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Do you remember that ol' lullaby?

Genesis Climber MOSPEADA is an anime Science Fiction series created by Shinji Aramaki and Hideki Kakinuma (and featuring a score by a pre-Ghibli Joe Hisaishi) . The 25-episode television series ran from late 1983 to early 1984 in Japan. MOSPEADA stands for Military Operation Soldier Protection Emergency Aviation Dive Armor, one of the transformable motorcycle-armors the series features. The other primary mecha featured in the show is the three-form transformable fighter called the Armo-Fighter AFC-01 Legioss, which is somewhat similar in design to the VF-1 Valkyrie variable fighter from Super Dimension Fortress Macross and is the element that really inspired the show's inclusion into Robotech.

In the 21st century, pollution becomes such a problem that scientists develop the use of hydrogen fuel called "HBT" as an alternative to fossil fuels. Due to overpopulation on Earth, humans have colonized Mars and the moons of Jupiter. In 2050, a mysterious alien race called the Inbit ("Invid" for Robotech watchers) invade the Earth; unable to fight back, humans are driven into a few small pockets of refugees, some of which manage to escape the now-desolate Earth to seek shelter on the moon. 30 years later, the Mars Base sends troops to fight the Inbit, only to fail miserably. The Inbit seem uninterested in other planets and do not show any hostility unless attacked. However, they can sense the use of HBT, forcing humans to limit the use of fuel near the Inbit. Now the humans of the Mars Base fight to reclaim their home planet and unravel the secret behind the Inbit invasion before it is too late for both races.

36 years after the original show ended, a new project named "Genesis Climber Mospeada Genesis Breaker" was announced in August 2020, with Shinji Aramaki and Hideki Kakinuma returning as the Mechanical Designers. Two years late, the storyline was serialized on Hobby Japan magazine in August 25th, 2022.


This anime provides examples of:

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     Genesis Climber Mospeada 
  • Ace Pilot: Houquet et Rose ("Rook Bartley"), Stig Bernard ("Scott Bernard"), Ray ("Rand"), and Yellow Belmont ("Lancer") are quite skilled as pilots, managing to knock out entire patrols during their voyage towards Refless Point.
  • Adjective Noun Fred: The title in Japanese being Kikō Sōseiki Mospeada, or Armored Genesis Mospeada in direct translation.
  • Adventure Towns: Quite a few. Some in what appears to have once been South America. They also make their way across America, visiting what used to be Denver and Manhattan.
  • Aerith and Bob: The main characters have odd-ball naming with real-world names like Stig Bernard, Jim Lunk, Aisha, and Rand alongside names like Yellow Belmont and Mint, and one that is basically a French translation of a term (Houqet Et Rose).
  • After the End: At least the Earth, which straddles between 20 Minutes into the Future and Scavenger World, Mars and other habitable planets in the Solar System have been colonized to the point where large manufacturing facilities and functioning hi-tech cities to sustain two( later three) liberation forces have been built.
  • Alien Blood: The human-shaped Inbits have green blood which is what reveals they are aliens in human guise in the first place.
  • Alien Invasion: The entire premise involves Earth being invaded by Inbits thirty years before the present timeline with the colonies on other planets of the solar system mounting a liberation campaign.
  • All Bikers are Hells Angels: Motorcycle gangs are found terrorizing towns across Invid-Earth. Hoquet used to be a member of Blue Angels, who were actually a benign variant until Red Snakes forced them to disband out of fear.
  • All There in the Manual: The original series pitch is included in the ADVision DVD set. It explains that one result of the presence of the Inbit on Earth was some humans starting to manifest psychic powers; one of those people was Rand. This explains his uncanny ability to know what the Inbit are thinking, and the bizaree hallucination he has where he realizes why the Inbit are on Earth (he was directly in contact with the Refless).
  • Anti-Villain: Inbits had this vibe to the point of being Designated Villain even before The Reveal as Invading Refugees. They spared the evacuees along with the colonies on Mars and other planets during their initial invasion. Furthermore, as Stig discovered, many settlements were given a hands-off approach so long as they regulated their HBT use and refuse to rise up against them.
  • The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: Cruelly subverted as the people of the city by the lake pretend to be hospitable but in fact lure soldiers (including a child) to their doom in order to save themselves.
  • Apocalypse How: After Inbit invasion, Earth's status has been sliding between Class 2 Planetary Societal Collapse and Class 1 Societal Disruption due to Inbit-collaborating settlements living in relative comfort with modern technology while the more rural areas—which tend hold anti-Inbit sentiments and hide surviving Mars Base soldiers—live on scraps. By contrast, Mars and other solar system colonies already had constructed well-maintained habitation and infrastructure to support three liberation attempts on Earth.
  • Artistic License – Geography: Especially after Episode 16, where Stick's group ended up in Colorado mountains despite being setting sail from an area approximate to the North American Eastern Sea Board.
  • Attack Drone: Large chunk of Dark Legioss are unmanned, which the few segments were detached to attack Refless Point directly without knowledge of Stig's group and Refless having a conversation towards peace. Luckily, Yellow and Solzie managed to stop them to buy time for Refless and her willing minions to depart from the planet.
  • Attractive Bent-Gender: Yellow, who crossdresses.
  • Badass Biker:
    • Almost every main characters—particularly Stig, Yellow, Houquet, and Ray—and Mars Base soldiers ride motorcycles (many of which can transform into Powered Armor) as a means of transportation.
    • Rainy Boy, the main character of episode 21.
  • Battle Couple: Ray and Houquet, bantering at each other Like an Old Married Couple while in combat.
  • Beach Episode: Episode 16 has the team land on an abandoned resort island due to an ambush that led to Hoquet's wounds and her fighter's damages. It turned out to be a blessing by the end when they took a derelict warship to North America.
  • Big Applesauce: Episode 22, New York Bebop. Despite its worn-out nature, the city managed to maintain a semblance of civilization complete with musical performances by a flash-dance troupe.
  • Big, Bulky Bomb: As the final liberation fleet starts to take heavy casualties, they try to deploy a massive bomb that would devastate Refless Point, along with large portions of the planet. Thankfully, Refless had already been convinced of their own errors and erased the bomb as she teleported to another planet along with her followers.
  • Bratty Half-Pint: Mint LaBelle ("Annie"), particularly annoying for her constant talk of marriage despite her very young age and even younger appearance (she's canonically thirteen, but looks closer to seven), and obsesses about any male character fairly quick to boot.
  • Broken Pedestal: Bernard's mentor and hero, Major Johnathan ("Colonel Johnathan Wolff"), who has sold out to the Inbit.
  • Les Collaborateurs: Unlike on Mars, many humans left on Earth work with the Inbit in order not to be wiped out.
  • Colonized Solar System: The Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are mentioned as being inhabited by the time the series opens. Mars is developed enough to launch two Earth Recapture Expeditions, while the Moon and Jupiter cooperate with them on a third at the end of the series.
  • Combining Mecha: The Legioss and Tread fighters can merge into a bigger aircraft, and each can independently become a robot.
  • Convenient Decoy Cat: Subverted during the New York City episode since it was a boy pretending to be a cat.
  • Cool Bike: Probably the most distinguishing trait of the series (they pretty much name it, after all), turn into wearable Powered Armor, sometimes even in mid-air.
  • Cool Plane: The Legioss and Tread fighters.
  • Cowardly Lion: Jim Austin. (“Lunk”), his characterization was the result of his regret for leaving a wounded friend behind after the Inbit overwhelmed his former squad.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Ray, while not stupid, is not much of a soldier or pilot but has his badass moments.
  • Cyber Cyclops: All of the Inbit mecha designs feature a "mono-eye" optic camera/sensor.
  • Cyborg: Rainy Boy was one himself after being captured by Inbits.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Everyone but Ray is shown to have this to varying degrees.
  • Debut Queue: Starts with Everybody's Dead, Dave, before the surviving protagonist meets the real cast.
  • Defeat as Backstory: Stig Bernard's squadron, including his fiancee Marlene, were wiped out during the disastrous second liberation of Earth. Due to being alone without contact with meager survivors, Stig was forced to march to Refless Point with Ray, Mint, Jim, Houquet, and Yellow joining him along the way.
  • Distant Finale: The Love Live Alive OVA.
  • Dramatic Space Drifting: An image from a montage of clips on the ill-fated First Earth Recapture Mission has a corpse floating among the debris orbiting Earth.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady: Yellow rather convincingly.
  • Easy Logistics: An inconsistent Zig-Zagged Trope. On one hand, many episodes had Stig's group finding supplies—especially fuel and spare parts—along the journey; but on the other, they seem to have no shortages of rockets in spite of innumerable salvos of them being used against Inbits.
  • Everybody's Dead, Dave: Episode 1 ends with Stig Bernard the only survivor of his unit in an ill-fated assault, one of the deaths being his fiancée Marlene. Though there are a few pockets of survivors from both the first and second invasion who made it onto the planet.
  • Fallen Hero: Colonel Wolfe, though he gives his life destroying an Inbit patrol when he suffered a Heel Realization from seeing Stig's plight, along with Ray/Rand's "The Reason You Suck" Speech before hand.
  • The Federation: An Earth Federation gets mentioned somewhere along the way.
  • Fighter-Launching Sequence: At least in the first episode.
  • Fighting for a Homeland: Mars Base was settled by refugees from Earth thirty years before the "present" time of the series; as a result, the main goal of their two expeditions to Earth is to drive off the Inbits, who were also seeking a new homeland after the destruction of their old world..
  • Frankenslation: Mospeada was one of three separate (and entirely unrelated) series cobbled together to make Robotech.
  • Gentle Giant: Jim Austin is a mild-mannered person for his size. Unlike Stig and Yellow, he only joined the military to provide income for his large family. In fact, he was the only one who tolerates Mint despite her bratty nature.
  • Genius Bruiser: Jim Austin.
  • Giant Enemy Crab: The basic reddish Inbit Mook mecha, called "Eager", resemble this trope the most, with a wide, flat body and forelimbs looking like pincer claws. To a lesser extent, the Grab/Grob and its upgraded form, the Garmo/Gamo, while not quite crab-shaped, still do vaguely resemble crabs, but with Chicken Walker legs and twin cannons over their shoulders.
  • Going Native: Solzie/Sera is more sympathetic towards humans after she meets Yellow Belmont. This can be seen with her disdain for Corg's attempt at punitive measures towards them in New York, when she was given authority over the city. This becomes a turning point for her Heel–Face Turn.
  • Green Aesop: Refless viewed humanity as a threat due to both their "Shadow" (malignant nature) and the polluted nature of Earth before her arrival allowed her to clean the planet. However, Aisha and Stig's group countered her argument with the fact that 1. Aisha's positive experience with her group showed their "Light" (benign nature) along with "Shadow" 2. the entire war with humanity was the result of Cycle of Revenge that the Inbit unintentionally caused with their violent arrival. As a result, Refless was convinced to leave Earth, as she had a feeling that humanity is capable of goodness despite their tendency towards violence.
  • Green-Skinned Space Babe: Solzie(Sera), finishing Robotech's trifecta.
  • High-Heel–Face Turn: Both Aisha (“Marlene”) and Solzie, out of their feelings for Stig and Yellow respectively.
  • Heroic BSoD: Stig has one that lasted for almost an entire episode after witnessing the destruction of the ship crewed by his fiancee along with almost everyone in his unit.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: A squad of old soldiers ram their ship into an Inbit relay tower to destroy it.
  • Hive Queen: The Inbit Refless.
  • Hot Wings: When the Inbit leave Earth, they take the form of a huge Phoenix.
  • Idol Singer: Yellow Belmont.
  • Innocent Fanservice Girl: Aisha ("Ariel", a.k.a. "Marlene"). During the fortress siege episode, Yellow rather poetically explains it as her being too innocent of the ways of the world to have a concept of modesty.
  • Japanese Ranguage: Of the type commonly seen in 80's anime, such as soft drink trucks labeled "Right Cora"...
  • Jerkass Has a Point: The town's selling out stranded soldiers to the Inbits may seem cowardly; however, their reason for doing so seems legitimate since many towns were wiped out by Inbits even for being in proximity to the surviving soldiers.
  • Landmark of Lore: The Statue Of Liberty, when they pass through the Big Apple.
  • Mangst: Stig is driven by the death of his fiance, Marlene.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: A Legios fighter has roughly sixty missiles mounted in launchers across its shoulders, arms, and legs, And when transformed can launch them all at once. Indeed, it's Stig's preferred method to down enemy mooks.
  • Melting-Pot Nomenclature: This tends to occur thanks to the series' setting in the Americas and Mars Base' multi-ethnic population, with Shinobu Takeuchi standing out as the only Japanese-named character of the series.
  • "Mission: Impossible" Cable Drop: Used in Episode 5 to steal HBT cells from a Les Collaborateurs storage facility.
  • Mundane Object Amazement:
    • Stig in first episode is awed (and startled) by rain and the accompanying lightning strike due to being one of many descendants who only knew Earth from their refugee parents.
    • Episode 19 has Ray, Hoquet, Mint, and Aisha enjoying groceries (especially sweets and luncheon meat) in an Underground City that was abandoned due to an Inbit attack on the area.
  • Mysterious Waif: Aisha
  • The Neidermeyer: Shinobu/Sue Graham's focus on her recon mission (More so with her Robotech counterpart as an officer on scouting duties instead of her original's Intrepid Reporter), which already cost her entire team except for herself, tend to put her at odds with Stig's group, to the point of letting Ray use the Synchro Cannon just to see the weapon's capability without regards to his safety. She later has a Heel Realization after she is fatally wounded by an explosion from one of Inbit fighters.
  • New Old West: Mospeada's After the End (deserts, sparsely populated towns with large degrees of distance, and outlaws) and Science Fiction (mecha, aliens, and fighters) setting provided some sort of Wild West style environment with motorbikes taking the role of horses. Even Ray/Rand point out the similarity with the confrontation with the biker gang at their hideout to a western movie.
  • Non-Indicative First Episode: It presents an entire series' worth of cast members during a space battle, only to kill all but one of them in the destruction of their battleship. The survivor, Stig Bernard, is left to pick his way through a Scavenger World, meeting the real cast one by one.
  • Obliviously Evil: It turned out that Inbits are more interested in studying and perfecting their own biology rather than any ill will towards humankind. As they lack any emotional reaction of humans, they unintentionally caused a war with humans with their aggressive responses towards them. Once many of them assimilated with Earth's ecology, Aisha and eventually Solzie began to side with humans, and convinced Refless to leave Earth as their actions are harming Earth. Once Refless was shown the error of her ways, she and any Inbits who wished to leave the Earth ascended to another planet, but not before erasing their bombardment missiles and cleaning up the Earth.
  • Point Defenseless: The majority of ships sent from Mars Base and Jupiter Base lack anti-fighter defenses, save for Legioss escorts, which led to the former's Curb-Stomp Battle in the first episode and the latter's near defeat from attrition by Inbit's Zerg Rush tactics.
  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Stig's entire group is this.
  • Ramming Always Works: A group of old soldiers crash their ramshackle ship into the tower once they were overwhelmed by the Inbit fighters. Since the ship remained intact but its escape pods and detaching systems were already worn out, the head of the group blew up the ship with themselves instead.
  • Real Robot: Easy Logistics is avoided in Mospeada, with the main group having to scavenge HBT fuel and stop for maintenance, along with shutting down vehicles powered by them to avoid Inbits' detection.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Johnathan dies in battle after he had his Heel–Face Turn, saving the main characters.
  • Red Shirt Army: The force sent to take back Earth in the first episode gets devastated, leaving Bernard as one of the few survivors. This also applies to previous expedition forces that included both Jim Austin and Yellow Belmont.
  • La Résistance: Our band of heroes are this, though their motive was mostly focused on reaching Refless Point while avoiding Inbit patrols.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: The whole point of the series. Any Inbit that saw the error of their treatment of humans underwent a Heel–Face Turn eventually, while those that did not became progressively more genocidal in attempting to wipe out the human resistance.
  • Roboteching: The funny thing about it is that it was one of the three anime series used to create the Trope Namer.
  • Sacrificial Lamb: Many episodes have one-shot characters who would often perish.
  • They Look Like Us Now: The Inbit take humans forms as the ideal life form to rule the planet.
  • Tragic Keepsake: Stig Bernard has a holo locket, given to him by his girlfriend (who died during the initial attack in Episode One). He keeps it throughout the series, finally throwing it out of his Legioss in the last seconds of the series.
  • Transforming Mecha:
    • From Cool Bike to Powered Armor = cool squared. Kenichi Sonoda cut his teeth animating Mospeada, resulting in him re-using the concept for Bubblegum Crisis.
    • As mentioned before, the Legioss and Tread can both transform as well. The Legioss itself can transform while still attached to the Tread.
  • True Companions: What the group becomes. At one point, Hoquet and Ray were allowed to leave the group but decided to stay together due to Mint's disappointment over their group's presumed break up.
  • Ungrateful Townsfolk: Many towns in Mospeada—especially the one from "The City By The Lake" episode—tend to be indifferent or hostile towards the Resistance and surviving Mars Base soldiers. Though this has to do with their resentment towards Mars Base for seemingly abandoning them and the Inbit's tendency to leave them alone so long as there aren't armed rebellion or they don't utilize HBT fuel heavily.
  • Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Ray had a crush on Yellow before he learned "she" was actually a he. The reveal left him devastated. Yellow does this again to a jungle prince, and, in the last episode, the whole world.
  • Unwanted Rescue: Houquet is not pleased when Ray and Stig interfere in her bar fight.
  • Unwilling Roboticization: Rainy Boy, a murderer who targets straggling soldiers from the First and Second Earth Liberation Fleet, was augmented by Inbits forcefully and promised to be changed back to normal once he kill 100 of them.
  • Vichy Earth: Inbits generally leave the local communities to their own business as long as they don't rise against them and restrict their use of HBT fuel. However, the lack of any centralized governance by the Inbits meant that banditry is rife among many areas without any form of local securities.
  • Villain World: Inbit's conquest of Earth for three decades has caused humanity to become fragmented. While the towns and cities that were neutral towards the Inbit maintain some modernity, rural settlements and small cities are often at the mercy of motorcycle-riding bandits who also target stragglers from Earth Liberation campaigns.
  • Waterfall Shower: Yellow Belmont does this twice.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: The general in charge of Third Liberation Fleet is forced to launch missiles loaded with warheads to destroy a large chunk of Earth if not the entire planet as they begin to take casualties. As they were not informed that the Inbit were misguided, this came close to Nice Job Breaking It, Hero were it not for Refless' Ascended To Higher Plane vaporizing the payloads.
  • What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Solzie's thoughts concerning Yellow.
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: Yellow's actual job is as a singer perceived as female, despite being male, and occasionally changes to his female voice to mess with team members. Justified since the entire singer shtick started out as an emergency disguise for him. His previous occupation was more militarily-inclined, and that automatically got him persecuted when the Inbit invaded.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The antagonist of the 21st episode, Rainy Boy, was a human who was experimented on and forcefully converted into a Cyborg, which brought him pain to the point of accepting Inbits' deal to kill 100 soldiers in exchange for the return of his organic body parts..

     Genesis Breakers Mospeada 2083 
  • Amazon Brigade: All of the crews—save for the captain—from submarine S-881 are entirely made up of female crews.
  • Blue Blood: Mars Base has "Three Families and Four Conglomerates" with the Ismeia family being the leading family and Gate being one such member. They have influence over the Mars Base's government due to their hold over majority of Mars' mineral resources.
  • Body Back Up Drive: Gate is essentially a series of cyborg bodies, which were revived after each deaths.
  • Cyborg:
    • Gate's body is heavily modified with cybernetic implants, one of them being her electronic eyes and brain that recorded speech from her family's patriarch uncle, due to serious injuries she received as a child.
    • Eagle, who received a cybernetic heart after a wound received in his confrontation with a rebel faction on Mars.
    • Simmons is a major example as he was essentially an android body with a human mind after his death in First Earth Recapture Mission.
  • Dangerous Deserter: Some survivors of First Earth Recapture Mission—a disastrous campaign that occured 3 years before the series' present time—turned to banditry, which affected the village that Gate visited, due to being stranded without support and morale to continue their mission.
  • The Engineer: Every Jetson served as the team's engineer, which was also reflected in her past as an engineer in a medical device factory.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Entire crew of Thunderchild ended up managing to drop the titular Breakers team on Earth despite being on the brink of destruction.
  • Hopeless War: Since Mars Base had already lost considerable amounts of resources to two Earth liberation campaigns, the high command intended to use Anubis Missle to destroy Refless Point along with a large chunk of Earth as the back-up plan in case of Third attempt's failure. As many of them were members of Mars independence movement, they have little regard for their homeworld and even plan to recolonize the devastated planet as a payback.
  • Interservice Rivalry: The titular "Breakers" unit was not well-liked by the regular Mars military due to their connection to the Mars Intelligence Bureau—who were notorious for their ruthless suppression of dissent since the founding of the Mars-led government—along with many of them having their own secret agenda related to prominent families of Mars.
  • Older Than They Look:
    • Every Jetson was sentenced to Cryo-Prison for 300 years but released after 20 years, which resulted in her appearance as 26 years old despite being in her 40s in actual years. The same may also apply to Gate as her cybernetics and possibly synthetic skin would make her younger.
    • Necessary is a psychic who remained in a child-like body due to experiments for psychic programs. Her biography also omits her age and implied that she may have been the oldest of the main characters since these programs have been running for at least a century before the series' present time.
  • Sergeant Rock: Eagle's rank as a Sergeant was complimented by his two decades worth of military experience and current service as a heavy weapons specialist for the Breaker team.
  • Shout-Out: The destroyer, Thunderchild, is a nod to the warship from The War of the Worlds (1898).
  • Trading Bars for Stripes: Every was a former terrorist who was pardoned in exchange for service in Intelligence Bureau.
  • The War of Earthly Aggression: In this case, the authoritarian nature of Mars Base's government caused discontent on Jupiter and possibly other colonies. This resentment was shown in the main series through Colonel Johnathan's service records in the flashback of his ceremony, but Genesis Breaker expanded upon that part on Every's involvement with Jupiter rebel group known as "Woodpecker". This was also an issue in a story set moments before Inbit Invasion since the Earth-based government was dealing with Mars Independence movement who would later become the foundation for Mars Base's military with many of the officers having little regard to damages done to Earth from utilizing large warheads if their third and final attempt fail.
  • We Can Rebuild Him: Simmons and thousands of combat androids were created from the mind of those who were either deceased or mortally wounded in First Earth Recapture Mission.
  • You Are in Command Now: Chapter 3 involved a Corporal being the higher ranking member of the 114th Brigade, which the unit already lost half of its units during the descent and later its remaining senior officers (a political advisor and a medical officer) during the fighting. Fortunately, Eagle was already present with the 114th Brigade for assistance in command.
  • You Killed My Father: Gate's older brother was killed in the First Earth Liberation Campaign, which became one of many reasons for her participation in the Breaker team, but Every still doubts his status.

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