Anyway another Gundam series I feel holds to the real robot ideals rather well is 0080:War in the Pocket. This is not least because of the distressingly realistic response of the child protagonist to the war “Explosions! Cool! No school for me tomorrow, YAY!”
I’ll admit that there are certain geriatric tropes present such as a Gundam that keeps standing no matter how much gets thrown at it (with a wince inducing revelation of the standard ridiculous Gundam colour scheme) and a love across divides that Shakespeare first thought up but there are still a great number of pros to this title. The Gundam is standing and not responding to its attacker because the projectile weaponry it uses, while not albe to pierce its prototype armor still panics the inexperienced (but well trained) pilot within. In an earlier attack a soldier is killed by overwatch fire when breaking cover against the orders of his superior while attempting to secure an objective. This the tragic end to an otherwise flawless team based attack on an enemy installation; each unit securing sub-objectives and covering their teammates when possible.
Each of the Mobile suits has the cumbersome movement and feeling of weight (even in weightless space) that I feel is key to suspension of disbelief in a mecha series.
I can only finish up with a depiction of how depressingly realistic the final death of one of the characters is revealed to be. Their sacrifice, doubtlessly tragic, is even later revealed to have been ultimately pointless, the romance ending in a tragic, unromantic and hard-hittingly realistic manner.

@Haesslich
I believe someone mentioned hat GRace was like having Belldandy and Urd in one single person. Although personally, I think she’s more like a combination Belldandy and Hilde.

Yeah you win the time line thing no need to rub it in…

Macross Frontier 22 Post inbound ETA 2 hours from now…so tell me comrade is the LZ hot?

By the way, my timeline? Luca just confirmed the dates of infection… which puts it a year out from when the 117th Research Fleet got destroyed. In other words, Grace DID find Sheryl after Mao and company apparently got killed.

@Haesslich
Not over emphasis on technological aspect per-se but it is one of the more stronger elements that differentiates the two, voice commands a la G-Gundam are much more super robot than real robot.

Still since Aina was my first Kikuko Inoue role Aina is special for me. Grace is probably going to be more remembered than Cecile as the best Kikoku Inoue voiced character simply because it was an inspired choice by Kawamori and his team. I wonder who else the considered for the role of Grace. Nevertheless I think we can all agree that Kawamori made the right choice and Kikuko Inoue is having a ball being the dead smexy evil cylon that is Grace.

@d3v
You sir are hard core man. I was never that hard core to use VHS for fan subs or buy anime that way.

She’s like the hottest Cylon ever, really.

As for Aina, well you can’t go wrong with what for all intents and purposes is Belldandy in a Mobile Armor (with matching flight suit).

Personally, I consider Shiro to be one of the better Gundam pilots simply because he doesn’t rely on sheer hot-bloodedness and GAR to win and actually uses his head.

random hero: One real robot series i can recommend is gasaraki, admittedly there is a bit of mysiticism in it but the robots in the show are very realistically portrayed.

You mean, ‘realistically portrayed right up until the point that the large demons start running around towards the end of the show’. Patlabor’s more realistic than this in its portrayal of large mecha.

Crusader: The point of real robot isn’t necessarily the mechanics, just as it wasn’t for ‘hard’ sci-fi, so much as a believable handwave behind the technology and a focus on the people who used it rather than the technology itself. It’s basically the difference between, say, Starship Troopers and GaiGaoGar perhaps. Or between Patlabor and Gurren Lagann.

As for Kikuko Inoue, look for clips from MGS3 on YouTube which involve “The Boss”, who she played. Better than Aina.