Real robot (リアルロボット Riaru Robotto?) is a genre of anime. The genre contains mecha robots whose abilities and operation are broadly explainable by, or grounded in, real-world physics and future technological advances. In addition, operators commonly rely on ranged weapons with projectiles and their machine's agility to survive military-like battle situations. Plotwise, most real robot series feature an overarching story and more mature themes in contrast to the "monster of the week" structure seen in productions of the super robot genre. The mecha from real robot series usually look more utilitarian than super robots.
Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) is largely considered the first series to introduce the real-robot idea and, along with The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982), would form the basis of what people would later call real-robot anime. In an interview with Yoshiyuki Tomino and other production crew members in the April 1989 issue of Newtype, about his views on the first Gundam anime that was not directed by him, he commented on the realism of the show, in which he sees the sponsors, Sunrise, as imaginary enemies of Gundam, since they did not accept a certain level of realism.Armored Trooper Votoms is viewed by Famitsu magazine as the peak of real-robot anime.
They established the concepts behind "real robots" that set it apart from previous robot anime, such as:
Examples of real-robot anime include Macross, Genesis Climber Mospeada, Armored Trooper VOTOMS, Nadesico, Southern Cross, Full Metal Panic, Patlabor, and of course the aforementioned Gundam series.