Kara Dennison
March 26, 2024 
Big news for fans of robots, space battles, awesome music, and love geometry: Macross (or at least most of it) will be streaming on Disney+! For many fans, this will mark the first time the legendary series is viewable at all, with most of the franchise only being available via fansubs until now. Soon, a whole new generation of fans will be able to fall in love with this epic series and witness its impact on anime as a whole.
It’s a day many of us frankly never saw coming—kind of like when the original Gundam became easily accessible. So, with this on the horizon, why not keep wishing? There are lots of other influential mecha anime franchises that deserve their moment in the sun. Like these:
The Mazinger Saga
Ten years before the original Macross aired, Go Nagai was busy changing the face of mecha anime forever. Mazinger Z did the unthinkable, putting the pilot inside their robot for the first time rather than having them stand to one side or hang on for dear life. Besides reshaping how we think of giant robots in anime, Go Nagai went on to create what we now know as the Super Robot genre. With rocket punches, hot blood, and epic battles, this would become the mecha landscape for a solid decade.
But Mazinger wasn’t alone in his fight. Koji Kabuto’s party would grow beyond his show into follow-up series Great Mazinger and Grendizer. With a remake of the latter of those on the horizon, it’s about time we got easy access to the granddaddy of super robots and his brothers.
The Robot Romance Trilogy
And no, we’re not talking about lowercase-r romance (although Macross has tons of that)! Airing between 1976 and 1979, the Robot Romance Trilogy was a set of three separate but thematically-similar shows from Sunrise. In the rush of post-Mazinger mecha, many shows had effectively become glorified toy commercials. After the success of 1975’s Raideen, Sunrise decided to push back against that with this trio of titles.
Combattler V, Voltes V, and Daimos all had one key thing in common: an increased focus on human stories and drama. That isn’t to say previous shows never had these things. But these three shows experimented with longer story arcs and more complex threats than monster-of-the-week battles. These shows were also the early stomping ground of one Yoshiyuki Tomino… who would go on to leave his own mark on mecha anime.
The Brave Series
Just under a decade after Macross first aired, and nearly 20 years after super robots became a thing, Sunrise made… well, glorified toy commercials. That aside, their Brave Series (modeled after Transformers) did a lot of heavy lifting in terms of bringing super robots back. After the Robot Romance Trilogy put a twist on the Mazinger saga, other shows deconstructed those themes. Real robot shows like Macross and Gundam were becoming more popular, but the desire for punching monsters hard in the face still burned.
While we can absolutely watch GaoGaiGar, this beloved Brave Series installments thwarts as many tropes as it plays into. Being able to watch Exkaiser, Fighbird, Goldran, and more would give a more complete view into the 90s super robot revival.
While we wait for the classics to return, read these manga inspiring the spring anime season!
