Daimos

Kazuya and Erika with Daimos in the background

Daimos tells the story of Earth being invaded by a race of Winged Humanoids called the Brahmins/Balmians, all due to failed peace negotiations that took a great toll on both sides. The Earth is outmatched, but they have hope in form of the Motion Capture Mecha Daimos, piloted by the Karate champ Kazuya Ryuuzaki. But problems arise when Kazuya himself meets a mysterious girl named Erika, and falls in love... and later finds out that she is the Princess of the Brahmins, and the sister of the head of the invaders, Prince Richter, to boot.

Just like its predecessor Voltes V, Daimos features alien enemies that turn out to be Not So Different, though it still follows the Monster of the Week formula.

Daimos provides examples of:

Action Bomb: Episode ten featured a Mecha Soldier designed to latch on Daimos and detonate the nuke built in its body.
Action Girl: Nana is The Gunslinger. Erika gets upgraded to this in the manga Victory Five.
Afro Asskicker: Kyoushirou is LITERALLY an Afro Samurai
Airborne Aircraft Carrier: Guranrol and Cobrard. Both could carry around combat troops and several Mecha Soldiers. The first was equipped with giant missiles and four giant blades that could be turned in giant spinning cutters. The second was equiped with four-headed cobras that fired green lasers and a turret shot tinier missiles.
Alien Invasion: The Brahmins had no intention of invading Earth and wanted negotiating a peaceful settlement. However, the death by poisoning of their Emperor and the belief of Terrans had assassinated him changed that.

Aliens Are Bastards: Averted. Although someone who will be not mentioned -coughMiwacough- was convinced of it, Brahmins are not different than humans and most of them are decent people; unfortunately the actual mastermind of the war/invasion, Olban, is a bastard. It overall shows that humans and aliens are Not So Different.
Aloof Big Brother: Richter. He cares for his sister a lot... but you would have a hard time telling it, firstly because he put his duties above his blood ties (I'm sorry if she has disappeared, but my obligation to find a place to settle our people on takes precedence about everything else, and my sister knew damned well she ought not go down to Earth) and later because he was not happy about her being in love with an Earthian.
Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Erika is tall, dark-haired and calm and rational.
Anti-Villain: All of the Brahmin antagonists except for Olban and his lackey, Georiya.
Armed Legs
Assassin Outclassin': During the series finale, turns out all of Erika's love-betraying actions were to put her in a position close enough to Olban and then kill him on spot. Unfortunately, Olban was Properly Paranoid in terms of Erika's sudden acceptance, so he managed to thwart the attempt just in time.
Award-Bait Song: The closing theme "Erika No Ballad". It sums up the Star-Crossed Lovers plotline right off the bat.
Badass Bookworm: In an episode where Dr. Izumi is at risk of dying, a flashback reveals it was him who trained Kazuya in martial arts. Kazuya even uses a move he was taught by Izumi to defeat the two enemy robots he's fighting.
Battle Couple: In a spinoff manga featuring the Nagahama Romance robots, Erika gets her own mecha, Phobos (aka Deimos and Phobos, the moons of Mars), which allows her to fight with Deimos and do a Combination Attack.
Beard of Evil: In this series, if you have facial hair, then you would be considered an irredeemable bad guy. Olban's nice, thick beard and Miwa's pointy mustache are good example for this, whereas cleanly shaved faces signify either good guys or morally grey. There are exactly one inversion for each types in this though, Prof. Izumi also has a beard, but he's a Reasonable Authority Figure, whereas Georiya is cleanly shaved, but he's Olban's #1 lackey and equally evil.
Berserk Button: Kazuya is a good, nice, peaceful boy, but... Threatening his beloved Erika? Bad idea. Killing children in front of him? VERY bad idea. Getting people executed for no reason other than you are a racist nutjob? ASTOUNDINGLY bad idea. Miwa found out about that the hard -and very painful- way.
Beware the Nice Ones: Kazuya is a rather nice guy when not fighting. But if he's pissed off... he'll go majorly batshit. You're warned, Miwa.
Beware the Silly Ones: Earlier in the series, Miwa is mostly treated as a buffoon and an annoyance. Over time, however, his General Ripper tendencies become more and more clear, like when he imprisons Kazuya with the accusation of being a spy after his romance with Erika is outed, and personally beats him.
Big Applesauce: The first episode opens with Brahmins blowing up New York, complete with the newly constructed World Trade Center twin towers.
Bittersweet Ending:
- Earth and Brahmin make peace, Kazuya and Erika reunite, but Richter ~~died in a Heroic Sacrifice~~ committed suicide.
- Not to mention the lives of so many Humans and Brahmins were needlessly lost in a war neither side wanted.
The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: Often, when someone lost his sword, it landed point-first on the ground. It happened to enemies but also to Kyoshiro.
Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: Not literally, but Erika is about to be executed in her mother's wedding dress, and then wears another when she's about to marry Olban, and we know how that turned out.
Brainwashed: Very much implied at one episode when Erika was shown a machine that allows her to think of happy thoughts and reduce her stress with her Brahmin friend Cindy, and Erika's first suspicious response is if it's a machine that will drill up teachings that Humans Are Bastards and should die (it's not) to her brain. This gives the implication that many Brahmin soldiers (especially those under Olban) were practically indoctrinated to hate humans, making them very fanatic or at best REALLY fearful against humans.
Break the Cutie: Erika.
Butt-Monkey: Believe it or not, earlier to the series, Miwa is also this, serving as the Commander Contrarian only existing to be proven wrong and sometimes gets into hilarious, humiliating situations because of his jackassery (tossed to the pool, hurt his arm trying to hit the Robot Buddy out of frustration, etc). As the series goes on, however, Miwa gets much more extreme that his antics were played for dead seriousness than occasional humor.
Calling Your Attacks: Very, very much so.
Cannot Spit It Out: Erika is in constant fear of telling Kazuya that she played a part in killing his father, while in truth, a lackey of Olban did it, and he makes it look like Richter and Erika did it.
Chest Blaster: "DOUBLE/FIRE BLIZZAAAAAAARRRDDD!!!"
Commander Contrarian: Deconstructed with Miwa. Early in the series, this was his role, being a contrarian to almost everything Daimovic Base does and always favoring extremism. For the most part in the early parts, he was treated as a joke and an example that The Complainer Is Always Wrong. Miwa never learns from his lesson, and naturally as the series progresses, he becomes much more ruthless, bigoted and corrupt in his contrarian attitude that he's no longer presented as a joke, but a genuine threat to peace.
Compilation Movie: One titled Starbirds: The Movie was produced by 3-B Productions (the people who did Tranzor Z. It features a whole new round of Dub Name Changes (Kazuya becomes Kelly, Kyoshiro becomes Duncan) and Dub Induced Plot Holes (natural when cutting a 44 episode series down to a 72 minute movie), but is overall fairly coherent. It's actually speculated to be in the Public Domain, as it's popped up as a dollar store DVD release more than once.
Cool Car: Kazuya's Tryper 75S, which boards a Cool Tranzer which in turn transforms into a Cool Mecha.
Diagonal Cut: Daimos does this to a enemy mecha in episode 8. And he did not it with a bladed weapon but with its hand.
Dub Name Change: Kazuya to Kelly in Starbirds, and Richard in the Philippine dub.
Everything Sounds Sexier in French: One episode deals with Kyoshiro dealing with Reiko, his former female student whom he taught French, and in order to shut her up for a time, he told her to memorize "Je t'aime"/"I love you". That was the only thing she remembered literally, including mistaking it as a sexy declaration of love, much to Kyoshiro's dismay.
Evil Laugh: Olban. In the English dub, he laughs at Daimos for being unable to penetrate his space station's shields.
The Evil Prince: Richter.
Expository Theme Tune: "Beat them, beat them, as long as you have strength. Show them your karate." And the closing credits tune narrates Starcrossed Lovers Erika and Kazuya love story.
Fantastic Racism: Mostly thanks to sever cases of Poor Communication Kills.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Brahmins have Western names, Ancient Egyptian or Greco-Roman culture and their religion looks Christian.
First Contact: The Emperor initiated it, hoping it led to a peaceful collaboration and understanding among both peoples. Unfortunately, not all shared his ideals.
General Ripper: General Miwa. Also The Neidermeyer and Butt-Monkey, sometimes.
Going to Give It More Energy: In one Daimos episode a Robeast shows up that is capable of disintegrating matter - such as tanks, missiles and jet fighters - turning it into energy, and absorbing it. Kazuya was at a loss on how to defeat it, until he decided to test how much matter it could absorb by feeding it a forty-five-meters-tall Humongous Mecha.
Gonk: Balbas, one of Richter's lackeys.
Good Wings, Evil Wings: The Baam-Seijin had functional, angel-like, white wings sprouting from their backs. Their wings don't represent their alignment at all, though, they were not portrayed like being inherently good or evil, but like Not So Different than humans (Always Chaotic Evil was completely averted).
The Gunslinger: To some degree, Nana.
Hero Ball: The good guys certainly take a lot of time to figure out that Erika is just pretending to be into marrying Olban while secretly planning to murder him. Despite being blackmailed into marrying him in the first place, despite her reaction when she realizes she shot Kazuya with an actual bullet. The bad guys, including the future husband himself, are much more suspicious of her new-found loyalty.
Heroic Sacrifice:
- Halleck in episode 9.
- And later Balbas in episode 35, after his Heel–Face Turn.
Home Base: The Space Daimobic, which has multiple functions of The Battlestar, Space Base and Mission Control.
Hotblooded Sideburns: Kazuya. Lampshaded in the intro. When he is doing his karate, a close-up of the sun can be seen behind him.
Incurable Cough of Death: Aizam, Richter's buddy. It didn't kill him, though.
Infant Immortality: This trope is averted as soon as the SECOND episode. A kid spends a short while egging Kazuya and Erika on to kiss. Later, when the enemy attacks, an explosion destroys the greenhouse had gone into. Kazuya and Erika bolt to the place and find him lying between the rubble. The kid opens his eyes and asks Kazuya if he "got lucky" before dying as Kazuya is holding him in arms.
Interspecies Romance: Kazuya and Erika.
Laser-Guided Karma: Will always surely hunt down and smack Miwa in the ass. Early in the series, he gets turned into a Butt-Monkey whenever he's being pissy and contrarian against the good guys. Later in the series, he jumps off the slippery slope and then Kazuya beat him to near death and he got arrested and stripped from his position. Reappear in Super Robot Wars to do more harm than good for self-serving reasons? Literally killed!
Launcher Move: Double Blizzard sends an enemy flying up, and on the way down it is jump kicked into oblivion, Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by Daimos' fist or Clean Cut down the middle by a karate chop. It gets upgraded later in the series into Fire Blizzard, which follows a Freezer Blast, thanks to the enemy upgrading their robots' armor.
Luke, I Am Your Father: Erika's mother.
Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Erika. Or better said, she's The Evil Prince's Beautiful Little Sister.
Made of Explodium: Some Robeasts exploded even if Kazuya only had punched through them or sliced in two pieces with a karate chop or sweeping kick. It was justified in the episode 9, though, when he fought a mecha that had a nuke inside.
Manly Tears: And Kazuya is not ashamed of shedding them!
The Medic: Erika's job.
McNinja: Brahmin assassins.
Motion Capture Mecha: One of the first in animation history. There was at least one before; the South Korean cartoon Robot Taekwon V (so named because its pilot was a Tae Kwon Do champ who used martial arts to fight the Monster of the Week) which, apart from this gimmick started out as a cheap knockoff of Mazinger Z.
My God, What Have I Done? ==> Driven to Suicide: Richter had the realization of the former in the last episode and drove him to the latter, but not before saving the lives of everybody in the Brahmins' space station first.
My Nayme Is: the Italian dub, as opposed to most others, avoids Dub Name Change, but a lot of names is pronounced differently, if not weirdly: for example, Richter becomes "Richiter", Georiya is pronounced either "Gero" or "Guerroyer" and Balbas is "Valbas".
The Neidermeyer: Miwa Sakimori is this, and a General Ripper. He mostly hides behind his soldiers, or Daimos itself from danger. And when opportunity presents, he'll show his extreme racist tendencies by shooting actually harmless Brahmins. And all that's in his mind is... well, you guessed it, promotions. And even amongst humans themselves, Miwa categorizes them to 'useful people' (those who can help his war effort), or 'useless people' (people that can count as acceptable sacrifices in war not worth moutning... like innocent people)
Nigh Invulnerable: Later in the series, monsters of the week are often equipped with Unobtainium armor which makes attacks bounce off as if from a rubber band. It takes a combination of severe heat and cold to render them brittle.
Not So Different: There are bad humans and good humans, as well as bad Brahmins and good Brahmins.
Obviously Evil: One look at Georiya (Grovil in the Filipino dub) and you just knew he had something to do with the death of the previous Brahmin emperor and Kazuya's father.
Once per Episode: Every episode, to transform and activate Daimos, Kazuya yelled "Daimos, Battle Turn!", as -pretty uselessly- performing a kata with his arms.
Pet the Dog: In the earlier episode, even Miwa proved to be able to do this in his own dickish way. When Kyoshiro failed to save Erika from falling from a cliff (she survives because of being a Brahmin), he proceeded to take away all of the accusations he had about Kazuya being a possible Brahmin spy, personally got him out of the containment and genuinely expressed his condolences that Erika was KIA. While he did say insensitive things afterwards, he wasn't acting like a dick like usual. Take note that this was the only time Miwa acted decent. Afterwards, it's a series of Jumping Off the Slippery Slope for him.
Personal Space Invader: In episode 9, a Battle Robot loaded with nukes latches in Daimos to blow it up. Kazuya could not get rid of it, and it took an enemy committing Heroic Sacrifice to save his life.
Please Spare Her My Liege!: Margaret did this to save Erika from Richter's wrath when he found out she was in love with Kazuya.
The Power of Love: Other than Daimos, THIS is Kazuya's forte. He even develops a combo attack with Erika based on love in the Victory Five manga!
Princess Protagonist: Erika is the princess of her people.
Proud Warrior Race Guy: Halleck Gurney.
Ramming Always Works: Ramming its fist -or itself- through the enemy is one of the actual attacks from Daimos, and often Kazuya uses it like a Finishing Move.
Rapunzel Hair: You've got to wonder how Richter could fly around without getting his hair stuck into something mid-flight. Even the girls' hair lengths are more manageable in comparison.
Recycled In Space: To a certain extent, it's basically Romeo and Juliet IN SPACE!
Redemption Equals Death: For several bad guys.
Revenge Before Reason: Richter. Or maybe we should say revenge INSTEAD OF reason. He was so full of fury and hatred all he could think of was taking revenge, refusing to heed the advice of whoever tried talking him into making peace with the Earthians.
Robeast: Mecha Soldiers.
Robot Buddy: There's one in the Daimobic. Sometimes the crew finds it helpful and endearing. Other times they want to disassembly it.
Robot Romance Trilogy: The final entry.
Samurai: Kazuya's buddy Kyoshiro... an afro Samurai.
Say My Name ("ERIKAAAAA!!!", also followed by "KAZUYAAAAA!!!!")
Shorttank: Nana, nicnkamed "Candy Candy with a gun" by fans.
Shoryuken:
- "Hissatsu! Reppu! Seikenzukiii!"
- Daimos pulled this off nearly a full decade before the first Street Fighter game came out.
Spanner in the Works: Olban's plan for world domination started to unravel when it was overheard by Himley, Balbas' little brother, who was about to report about the cruelty of Georiya towards Anti-Olban peace movements, which was ordered by Olban in the first place.
Spell My Name with an "S": Brahmin... or Balm?

Telescoping Robot: The ornament on his chest were in reality two daggers, and they covered a hatch opened up to reveal its Chest Blaster. Its feet were armed with retractable spikes...
To the Batpole!: Kazuya's boarding/transformation sequence clocks in at over two minutes long.
Training from Hell: Kazuya, in terms of how he got back to shape from rehabilitation.

Transforming Mecha:
- One of the first Anime examples. Daimos had two forms: spaceship and battle robot.
- The transformation also takes FOREVER, with multiple cockpit switches.
The Three Faces of Eve:
- Erika is the calm, intelligent, reflective, prudent and reluctant to do anything rash wife.
- Raiza is the hot and sensual seductress, using her body charms to get what she wants.
- Nana is the young, temperamental, rash child.
Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Subverted. Sometimes Kyoshiro throws his katana like if it was a spear, but sometimes he misses.
Tricked-Out Shoes: Daimos had rockets on its feet AND retractable spikes to simultaneously kick and stab Robeasts with.
Underwater Base: Brahmins Home Base on Earth was located on the bottom of the ocean.
Unlucky Childhood Friend: Nana.
Unstoppable Rage: Miwa managed to invoke Kazuya's rage and PAID for it.
Variable-Length Chain
Villainous Breakdown: Richter did not take Erika being in love with Kazuya well.
Winged Humanoid: The whole Brahmin race.
Worthy Opponent: Richter, full stop. No finer man ever wore a skirt than Richter. Halleck also considered Kazuya being his.
Wouldn't Hurt a Child:
- Do not even think of hurting a child in front of Kazuya Ryuuzaki lest you have your face rearranged.
- In episode 2, a child got killed during the enemy air raid. Kazuya snapped, instantly got in his Humongous Mecha and utterly tore apart the Robeast enemy.
You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Several Brahmin have blusih or greenish hair.