Anime / Giant Robo

aka: Giant Robo The Day The Earth Stood Still

In a future yet to be, the third energy revolution is ushered in by the invention of the Shizuma Drive, and with it, mankind celebrates a new era of prosperity.

But lurking in the shadows cast by the brilliance of our new found hope, two great powers clash!

Big Fire; a secret organization bent on total world domination!

"Hail, Big Fire! Allegiance or death!"

But despair not! To defend us from the threat they pose, the International Police Organization's mighty Experts of Justice have been formed, comprised of members from around the globe! Fighting by their side is the greatest robot on the planet, Giant Robo, commanded solely by one young man: Daisaku Kusama!

"Crush them! Go, Giant Robo!"

Giant Robo The Animation: The Day The Earth Stood Still is an OVA reimagining of Giant Robo and its Tokusatsu adaptation directed by Yasuhiro Imagawa, animated by Phoenix Entertainment, and released by Discotek Media. Originally planned to be finished in 3 years but taking twice as long, the series was released between 1992 and 1998 as seven episodes, each between 40 and 60 minutes long.

An (unholy) amalgamation of Wuxia, Superheroes, Richard Wagner, Mecha Anime and pure insanity, Giant Robo: The Day The Earth Stood Still is notable for being an early and rather impressive example of the Massive Multiplayer Crossover, formed when Imagawa (Mobile Fighter G Gundam) was told that he couldn't use any of the supporting characters from the manga or TV versions of the Giant Robo story. Struck by inspiration, he instead decided to instead take characters from the rest of original creator Mitsuteru Yokoyama's work, including Babel II, Sally the Witch, Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1971), Kamen no Ninja Akakage and many others. To add to the effect he decided to draw them all in Yokoyama's classic 1960s style, along with a retro-futuristic world populated by Ninja, ancient Chinese warriors, Sharp Suited Businessmen and Badass Longcoats walking side by side.

Oh and don't pay any attention to the synopsis above, or let the art style and Kid Hero fool you into thinking this is a kids' series in the vein of G.I. Joe or M.A.S.K.. Giant Robo's plot starts off slow and deceptively cliché-ridden, with a blatant Mad Scientist and McGuffin driving the first half of the plot, and then we get the Wham Episode, rewriting the entire premise, beating the snot out of the good guys and resulting in several major characters getting Killed Off for Real. It's not the first, or even the most dramatic.

Imagawa also scripted a new Giant Robo manga, "The Day The Earth Burned" that started publication in 2006. While this version is also an Alternate Continuity, it does act as a Spiritual Successor to the OVAs, with the same tone and many of the same characters. The original manga has also recently become available on most major manga websites. Another anime series based on the Giant Robo franchise, GR: Giant Robo, was released in 2007, though doesn't build upon the continuity of the OVA or any other prior entries.

See also: Shin Mazinger, another Super Robot series by Yasuhiro Imagawa. Like Giant Robo, it is a revival of a classic series and involves heavy crossover from the original artist's entire body of work. Alternatively, the 2004 Tetsujin 28 anime, also directed by Imagawa based on another famous Yokoyama story with similar design aesthetics and a few bits of Retroactive Recognition (The depiction of Kenji Murasame and Robo's "Gao" noise reused for Tetsujin's roar, most notably).

---

A series that LOVES its tropes, twisting them and playing them straight with the same vigor, the Giant Robo OVA features examples of:

A-M

• Action Bomb: Silent Chuujo, apparently. As the Sphere floats towards the last Shizuma Drive bastion, there's Chuujo on a bluff. He loosens his tie and shirt, takes a few practice jabs, then flies up to punch the Sphere. That dialogue in episode 2 makes far more sense when you know this.
• Action Girl: Ginrei and Youshi are both government operatives.
• Adapted Out: GR-4, the land based Giant Robo from the 1992 manga, is completely absent from the OVA and from any subsequent media within the OVA universe.
• Age Lift: Daisaku is 12 years old in the OVA like his tokusatsu counterpart instead of being around teenage years in the original manga
• All There in the Manual: Since most of the Massive Multiplayer Crossover characters lack in-universe backstories fans have ended up taking inspiration from the stories they originated from.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The last act of the first OVA episode.
• Anachronic Order: This was the original intent of the OVA, as The Day the Earth Stood Still was the second to last arc of a seven part story. The next arc was going to show how Daisaku joined the Experts of Justice.
• Anti-Villain: Hanzui the Evil Messiah, leader of the Magnificent Ten. Never actually does anything evil, proves extremely honorable and is a great deal nicer than most of the good guys.
• Anyone Can Die: Murasame repeatedly, a few others as well. Alberto the Shockwave... BWA HA HA HA HA HA - best twist ever.
• Apocalypse Wow: The scene where France is being destroyed.
• Arc Words: "Beautiful Night!", "Can happiness be achieved without sacrifice?"
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Most notably Alberto and the Commander.
• Badass Bystander: The IPO's various Red Shirts are all trained in gun use and are as capable of high-flying acrobatic leaps as the Experts of Justice themselves.
• Badass Fingersnap: The Fabulous Fitzgerald, who can cut anything in half by snapping his fingers at it.
• Badass Longcoat: Murasame. The twist? It's BRIGHT PINK!
• Badass Normal: Daisaku. Sure, he owns "the world's strongest robot," but he's still the only normal human in the cast. Everyone else can fly, transform, use super strength and other bizarre powers.
• Battle Couple: Youshi and Taisou are married pair of government agents.
• Big Guy: Tetsugyu and Youshi both fit this role. In a slight subversion Youshi is a woman, and certainly not a Cute Bruiser either.
• Big Damn Heroes: Giant Robo's introduction, and several other examples.
• Bilingual Bonus: Tetsugyu's name roughly translates to "Iron Ox", one of the nicknames of Li Kui in Yokoyama's manga adaptation of Water Margin.
• Bittersweet Ending
• Body Horror: Ginrei uses up her life power and her body disintegrates.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Tetsugyu, Taisou, Youshi.
• Broken Pedestal: Zigzags with Vogler to one of his assistants. It goes back-and-forth at least 5 times, finally resulting in subversion. Vogler really meant for the best for the world.
• The Brute: In the BF there's Jujoji who has some devastating magic powers. The Fabulous Fitzgerald loves to carve up people with his snapping fingers.
• The Call Has Bad Reception: Dr. Vogler had good intentions. Originally, his son had good intentions. The only problem was that by the time Dr. Vogler tells his son what needed to be done, he didn't have a very good vocabulary...
• The Cameo: Several Mecha from Mitsuteru Yokoyama's works make several apperances in the opening sequence such as GR-3, Black Ox, Monster and Gaia.
• Canon Immigrant: When Tetsujin #28 was remade in 2004, the Murasame Kenji that appears there isn't the original characterization - it's this one. He even calls himself "the immortal Murasame Kenji" just before going down in a hail of bullets and encouraging Shotaro... then getting up and wiping off the ketchup. Additionally, Tetsujin uses Robo's growl rather than its original sound.
• Cast of Expies: Pretty much every named character is either lifted from or based on characters from other works in Yokoyama's opus; there are derivatives from Babel II and its sequel works Sono na wa 101 and Ōkami no Seiza, Tetsujin 28-gō, God Mars, Sally the Witch, Kamen no Ninja Akakage, Iga No Kagemaru, and from Yokoyama's Suikoden and Sangokushi.
• Character Development: Numerous but Tetsugyu has a great moment in the fifth OVA.
• The Chessmaster: Big Fire's head strategist Koumei repeatedly insists the events of the plot are all according to plan. At no point are his strategy or tactics explained, and Koumei repeatedly gives several indications of treachery, but he insists nonetheless.
• Clothing Damage: Ginrei gets blasted in episode four and this is the result.
• Combat Stilettos: Ginrei wears these.
• Cool Big Sis: Youshi, Ginrei acts like one towards Daisaku.
• Cool Old Guy: One of Big Fire's Magnificent Ten is actually called Old Man Kawarazaki. His fellow Magnificent Ten colleague Shockwave Alberto also has a lot of the traits, exchanging taunts with the early twenties Big Bad over their respective ages.
• Cult Soundtrack: The pompous Wagnerian soundtrack by Masamichi Amano is consistently mentioned in reviews as a major appeal of the OVA.
• Dead All Along: It ultimately turns out that Dr. Vogler really did die at Bashtarle. His supposed “resurrection” was actually his son Genya disguising himself using a hologram.
• Death Is Cheap: It is very cheap for Murasame Kenji, since he just revives despite several violent deaths, and since he can apparently do so in an area he couldn't get to corporeally, it's part of his strategy. He even shoots himself in the head to drive home the point, noting that he "can't die."
• Deathly Dies Irae: As appropriate for a story about a Doomsday Device and a tale of revenge against humanity, Dies Irae appears multiple times in the score, both in instrumental and Ominous Latin Chanting forms.
• Demoted to Extra: GR-3 only shows up as a cameo in the Evolving Credits.
• Disney Death: Tetsugyu is apparently crushed to death by Genya's robot Gallop in episode five, and then, after going completely forgotten until episode seven, appears at the IPO base after Ginrei teleports it to St. Abbe wrapped in bandages.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Giant Sphere is an artificial example; it is a giant floating eyeball that, once it lifts its external layer of metal, reveals hundreds of other eyeballs.
• Empire with a Dark Secret:
  • In Giant Robo: The Day The Earth Stood Still, the Shizuma Drive, which provides clean, cheap energy, is completely recyclable and looks cool too was built upon a foundation of the deaths of billions at the Tragedy of Bashtarle. A little Locked Out of the Loop as well, seeing as Daisaku's the only character (except maybe Sunny) who doesn't know — it's just that we only find out when he does.
  • St. Abbe is the largest Shizuma Drive power plant in the world, and supposedly capable of providing half the world's energy by itself. It is also built directly atop the ruins of Bashtarle, which was destroyed by experiments with the prototype Shizuma Drive. The Big Bad targets it for destruction with his Doomsday Device during the finale.
• Enemy Mine: Shockwave Alberto in the Finale, as he considers the IPO a Worthy Opponent and the Big Bad an annoying, grandstanding brat trying to steal Big Fire's thunder.
• Enigmatic Minion: Ko-Enshaku is an especially unsettling one.
• Evil Counterpart: It seems that was going to be the case between Daisuke and Big Fire. One in charge of a giant robot, the other having three amazing guardians. Both very young. Though we don't know just how evil Big Fire really was.
• Evolving Credits: "Earth, the terrifying world of our future! This is the Shizuma Drive, now broken and useless, the great energy revolution undone in just ten days!"
• The Dragon: Ko-Enshaku serves as an all purpose Dragon for Genya and Cho-Katsu Komei, neither of whom like to get their hands dirty if they can help it. Ivan to Alberto.
• Eviler than Thou: Genya screws over apparent Big Bad Shockwave Alberto early on, and towards the end Cho-Katsu Komei does it to the rest of the Magnificent Ten.
• Evil Genius: Most obviously Vogler or so it seems. Old Man Kawarazaki seems to be an inventor. Zangetsu, if epileptic tress turned out to be true.
• Expy: Most characters of the OVA (who aren't from the original manga or anime) are Expys of Yokoyama's other works, such as:
  • Taiso (Dai Zong), Tetsugyu ("Iron Ox"/Li Kui), Youshi (Yang Zhi), Kosonsho Issei (Gongsun Shen), Koushin (Huang Xin), Kaei (Hua Rong), Kaihou and Kaichin (Xie Bao and Xie Zhen), Shutsu (Zhou Tong), the Fishermen Brothers (Ruan Xiaoer, Xiaowu, Xiaoqi), Hanzui (Fan Rui), Richu (Li Zhong), Goyo (Wu Yong), Zangetsu (Han Tao) and Ko-Enshaku (Huyan Zhuo) all hail from Suikoden (Water Margin).
  • Cho-Katsu Komei (Zhuge Liang) and Jujojii (Zhang Rang) are from Yokoyama Mitsuteru Sangokushi ("Records/Romance of the Three Kingdoms").
  • Big Fire (Babel II/Koichi Yamano), Achilles (Lodem), Garuda (Ropross), and Neptune (Poseidon) were originally created for Babel II. Also, Chujo the Silent, Cervantes, Fitzgerald and even Daisaku's father, Dr. Kusama, were modeled after various characters in the series.
  • Chujo also doubling as Azuma from the Giant Robo manga, having a near identical design to that of Daisaku's middle aged mentor.
  • Likewise, Alberto the Impact, Ivan and Kawarazaki first appeared in Mars.
  • Sunny the Magician is the original name of Sally the Witch.
  • Red Mask was originally from Kamen no Ninja Akakage, and he is the main protagonist in that series.
  • Kenji Murasame is a Canon Immigrant from Tetsujin-28, and Dr. Vogler, Dr. Montalblan and Q Boss hail from there as well.
  • Ginrei is from Sononawa 101 (a sequel to Babel II) and Okami no Seiza.
  • Genya and Yuuki were both originally from Iga no Kagemaru.
• Eyes Always Shut: Professor Go. And Doki about half the time. The other half has one eye open.
• Falling into the Cockpit: Daisaku was forced to take command of Giant Robo when his father and Murasame were mortally wounded trying to escape (and Murasame wouldn't heal in time.)
• Fan Fiction: A popular review and synopsis of the nonexistent Grand Finale fooled a lot of people. In its defense it would have indeed made a kickass episode.
• Gender Flip: Youshi is a female expy of Yang Zhi from the Water Margin and Yokoyama's Manga.
• Genre Throw Back: Daisaku's flashback on his origin plays a lot more like a typical giant robot show.
  • Murasame: 'Daisaku! Use Robo's bazooka launcher!'
• Good All Along: Vogler.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Big Fire himself, the leader and namesake of the BF Group, is only briefly seen and never takes part in the action, with Alberto and Genya instead serving as the active threats.
• Happily Married: Taiso and Youshi.
• Haunted Technology: Giant Robo appears to contain Professor Kusama's spirit/will, as hinted at throughout the series and seen in the last episode.
• Hidden Depths: Many characters like Daisaku, Tesugyu, Ginrei, and others. Really the entire OVA series itself as it first looks like a typical giant robot series.
• Housewife: One can be seen during the opening narration.
• Humongous Mecha: In the main OVA, Robo and the Big Fire robots are of the more old-school, "vaguely sentient yet highly suggestible and obedient" variety, while the Ginrei Robo and neo Tetsujin-28 are more modern, directly piloted versions.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: Murasame Kenji.
• Implacable Man: The silent, armored Ko-Enshaku fills this role for the bad guys, enigmatically surviving everything thrown at him before turning up unharmed the next episode. The good guys on the other hand have Murasame, whose tendency to survive getting gaping holes blown through him becomes almost comical as the series goes on.
• Informed Ability: Tetsugyu is remarkably ineffectual in battle, despite frequent reference to his strength. We see him take down a swarm of Big Fire Mooks just fine, but that's about it. To be fair it's more like the world around him is overpowered rather than him being weak.
• In Name Only: The OVA has next to nothing to do with Giant Robo or it's title character, rather it functions as an MCU-esque crossover for all of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's characters to interact in.
• Interpol Special Agent: The "Experts of Justice" are a part of Interpol.
• Irony: The Big Bad's plot to destroy the world technically succeeded, but wound up saving the world. Von Volger had tried to eliminate the new energy source because it was producing an undetectable poison gas that would wipe out all life on the planet after a certain point in time. The Eye of Volger was temporarily shutting down all of the energy cores in order to fix the poison gas problem.
• I Want Them Alive!: Happens in the last episode to Daisaku. He manages to get away and make it to Robo though.
• Karma Houdini: Cho-Katsu Komei gets away with everything, despite arrogantly declaring himself The Chessmaster and having none of the sympathetic motives of his fellow Big Bad. As a result he generally has a very poor survival rate in fan continuations.
• Kick the Dog: Murasame skips between this and Moment of Awesome so quickly his teeth must rattle.
• Kid Hero: Daisaku Kusama is only twelve at the start of the anime.
• Killed Off for Real: Played straight and averted, especially later on when everyone was expecting Anyone Can Die. The anime still manages an impressive body count though, even with the odd couple of extremely unlikely Not Quite Dead.
• Kill the Parent, Raise the Child: The third Gaiden Ginrei special follows an ex-Big Fire soldier raising a child he orphaned as a baby out of guilt. After pulling a Heel–Face Turn, his own life is brought to an end when his former coworker remains loyal to Big Fire and holds the kid hostage.
• Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Cervantes points a gun at Daisaku, despite the fact he can generate enough heat from his hands to melt a thick steel door.
• Kubrick Stare: Part of Giant Robo's design.
• Line in the Sand — Subverted. Our hero (recovering from a Heroic BSoD) never crosses the line, but the battle crosses it from the other direction. And the "line" is a crevice deeper than he is tall.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Ginrei is revealed to be Von Vogler's daughter, and Genya's sister.
• The Kid with the Remote Control: Subverted, slightly. Robo has its own will apparently that of Dr. Kusama and usually only follows the general gist of the commands.
  • Example from the last episode, at the Monster Sphere: "Shoot, Robo!" *Robo fires everything it has, plus one of its booster rockets*
• Mad Scientist: Dr Von Vogler who eventually turns out to be a kindhearted and inspirational man who for PR reasons was blamed for the disaster one of the other scientists caused. After all, as far as anyone knew, he had died in said disaster and couldn't say any different!
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Genya is nearly always dressed in a clean white suit and his home is a sumptuous mansion.
• Mooks: Made an art form. The basic IPO mooks at one point spontaneously form a human pyramid in order to block an energy blast.
• Mook Maker: To a degree, Doki, who commands a whole army of warriors instead of general BF mooks.
• More Dakka: Giant Robo carries enough firepower to wipe a couple of cities off the map.
• Motherhood Is Superior: Averted. Fatherhood drives a lot of the characters. The end credits even dedicate the film to fathers and sons.
• Ms. Fanservice: Ginrei undoubtedly shows the most skin out of anyone.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Genya, when he realizes that he horribly misunderstood his father's last wish and even killed his sister as a result.
• Mythology Gag: Despite only loosely taking inspiration from the 1967 Giant Robo tokusatsu, there's a remarkable amount of visual and even some plot similarities:
  • Giant Robo's Papa Wolf instincts in protecting Daisaku when he is in peril, much like how Robo was in the later episodes of the toku.
  • The Eye of Volger being a robotic fusion between the Giant Robo kaiju, Ganmons and Glober.
  • Robo's design being a muscular version of the tokusatsu design, rather than being based on the manga version like nearly every other Yokoyama character present
  • Daisaku being 12 years old rather than being 18 years old like in the manga.
  • In the Evolving Credits, GR-3's rocket missile decoration are based off of Giant Robo's finger missiles in the toku version, also doubling as an homage to Gunbuster.
  • The manga only GR-4 being an homage to Calamity, the Evil Knockoff of Giant Robo from the toku.
  • The symbol on GR's forehead being the shape of a Unicorn, which is also the name of the IPO equivalent in the toku version.
  • Robo being a much slower, lumbering mech being similar to the weightier version of GR seen in the toku.

N-Z

• New Era Speech: Dr. Von Vogler's speech during the first flashback to the Tragedy of Bashtarle (the one repeated as the Cold Open of the second episode):
  Dr. Fogler: The future has shone upon us with its glorious brilliance! The time to seize our destiny and conquer all our fears is now! In ancient times, man rubbed sticks together to create fire. Then he slaughtered the whale and battled one another for oil. After that came the atomic age. In every chapter of our history, we danced with danger. But now it will be different. For the first time in our existence, we will be delivered from fear!! Finally, we will escape the prison of our delusions, and the Beautiful Night will embrace us all!
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Averted! Just barely, though. In the final episode you find out that the Shizuma drives were actually creating a poisonous gas that would have destroyed all life on earth within days of the events that make up the series. The anti-drive was actually created in order to eliminate this threat before it destroyed all known life. All of the "normal" drives would have reactivated once all of the anti-drives had been activated at once, modified to correct the flaw. At the last minute, despite the heroes' efforts all of the anti-drives were activated, thus saving the world.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: It turns out that when the three anti-drives are together they fixed the 2% problem or else they all would have exploded.
• Ninja: "Mask the Red" of Big Fire's Magnificent Ten. Word Of God says that there is an entire ninja community in the world of GR who takes interests in the fights Mask the Red has with his Celestial 9 counterpart, Kagemaru.
• No Indoor Voice: Everyone, especially as everything goes to hell. The dialogue of the final episode consists of nothing but EPIC SPEECH!
• "Not So Different" Remark: Daisaku and Genya.
  • And Daisaku and Tetsugyu. The latter saw Daisaku's expression when he damaged Robo's arm. The same feeling of pain as when Tesugyu slew his own father.
• Oh, Crap!: Genya when Alberto absorbs the heat energy from the sphere leaving it completely vulnerable to attack from Giant Robo. The look on his face as Robo prepares to launch one of its rocket boosters as a missile is particularly priceless.
• Omake/Filler: The three Ginrei Special OVAs, ranging from a reasonably well-executed prequel Side Story to pure animated Crack Fic, were created to maintain interest and raise funds during the main OVA's production delays.
  • Clip Show: Most of the first Ginrei OVA.
  • Crossdresser: Somehow, "Ginrei the Mighty" comes up with an excuse to have all the Experts wearing Ginrei's trademark Chinese mini-dress. Also, the first Ginrei OVA has Murasamecompletely disguised as Ginrei for most of the episode.
  • Evil Twin : Named "Electric Shock Rosa" by Alberto
  • Fembot: The "Ginrei Robo".
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: The Experts and the BF organization drinking together in "Ginrei the Mighty".
  • Mood Whiplash: The third episode is completely serious
  • Refuge in Audacity: Ok, so the main series is this, but the omakes take this to another level. We have things like Giant Robo nosebleeding gasoline at the sight of Ginrei naked, everyone dressing in Ginrei dresses, the below mentioned Victoria's Secret Compartment moment, Daisaku claiming to be 29 years old and divorced...
  • Shout-Out: Ginrei Robo is a parody of Venus A from Great Mazinger, and Daisaku also gets to pilot an ersatz Tetsujin 28-go, revamped in the same way Giant Robo itself was in the OVA series.
    • Daisaku even wears Shotaro's signature plaid jacket rather than his own drab grey while piloting the redesigned Tetsujin 28.
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment: Ginrei pulls a full-sized bazooka from her cleavage in "Iron-armed Ginrei / Ginrei the Mighty".
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: ALL OF THE (male members of the) IPO in Episode 2. And it is hilarious.
• Once More, with Clarity: The story behind the Tragedy of Bashtarle changes multiple times over the course of the OVA.
• Overclocking Attack: this is what the Monster Sphere actually does to the Shizuma drives. Except the resulting energy can be harnessed...
• Papa Wolf: Giant Robo has a Auto-Guard Circuit allowing it to activate and act of its own will when its controller's life (sensed through the wristwatch) is in danger. Robo breaks out of its maintenance dock and takes off for Daisaku (who doesn't seem to be aware of it) the first time, where it's noted that Robo was running at 50 times its usual power.
  • Subverted slightly, when Robo crashes into an unbreakable barrier - it can't control its output while in full-on Papa Wolf mode, and runs the risk of melting down if allowed to continue for too long.
• Pet the Dog: The scene in the 5th OVA where Genya comforts a delirious Daisaku and then learning about his motivation for revenge. Also Ivan mentioning how his home was destroyed from the Bashtarle disaster.
• The Plan: Cho-Katsu Komei claims several times that he is pulling one of these off, though it is left ambiguous whether this is actually true.
• Plot Hole: How, exactly, was the Vogler Sphere created, and by whom? If Vogler created the sphere, as his final recording indicates, how did he get the resources and the time required to do so, and did he really do it by himself as the story indicates? If Genya made it, how did he not know about his father's recording that was preprogrammed into the sphere, and thus, his father's intentions?
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Interpol's decision to seal Giant Robo away immediately after the revelation of its nuclear power source, and especially Chuujo's ham-handed delivery of those orders serves no purpose except to frustrate and isolate Daisaku.
  • The Big Fire Organization has a major internal communications problem, in which the only person who appears to know what's going on is the head strategist, who refuses to elucidate in the slightest and repeatedly appeals to the authority of Big Fire himself when questioned by the Big Ten, even as hundreds of Big Fire agents die as casualties of the Vogler Sphere.
  • Probably one of the most brutal literal examples in any anime, If Franken Von Volger had come up with an easier way to communicate his plan with his son Genya before he passed away, rather than the overcomplicated means to reveal it with a rigged briefcase, Genya wouldn't have gone insane and many lives would have not been wasted for his war.
• Power at a Price: The children of Professor von Vogler are able to teleport, but the more of that power they use, the more their body fades away.
• Putting on the Reich: The "Big Fire" villainous organization wants to conquer the world using superweapons and has even copied the Hitler salute (the straight-arm salute with the right hand and transforming "Heil Hitler" into "Hail, Big Fire! Allegiance or death!").
• Real Men Wear Pink: Murasame's overcoat and Hanzui's cape. Are you dumb enough to mock them?
• Refuge in Audacity
• Ret-Canon: The original Animaze dub of the OVA (for L.A. Hero and later Manga Entertainment) was influential on the subsequent dub that Media Blasters commissioned from NYAV Post, and on the fan perception of the series in general.
  • First and foremost, the Animaze dub gave Kenji Murasame a Gratuitous French accent in the first episode, because he first appeared investigating the murders of Shizuma's partners in Paris, and presumably the writers didn't know that he would be a recurring character. Over the years that the original series took to complete, Animaze stuck with their decision — and NYAV Post followed suit in their new dub.
  • The NYAV Post dub also included nods to other memorable lines from the older version, such as including "Allegiance or death!" in the Big Fire organization's Battle Cry.
• Retcon: In episode three, Tetsugyu enables Daisaku and Giant Robo to take to the battlefield against orders. Episode five revises his intentions to claim he was deliberately setting up Daisaku to fail, which flies in the face of the shock and dismay he showed in episode three when Giant Robo actually lost the fight.
  • Perhaps his shock came from realizing he effectively 'murdered' Daisaku's father figure just like how he accidently killed own father?
• Roof Hopping: You know an organization is bad ass when all of its support staff / engineering mooks can roof hop onto a zeppelin to clear off before an attack. No really, Daisaku is the only normal human in the show.
• Rule of Cool: How else do you explain a mecha anime with supernatural kung-fu fighters and a Wagnerian soundtrack?
• Samus Is a Girl: Ginrei's introduction as the Badass Longcoat "Iron Mask" during the prologue of the first episode.
• Sequel Hook: *Cries*
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: What it kind of boils down too when the three anti-drives are together at long last. A shame that the IPO were so good at their job. Even sadder that if Genya hadn't shot Ginrei then humanity would have been wiped out.
• Shout-Out:
  • The subtitle of the OVA series is a shout out to the classic film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).
  • Ginrei first appears disguised as K from Robot Detective.
• Spiritual Crossover: Of Yokoyama's many works. See Cast of Expies and Expy for details.
• Super Robot/Real Robot: The robots straddle the line. They are considered powerful enough that, even with World of Badass in play, no one wants to fight Robo one-on-one without a heavily stacked deck; on the other hand the organizational and maintenance issues they'd require is fleshed out and clearly just this side of 'impractical'. They're superweapons, and unless they're specifically built to take a hit the hand-to-hand fights don't last very long - take the complex snake-train robot being paralyzed after one hit in the first episode, for example.
• Terminally Dependent Society: All the world depends on the Shizuma Drive. When it is destroyed, everything else is. The only oil refinery left is at Shanghai, and then it's destroyed too; there's some solar and wind power left, but not much. The world ends in ten days.
• This Cannot Be!/Big "NO!": See here
• Unexplained Recovery: Numerous characters. On the villainous side Alberto. Jujoji and Zangetsu sure acted dead in the sixth OVA but are fine in the seventh.
• Vasquez Always Dies: Youshi.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Currently providing the page image.
• Villainous Breakdown: Genya, several times during the final episode. While he normally finds a way to salvage the situation the last one truly breaks him, and not without reason.
• Villainous Rescue: Alberto the Shockwave.
• Wham Episode: Episode Five, which elaborates on Testugyu's backstory, reveals the true villain of the Tragedy of Bashtarle, gives more context to Vogler's revenge, and crushes Tetsugyu beneath Genya's robot Gallop.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Episode six and the first part of episode seven completely forget about Tetsugyu, which means he goes ignored during several very relevant conversations. It turns out he's alive after his Disney Death, but this opens Plot Holes about how he went from being crushed and abandoned in the mountains to appearing at the IPO base after Ginrei moved it to St. Abbe.
• World of Ham: This series' universe seems to work purely ON HAM!!!
• Worthy Opponent: Big Fire considers the IPO to be one of these, and at least a few of the good guys feel the same. Also Alberto the Shockwave's entire reason for faking his own death.
• Wrecked Weapon: Daisaku orders an extremely unwise attack on the Eye of Volger during the Wham Episode, resulting in Giant Robo getting itself seriously damaged. Cue an Oh, Crap! reaction from just about every single good guy on the field.
• "X" Marks the Hero: Tetsugyu

---