Kiko Senki Dragonar

機甲戦記ドラグナー (Kikou Senki Doragunaa)
Metal Armor Dragonar
Genre	Mecha
Anime television series
Directed by	Takeyuki Kanda
Music by	Toshiyuki Watanabe Kentarō Haneda
Studio	Sunrise
Original network	Nagoya Broadcasting Network
Original run	7 February 1987 – 30 January 1988
Episodes	48

Metal Armor Dragonar (機甲戦記ドラグナー, Kikō Senki Doragunā^?) is a 48-episode mecha anime series, created by Sunrise and aired from 1987 to 1988. Devised shortly after the release of Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, Dragonar was intended to be both a "starter" series to get new fans into mecha anime, and a potential successor to the Gundam franchise. In fact, its concept is to be the renewal of the first Gundam. Though the series enjoyed good ratings and earned a loyal fan following, it failed to surpass Gundam and ended up as a single series, probably due to its light, ZZ Gundam-like take on the real robot mecha genre. Game developer Banpresto had Dragonar appear in two of its popular franchises, Super Robot Wars and Another Century's Episode; fans responded positively, and Sunrise acknowledged them in 2005 by releasing a memorial DVD collection of the series, a remastered version of the previous two-part LD boxset releases years before.

Dragonar takes place in the year 2087 AD, when a military force called the United Lunar Empire Gigano has risen and captured the Moon. Their stated goal is the rebirth of mankind, but their primary intention by some of its members is the destruction of all those who dwell on Earth. To this end, the Empire uses humanoid battle machines called Metal Armors, as well as a gigantic mass driver cannon. Originally intended to send lunar material to Earth orbit for later retrieval, the Mass driver is reconfigured to launch small meteorites towards the home world. By the time the story takes place many bombardments have already taken place. The Earth Alliance became Earth Federation military, unable to compete with the Giganos military might, manages to steal three prototype Metal Armors with plans to reverse-engineer them with the help of exiled Giganos scientists. However, the ship carrying the Dragonars (posing as a refugee ship) is chased to a neutral colony by Giganos, and an attack is staged to retrieve them. Kaine, Tapp and Light, three friends and EFM trainees, are on the colony during the attack, and find a dying Giganos spy who gives them three disks. Chased by Giganos' weapons, the trio enters the colony's dock and finds the Dragonars. Using the disks, they activate the machines and use them to protect the colony. However, since the Dragonars are keyed to only be operable by their initial user, the three friends find themselves forced to become the Earth Federation military's first Metal Armor pilots, faced against the advanced technology and veterans of the Giganos forces... at end all Earth Alliance now Earth Federation military AND their use Earth Federation military Metal Armors at Earth and moon and United Lunar Empire Gigano HQ on moon destroyed

...
Wikipedia