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Robeast - TV Tropes

  • ️Thu Oct 15 2009

Robeast (trope)

Iron fists vs iron... uh, this.

Portmanteau of "robot" and "beast". The standard Monster of the Week for Super Robots and Super Sentai/Power Rangers.

A Robeast is a Kaiju-sized monster, more often than not the same size as the Super Robot that battles it, though Robeasts in Toku may also start in human size, so as to be a threat on a personal scale, then grow through some form of Applied Phlebotinum.

Robeasts are sometimes capable of human-level intelligence or communication, though when they are, they usually spout interchangeable villainous threats and taunts.

Robeasts are usually built with both biological and mechanical construction (though some are also completely mechanical, magical constructs, giant demons, and the like). They come in a dizzying variety of shapes, abilities, and weapons, and very rarely will any two robeasts look alike, even between robeasts deployed by the same villain(s). Many of them avoid humanoid designs and mook status, becoming a Mechanical Monster.

They are almost always Made of Explodium, being the defacto pioneers of Defeat Equals Explosion. Compare Animal Mecha. Not to be confused with Ambiguous Robots, though their design may sometimes imply they are this. Smaller versions of these may be covered under Mechanical Animals.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga 

  • The Automatons in Aposimz are mechanical monsters that vary in size from small worms to Kaiju. Since they are covered with Placenta, some also count as food.
  • Mostly inverted with some Android/Cyborg Digimon. They're mainly made up of network data and are highly-intelligent, but some still counts.
  • The True Companions of Gaiking and Gaiking: Legend of Daiku Maryu fly around inside a gigantic mechanical dragon called Daiku Maryu.
  • The Ganbare Goemon anime had Seppukumaru, the bad guy from the third Goemon game, summon creatures called "Cyber Devils" to fight the eponymous Mystical Ninja and his allies. Despite resembling organic monsters, they were actually mecha piloted by either Sepukkumaru himself and/or his egg shaped underlings.
  • GEAR Fighter Dendoh has the entire Galfer species, with a specific hierarchy. From bottom to top, we have: Galfer Soldiers, Galfer Guards (supposedly stronger versions of the Soldiers), Mechanical Beasts (Soldiers that have increased their power by fusing with some technological object), Heavy Machines, Professional Machines (specialized Galfer with power between Mechanical Beasts and Heavy Machines, and much faster, smarter and trickier than the latter. They're usually part of Quirky Miniboss Squads), Lagowe, Zero (similar to a Professional Machine but even more powerful than a Heavy Machine, and actually part of the Galfer Emperor), and the Galfer Emperor himself.
  • The minions of the Shadow Angels, usually cherubim, in Genesis of Aquarion.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans: Mobile Armors* are AI-operated Animal Mecha much larger mobile suits. They seek out resources to perpetuate themselves and create armies of Attack Drones to kill as many humans as possible. Centuries in the past, the Gundams were created to save humanity from the Mobile Armors. Mobile Armors are alerted or even awakened from slumber by the Ahab reactors in all mobile suits, whereas the Alaya-Vijnana system used by some mobile suits goes into overdrive in a mobile armor's presence. In the present, a single Mobile Armor is only featured in one Story Arc, as mobile suits are otherwise used for warfare between humans.
  • The Jyarei Monsters from Juuni Senshi Bakuretsu Eto Ranger began as fully organic beasts capable of speech that were upgraded mid season with cybernetic implants. Some of the monsters later in the series appeared to be fully robotic, although in a rather ambiguous way.
  • Mazinger:
    • Go Nagai's Mazinger Z is the Trope Codifier; in fact, the monsters in this series are actually called "Machine Beasts (Japanese Kikaiju). The sequel Great Mazinger had Battle Beasts (Sentoujuu) and UFO Robo Grendizer had the Saucer Beasts and Vega Monsters.
    • And the Battle Beasts from Great Mazinger already diferred from the Mazinger Z Robeasts, bordering on a Deconstruction from the trope. They were capable of speech and independent thought, and they were very cunning due to it. This resulted in a Near-Villain Victory in the THIRD chapter.
    • And sometimes Mazinger Z averted or subverted the trope. Some Mechanical Beasts were size-shifters, and some of them -Blazas S1 and S2- were human-sized.
  • The Angels from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Four Angels subverted the trope by not being giant at all: Leliel is infinitely thin, Bardiel and Iruel are microscopic (the former is The Corruption, while the latter is a colony of sentient nano-viruses), and Tabris/Kaworu is human-sized or just a Half-Human Hybrid, it's not really clear.
  • Kyoshin in Neo Ranga, although somewhat subverted as they stay in two episodes at a time and do not start showing up until episode 17.
  • The Beastmen Ganmen / Gunmen and the Anti-Spiral Mugann from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
    • Gunmen are also an inversion, because the heroes use the exact same kinds of robots they stole from the beastmen.
    • Slightly inverted in that the Mechasauruses, like much of the Reptilians, are a highly intelligent race.
  • Voltron is the Trope Namer, after the monsters in GoLion and Dairugger XV. The equivalent terms were Deathblack Beastmen (then Mechablack Beastmen) in GoLion and Combat Machines in Dairugger XV.

Fan Works 

Film 

  • The original form of Mechagodzilla from Godzilla franchise. The second version was a human piloted mecha. The third version was a human piloted mecha built on the bones of the original Godzilla, dubbed Kiryu. Kiryu went berserk in its first confrontation with (a second) Godzilla, playing with the trope.
    • Then there's the cyborg Kaiju Gigan, the original Moguera (the second M.O.G.U.E.R.A. was, again, a human-built mecha), and Mecha-King Ghidorah.
  • From the Toho-produced King Kong Escapes comes Mechani-Kong, who beats Mechagodzilla by some 7 years, but comes a full decade after Moguera.

Live-Action TV 

  • Toku such as Super Sentai (and by extension Power Rangers) revolve around this, with a different rubber suit Monster of the Week to challenge the heroes (and oftentimes the heroes' giant robots) as the driving force behind the villain's scheme. Every Big Bad has his or her own way of making monsters, and making them bigger. They're sometimes the source of Nightmare Fuel, and sometimes Narm Charm. Sentience and whether or not they're Always Chaotic Evil varies from series to series.
    • One Sentai show, Choudenshi Bioman, only applied this to the giant battles (and thus averted Make My Monster Grow) — the Biomen instead fought a group of recurring monsters on the ground exclusively, then fought a Mecha Gigant (or later, a Neo-Mecha Gigant, sometimes piloted by one of the three generals). This approach didn't really see much (if any) use afterwards, likely for budgetary reasons (since the monster of the week was only used in the giant battles as opposed to both giant and ground battles, meaning Toei wasn't getting as much use for their money).
    • Partial example with the Ultra Series, as most of the kaiju are more in the vein of Godzilla than Super Sentai, while the Ultras are aliens instead of robots. Nevertheless, they inspired a great deal of the examples here, and a number of the monsters fought by the heroes fit the trope in some way or another. They're not all one-off Monsters of the Week either, with many becoming as every bit as popular and iconic as Ultraman himself.
  • Fairly common in the Chouseishin Series as foes for mecha battles.

Roleplay 

  • The first battle in Up, Up, and Away is against a giant mechanical ape outright called a Robeast. While none of the heroes have a mech, they do have strength in numbers, and the amount of characters attacking (plus a weakness scan from Donnie) ends the fight very quickly.

Tabletop Games 

  • Pretty much everything in Monsterpocalypse. For extra fun, the same company has released completely-compatible Voltron units, so the game has actual Robeasts.

Video Games 

Webcomics 

  • Sleipnir: Equine Invader from Jupiter:
    • The Valkyrie Units are hummingbird-shaped alien robots that attack Sleipnir seeking to drain their energy. One of them absorbs a nuclear explosion instead, crash-landing on Earth. They serve as incubators for alien bioweapons shaped like a wingless dragon, a rabbit, and a dog, which they inject with Sleipnir's energy to cause them to grow into Bioweapon Beasts.
    • The rabbit Bioweapon Beast either mutates into a robeast itself or somehow becomes covered in a suit of Powered Armor, earning it the codename Tick Tock after the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.

Western Animation 

  • The Rabbot and the Insanoflex from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
  • Parodied in one episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy where Grim takes Billy (who has been transformed into a 100-foot-tall superhero) to Tokyo to meet a spoof of Gamera and Ghidorah. An angry Mandy pilots a giant gorilla robot called Mega-Gorillasaur to bring them back.
  • The mecha-Stock Ness Monster in the Inspector Gadget episode "Monster Lake".
  • South Park — In the Kaiju parody episode, Barbra Streisand turned into a Mechagodzilla.
    • And returned in "201" with full sentience.
  • As Voltron: Legendary Defender is a reboot of the Trope Namer; of course they show up. But in this case, they are much nastier threats than the ones the Paladins usually face and often entire episodes are dedicated to taking them down. They're not even named until Season 2, when Hunk panics at facing another "robot... beast! Ro-beast!" Unfortunately, they are also significantly downplayed — they stop appearing altogether shortly after the second season, leaving a paltry four Robeasts in the entire 78-episode run.