Before Mecha
The Advent of Mazinger
Western Invasion
Assimilation
The Present
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Machine Evolution
Mecha on the Battlefield
In 1979, director Yoshiyuki Tomino would create a series that pushed the mecha concept even further. His epic war story, Mobile Suit Gundam was a synthesis of the Eastern giant robot tradition and the Western powered armor tradition. Drawing from Heinlein's Mobile Infantry, Gundam featured Mobile Suits, essentially mass-produced, tank-like anthropomorphic mecha that carried heavy weapons. Conceived as commonplace military vehicles, Mobile Suits were not as powerful as the great giant robots, but neither were they as modestly-equipped as Heinlein's battlesuits. But aside from its mecha, Gundam's most innovative feature was that it was a gritty and sometimes harsh war drama rather than a cut-and-dried fight between good and evil. These features helped Gundam capture its large audience.
Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory pitted mecha against mecha in the vast seas of space .