Super Prototype / Anime & Manga

• Clamp managed to do this in an episode of Angelic Layer to the titular toys when the design team unleashed against the tourney players a new prototype model with improved capabilities. Also, the original series can go to "Hypermode" which the later versions can't. Subverted by Shuko using a prototype that can barely move to beat the later version doll Wizard around like a, well, ragdoll even with vastly inferior tech and movements simply because she's that good.
• Bleach has (or rather, had) White, an experimental Hollow designed and created by Aizen 18 years before the start of the series in order to test a new method of Hollowfication. It was powerful enough to fight Captains, and even Isshin noted how it was more akin to a Shinigami than a Hollow. Considering it was created by merging the souls of several Shinigami together, it stands as no surprise. In a twist of fate, it chose to infect Masaki, a Quincy, who are noted to have zero tolerance to Hollow reishi. Her Hollowfication drove her dangerously close to dying, and it was only thanks to Urahara and Isshin's intervention that her life was saved. Isshin was then forced to stay with Masaki in order to supress White's influence, after which the two fell in love, got married and had a son in Ichigo; during Masaki's pregnancy, White was passed on to Ichigo and merged with the Shinigami powers he inherited from Isshin, upon which it was reborn as Zangetsu.
• Chi and Freya from Chobits were two of the first persocoms ever built, yet their capabilities exceed any that were built after them.
• Code Geass features several super prototypes, progressing in power with the times. Supplementary materials explain the backstory of Knightmare Frame development, where they were literally putting pieces together just to see how it worked.
  • The best subversion of this trope is the Ganymede, the earliest-built Knightmare to be shown in the series (3rd Generation). It has no internal power source, only batteries; no weapons, no closed cockpit and insufficient motive power to do anything other than harmlessly cruising. It can make the world's biggest pizza, though.
    • This is actually a Double Subversion. The Ganymede model was indeed the Super Prototype of its day, being a powerful mecha in the right hands. These hands being those of Marianne vi Britannia, nicknamed "the Flash" for her incredible skill with the Ganymede, rivalling the later Knight of One, Bismarck Waldstein who used his Geass to cheat, and STILL lost to Marianne. After Marianne's death, the Ganymede, being her signature Knightmare, fell out of favour and was decommissioned, having its weaponry removed and returned to the manufacturers, the Ashford Academy.
  • Another subversion is the Gawain; when Lelouch jacked it, it was an Awesome, but Impractical KMF. It could fly, but a flaw in the hadron cannons left the beam unfocused, causing it to spew energy in a wide arc which could just as easily hit friend as well as foe. That problem was fixed, making the beams extremely deadly, but it was still outmatched in close combat. Its mass-production version, the Gareth, had the cannons moved to its hands.
  • To a smaller extent, the Vincent: the Vincent Ward final version scraps the needle blazer weapon to ease production. Also Vincent's own Super Prototype, the Lancelot: the world's first seventh-generation KMF, later upgraded into the one-of-a-kind ninth-generation unholy terror known as the Lancelot Albion.
  • On the opposite side of the coin, Guren MKII gets two successors: the limited-production Gekka and the mass-production Akatsuki (as well as Tohdoh's Zangetsu). Neither can hold a candle to the original, especially after it receives its own ninth-gen upgrade into the Guren S.E.I.T.E.N.
    • That said, this may be due to the pilot, but no direct comparison is made between the Guren's abilities and any of it's MP derivatives. Also, the Prototype Radiation Arm used by the Guren MKII after its original Radiation Arm is destroyed seems to be both weaker, and not as well built, but this is also difficult to compare.
    • The Gekka at the very least are roughly on par with the original Guren in terms of specs and build. They simply lack the Radiant Wave technology that made it so dangerous and have to rely on their swords, but still can run rings around the standard Sutherland and even keep up with the Lancelot. The Akatsuki are harder to judge because by the time they're released Britannia has revamped their military to have a new generation of mass produced units as well as more single custom knightmares like the Knights of the Round's units.
  • The Shen Hu can keep pace with and even defeat the Guren MKII at only 40% of it's capabilities, but it's so physically demanding that it nearly kills its pilot. The mass produced Chuyen explicitly has its capabilities toned down to prevent this.
• Played with in several different ways in Combat Mecha Xabungle. The titular mecha (referred to as such by the regularly no-fourth-wall characters) is both a production model — the protagonists get two of them, unheard of in a mecha show up to that point. The Xabungles are also a prototype in the sense that no prior Walker Machine is built specifically for combat (hence the series name — Combat Mecha) and they incorporate a number of features that imply they're space-capable. The Walker Gallier in the second half of the show is a textbook example (and even has a production model of sorts in the Brackary). It's famously "Super" enough to catch and throw a falling ICBM (albeit a museum copy, but still).
• Pretty much the only mechs that accomplish anything important in Eureka Seven are super prototypes, with the two Nirvash (which are actually alive) units being the most prominent. There's also Holland's late-series mount, the TB-303 Devilfish, which is ridiculously powerful and has enough firepower to wipe out multiple capital ships, but requires the pilot to take life-threatening drugs to operate it... Aside from those, the rest of the powerful LFO's are all Ace Customs. Anything with "KLF" or "Mon-Soono" in its name is utter cannon fodder.
• Sagara Sousuke of Full Metal Panic! handles the ARX-7 Arbalest◊, one of the first mecha to be fielded by MITHRIL to possess a Lambda Driver. Later in the series he goes up against many enemy mecha with Lambda Drivers of their own, but proves his to be the more powerful while defeating them in combat. It is suggested that this is because the Lambda Driver in Sousuke's mecha is a prototype model compared to the mass-produced variants fielded by the enemy, and is capable of increased output at the cost of stability. It does, indeed, fail to function properly on a number of occasions, leading Sousuke to become thoroughly frustrated with it. The Lambda Driver is later put into the ARX-8 Laevatein which, despite the serial number, is actually an Ace Custom put together in a hurry. It can still kick the asses of everything mass-produced, though.
• In Future GPX Cyber Formula, the Ogre AN-21 is the prototype to the Al-Zard NP-1. Ogre has the same bio-computer system as Al-Zard, but it also caused the deaths of 2 test drivers due to the fact the car was unable to satisfy the talent the bio-computer needed.
• GaoGaiGar FINAL is a zig-zagging example that ultimately plays this straight. GaoGaiGar and GaoFightGar are both based on the blueprints of Genesic GaoGaiGar, but are significantly weaker; partially due to humans being unable to perfectly copy alien design, and partially on purpose, as some of the original's weapons were modified to serve non-offensive purpose. However, supplementary materials explain that Genesic GaoGaiGar would have actually performed worse against the earlier foes, since it was designed to combat the Sol Masters, while the later GaoGaiGar and GaoFighGar were purpose-built for taking on Zonders and the 31 Primevals. For all intents and purposes, however, Genesic GaoGaiGar is a straight upgrade when it's acquired, since the destruction of the Z-Master, and with it all Zonder metal, has rendered the later models' advantages moot.
• Getter Robo Āḥ has mass-produced Getters who are nowhere near the godly power of Shin, who was too terrifyingly destructive to replicate. There's also the fact that limiting the amount of Getter Rays the machines can hold prevents them from turning sentient. In Getter Robo Armageddon, Professor Saotome mass produces Getter Robo G in massive numbers with the sole purpose of forming them into Shin Dragon. Ryouma doesn't care and still beats the machines to a pulp.
• The Sizzlers of GunBuster are mass-produced versions of the Gunbuster itself, smaller and weaker (yet powerful enough to fight dozens of alien bugs easily!)
  • A short about the Sizzler actually deconstructs this. The Sizzler may be weaker than the Gunbuster on paper, but not by much. For example, it may only have a single degeneracy reactor, but that's because it's not a Combining Mecha. It's smaller than the Gunbuster only because the technology they packed into it has been successfuly miniaturized. A scientist discussing the machine with Jung even explains that the whole "prototype being vastly superior to the mass-production models" thing is just something that happens in anime. Sizzer units are every bit as powerful as the Gunbuster was during the Battle of the Solar System's Absoulte Defense. The only reason the Gunbuster was more powerful in the final battle is because they put all the improvements made for the Sizzler into the Gunbuster, and then packed more into all the extra space freed up.
• The Gundam metaseries makes extensive use of this trope. Pretty much any mecha with "Gundam" in its name will be either this, an Ace Custom, or both. This is justified in-universe due to cost-effectiveness; the prototype usually carries a better reactor, armor, and weapons. Mass produced units based on these super prototypes tend to sport cheaper and inferior features (or the features are removed from the mass production unit altogether) so they can produce a lot more with same amount of budget and resources. The prototypes are also usually very goal-oriented, with each one being designed to test some new weapon, technology, or design technique. Additionally, most of the super prototypes remain superior only to their generation of Mobile Suits as technological race is a strong theme in the Gundam series; few suits that can hold their own against even the bog-standard suits of later generations. As a whole, the super protoype mobile suits are one-offs that spawn cheaper copies and are later discarded or destroyed. There are a few exceptions to this:
  • In the original Mobile Suit Gundam, while the RX-78-2 Gundam was intended to be a quantum leap over Zeon's Zaku II (hence its Super Prototype status), it was also experimental in that the Earth Federation was still learning how to make a mobile suit at all. Some of the features were intended less for combat utility than to ensure that the testing data would be preserved (a "Learning Computer" that not only recorded even the most minute details of its performance but also analyzed the data in real-time, and an elaborate Escape Pod that transformed into a functional jet fighter to maximize the odds of survival for the Learning Computer in the event of a disaster), and other elements simply couldn't be produced cheaply enough to justify inclusion in the mass-production RGM-79 GM. Thus, the GM lacked any escape pod at all, used ordinary titanium armor instead of the exotic "luna titanium" alloy that at the time could only be produced in a single laboratory, and carried a "beam spray gun" pistol that was equal in lethality to the Gundam's beam rifle but shorter-ranged and less accurate. And by the time the One Year War ended, Zeon's latest mass-production mobile suit, the Gelgoog, actually exceeded the Gundam's performance in all aspects except armor; at this point it was Amuro Ray's own skills rather than the power of the Gundam that made him nearly unstoppable in battle, and the Gundam had to be upgraded with magnetic coating on its joints to compensate for him.
    • The Gundam was also the Federation’s third mobile suit prototype, having been preceded by the Guntank (which was more tank than mech) and the Guncannon (which was fully humanoid, but lacked agility). Despite their design flaws, they were still super in their own right, and later in the war a limited number of mass production versions were produced with weaker weapons and lacking the core block system.
  • Mobile Suit Victory Gundam twists it. While the eponymous Victory Gundam is superior to its simplified sister model Gun EZ, the actual mass production model is identical to the prototype. The Victory 2 was meant to be a limited-production model, but the other suits were destroyed prior to being fielded, leaving Uso's V2 as a unique unit.
    • On the whole, Victory shows a more realistic deployment: In the beginning, the V-Gundam takes the Superiority Fighter role while the Gun EZ takes the workhorse role. Then, the V-Gundam is mass-produced as the V-Gundam Hexa and takes the workhorse role, with the V-Dash Gundam filling in the Superiority Fighter role until the V2 is ready, at which point the V-Dash takes on a Joint Support role, covering both the V-Hexa workhorses and the V2. The Gun EZ and Jamesgun are relegated to the gunship role held by the Ball in the One Year War.
  • While it appears to be played straight in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, with the Strike Dagger being inferior to the Strike Gundam, sidestories reveal that Strike Dagger is merely a stopgap production; the actual mass production model, the 105 Dagger, is superior to the Strike Gundam. Sure, it has limited laminate armor instead of full body PS armor, but with pretty much every mobile suit using beam weaponry by that point, the latter isn't as useful as it was.
    • The Astray line is an odd case. The colored Frames (Red, Blue, Gold, Green and Mirage) were all prototypes, but weren't anything incredible. It's only by the wonders of their respective pilots customizing them that they became superior to the later mass produced M1 Astray units. And even then, the mass-produced Astrays could take on the prototypes, as the Red Frame was once easily taken down by a simple M1 Astray (granted one piloted by a Coordinator).
    • However, Gundam SEED does play the trope straight with the Moebius mobile armor. The Moebius Zero prototype sports four detachable and independently maneuverable gun barrels in a precursor to the DRAGOON system later used to great effect by certain Bigger Stick mecha like the Providence; the production model Moebius lacks these, using only the forward-fixed central cannon. This is justified in that only a select few OMNI pilots had the spatial awareness and piloting skills required to use the detachable gun barrels effectively, and of those pilots very few (we basically know of Mu la Flaga only) survived the Battle of Endymion prior to the start of the anime, so paring down the design was an unfortunate necessity.
    • The GuAIZ Experimental Firearms Type mounted the same weaponry as both the Freedom and the Justice, but was scaled back to the basics for the production model because it was incredibly expensive to maintain. The production models were massively scaled back because, at the time, it was near the closing moments of the war and the standard weaponry was deemed good enough (and it was, as the GuAIZ was one of the most powerful production mobile suits to be used during the war). Unfortunately both suffered a case of So Last Season when the new ZAKU Warriors proved to be superior and cheaper. Especially compared to the GuAIZ-R version that was introduced as a stopgap before the ZAKU Warrior, with scaled-down weapons and performance both to cut costs and because the "Extensional Arrestor" weapons (a combined rocket anchor, beam dagger and beam gun) that was so devastating in combat at the Battle of GENESIS proved impossible for all but the most elite pilots to control.
    • The ZAKU Warrior is another inversion as its prototype, the ZAKU Trial Type, had no beam weaponry despite having an N-Jammer Canceller-outfitted nuclear engine. The ZAKU Trial Type was intended for mass production, but the Treaty of Junius banned the military use of N-Jammer Cancellers and thus the design was reworked. The addition of superior weapons is probably explained by the extra couple of years of development.
    • The Extended 'Biological CPU' introduced in Gundam SEED is superior to the Extended introduced later in Gundam SEED Destiny, as they were able to pressure even high-end Coordinators like Kira and Athrun in combat. At the same time, they're also Flawed and Psycho Prototype, and compared to them, the Extended in SEED Destiny are practically bastions of mental stability.
  • After War Gundam X initially averts this, with the prologue showing that the titular Gundam (as well as the Airmaster and Leopard) was mass produced, and Garrod's is simply the last of its kind. At least until the United Nations Earth recovers Jamil's old Gundam X and uses its data to build the Double X.
    • The Frost Brothers' Virsago and Ashtaron seem to play this straight, but the SD Gundam G Generation series gave them their own Super Prototype: the Gundam Belphagor, a contemporary of the GX, Airmaster, and Leopard. Instead, the Virsago and Ashtaron essentially split the Belphagor's gimmicks in half and develop them in their own direction.
  • It's also noteworthy that in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam this trope becomes the shtick of Paptimus Scirocco. Over the course of the series he cranks out one-shot, scratch-built mobile suits at an astonishing rate. The Messala, Pallas Athena, Bolinoak Samaan and The-O are all unique Scirocco designs, while the Gabthley and Hambrabi are limited production models designed by Scirocco for the Federation's use and only 2-4 of each were ever made. In general, Scirocco's godlike ability to crank out butt-kicking mobile suits is used as a catch-all explanation for all Titans suits that aren't the Psyco Gundam.
    • And the Gundam Mk-II actually inverts this — even though it was a Super Prototype for the next generation of MS and, for awhile, could one-up the Titans' Hi-Zack units(current generation), there was nothing special about it outside of its special lighter frame system and it's easily outclassed early on. All it really is is an updated copy of the original RX-78 Gundam made using modern technologies, and thus ceased to be anything special when those same new technologies were incorporated into the new generation of mass-produced mobile suits.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory has a similar inversion with the Gundam GP01 "Zephyrantes", which was little more than an update to the original Gundam with new tech, it comes with the ground type and space type configuration, which is more powerful than the mass production model of the time at its specialized area but weaker when placed in the other, so it is just an exchange of spec instead of "Super" in all aspects. In fact, the proposed Gundam GP04 "Gerbera" was scrapped for being little more than a copy of the GP01; it was later reworked into a more Zeon-esque design, the Gerbera Tetra, and sold to the Zeon remnants.
  • Some of the U.C. super prototypes are depicted as being advanced for their era but with crippling flaws that are usually the result of being developed to field test a particular technology with little consideration to anything else:
    • The MSN-00100 Hyaku Shiki from the aforementioned Zeta Gundam was designed to test out beam-resistant armor and the concept of the Moveable Frame. The beam-resistant armor worked. The transformation feature did not. But the moveable wing binders left on the unit did improve the mobility of it.
    • The MSN-010 Double Zeta is a massive power-house that can transform into a mobile armor, has two of the biggest beam sabers in all of Gundam, and its high mega cannon is powerful enough to turn any opposing Mobile Suits into little more than drops of melted steel. Unfortunately the high mega cannon drains almost all of its power supply in one shot, and its over-complicated transforming frame makes it structurally weak, turning it into something of a Glass Cannon.
    • The RX-0 Unicorn Gundam has psychoframes built into its entire structure. When these activate, it's an unstoppable killing machine with amazing speed that can hijack enemy-controlled psychoframes — for five minutes. Until the psychoframes go active, it's just a slightly-above-average MS with two beam sabers and one beam magnum (with only 15 shots). Even then, it's noted that one massive disadvantage of the Psychoframe is that it makes an RX-0 unit light up like a Christmas tree, undoubtedly drawing the attention of every single pilot that happens to catch sight of it.
    • What it does to the pilot is a whole 'nother matter, however - firstly, the machine already has fairly strong acceleration to begin with, making an experienced pilot stressed when piloting the thing outside of Destroy Mode. The moment it goes into Destroy mode, you better hope you're wearing the specialized pilot suit that comes with it, or else the g-forces will knock you out cold, as Banagher ends up learning the hard way after he first launches in the thing. Just for reference, the maximum amount of G-force that contemporary fighter pilots can pull is 9 Gs. The Unicorn can pull up to 20.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam Wing:
    • The Tallgeese was the precursor to all mobile suits in that universe. It's so powerful it can hold its own against the first generation of Gundams in that series. It did have one glaring design flaw: it was so powerful that it killed its own pilots. This was because the Tallgeese effectively had no shock absorbers; its gargantuan size and incredible thrusters transferred all of the G-Force to the pilot. The Leos that were based on its design are far weaker but also safer for people to pilot.
    • The Wing Zero is, likewise, a super prototype to the Gundams, as it housed the dangerous ZERO System, which fed real-time tactical data directly into the minds of its pilot. Unfortunately, unless you actually know how to process that data, it just drives you insane. The comparatively downsized Gundams each just settled for unique weapons tacked on to the general frame. Note that the Wing Zero was specifically designed to counter the Tallgeese. The reason why it is considered 'super' compared to its following generation model Gundams aside from the ZERO System is that it was designed with the expertise of all five Gundam scientists, who at some point afterward parted ways and recreated their own respective Gundam creations with their own styles and preferences, but without input from the others involved in the original creation, none quite as powerful or versatile.
    • There's also some speculation that the Wing Zero may have EATEN one of the pilots who attempted to use it. Because despite the pilot being declared dead and the cockpit never opening after his death until Zechs captured it, they Never Found the Body afterwards, which not only means the suit is dangerous to the mind of the pilots, it may have actually gotten a taste for human flesh. The fact that Heero talks to Zero like it can actually communicate with him, and tells Zechs that both Zero and Epyon have "told" him things just makes the ZERO system itself Nightmare Fuel on several levels.
    • The Vayeate and Mercurius were this to the mass production Virgos. However this was due to both of the mobile suits being test beds for their respective systems; the Vayeate needed an external reactor to power its beam cannon while the Mercurius had to dedicate all of its power to the "Planet Defensors", leaving it with very little offensive capability beyond a beam saber-shield. The Virgo was designed to be something in-between; housing less than a quarter of the Mercurius' Planet Defensors so that it can wield a less powerful version of the Vayeate's Beam Cannon. This was acceptable, as the Virgo was to be mass produced and unmanned, so what they lacked in quality they made up for in overwhelming quantity. In fact when the two prototype suits were later rebuilt as unmanned Mobile Dolls as well, they fared much less effectively against the Gundams, as they were only marginally more effective, but there was only two of them compared to the dozens of Virgos flying around.
  • The 08th MS Team actually averts this. The series is known for, instead of making a traditional Gundam series about a boy Falling into the Cockpit and getting involved in the current war, focusing on the everyday soldiers in the One Year War. Because of this, most pilots in the series don't have brand-new prototype Mobile Suits. Instead they have things like the RX-79(G) Gundam Ground Type, which is merely spare parts from the RX-78 Gundam program made into a mass-produced Gundam designed for ground combat. There's also the Gundam Ez8, which is an RX-79(G) rebuilt with field-fabricated parts due to lack of spares. One poor unit even had its destroyed head replaced with that of a GM. Still, the Ground Type Gundam's run was limited to about 20 units, with its GM counterpart, the RGM-79(G), only having 42 base units and a handful of Sniper variants built. That said, according to side materials the ground-type GM does have some Super Prototype-esque features over the standard GM — for one, it's still made out of the rarer and more durable luna titanium the original Gundam uses, rather than the standard GM's lighter but weaker titanium alloy. It's also compatible with a wider variety of weapons, including a full-sized, full-power beam rifle rather than the smaller and weaker "beam spray gun" the standard GM uses... though beam rifles were in such short supply that most examples of both the Gundam and GM Ground Type carried less powerful projectile-firing machine guns instead.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam F91's eponymous Mobile Suit (the Formula 91) plays with this; its prequel manga features the F91's predecessor (the Formula 90), of which two were made. The F90s sported multiple hardpoints all over their chassis which could be outfitted with different equipment, resulting in eight specialized configurations (later model line and settings expanded the equipment up to 26 different packs). S.N.R.I. (the company responsible for the Formula Project) then used the combat data from each configuration and built the F91 using optimized versions of the most effective and well-rounded F90 variant (namely the F90V). The F91 was later subject to limited mass production, though no changes were made to the mass produced units from the original F91. So in essence the F91 is only a super prototype in regards to the previous Formula Gundam, with its mass-produced equivalents being almost carbon copies, with the exception of the locked overdrive mode of its Bio-computer which over-heats the unit (but gives it a short performance boost) and fixed the paint shredding flaw (which gave the prototype a strange ability of splitting into multiple images on the enemy screen).
  • On the Zeon side, the line between Super Prototype and Ace Custom is heavily blurred, because Zeon's MS design companies are all competing with each other in midwar to build the next generation of wunderwaffen, and very few prototypes actually pan out (such as M'Quve's Gyan, which was one out of a production run of three suits, and looked over because it relied too heavily on support from an existing design). However, Char Aznable's MS-14S Gelgoog, the prototype for the Gelgoog line, was faster (though less well-armored) than the mass-produced MS-14A model. This also ended up costing several pilots at the end of the war, since even the base Gelgoog was built to specifications suggested by Zeon's aces — which meant that when someone who wasn't as skilled as them got their hands on one, they couldn't make it work as well as it could, and many were lost to the Gundam and other Federation mobile suits despite outperforming them from a technological standpoint.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam 00 is very much this case, particularly with the Gundams of Celestial Being, and the more specialized units of the Earth Sphere Federation's A-Laws, and Innovade allies. Each of the main Gundams have a specific role, such as Sniper, Melee, Aerial Assault, or Heavy Artillery which secretly hides its real purpose, as a judge, jury, and executioner for those who betray Celestial Being's ideals with a system that shuts down a rogue Gundam's systems. Several side story visual novels and manga also detail the prototypes to the Gundams of the anime, and Mecha Expansion Packs that were never seen in the show, due to their limited purposes.
    • Extended even further, with its Black Box tech centered around its GN Drives. To create a true GN drive is a time and resource consuming and somewhat dangerous process, as in order to make a critical component, the Topological Defect Blanket, or TD Blanket for short,^note This component allows Gundams to harness the power of Topological Defects giving them nearly unlimited power supply, and produces the greenish/blue GN particles. requires a dive into Jupiter's upper atmosphere to collect the materials needed. After 200 years of working in secret before publicly announcing their presence to the world, Celestial Being manged to produce a total of 5 GN Drives, and is indeed, considered more valuable than the Gundams themselves. It takes two years for Celestial Being, after the events of the anime and leading to the start of Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer, to make two brand new GN Drives specially designed for the new 00 Qan[T], and it's remarked upon by several characters that this was considered to be fast. It takes another 50 years, according at the end of the movie, for Earth as a whole to be able to start mass producing True GN Drives, and not the GN Tau Drives they've been using.
  • The Crossbone Gundams from Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossbone were created at the tail-end of the Formula projects. Originally dubbed the F-97, 3 units (X-0, X-1 and X-2) were made with a fourth (X-3) produced later on. In an age where mobile suits and space combat put an increasing emphasis on beam weaponry, the Crossbone units were created with the idea of making suits possessing extremely high melee combat potential with numerous close combat weapons and specialised disposable anti-beam cloaks which dissipated beams long enough for the suit to get into combat range. The result was a super protoype whose fighting potential vastly exceeded almost every mobile suit of its age. Any of the Crossbone units are one man armies to almost Super Robot levels, capable of taking down scores of standard mobile suits. Their close combat weapons include beam cutlasses, lances, transforming shotgun blades, removable beam shields, drill whips, energy spikes, launchable grappling chains and plain old giant knives. While they all have some impressive long range weaponry, they rarely use them. The X3 includes experimental I Field generators to prevent ANY beam weapon from harming the arms for a period of a few minutes (allowing it to catch beam sabers) and the Muramasa Blaster, a beam gun/saber hybrid with 14 separate emitters. The X-1 is upgraded multiple times culminating in the X-1 Full Cloth, which combines every remaining tool and weapon for the Crossbone series into a single mobile suit, including new skull shaped shoulder pads that function as both I Field generators and gauntlets as well as new Anti-Beam coating armor made from fusing the remaining cloaks together. Combining these extreme abilities with the highly skilled pilots means that the number of suits or pilots capable of matching a Crossbone is few and far between. The suits are so over developed that decades later the X-0 is capable of overpowering some of the most recent and advanced mobile suits in hand to hand, despite its pilot being blind and while he's a newtype, he's not a particularly remarkable one. It's perfectly capable of taking on and overpowering 3 V-Gundams with the only real liability being Curtis' blindness meant he became confused by the Gundam's sensory input. It would later be upgraded into a Full Cloth version itself. In comparison, the production model the XM-10 Flint has a number of the same weapons but without the extreme abilities. They're produced in limited numbers and have an overall unremarkable combat performance. The reputation of the Crossbone would mean that the X-0 served as a design basis for 3 more units; the X-11 (a direct copy with with full Crossbone capabilities), the X-12 (a cheaper model with numerous modifications) and the X-13 (the most cost effective Crossbone). The X-13 has such reduced capabilities that it struggles to match the abilities of Curtis/Tobia when he has to pilot it. That said it would be partially upgraded into the X-13 Half Cloth. Possessing only one cloth component on its left shoulder and a redesigned head, it was an improvement over the base unit but still noticable inferior to any of the original units.
    • The Crossbone would also serve as the parent unit for the F99 Record Breaker, designed for extreme speed (capable of crossing the space between Earth and Jupiter in 7 days) and the Amakusa, a high performance AI piloted suit (based on Amuro Rei). These would both serve as the progenitor of what could be considered the Crossbone's true successor, the Phantom (later Ghost) Gundam. This model is an extreme example of a super prototype as it was a somewhat haphazard build intended to posses extreme speed and nothing else. However the way the Minovsky drive and I Field generators were applied resulted in the unexpected effect that the Phantom passively generates an I Field that makes it completely immune to beam weapons up to somewhat ludicrous scales and can use it can weaponise its Minovsky Drive to create offensive heat storms, resulting in a suit with perfect long range defence, extreme long range offence and the close combat abilities of an upgraded Crossbone. The abilites of the Phantom were born from such a random chance that several attempts to duplicate it failed with one of the most successful, the Blanc Phantom, only reach able to reach approximately 75% of the Phantom's output...after its drive had deteriorated from 15 years of floating in space such that it could only use about 75% of its original abilities anyway. Once the Phantom was repaired and modified, it's abilities exceeded its original specs, leaving the attempts to reproduce it in the dust.
  • The AGE-1 Gundam AGE-1 from Mobile Suit Gundam Age was less super in design and more in weaponry and versatility. Its main armament, the DODS rifle, has a very high level of firepower, and it has the ability to switch out parts mid-battle to adapt to different situations, an ability that is only further compounded upon by its unique data-gathering capability granted by the AGE System that allows new countermeasures to be developed on-the-fly, a trait passed down to all of its successor units. That said, the AGE-1 was really only "super" because the only other contemporary Mobile Suit at the time, the Genoace, was an objectively terrible machine.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans features two Super Prototypes:
    • The EB-05s Schwalbe Graze (lit. Swallow Graze) is a prototype of the mass produced Graze, however, being experimental weapon, they're modified to have multiple boosters to amplify its aerial combat, equipped with wire claw, as well as a rifle lance. There's a reason the Schwalbe Graze piloted by a select few elite Gjallarhorn pilots is called the EB-05s (as opposed to the standard EB-06 Graze) — according to the translated manual, it's one of several prototypes for the production model that was rejected for being too tricky to handle for regular pilots. Gjallarhorn went with a different design for the regular Graze, but built a few more Schwalbes for those elite pilots capable of drawing out its impressive performance without getting themselves killed. It earns its reputation as an Ace Custom for high rank officers.
    • The V08-1228 Grimgerde is one of the nine Valkyrie Mobile Suits developed by Gjallarhorn in Pre-Calamity War, Grimgerde serves as the prototype of the mass produced Graze as well as the Graze Swords carried by Carta Issue. Piloted by masked man Montag, he assists Tekkadan in overthrowing the current leader of Gjallarhorn.
    • The Gundam Frames units, unlike the traditions, are 72 limited production units featuring twin Ahab Reactors.
  • In Gundam Build Fighters Try, the Build Burning Gundam is this. Unlike Sei Iori's previous Gunpla, the Build Strike and its variants, it's not based on any kind of previous Gunpla and is completely scratch-built.
• The Hyper-Zoanoids in Guyver are, like ordinary Zoanoids, genetically-altered humans. The "hyper" designation is usually applied to prototype genetic templates, which are designed around an individual soldier's DNA; mass-production designs must be simplified to allow them to work on a wider range of humans, so the Hyper models tend to be considerably more powerful.
• In Infinite Stratos, it turns out that Ichika's IS core is actually the very first one ever made. It's noted that the inventor "poured all [her] heart and soul into that core," since it was her first creation. This is not the reason he can use the IS (he's the only male who can); rather, that is never revealed. Not even the original inventor understands why.
  • Houki's fourth-generation Aka Tsubaki might appear as an Ace Custom but one cannot forget that it was personally built by the inventor mentioned above and is thus guaranteed to be superior to future fourth-gen designs (for reference, various companies around the world have only begun prototyping and performance testing of third-gen IS units).
• Legend of the Galactic Heroes has a decent number of them, on both sides:
  • On the Imperial side, most dedicated flagships are unique vessels used to test new technologies that may or may not be employed on mass-produced ships, with the few that aren't being enlargements of more standard vessels or part of a couple of little-produced flagships;
  • On the Alliance side we have the Triglav (a new flagship design, superior to the standard Ajax-class and slated for mass production) and the Leda II (a new cruiser design with a curved armour design capable of deflect with little to no damage enemy weapon fire, at least at distance. She too was slated for mass production).
• One character from Lyrical Nanoha, Subaru Nakajima is a self-admitted homage to Super Robot Wars. It turns out that she is the prototype to the Number cyborgs, as is her sister Ginga, and while she's not technically stronger than the Number cyborgs, she does have an Inherent Skill that is very effective against cyborgs. The special moves "borrowed" from such Super Robots like GEAR Fighter Dendoh, GaoGaiGar, Combattler V and more make this homage especially apparent.
  • Fate Testarossa is another super prototype in a way — she was the very first successful Artificial Human created by an illegal cloning project run by the master of the Numbers, Jail Scaglietti. She bears the project's original name, and is the prototype that Jail used to create all the other Artificial Mages of the setting. However, to her mother, Fate is a Flawed Prototype because she was meant to be a clone of her dead daughter Alicia, but ended up gaining quirks of her own, which royally pissed off mommy dearest.
• Macross usually averts this, with the production models being built up from the prototype's capabilities. Even prequel Macross Zero only uses a Flawed Prototype in the form of the VF-0 Phoenix: despite having flight performance head-and-shoulders above conventional jet aircraft and even limited capability for underwater operation, it's a maintenance-hog and the war's outbreak meant that the engineers couldn't wait until the intended space-capable reactor engines were completed so they simply slapped on the strongest air-breathing jet engine they could get their hands on and crossed their fingers.
  • The majority of Macross Plus consists of a contest between two super prototypes (YF-19 and YF-21) competing to be the new mass production model; they eventually choose the YF-19 after the YF-21's Unusual User Interface proves to be a little unsafe if the pilot gets distracted during flight; the destruction of the YF-21 prototype doesn't help either. This is actually a realistic portrayal of the prototyping system; similar contests have actually occurred in real life.
  • The portrayal of the mass-produced models of the YF-19 and -21 is also somewhat realistic, as both prototypes performed too well, to the point that they could only be piloted by the best. Their mass-production models only saw limited use, and even the older VF-17 saw longer service.
  • The VF-25 the good guys use in Macross Frontier also has superior performance to the military standard-issue VF-171 along with a redesigned Armored Pack that won't lock the Valkyrie into battroid mode; while the civilian protagonist recognizes it on sight, it's confirmed as still undergoing official performance evaluations.
    • The Movies both subvert this, and then play it straight. The Tornado Pack is noted to be Awesome, but Impractical, itself the Flawed Prototype to Alto's YF-29 Durandal, whichi is pretty much confirmed to be the most advanced fighter craft in the Macross-verse at that date. Even then, its bright red color scheme is noted to be because of its status as a prototype, and not the other reason.
• Martian Successor Nadesico had a lot of fun with this. The original Aestivalis were already Super Prototypes when two more appeared, Akatsuki's special Aestivalis (with new armor material and engine, befitting the CEO of Nergal) and the Flawed Prototype X-Aestivalis. By the time of the movie, they've mass produced the Aestivalis to remove its Mecha Expansion Pack and the need to be constantly recharged and they still build Super Prototypes of the Aestis, in this case the Aestivalis Customs and the Super Aestivalis.
• Appears as an Unbuilt Trope in Mazinger Z, the archetypal Super Robot series. Mazinger Z was lacking a lot of its special features at first and regularly had to be upgraded and re-outfitted with new equipment. At the same time, the manga introduced the Mazinger Army, a trio of weaker robots each designed to wield one of Mazinger's distinctive weapons. All three made minor appearances in the Mazinkaiser movie, and all three were destroyed, with only Million Alpha putting up any kind of a fight.
  • Averted in, of all things, Great Mazinger — the Mikene Empire get a hold of Great's plans and mass produce it perfectly (with the exception of its wings). They usually show up in any Super Robot Wars installment when the Great Mazinger storyline is used.
  • And it was also averted in Mazinkaiser: Shin Great Mazinger and Mazinkaiser are explicitly stated to be the finished models, their predecessors are the prototypes.
  • And averted in Shin Mazinger as Energer-Z was able to go toe to toe with Mazinger-Z.
  • Mazinger Z: Infinity introduces the Type-Ichinana, supposedly a mass production version of the Mazinger models. That is to say, they're essentially just Mazinger-shaped GMs, because you could never hope to replicate the Mazingers on a military scale without a nigh-infinite budget. They're not made of Superalloy Z, their only weapons are guns, shields and a missile jammer, and the only thing they have over Z is that their wings are built-in from the start. They function well enough in normal operations, but the moment Doctor Hell comes back from the dead and starts unleashing Mechanical Beasts, only the ones with Plot Armor manage to survive more than five seconds against enemies that Mazinger Z would slaughter without breaking a sweat.
• Metal Armor Dragonar plays with this a bit. The beginning of the series shows the Dragonars as a set of stolen super prototype units, but their pilots are inexperienced, and the Ace Custom units trounce them frequently. After a while, the Dragonars are used as the template for a new Mass Production model that has specs stronger than any of the Dragonar units. However, after Professor Plato guides the heroes back to the military, the Dragonars are upgraded into Ace Custom Super Prototypes.
• My Hero Academia: Quirks evolve to become more complex and powerful with each generation. Yet, almost all of them falter before the All For One Quirk which has existed ever since Quirks first emerged. However, the user of All For One is still susceptible to Quirk overload should he steal too many advanced Quirks and must have his body surgically upgraded to cope with the massive power.
• In a way, Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju are this compared to most ninja in the Naruto universe. Due to living in an age of constant warfare, their abilities were brought to such a zenith that, as Kabuto Yakushi described, many people thought it was a fairy tale, specifically Hashirama. We've seen characters like Yamato, Danzo, and even Tobi with Mokuton, which doesn't remotely compare to Hashirama, and Sasuke and Itachi both achieved the same Mangekyo Sharingan powers as Madara, specifically the Powered Armor, Made of Diamond Susano'o, but Madara's Susano'o is on such a far higher scale than both combined. Tsunade, one of the current Kages and one of the most powerful shinobi of her era, wondered how the fuck did her grandfather even fight Madara?
  • And the Biju themselves, even Kurama are far weaker than the original Biju, the Shinju or "God Tree" which is in itself the Ten-Tails.
• Chachamaru of Negima! Magister Negi Magi, the first of Hakase, Chao, and the engineering club's line of androids, which Chachamaru refers to as her little brothers and sisters. As Ku Fei mentioned before she kicked the asses of multiple mass-production versions of Chachamaru at once, as long as it's not Chachamaru herself, the fight is easy. There are a few hints implying the greatest breakthough in developing Chachamaru beyond an animatronic performing tea ceremonies was Evangeline choosing to apply the "ensoulment" process she created to animate dolls, which bypassed major power and processing issues the inventors never actually solved in time: the mass-produced model depended both on running limited software and having temporarily heightened levels of ambient magic to tap for power. They do feature minor design improvements (retrofitted into Chachamaru afterwards), however.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion does strange things with this trope. Units 00, 01, and 02 are referred to as the prototype unit, test unit, and production unit, respectively, but they're functionally identical in operation. End of Evangelion's Mass Production Evas are a little ambiguous: they have very little resemblance to any of the prior Units in terms of how they work and operate, and while each of them is individually much weaker than any of the previous ones, they are also outfitted with much more reliable and stable systems.
  • If anything, Unit-00 is considered less reliable than its counterparts. As a prototype, Unit-00 wasn't intended for actual field deployment. And its pilot, Rei 1's soul is rather unstable and rebellious.
  • Rebuild of Evangelion gives us Provisional Unit-05 which is very much a Flawed Prototype, as it was rushed into service half-built to deal with an emergency situation. The only advantage it had over any other Evas were the flight thrusters. The third Rebuild movie subverts the trope by introducing even later Eva Units that are far superior to the prototypes they'd been using: with modular weapons packs that can quickly be swapped out mid-battle, portable batteries allowing them to operate without the umbilical cable, and the Eva Mark-09 has rocket boosters that allow it to fly under its own power and an Angel-level Healing Factor. Unit-13 appears to be Unit-01's successor and has Attack Drones and two sets of arms, in addition to Unit-01's ability to initiate an Impact Event under the right circumstances.
• One Piece has the World Government-developed Pacifistas. The original, created by rebuilding Bartholemew Kuma into a Cyborg, is able to make short work of some later models, though this is mostly because Kuma had Devil Fruit powers that apparently couldn't be transferred to the others or technologically duplicated. It is stated that more powerful models have been created over the Time Skip, and they were finally revealed in the Egghead arc, though it has not yet been shown how well Kuma would stack up against them.
  • The Rocket Man is one of the prototypes for Water 7's sea train and is much faster than its successor. That speed is also why it wasn't used as the city's train, as Tom was never able to develop a way of controlling the train. With no functioning brakes or steering, it's an inherently runaway train. However, for the rescue mission at Enies Lobby, that uncontrollable speed proved a major advantage for the Straw Hats.
  • An aversion is implied with the ancient weapon Pluto; the government's "official" explanation in regards to it is that they either erase any chance of someone using it ever, or get the blueprints for it so they can make their own just in case, which implies that at the very least, they think they have the resources, manpower and skill needed to make/mass produce a model as good as the original just as long as they get the how.
• Played straight in Outlaw Star. The XGP15A-II was purpose built using advanced military tech for the purpose of reaching the Galactic Leyline.
• The police protagonists of Patlabor have three prototype AV-98 Ingram mechs. One episode focuses on the introduction of a mass-produced line of Ingrams, subverting the trope a bit in that the prototypes aren't exceptionally good so much as the mass-produced ones are exceptionally shoddy. Also, other kinds of mass-produced police and military mechs are shown to be close in quality to the Ingrams.
  • Patlabor: The Movie has the Type Zero which was supposed to be an advanced replacement for the AV-98. It proved to be a fearsome opponent in melee combat against other labors and when it was overtaken by the Babel virus, it completely mopped the floor with Ohta's Ingram and Noa barely managed to subdue it. Seeing as the Type Zero wasn't seen in the subsequent films, it can be assumed that the design was abandoned.
• Sky Girls features this: The three original Sonic Divers are prototypes, and they do their job well. Subverted in the fact that the mass production model can do just as well, but the WORM attacks the production assembly plant, making the only one model that was completed a super prototype in its own way.
  • Also used straight when the Vic Vipers make their debut, it is marketed as cheap, much better and more heavily-armed alternative to the Sonic Divers that the titular characters use, and hence, is mass-produced. Not only it really is underperforming in comparison, the best thing it can do is act as support rather than replacement. It actually even gets beaten by an old, conventional fighter piloted by the show's The Ace in the end, and it's a two-against-one battle.
• Ram-Dass in Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry is an illegally made mecha where the Union only condones standard issue. Because Sara saved them in it, it's explained away as a "prototype" to anyone that asks. Her brother's Gloire, on the other hand, is an Ace Custom.
• Remarked upon in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, in reference to the Grappals/Gulaparls compared to the Gurren Lagann:
  Gimi: Anyway, aren't Grappals supposed to be superior to Gurren Lagann? There's something wrong with a prototype being stronger.
  • The trick here wasn't intentionally dumbing down the mass-produced version but rather the designers being ignorant of one crucial fact: the Gurren Lagann, like all Ganmen, is an Empathic Weapon. Simply copying the machinery won't help if they don't know what makes it tick. Once this fact is discovered, they quick-fix the situation with the addition of Spiral weaponry but they're still nowhere near enough Ganmen territory.
  • As seen in the movies, if your will is high enough, even the mass production models can grow into galaxy sized bots, a la "Tengen Toppa Grappal/Gulaparl" and fire planet system-sized shotgun rounds.
• Zigzagged in Viper's Creed: in the last episode we see a prototype white mech with greater speed, armor and two additional arms; but its software is not optimized, so at critical moments it freezes from bugs.
• Several cards in Yu-Gi-Oh! have a fairly justified case of this: they were created, playtested, and discovered to be far too broken to see mass play. As a result, only a handful of copies exist, and they're naturally rather powerful. Toon World, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, the Destiny HEROes, and Gold Castle of Stromberg all exist in small numbers, and all dominate their user's strategies.
  • In the sequel Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, it's revealed that such overwhelmingly powerful cards are normally banned if they are available for the masses. The best examples (at that time) being Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End. It was incredibly easy to summon, and its effect was so devastating that it could easily win the game by itself. Its counterpart, the Chaos Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning, however was not banned, due to it being so rare to the point that almost no one believed that it existed until Kagurazaka summoned it.