Getter Robo

GUTS! GUTS! GE-TTA GUTS!!

"Looks like the only ones who can pilot Getter Robo are either superior pilots... or the insane!."

—Hayato Jin, Getter Robo Go manga

"So much for the laws of physics!"

—Hayato Jin , Getter Robo Armageddon

A classic Humongous Mecha manga, created in 1974 by manga author Ken Ishikawa, who had previously collaborated with Go Nagai in the production of his smash-hit series Mazinger Z. Where Mazinger pioneered the concept of a Humongous Mecha piloted by a human, Getter Robo effectively created the Combining Mecha with its three-part machine, which required the three pilots to work in harmony in order to work at its best. Five arcs of the manga were created before Ken Ishikawa's death in 2006 - Getter Robo, Getter Robo G, Getter Robo Go (created 17 years after G), Shin Getter Robo and Getter Robo Āḥ. Though they all form a single coherent continuity, there is also a significant Time Skip between them and each series is vastly different in tone, technology level and setting, and usually involves the next generation of Getter Robo pilots. In the thirty years since its creation, Getter Robo has had a number of spinoffs and alternate tellings, which, while not direct adaptions of the manga, usually feature the same characters but in different storylines and settings. These include...

• Getter Robo: The original TV series, wherein the primary antagonists are the Dinosaur Empire, the remnants of the dinosaurs who escaped extinction by hiding deep below the Earth's surface. When they attack the Saotome Laboratory, home of Getter Robo, Professor Saotome enlists the aid of three of his daughter Michiru's classmates to help fight off the invasion. The team consists of Ryoma Nagare, a hot-blooded soccer star; Hayato Jin, a quiet, handsome loner; and Musashi Tomoe, a portly martial artist friend of Ryoma's whose cowardice hides a heart of gold. The series details the team's battles with the Dinosaur Empire, cumulating with Musashi making a Heroic Sacrifice to finish the enemy off.

• Getter Robo G: The direct sequel to the original. With the Dinosaurs defeated, Earth is menaced by the Hundred Demon Empire, who wish to conquer the world and subjugate humanity. Saotome builds a new Getter and the team recruits Benkei Kuruma, a pacifistic softball coach to fill the empty third seat. Was (partially) dubbed into English as Starvengers, part of the Force Five animation block.

• Getter Robo Go: A 90s version of the series, Go is a lighter adaptation of Ishikawa's original manga with entirely new character designs. Subsequently, it remains the "black sheep" of the Getter franchise for lacking any of Ishikawa's trademark style and edginess, despite the fact that he and Nagai cooperated on the script. The original manga was much more well-received, and was briefly released in English by Viz Media as Venger Robo, a nod to Starvengers.

• Getter Robo Armageddon: Also known as Shin Getter Robo - Sekai Saigo no Hi, Armageddon is an OVA set in a world where Professor Saotome apparently goes rogue and allies with the monstrous, saurian creatures called Invaders, producing a bio-organic Getter monster dubbed "Shin Dragon"; and the Only One who can stop him might be Ryoma, who was imprisoned years ago for murdering the good Professor. When the United Nations fires a nuclear missile at Shin Dragon, the resulting fallout kills 90% of the world's population. Almost a decade later, a new team of Getter pilots formed by Benkei's adoptive daughter Kei and his right-hand Gai, as well as a clone made by Saotome named Go, battle the Invaders with the super-powerful Shin Getter Robo, eventually joining up with the original team. Second animated series brought to the U.S., courtesy of AD Vision, in 2001. This series is also the one credited to finally getting the over-the-topness of the manga into animated form, and is a perennial favorite of fans of the franchise. Imagawa was originally chosen as director, but was fired after three episodes for unknown reasons. It is a common misconception that it is a sequel to a Moon Wars radio drama, but that was not produced until after the end of the OVA.

• Shin Getter Robo vs Neo Getter Robo: An Alternate Continuity sequel to the original series, where Musashi's Heroic Sacrifice destroys all of Manhattan, causing the government to crack down on Getter Energy research. Several years later, the remnants of the Dinosaur Empire resurface, and Hayato assembles a new Getter Team to pilot the Neo Getter Robo and fight off the enemy. Some fans consider this series a redemption of Getter Robo Go, as the team of Go, Shou and Gai are lifted almost directly from the manga version, with Neo Getter being a revised version of Getter Go.

• New Getter Robo: Essentially a more faithful adaptation of Ishikawa's original Getter Robo manga, with some scenes lifted directly from it. The Dinosaur Empire is replaced by the mysterious Oni, and the entire Getter Team is much more violent (bordering on psychopathic) as well as being older than their predecessors. The Getter is also redesigned, but fans tend to refer to it as "New Getter" in order to distinguish it from the original, which appears in New as a prototype. Is generally considered a good starting point for new viewers because of its straightforwardness and faithfulness to the manga; conveniently, this was brought over by Geneon Entertainment in 2005 and is still available from many online retailers.

It's a common misconception that the Getter Robo series is the work of Go Nagai, when in fact it's almost entirely the work of Ken Ishikawa. Go Nagai only pitched the concept of combining jets (as opposed to combining cars, the original idea) to Ishikawa, while the rest was made without his involvement. Nevertheless, Getter Robo is now closely linked in the minds of people who think about that sort of thing with Nagai's Mazinger trilogy. Do note that Getter Robo IS considered part of the Dynamic Publishing family, so its crossovers with Go Nagai's robots have pseudo-canonical status. That, and most Super Robot fans LOVE having those robots mix it up.

Character Sheet is under construction and needs more Wiki Magic.

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Tropes used in Getter Robo include:

• Abnormal Ammo: One of the weapons used by the original Getter Robo, in the Anthology series, is a "Missile Machine Gun" which is a chain gun huge enough to use missiles for bullets. That speaks for itself.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: An Ax Crazy cuts down a Shinto Shrine (and the building its in) with a sword in New Getter Robo.
• Abusive Precursors: The Dinosaur Empire and the Oni Empire.
• Ace Custom: Ryouma's infamous Black Getter from Armageddon, which he custom built from the wreckage of a regular Getter Robo, mainly involving lots of black paint and spikes.
• Action Girl: Shou from Getter Robo Go and her re-appearance in Shin vs Neo; Kei (being basically a replacement for Shou with a twist) from Getter Armageddon also qualifies. Basically, if the second Getter Team has a woman in it, she's probably going to be awesome.
• After the End: Setting of most of Armageddon OVA and the manga following the conclusion of Getter Robo Go
• Alien Invasion
• Alternate Continuity: Every anime adaption and the Getter Robo DASH manga
  • Many fans theorize, based on the endings of Armageddon and New, that all the continuities might actually form a sort of multiverse, which would mean every series is actually canon in a way. YEAH.
• Americans Are Cowboys: Jack King and Texas Mack.
• Anachronism Stew: Dark Capital arc of New Getter. Of course its justified, since this is what leads Hayato to suspect someone is messing up the timestream.
• Anime Theme Song: Notably, the original TV series and Getter Robo G shared one theme, simply titled "Getter Robo!"
• Anthropomorphic Personification: Everything in the universe has a consciousness, apparently. The Getter Rays themselves are the living embodiment of "evolution", or looked at another way, life itself.
• Anti-Hero: Ryoma's a Type IV, Hayato's a Type V, and Musashi's a Type II.
• Anti-Villain: The Bug Aliens from Shin Getter Robo manga. While their dialogue is very villain hammy they're trying to stop the Getter Emperor from annihilating every other life force in the universe. Their home planet is destroyed, their first attempt to erase Shin Getter from history was by direct attacks against Saotome's lab. And out of only desperation the Admiral of the fleet allows the remaining ships to flee and attempts a kamikaze attack against planet Earth.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Getter Rays, which are essentially A Wizard Did It combined with Rule of Cool.
• Art Evolution: Ishikawa's style in 1974, when he created the original manga, looks almost identical to Go Nagai's. When he revived the series in 1991 with Getter Robo Go his style looked completely different and distinct, with more detail and stronger anatomy.
  • This ends up creating some awkward shifts in the Getter Robo Saga manga compilations, which inserted new bonus chapters in between the original material, meaning the art goes back and forth between Ishikawa's 70's and 90's art styles.
• Art Shift: During certain intense moments, the art shifts to a black and white (or black and green), extremely sketchy style. This has become well-known and homaged/parodied by several shows.
• Assimilation Plot: Getter Robo Go. Okay, not exactly, but this is what happens to ANYTHING exposed to too much Getter energy. Also the philosophical speeches given by the conscious Getter fall very much into this.
  • Touched upon or is one of the main plot points in all of the OVAs. Notably, unlike the manga, OVA characters decisively reject the idea of being assimilated by the Getter Rays without fail.
• Author Existence Failure: Ken Ishikawa. This left Getter Robo Āḥ, the last series chronologically, on a very annoying cliffhanger since the magazine it ran in was cancelled and he was unable to pick it up again before his death.
  • Possibly not. The Getter Robo Saga compilation manga (made while Ishikawa was alive) supposedly has a "revised ending for Getter Robo Āḥ", but few English-speaking fans have been able to read it.
• Ax Crazy: Hayato starts out this way in many adaptions, and Ryoma, appropriately enough, backs up his Crazy Awesome with actual axe use. There's also the fact that at least three versions of Getter-1, which all wield axes, have gone absolutely batshit nuts
• An Axe to Grind: Most forms of Getter-1 use one or more of these.
• Badass: Literally a requirement for piloting a Getter Robo - the recruitment process is ridiculously dangerous and demanding to ensure this, and non-badasses have been shown to get severely injured or even die from just the stress of trying to pilot the insanely fast machines. Even then however, almost all of the non-Getter pilots in the series seem to be total badasses as well.
• Badass Grandpa: As Hayato gets older with each subsequent incarnation, he's slowly but surely creeping towards this.
  • Professor Saotome himself has a few incredibly badass moments here and there. In the original manga, he piloted one of the Getter machines and fought several battles until Musashi took his place due to Saotome's old body not being able to withstand the machine's stress anymore.
  • Professor Shikishima, in all his glorious insanity.
• Badass Longcoat: Ryoma in Armageddon, and Hayato in his role as a commander.
• Barehanded Blade Block: The original Getter Robo manga provides possibly one of the earliest examples when Ryoma fights assassins sent by Saotome to test his fighting skills (reproduced in New Getter). Unlike most examples of this trope, Ryoma gets his palms cut badly in the process.
• Beam-O-War: Last episode of New Getter.
• Beneath the Earth: The Dinosaur Empire, primarily
• Berserk Mode: Getter Robo Hien, is also a common side effect of Getter Rays exposure.
• Better to Die Than Be Killed: In Armageddon, Michiru. She preferred to mess with a test flight and die rather than be killed by the Invader infection she was carrying.
  • This was a bad way for her to go, and screwed over others, but she may have already been being influenced by the infection, just not completely taken over.
  • When you think about it actually she may have killed herself to prevent the invader from taker her over completly, which, as Professor Saotome's daughter, would've caused so many problems. So it's more like Dying as Yourself. Still a bad way to go all things considered
• Beyond the Impossible: See the second page quote. The manga and anime were the main inspiration for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.)
• BFG: Some versions of Getter Robo either carry giant guns or incorporate them into their design. Perhaps the most flashy example(s) belong to Getter Robo Hien from the latest manga, which has a handheld BFG and two built-in ones, although those are move of a dual Wave Motion Gun
  • One of the American mecha in Getter Robo Hien gets a BFG made from the transformed Statue of Liberty.
  • And Texas Mack's cannon, which is so powerful that it can't even be used on ground targets or it'll obliterate the surrounding area. "This cannon has too much high power man!".
  • The Russian transforming mobile fortress Volga from Getter Robo Go manga has the alternate mode that is practically one humongous cannon. Even the 840-mm main gun of the American mobile fortress Texas from the same series seems small by comparison.
• BFS: in this case, a Big Fragging Axe for Getter-1 and a Big Fragging Drill for Getter-2, especially their Shin versions.
• Big Brother Instinct: In Armaggedon, Go behaves this way towards Kei. Well, he is an Opposite Gender Clone of Kei's deceased older sister, Michiru.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows. Very common among the cast.
  • Notable on Armageddon Ryoma. Between the eyebrows and hair, he has the GAR equivalent to Rapunzel Hair.
• Bigger Is Better: Part of the logic behind Getter Rays. As they grow in power (or "evolve"), the machines grow in size. And they can get really big.
• Body Horror: The Invaders, the Oni, the plant monsters from Hien, the insect creatures from the Āḥ manga... hell, nearly every Getter Robo enemy race can possess and deform other creatures (mostly humans) into horrible monsters
• Bragging Theme Tune
• Bug War: Shin Getter Robo and Getter Robo Āḥ.
• Butch Lesbian: Linda, Great Britain's main pilot. Even her mecha looks like a muscular woman.
• By the Power of Greyskull: "Change Getter (insert: 1, 2, 3) ! Switch on!"
• Calling Your Attacks: It's a Super Robot show, ain't it? Lampshaded in Shin vs. Neo, where the eponymous robot was designed this way on purpose to simplify operation. Squarely averted in the manga itself, however, they simply use the attacks without calling them like they're autistic.
• Canon Immigrant: Dr. Saotome originally piloted Getter-3 himself. After the anime's creation and Musashi's popularity, he showed up in the manga to take the machine for himself.
  • Even weirder is Genki, also from the anime... who just appears in the manga with zero introduction.
• Caped Mecha: Getter Robo and Black Getter Robo in Armageddon.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Getter Robo Go and later installments were much darker than the light hearted fun of the original Getter Robo series.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Ryoma apparently specializes in the art of breaking dinosaurs with his bare hands.
• Chest Blaster: GETTER BEAM!
• Colony Drop: The Andromeda Flow Country try this with their enormous battleship, in the manga.
• Combining Mecha: The Trope Maker. Getter Robo is also the ultimate example of this trope, as it can apparently combine with absolutely anything and make it work.
• Composite Character: There's two in two of the adaptations.
  • Musashibo Benkei in New, a composite of, obviously, Musashi and Benkei.
  • Kei in Armageddon, a composite of THREE(!) characters: Kei Minamikaze, Sho Tachibana and Genki Saotome.
• Cool Ship: When it isn't combined into a Humongous Mecha, the Getter Emperor is three very cool ships surrounded by countless other cool ships. There's also the Texas, from Getter Robo Go.
• Cosmic Horror Story: Armageddon and New, as well as the manga depending on your perspective.
• Crossover: 70's anime has The Movie crossover with Great Mazinger, while Getter Robo G anime has two - one with Great and another with both it and UFO Robo Grendizer at the same time. There is also manga in which classic version of Getter and it's pilots ecounters Devilman. Go Nagai has done a sequel to that last one with Getter Robo G and Maō Dante.
• Curb Stomp Battle: The final battle between Seimei and the Getter team in New Getter goes both ways. Seimei dominates when Ryoma is missing, meaning the Getter Robo can't draw out its full power, but once he returns... This example overlaps with Roaring Rampage of Revenge and Oh Crap at the least...
• Cybernetics Will Eat Your Soul: Is there any Getter pilot who didn't fuse with the machine at some point? Also, the Bad Future seen in New, where humans became a simple part of their mech (they even show a newborn baby, complete with cables and half a cockpit growing out of it) and are constantly fighting each other or scavenging corpses for spare parts...
• Darker and Edgier: New Getter Robo, among other changes such as skipping the first set of enemies from the manga, ages all characters by four years and adds plenty of new Grimdark elements that weren't there in the original manga. Since the manga was already quite bloody from the start this makes it - once more - a case of Beyond the Impossible.
  • Getter Robo Go is considerably darker compared to the original manga. Even though Getter Robo had lots of gore, heroic sacrifices, and showed children dying Go is much bleaker. And the more realistic artwork and mechanical-monsters make it all the grimmer.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Dinosaurs? Not a problem. Giant carnivorous plants? No sweat! Shapeshifting aliens? No biggie. An empire of demons? Happens all the time. Even ancient primal gods are no match for the might of Getter Robo.
• Do-Anything Robot: All versions of Getter Robo do absurd things, but the manga version of Shin Getter Robo is hax incarnate.
• Drill Tank
• Driving Question: In Armageddon, who murdered Professor Saotome and who was responsible for Michiru's death.
• Eagle Land: America's Super Robot is Texas Mack, which looks like a giant cowboy and is piloted by an Engrish-spouting cowboy named Jack King and his sister Mary. Borderline offensive in Getter Robo, but toned down in Neo Getter Robo, resulting in this version of Jack and his machine becoming fan favorites.
  • Not to mention it rides around on a giant robot horse piloted by 'Pasture King,' Jack's ranch dog.
  • In the manga and Armageddon however, America's Super Robot is the less offensive Stilva, which is a transforming stealth bomber piloted by two adult soldiers.
    • Yeah, the robot's not that offensive, but the pilot claims that he hates "Asians, Indians, Mexicans, and niggers" in the english translations of the manga. He's racist, crude, and hates everyone aside from Americans—though he turns around and admits he was wrong eventually.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Invaders from Armageddon.
  • As powerful and horrifying like they were, they pale compared with the most terrible and most powerful cosmic abomination from this manga. It is inmensely powerful. Its sheer size dwarfs planets. Its mere passing destroys worlds. It is told it is able to devour a whole universe. One single beam of its can blow up to cosmic dust a planet and its fist can crush tears in the fabric of time-space. Vast armies have tried destroying it only to be easily obliterated in turn without even managing damaging it slightly. Its name? Getter Emperor, the final evolution of Getter Robo. The narration goes as far as to state: "The voice quakes the universe itself was indeed that of Ryoma Nagare"
• Emperor Scientist: Rando from Getter Robo Go.
• The Engineer: Gai.
• Enthusiasm Versus Stoicism
• Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: The Dinosaur Empire, who feature extensively in every series of the manga except for Getter Robo Hien.
  • Āḥ gives us GETTERSAURUS, a giant robot dinosaur piloted by dinosaurs.
• Everything's Better with Monkeys: Early chapters of the manga feature a town where the humans start reverting to apes.
• Everything's Better with Samurai: the Dark Capital arc of New Getter Robo
• Everything's Better with Spinning: The Beetle.
• Eviler Than Thou: The Hundred Demon Empire to the Dinosaur Empire.
• Evolutionary Levels: A major theme in the series, since Getter Rays are the actual power of evolution itself. They're used, variously, as a metaphor for progress, survival/life, and certain Buddhist/eastern ideals which Ishikawa was fond of. An extreme example of this trope in action occurs when they terraform Mars into the new Earth—within an instant.
• Expository Theme Tune: "Gan! Gan! Gan! Gan! Youth burns with a crimson fire! Getter Spark! Lightning up the skies! Behold! The transformation! Getter Robo!"
• Expressive Mask: Stilva mimmicks its pilots expressions and even has a tongue and an uvula. Also toyed with in a rather disturbing manner near the end of Getter Robo Go where Shin Getter Robo, after absorbing Gou, takes on his face.
• Expy: Ryoma's costume and a few aspects of his personality in the Armageddon OVA were taken from the protagonist of Maju Sensen, another manga by Ken Ishikawa. Stinger and Cohen from the same series were also characters from Maju Sensen.
  • Also, in that same series, Go and Kei are expies of Getter Robo Go's Go and Kei. Gai still remains pretty much the same, though.
  • The final enemy in Armageddon as well as the four Oni Gods are from Kyomu Senki Miroku.
• Eye Scream: Happens several times, particularly when Hayato - and his razor-sharp fingernails - are involved)
• Face Death with Dignity: Dignity might be the wrong word, since he's still his usual, frothing self, but Emperor Gore accepts his death and wants to die with honour.
• Femme Fatalons: Male example with Hayato.
• Five-Man Band
  • The Hero: Ryoma or Go.
  • The Lancer: Hayato or Sho/Kei.
  • The Smart Guy: Professor Saotome or Hayato when he's team leader(like in Go and Armageddon).
  • The Big Guy: Musashi/Benkei or Gai.
  • The Chick: Michiru.
  • Tagalong Kid: Genki. Unless it's Armaggedon, where Genki is Kei, who gets upgraded to the Action Girl.
• Foreshadowing: The idea of the Getter Robo becoming a threat to the entire universe was implied as early as the Getter Robo G manga, where the source of Emperor Burai's power was a crashed alien ship sent back to destroy Getter Robo before it became too powerful, which was later confirmed in the Shin Getter Robo manga to be a vessel from one of the many alien fleets futilely struggling against the Getter Emperor.
• Freudian Excuse: Schwarts has one in Getter Robo Go for his racism. His grandfather was killed at Pearl Harbor and his dad's business was put out of business by a Japanese company.
• Freudian Trio: Every Getter Team consists of one of these.
  • Freudian Trio: Ryoma, Hayato and Musashi/Benkei are respectively Id, Ego and Superego in all versions where Ryoma is bapshit crazy, especially in New Getter Robo.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Kei in Armaggedon. Justified Trope since she just was coming back from an Out-of-Clothes Experience in which she found the equally naked Go for the first time.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Gai, when he realizes the true nature of the Getter Rays.
• Going Critical
• Gonk: A common trait of Getter-3 pilots and minor characters, due to Ishikawa's cartoony art style.
• Good Is Not Nice: They're freaking sociopaths.
• A Good Way to Die: In Shin Getter Robo vs Neo Getter Robo (adapted scene by scene from the manga), Musashi has the most dignified death of all his incarnations, gleefully taking the Dinosaur Empire with him as he goes.
• Green Lantern Ring: Getter Rays.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Several, though the most famous is undoubtedly Musashi, who dies in multiple continuities. There's a reason fans nickname him "Kenny"...
• Heroic Sociopath: Ryoma and Hayato in Armageddon, and a signifigant portion of the cast in New Getter
  • Hayato starts out like this in the original manga.
• High-Pressure Blood: While many enemies in Getter Robo have this quality, the Invaders from Armageddon are the most obvious.
  • One of the scientists in New Getter Robo has blood squirt out his neck with so much force that it pushes him away from the wall he was leaning against.
• Hot Amazon: Misogynist Jerkass Schwarzkof falls for Shou (as does Linda) due to her piloting skill, strength and strong character.
  • Also, Kei from Armaggedon. This is the Action Girl who once piloted her mecha naked and demolished a huge Metal Beast who beat up pretty much everyone.
• Hot Scientist: Michiru in New Getter Robo
• Hot-Blooded
  • Any time you hear Ryoma screaming in anger, much ass-kicking will ensue.
• Hotblooded Sideburns: Ryoma's sideburns especially. Pretty much any parody and reference to a Hot-Blooded Super Robot hero will use his chops as the standard length.
• Humans Are Special: "Why did the Getter Rays choose lowly humanity!"
• Humongous Mecha: Some of the largest in the medium. Shin Dragon is at least city sized, Kyodai Dragon from New Getter and Shin Getter at the end of Getter Robo Go are comparable to planets or moons, while the Getter Emperor starts off the size of Mars, is large enough to destroy planets by casually flying into them in Shin Getter Robo and in Will of Evolution it rises from the top of a galaxy, completely dwarfing it. Better yet, it's continuously growing
• Hyperspace Arsenal: And not just for the giant robots. Ryoma's arsenal during his one man assault on the Oni capital in New Getter Robo was positively ridiculous.
• Hyperspace Mallet: Getter Robo pulls weapons out of thin air, or from places where they cannot conceivably fit.
• If It Swims, It Flies: Getter is -literally- built around this concept. Depending on how the three jets combine, the form a different robot, capable to fly on Earth and space, fly or burrow underground, or swim and dive.
• Infant Immortality: Repeatedly, gruesomely averted in the original manga. The worst is probably two kids who the Hyakki Empire vaporizes from the waist up.
• JAM Project: Openings and endings to New and Shin vs Neo, while the two O Ps of Armageddon were sung respectively by Ichirou Mizuki and Hironobu Kageyama, who would later form the group.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Hayato, in most incarnations. His methods are cold, and he can be rude and downright mean with his teammates sometimes, but you better not doubt that he's ALWAYS on the good guy's side. He does get better in his older incarnations, where being put into a position of authority softens up his disposition. But he will ALWAYS be an asshole in his first appearance.
• Kamehame Hadoken: Shin Getter Robo's Stoner Sunshine attack.
• Kill Sat: Gigant X-2 and X-3 in Getter Go.
• Kill'Em All: Pretty much the ending of Getter Robo Go. Not only that but it kills off the cast of the original Getter Robo leaving only Hayato to sole survivor of the first manga. While Kei is left brain dead, Go, Gai, Ryoma and Tayel are absorbed into Shin Getter. The only cast not to be absorbed, killed, or messed up are Hayato, Sho and Schwartz. Okay more like absorbed being ascending to a higher plane of existence in a way.
• Lady of War: Shou from Shin Getter Robo vs. Neo Getter Robo.
• The Legions of Hell: The Hundred Demon Empire of Getter Robo G. The Dragon of the organization looks like Hitler with demon horns. Like a bonus, his name is "Hidler".
• Lensman Arms Race: Several of the Getter shows have elements of this (gotta keep them monsters of the week coming after all) but it hit pretty epic/ridiculous heights in the finale of Getter Armageddon.
  • And the manga continuity, which quickly advances from a lone Super Robot fighting monsters, to every nation on Earth having them and engaging in large scale wars, to epic space battles with aliens, to the ridiculous universe-shattering exploits of the Getter Emperor.
• Lethal Joke Character: Or rather, a lethal joke mecha. The Beetle is a tiny, seemingly useless mecha used for scouting and with no real firepower. That is, until you master the art of spinning very fast.
• Licking the Blade: King Goru does this once. Knowing this series, it probably happens elsewhere, too.
• Life Energy: Some depictions of Getter Rays fall closer to this than merely being a power source.
• Lighter and Softer: The 70's Getter Robo and Getter Robo G anime series, and even moreso with the Getter Robo Go anime.
• Macross Missile Massacre: While many Getters use variants, the most obvious would be Shin Getter-3's Missile Storm.
• Mad Scientist: Saotome in the OVAs and manga, though he's more blatantly insane in Armageddon. (Admittedly, later on it really isn't his fault.) Shikishima is a (helpful!) lunatic in every appearance he's made. Hayato in his role as a scientist in Āḥ and Hien definitely applies too, in terms of cruelness and coldness.
  • Then there are, of course, professors Rando and Jacov, who play the role of Big Bads in Go and Hien mangas respectively.
• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Michiru Saotome, naturally. Also Kei in Armageddon, via an Ass Pull for the ages.
• Mandatory Unretirement: A recurring theme is that if you piloted Getter at some point, no matter how far you run from it, destiny keeps throwing you in the cockpit.
• Mechanical Lifeforms: Certain versions of Getter Robo borderline on this, and it's played straight in some continuities.
• Melee a Trois: Much to a lot of newer fans surprise but in the original manga the Hundred Demon Empire first appears BEFORE the defeat of the Dinosaur Empire, there is something of a three-way fight between them before the Dinosaurs are defeated first.
• Monster of the Week: The 70's TV versions.
  • Lampshaded and Subverted towards the end of the First manga arc during the 3-way war between Humanity, the Dinosaur Empire, and the 100 Demon Empire when Emperor Gore orders the deployment of all incomplete Mechasauruses, stating that they don't have time to deploy them one at a time and will fight with pure numbers. This proves to be his undoing, as the incomplete Mechasauruses prove to be far more vulnerable to Getter Ray degeneration, which resulted in Musashi's sacrifice doing far more damage than it would have otherwise and utterly crippling the Dinosaur Empire army.
• More Dakka: Getter Hien-3. Literally every surface of his body can pull back to reveal missile launchers. Also the Stellbomber.
• Multiform Balance: Every incarnation of Getter has among its forms a Jack of All Stats, a Fragile Speedster, and a Mighty Glacier. These forms will also be optimized for either air, land, or sea-based combat.
• Mythology Gag: Armageddon and New Getter have loads of these. Such as three ambassadors, the former, that look a lot like the three thugs that were sicced on Ryoma in the original manga. To Michiru of New Getter turning out that she looked like the manga and classic version in her high school years.
  • The Shin Dragon's final form in Armageddon is directly based on Uzahra, the massive Guardian machine of Atlantis from Getter Robo G.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The number of things this applies to in the series is astounding. It helps that the Dinosaur Empire are, you know, the dinosaurs, so all of their creations count as this by default.
• Not as You Know Them: Armageddon: Ryoma imprisoned for murder, Professor Saotome as the apparent Big Bad, Michiru dead, Genki traumatized and female!, Benkei and Musashi both alive at the same time...
• Obviously Evil: All enemies of Getters are this, except when they masquerade as normal humans. In the mangas their twisted forms, drawn by Ishikawa in loving detail, regularly reach the Nightmare Fuel territory.
  • Most of the antagonists in the series are Well Intentioned Extremists, however nasty they might look. The only one who isn't is Rando, the human, albeit an menacing-looking one.
    • The Hundred Demon Empire, The Invaders, Seimei and Jacov are simply evil as well.
• Older and Wiser: Hayato has a tendency to be promoted to The Captain in sequels and after Time Skips.
• Omniscient Morality License: Dr. Saotome and Hayato both frequently fall into this trope. Sometimes in the same series.
• Opposite Gender Clone: In Armageddon: Go turns out to be one of Michiru.
• Orifice Invasion: The Invaders, unsurprisingly. Even having them bleed on you is enough.
• Parental Neglect: Ryoma's father did nothing for him other than teach him martial arts so he could avenge his dojo.
• The Professor: Saotome in most incarnations.
• Rainbow Pimp Gear: A common criticism of Getter G's design is its overly garish paint scheme, most particularly its "clownpants." later versions of it (such as the Getter Gs in the Armageddon OVA) tend to correct this.
• Rated "M" for Manly: "If there's a hole, it's a man's job to thrust into it." That speaks for itself.
• Real Robot: The series has enough elements of this to cause disputes on how to categorize it, especially after the second part of the manga. Some people prefer to call Getter Robo a Real Robot series that just happens to feature some of the most-super-of-SuperRobots in it.
• Reality Ensues: In the second volume of Go, the trio flies off to fight Rando's army instead of letting Japan surrender the Getter. Cue them getting lost and heavily damaged to overwhelming forces and the mecha being out of action until the middle of the fourth book.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Ryoma and Hayato. The color of their machines even line up, if only with Getter Robo G.
• Retcon: Hayato's recounting of the destruction of Saotome Labs in Getter Robo Go differs on several counts from the events depicted in the Shin Getter Robo prequel manga.
• Retired Badass: Ryoma retires to the mountains to practice and teach karate between Shin Getter Robo and Getter Robo Go, and comes back having taken a level in badass. Note that he was already one of anime/manga's greatest badasses before then.
• Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: Getter Robo Armageddon is noticeably less dark after the so-called apocalypse, owing to the director shift.
• Robeast: Mechasauruses and the Mecha Oni.
• Rocket Punch: Getter-2's Drill Missile combines this with This Is a Drill, and Neo Getter has rocket punches attached to chains. Several monsters use these, too.
• Rule of Cool: This is the entire reason for Getter Robo's existence. Nothing about it is realistic. Everything about it is awesome.
  • "So much for the laws of physics!"
• Scarf of Asskicking: Even the Humongous Mecha wear them.
• Scary Black Man: Dr. Coen in Armageddon (for a given value of "man").
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: They just can't seem to decide how big Shin Dragon is in Armageddon.
• Serial Escalation: One of the better examples is Ryoma in New. You see 13 episodes of him that consist is more-or-less Crazy Awesome / Hot-Blooded / Determinator with constant Slasher Smiles. And then we see his Unstoppable Rage in the last episode which goes way over-the-top.
• Shapeshifter Weapon: The Invaders specialize in this.
• Shoulders of Doom: Shin Getter-1, Getter Hien and Stilva.
• Shut UP, Hannibal: A typical reaction of more sociopathic Getter pilots, like Ryoma in New Getter, whenever a villain attempts some grand speech.

Thinly-Veiled-Son-Goku: A soul should not be placed inside a doll!
Ryoma: Don't talk shit that I don't understand! *Stuff Blowing Up*

• Signature Style: The art in the original manga is pretty much a carbon copy of Go Nagai's early work, which is probably a major contributing factor to the frequent confusion over authorship. However, as time went on, Ishikawa broke away from this mold and developed his own unmistakeable blend of hyperkinetic, highly stylized and most importantly Hot-Blooded visuals and Blood Knight Heroic Sociopath characters who were somehow even more cheerfully psychotic than any his old colleague had come up with. The best way to describe it is probably Fist of the North Star meets Jack Kirby.
• Sinister Scythe: Early on in Armageddon, Shin Getter has a scythe instead of his usual tomahawk. It inexplicably switches back to the axe after the original team starts using it again.
• Slap-On-The-Wrist Nuke: Many examples, with at least two involving an actual nuke.
• Slasher Smile: Michiru might just be the only character in the entire series without one of these.
• Spell My Name with an "S": Getter Robo Āḥ causes this with its Sanskrit title, which the Japanese would write as "Ark" or "Aku". In English, it's Āḥ.
• Storming the Castle: Halfway through New Getter Robo
• Super Prototype: Subverted in Neo Getter and New Getter, where the Proto-Getters were either weak Mecha-Mooks for the latest version of Getter Robo to waste, or mere cannon fodder for the Monster of the Week to blow up in the first episode.
  • But played very, very straight when we find out that Shin Getter Robo is the prototype for Getter Robo Āḥ. Āḥ was intentionally made to be less powerful and more stable than Shin, which was so overly powerful that it was a danger, not just to Earth but the entire freakin' universe:
• Super Robot: Getter Robo and Mazinger Z are considered by many to be the grandaddies of Super Robots.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Benkei for Musashi.
• Tall, Dark and Snarky: Hayato.
• Telescoping Robot: Getter Robo Gou aside, the combined machines never resemble their component parts. They can also produce far more weapons than what could conceivably fit inside the mech, and are often bigger than the robot itself.
  • In fact, the combinations look so incredibly akward that some say that the Getters break not only basic physics, but the laws of hammerspace itself.
    • Despite this, the Perfect Change series of models take a pretty good stab at making the patently ridiculous transformations work.
• Terraform: One of the many applications of Getter Rays.
• Theme Tune Cameo: Musashi singing the first anime theme in the original manga.
  • Later invoked by Benkei again in the Shin Getter manga. ^{[dead link] [dead link]}
• This Is a Drill: Every form of Getter-2.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: TOMAHAWK BOOMERANG!
  • Granted, axes are slightly more suited to throwing than swords, but it's still awesome.
  • See also: Ryoma's fight against the assassins in New Getter. He throws the thing (one handed. By the blade) hard enough to cleanly sever a guy's arm.
• Tranquillizer Dart: Subverted, though the writers were probably more concerned with the Rule of Cool than realism. Ryoma gets hit by an animal tranquiliser in the first episode, but it doesn't stop him from running across the street and dropkicking his two attackers before going down. Note that this is after he had just fought a 3-on-1 fight against some Yakuza goons and had gotten a knife buried into his shoulder.
• Transformation Name Announcement: An old example, say it with us: CHANGE GETTAAAAA ONE! SWITCH ON!
  • The voice that makes galaxies quake in terror: CHANGE GETTAAAAA EMPEROR ONE! SWITCH ON!
• Transformation Trauma: Don't get bitten by an Oni. Or so much as touched by an Invader.
• Twenty Minutes Into the Future: Some of the versions take place in 'our time', except 'our time' also has Getter Rays, giant monsters, and Combining Mecha.
• Visual Innuendo: Getter Gai has its drill in an... interesting place. There's also the infamous "space vagina" from Armageddon.
• Warrior Heaven: In the ending of Armageddon, Ryoma, Hayato and Benkei find themselves in a dimensional rift where they will fight eternally alongside paralel versions of themselves, against innumerable monsters and villains from other dimensions. New Getter Robo seems to put its Ryoma in the same place.
• Weaponized Landmark: In Hein, the Statue of Liberty is a giant cannon/jet piloted by a Humongous Mecha.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Dinosaur Empire and the Andromeda Flow Country, who are pretty much martyrs for the universe. The Oni gods from New Getter Robo are similar)
• What Could Have Been: Besides Ishikawa's death, Imagawa was the one who directed the first 3 episodes of Armageddon. Everything was shaping up for an intense mystery martial arts mecha mashup with all of Ishikawa's series joining the fray. Then he got sacked, simply for taking a little too long. He took the scripts with him, leaving Armageddon the aborted mess it was post-Ep3.
  • Considering what we still got in the end was still awesome, it could've been worse. Still one has to wonder...
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Wait a minute, there was an early issue where a village was turning into monkeys earlier... they found the source of the problem and yet nothing is said of those who transformed ever again.
  • The entire area got toasted.
    • There was still that one in Ryoma's unit. Eh, it probably got dissected by the professor.
  • And in Go Linda and her BB-5 disappear once Rando's forces are stopped in Canada.
  • The Andromeda strain (yes, that one) shows up near the end of Getter Robo G, causing Dr. Saotome to quarantine the Getter Research lab. however, this is apparently resolved at some point due to Ryoma beating the virus back with Hot Bloodedness, as he shows up perfectly fine and the quarantine is never mentioned again.
  • Armageddon is made of this trope post-Director switch. Only a handful of questions raised in Imagawa's version ever got answered, and stuff like Musashi's realization were never followed up on.
• Wrench Wench: Kei in the manga.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Musashi in the original manga thinks he lives in something like the Getter Robo anime, annoying the rest of the team.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Even insane Evil Overlord-like Professor Rando should know better than working with human-hating Dinosaur Empire.