Moment of Awesome (Sugar Wiki)/Anime and Manga/Mecha Anime

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Because Humongous Mecha are awesome all by themselves, we had to split up the anime section of "Awesome Moments" just for them. Chicks dig giant robots, you know.

Please move series with large number of examples to their own subpage under the series' own work page.

Examples:


Vandread

  • Vandread has numerous moments like this, but because of the show's focus on Combining Mecha and The Power of Friendship, many of them are shared between several people.
    • Solo moments:
      • Jura has both her Big Damn Heroes scene while on painkillers after being wounded and locking Dita and Hibiki in a room so that they could resolve their issues. Bonus points for broadcasting the whole thing to the entire ship.
      • For Meia, The Stoic, the Heartwarming Moments. Anime are more memorable than any amount of badassery she performed.
      • Dita's Rousing Speech to a dejected crew in the season one finale.
      • Bart got his moment to shine in his A Day in the Limelight episode when he singlehandedly destroyed a harvest ship.
      • Hibiki has plenty of these, but when he says Dita's name just before the end credits in the final episode, he manage to top everything else he did during the entire series.
      • What, no love for the Paksis? This is the thing that obliterated a superweapon about to blow up the galaxy, when everyone else was powerless to stop it, just because it wanted to protect its friends.
    • Shared moments:
      • In the first season finale, Hibiki and Dita flying out of a solar flare and punching through the enemy flagship after it survived a direct hit from another solar flare. It can also be argued that the whole collapsing a gas giant in order to create a star to blow up the enemy fleet with qualifies as a Crowning Moment of Awesome for everyone involved.
      • The first time that the four main characters form to make Vandread Pyoro.
      • The four main characters response to an attempted Hannibal Lecture in the series finale.

Fafner in The Azure Dead Aggressor

  • Ill Girl Shouko Hazama getting in the Fafner to fight. She proceeds to absolutely thrash the Festum which was attacking, before tying herself to it and blasting off into the sky, where she proceeds to self destruct, simultaneously destroying her own unit and the Festum, killing herself in a BIG Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Maya Toumi spends the first two thirds of the series on the sidelines before getting to pilot. When she does, she gets put as a backup, and when she goes into battle for the first time, the rest of the cast is worried about protecting her. In said battle, things start going south when a Festum starts assimilating Sakura - the rest of the cast tries to stop it to no avail... until Maya arrives and nails it with a perfect sniper shot into its weak point. The remaining Festum tries to dive down on Maya from above, and she easily shoots that one down as well. Those at Mission Control are left in awe.
  • Soushi in the final episode:

"That, Festum, is pain! Would you like to know the name of the tactic I showed you? It's the War Of Attrition! The tactic of enduring pain!"

Heroic Age

  • Age and Bellcross get one at the end of the first episode, by jumping into orbit to attack the Bronze hive ship.
    • Their Big Damn Heroes moment in episode 20. Cerbios fires a black hole at the human fleet. Bellcross dives in front of the fleet and stops the gravitational distortion, by punching it. Let me repeat that. He punched a black hole.
  • Talking about the black hole weapon, during the epic battle between four of the five Nodos (which played out, iirc, over the course of three episodes), Bellcross' punch proves ineffective against a supercharged black hole, which begins to pull him in, along with several asteroids and a small moon. So, a Crowning Moment for Cerbius? No - for Artemia and especially its alter ego Mehitak. Artemia coolly flies in and simply pulls Bellcross out. Which, considering Artemia's weakness against gravity based weapons and Mehitak's only recent emergence from a Heroic BSOD, is pretty special indeed.
  • Or how about when Bellcross kicks Lernaea through a freaking moon?
  • Getting away from the Nodos for a moment, let's not forget that Iolaous kills an entire Bronze anthill on his own during the invasion of the Bronze homeworld. Not just an ordinary anthill either, but a super-sized one that dwarfs even Bronze Battleships. How does he accomplish this in that mech of his? One automated laser drone, one teleportation, and one weak spot in the center of the planetoid. One has to wonder why he doesn't do this more often...
  • Dhianelia, of all people, gets one of these moments: early in the series, Phaetho O is bearing down on the Argonaut, and Age is busy fighting another Nodos, so he can't save them. So who stops Phaetho from destroying them? Dhianelia. By Mind Raping him. Though she gets flung into a brief Heroic BSOD because of it, this instills in Phaetho a deep fear of humanity that sticks with him for the rest of the series, despite Prome's attempts to purge it from him.

Martian Successor Nadesico

  • Ruri skirts this a lot, but she about tops herself for good when she wrests control of the Nadesico's computer from Nergal, then proceeds to hack into United Earth Forces network and lock down the entire base, trapping everyone inside, appearing on all their security screens in a silly-looking cat costume and apologizing in advance ("Please keep quiet for a short while") for good measure.
  • Subverted courtesy of Gekiganger 3. Joe coming Back from the Dead is intended to be this, but, for Akito at least, the moment falls flat.
    • But you can watch how it would have gone in some of the Nadesico-featuring Super Robot Wars games.
  • Ryoko Subaru gets one in her first appearance by doing an Out of the Inferno moment, whilst towing three mechs, tied together with a white bow so that the Nadesico know that she's friendly. The fact that she does this despite not knowing if the rest of her Amazon Brigade are alive or dead... they're alive
  • "Where else? In the box."
  • A moment towards the end of The Prince Of Darkness comes to mind, when Ryoko and her squad, plus Saburota, are beating the hell out of Hokuten's elite troops, guys who even gave the Black Selena problems. With Hikaru and Izumi ribbing Ryoko about her love live (or lack thereof) the whole time. Ryoko yells at the two of them to take the battle seriously, so they do: Less than a second later, Hokuten's squad is demolished.
  • The whole last fight between Akito and Hokuten also count. While all those girl fighting the Hokuten's elite troop, Akito and Hokuten mech stand silently. Face to face. Akito spend minute gathering a rage from what happen to him and Yurika. They charge with each other with all their might. Akito end the fight swiftly by by punch DIRECTLY AT HOKUTEN'S COCKPIT crushing his opponent Kamille Bidan style. After that, the Black Serena armor(Akito's mech) fall out, revealing his old Astevaris unit inside. Their eyes were soaking by an oil like it was crying for the revenge. That moment make this troper(who happen watch the movie before the anime) shed his tears.

The Big O

  • The first season had the brutal and very satisfying conclusion to the fight with Big Duo. Roger, after and episode of being beaten up by the damn thing, drop kicks Big Duo into a crater, surfboards it's body to the bottom, piledrives it's head off, and rips it's chest cavity clean off with the camera angles capturing the brutality perfectly.Schwartzvald only makes it better with his Oh Crap reaction in the beginning, and is literally crying by the finale, which, considering he was a gloating, cocky bastard up to that point, is total karmaic justice.
  • Pretty much every second of "The Greatest Villain" is a Crowning Moment of Awesome for either R. Dorothy Wayneright or Jason Beck.
    • Mostly Beck, because he manages to create a plan that very nearly destroyed Big O, and he came closer than anyone else ever did, even the Big Bad. Had the Big O just been a mindless robot, it would have spent eternity walking along the bottom of the ocean, following that little dummy as it chanted "BIG O BIG O BIG O".
  • Norman gets his when he pulls a machine gun taller than him from nowhere in the first series, and again in "Eyewitness," when he breaks out a rocket-launching motorcycle.
  • Schwartzvald gets one after his death in series two. His mecha, Big Duo, has been refitted, rebuilt and given to Psycho for Hire Alan Gabriel, and is about to finish off the titular mecha, when Schwartzvald somehow takes control of Big Duo, appears as a ghost to inform Gabriel he isn't fit to pilot it, and suffocates the maniac with wires before flying off into the distance as (presumably) part of Big Duo. And then hitting a stagelight and exploding. Really.
    • Better still, the way Gabriel's fate is foreshadowed a few seconds before it happens. The main character's mecha always starts up by running the phrase, "Cast in the Name of God, Ye Not Guilty." Having skipped that little step in starting up Big Duo, Gabriel is surprised to see the screen in his cockpit suddenly sticking on that line; "Cast in the Name of God, Ye Guilty."
    • This is Scwarzwald's Ultimate Crowning Moment of Awesome though
  • Near the end of the series, police chief Dan Dastun is informed that the Military Police have been ordered by Alex Rosewater not to interfere in the fight between Big O and Big Fau (piloted by Rosewater). Angrily, Dastun tears his badge right off his uniform, commandeers a tank, and goes off to help Roger anyway. His attacks prove ineffective, but just before Rosewater can blast Dastun to kingdom come, he's barraged by an entire fleet of tanks, piloted by the entire Military Police force, all of whom resigned and came to help Dastun. A great day for Red Shirts indeed.
  • Roger gets one in every episode he fights another mech, but when he pulled out the Final Stage beam cannon this troper got up and cheered.
  • CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD
    • YE GUILTY
  • Roger and the Big O definitely deserve props for stopping a falling satellite by punching it.

Bubblegum Crisis

  • Largo's confrontation with Quincy in episode 6, where he demonstrates what he can do with the satellites. Quincy finally realizes Largo isn't human:

QUINCY: Are you a superboomer?
LARGO: Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Largo. I am the maker of the new world.

  • Also, the introduction of Priss' new Motoslave, where, shortly after Largo's hyperboomers destroyed the old one, pays them back in full by taking two of them out all by itself before Priss even gets into it.

Giant Robo

  • Big. Bang. Punch. The several-hundred-foot-tall, armed to the teeth Eye of Vogler floats over a hill and is greeted by Chief Chujo, by himself, on foot, who is about to beat it down with his bare fists.
  • Shockwave Alberto jumps out of Giant Robo before it's engulfed by the Eye of Voglers's energy blast and deflects it with a shockwave. After giving a badass speech and lighting his cigar on the energy blast he absorbs all of the Eye of Vogler's energy, causing its shields to drop and the machine to collapse.
  • Nearly every living Expert of Justice gets one as they help Daisaku charge to Giant Robo.
  • Giant Robo blasting out and pushing the Eye of Vogler back using cables to help power it even futher.
  • Ginrei using her powers to move all of Ryonzanpaku to St. Abbe so the Experts of Justice can defeat the Eye of Vogler.
  • Kenpu Clan's introduction which sees them coming out of the river to attack the defenders of Ryonzanpaku
  • Koumei telling the leaders of the Magnificent Ten to shut up, and kneel before their leader of Big Fire.
  • The leaders of the Magnificent Ten easily escape, and remind Koumei that they could have easily escaped earlier but didn't because Big Fire's bodyguards where helping Koumei.
  • Taisou giving his life so that the rest could escape by keeping the net containing the Eye of Vogler from destroying Shanghai.

Overman King Gainer

  • After the Overdevil has either defeated (Gain) or turned the entire main characters into its slaves (Gainer, Cynthia. and Sara, the minor characters and army of Yapan City Units show up and start blasting the Overdevil, and Brainwash And Crazy members away.
  • Asuham Boone gets his when he gets in the boxing ring, and just destroys Gain, and captures Gain.
    • Which leads to Hughes Gouli revealing that he's a ninja and starts killing Siberian Railroad officials with shurikens while Calling Your Attacks.
  • The Students get one when they help Adette raid a Siberian Railroad train while only Sara and Gainer are actual soldiers.

Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo

  • In episode 7, when Giren Zabi Nerval Colony Drops (actually, Colony Suplexes) Lelouch Leopard.
    • In the same episode, Takane gets one by saving Akiha-tachi with her hands shackled... and then tops it by slicing an asteroid in half.
  • In episode 15, Nami is kicking Akiha's butt (despite Akiha being in her QT-ARMS), ranting about how their family didn't care about her and how she hates Akiha. She tries to smash Akiha over the head with her staff-thingie... and Akiha catches it, and tells her, "Nami, shut the hell up!"
  • Imo-chan gets one in episode 21 by kamikaze-ing herself into an antimatter missile heading for Kirkwood. Also a Tear Jerker.
  • In episode 22, After Benkei decides to turn against our heroes, Tsutsuji (who was implied to have been blown out of the colony during their trip to the sun) reappears, kicks him (activating his chainsaw in Xanthippe's face), and verbally browbeats Benkei into staying on the heroes' side. Who knew henpecking could be awesome?
  • In the finale, Akiha Inazuma kicks Leopard to break him out of his possession.

Other

  • The final episode of Metal Armor Dragonar featured the two rival characters Kaine and Maio teaming up to exploit a glaring weakness in the most dangerous Humongous Mecha in the series, piloted by the series biggest Jerkass. Result? The two people who have clashed violently up to that point pull of a combination attack that would make many Super Robot pilots jealous, with the only real lead-in comment being a generic "follow my lead" kind of thing from Kaine. This attack has only once appeared in any Super Robot Wars game with the exact same choreography as the series, and has been altered to appear even more Badass in all other appearances.
    • Dragonar also featured a scene in which the three main characters, using "borrowed" mecha, grab an enemy unit, carry it high into the air, fly toward the ground at top speed, and send the enemy unit flying straight into the ground, letting go only a few feet above the terrain below.
  • The premiere of the Mugen Punch in Genesis of Aquarion, knocking the Shadow Angel into the moon!
  • In the final battle of Aura Battler Dunbine, Elle, one of the leaders of the protagonists and a powerful psychic, tries to mentally disable one of Bern Bernings's ultimate attacks. She succeeds, but in retaliation Bern launches his own mental attack, despite having shown NO psychic ability before, to not only kill her, but tear off her clothes and flail her body around like a puppet in the process. Not to mention he was fighting in a mecha far away from Elle's flagship at the time.
    • This troper's favorite moment was when Shou faced the incredibly huge and powerful Leprechaun piloted by the show's Psycho for Hire, and finally destroyed it, getting everybody rid of Jerrill's worthless existence, with one telling blow. The Hyper Leprechaun seemed to be invincible, but he did it nonetheless.
  • A mention must also be given to Combat Mecha Xabungle and it's infamous ICBM catch.
  • In Gravion Zwei, a trip to a hot springs resort is interrupted by a Zeravire attack. As the team scrambles to take it on, Sandman has the maids sing the transformation theme as Gravion dives down into a volcano, fights the Zeravire, throws it out of the volcano (the hard way), and finishes it off.
    • He actually preceded it... When Mizuki has been dominating a ping pong match with Alex... there comes Sandman challenging them, with just Leele as his assistant... except she's just there for formalities of a match. Sandman then goes on to completely beat them with perfect score... while calling out attack names of his strikes... using SANDALS. That episode certainly shows that even without mecha, he gets one soon, though, Sandman is beyond awesome.
  • Kannazuki no Miko, especially on Chikane Himemiya. After in the early episodes serving as a MacGuffin character, she betrayed Himeko, kicks the curb out of Souma; who practically has done all the fighting by himself, corrupts his mecha, took it to the enemy home base, and even without her mecha, she wipes out the Quirky Miniboss Squad on foot by herself (except the said squad's leader, but he still loses). And after the end, it's later revealed that it's all just a Plan due to her reasoning of I Want My Beloved to Be Happy.
  • In episode 23 of Bokurano Yoko gets several: First, shooting Dung Beetle several times, allowing the characters contracted to Zearth to gain full control over it (including who goes next) and thus joining the contract herself (having not been contracted previously) and making herself (with a bit of help from the others) the next pilot. And then during her fight teleporting Zearth somewhere else (with the oponent following) and blowing up two buildings containing the Zearth program (a threat to mankind). Her actuall fight is made even more awesome by the airforce bombing the two robots, creating a huge inferno around them.
    • Could we give an honourable mention from the manga version to Seki going to his Heroic Sacrifice singing an anime theme tune, badly?
    • I'd also like to mention Waku's fight early in the series. He tears a robot in half with his robot's knee.
    • What about Kirie basically driving his first opponent to suicide with words alone?
      • He gets another by correctly guessing that Yoko was The Mole and unmasking her, right before dying.
    • There's also the beginning of Mako's fight in the manga, where right before piloting Zearth she absolutely owns the Alpha Bitch that harrasses her by first pulling her and her boyfriend into Zearth's cockpit when they're naked (they were in a love hotel), then slapping her and giving her a What the Hell, Hero? speech before she sends both kids to definitive safety. At the end of the chapter, the Alpha Bitch has reformed and is cleaning up the classroom, like Mako always did.
    • Anko's battle in the manga, where she gets her legs burned off by acid but keeps going on, wins her fight, and ultimately gives a Rousing Speech to Earth before passing away in her father's arms.
  • In Zone of the Enders Dolores, I, when the Link arrived at Earth Orbital Elevator, the situation had turned grim, while the officer in charge can't do anything since he didn't get any order. Rachel explains the situation, that they had to give up most elevator structure to preserve it. While the officer still in doubt, (well, it is a several million dollar infrastructure being sacrificed in process) they decide to take matters into their hands: They wrestle their control from said officer, who can't do or say shit. Then, Rachel gives her speech:

"If any of you wants to evacuate, go right now. BUT REMEMBER, between them and us is the life of more than 6 billions of people on Earth. If we failed, there's no more Earth we know. Now, what's your choice now?!"

    • Needless to say, all the officers choose to stay behind.
  • The end of Iczer One, when Iczer-One and Nagisa finally synchronise with one another, and proceed to unleash massive amounts of butt-kicking. By the way, this was over twenty years before Mobile Suit Gundam 00 did the same thing.
    • Iczer-2 gets one in Iczer-3. After she utterly curbstomps Iczer-3 (with not even a Theme Music Power-Up being able to help), The Dragon Golem bombards the area and says that that makes the victory hers. Iczer-2 confronts Golem, who says that Neos only needs her, and fires a shot. Iczer-2's response? She tells Golem that she's a loser, dodges the shot, and neatly bisects her.
  • In Basquash, we have the last scene of Episode Seven. To describe it without giving anything away, let's just say This Troper hasn't been this pumped after a mecha series scene since Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. It's just that epic.
    • To describe it more thoroughly, the previous episode and a half had been focusing on Magnificent Bastard James Lowe's plan to sterilize Street Bigfoot Basketball with rules, referees and lines. To make matters worse, when the fan response is a little less than lukewarm, his only notion is wanting to train them to accept and like these new rules. Cue Sela and Haruka's plan to start disrupting things by distributing scandalous pics of themselves... followed promptly by Dunk Mask, previously in a funk being torn over joining this new league to get the money he needs to make it to the moon and cure his sister and playing the game that fulfills him, showing up to completely disrupt the farce. CUE OPENING THEME AND FOUR MINUTES OF BASQUASH AT ITS ABSOLUTE FINEST. It concludes with Dunk Mask heaving a basketball filled with the diamonds offered to him by Lowe in the most outrageous rebound pattern barrage yet, bouncing every which way until it shatters the glass office that Lowe is watching from. KICK. ASS.
    • James recently had his own Crowning Moment of Awesome and Crowning Moment of Funny at the same time. After Dunk Mask gets arrested and thrown into jail (again), James realizes that he is unable to get Dan out of prison through official channels. Everyone, even those who know him well, think he's running out of ideas. What does he do? He DRESSES UP AS A HILARIOUSLY COSTUMED SUPERHERO NAMED "MISTER PERFECT" AND BUSTS JD OUT WITH A ROCKET LAUNCHER that's what he does! Awesome.
  • "My name is NOT Barius! I... I'M PAI THUNDER! AND YOU ARE NOT MY FATHER!"
  • In RahXephon, Kunugi gets one in the movie when he shoots Bahbem:

Bahbem: "As the creator I am beholden to none!"
Kunugi: "And I say that a God that man can percieve isn't really a God!" <gunshot>

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