematized Prop
- Spider Tank
- Super Prototype
- Super Robot Genre
- Tank-Tread Mecha
- Telescoping Robot
- Transforming Mecha
- Unusual Weapon Mounting
- Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight
- Vertical Mecha Fins
- Walking Tank
