Last year, I never got around to ever recapping the adventure that it was. Especially regarding where the series went and what it explored last time. So this time, I want to at least share the whole adventure from beginning to end. I am not sure if this will be very interesting or fascinating, but I really want to do this anyway. Especially since this entire competition this year went in some insane routes that I never expected to see happen at all. It made it fun in such an interesting way.

This year, I started all the polls on Saturdays and closed them on Tuesday so that I can have enough time to put the next poll together and post about it on social media. I needed a few days to do all that because I am involved with a few after work activities that slow things down a bit. Sorry I didn’t mention this during the entire thing. 

Let’s announce the winners first and then get into the recap business :).

The Winners

Before jumping into that, here are the winners of Mecha Madness 2023 and the current reigning champion of the Mecha Madness journey. Yeah, enjoy all of it right here!

First Place: Full Metal Panic
Second Place: Vision of Escaflowne
Third Place: Gunbuster

Mecha March Supremacy Winner: Patlabor

Preliminary Voting Choices

If you remember correctly, there were a number of series that I wanted people to vote for to make it to the first round. I choose up to fifteen choices for each decade of anime and it was kind of hard to limit so many choices down to fifteen. It was a bit of a suffering job to choose which ones because I didn’t want to run this one through my own biases. I say try here because it’s inevitable that some of that will leak out anyway. 

So here we are with the choices. How many of them do you know? Votes are put in parentheses. Bold are the series that made it. 

60’s/70’s

Tetsujin 28-Go/Gigantor (2)
Mazinger Z (2)
Great Mazinger (0)
Grendizer (0)
Getter Robo (2)
Brave Raideen (2)
Voltes V (3)
Dino Mech Gaiking (1)
Zambot (0)
Combattler (1)
Daimos (0)
Daltanious (0)
Mobile Suit Gundam (9)
Steel Jeeg (0)
Danguard Ace (0)

80’s

Space Runaway Ideon (3)
SDF Macross (5)
Space Warrior Baldios (2)
Armored Trooper Votoms (5)
Dancouga (1)
Layzner (2)
Zeta Gundam (6)
Iczer 1 (2)
Dragonar (3)
Megazone 23 (2)
Gunbuster (7)
MADOX-01 (1)
Dougram (2)
Panzer World Galient (1)
Macross: DYRL (2)

90’s

G Gundam (7)
Neon Genesis Evangelion (9)
GaoGaiGar (2)
Martian Successor Nadesico (6)
Macross Plus (2)
Escaflowne (9)
Magic Knight Rayearth (6)
Getter Robo Armageddon (0)
Giant Robot (2)
Gundam X (3)
Daiguard (2)
Infinite Ryvius (1)
The Big O (5)

2000’s

RahXephon (6)
TTGL (6)
Code Geass (9)
Full Metal Panic (8)
Fafner in the Azure (3)
Diebuster (2)
Gundam 00 (2)
Eureka 7 (3)
Mazinger Edition Z: The Impact (1)
Basquach (2)
Bokurano (3)
Gun X Sword (4)
Mars Daybreak (0)
Aquarion (2)

2010’s

Planet With (4)
Star Driver (2)
Aldnoah.Zero (4)
Knights of Sidonia (5)
Gundam: IBO (7)
Granbelm (2)
SSSS.Gridman (6)
Promare (3)
Last Hope (0)
Schwarzesmarken (0)
Macross Delta (1)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Thunderbolt (3)
Expelled From Paradise (1)
Aquarion Evol (3)
Robotics;Notes (3)

2020’s

SSSS.Dynazenon (6)
Getter Robo Arc (0)
G-Witch (9)
86 (8)
Rumble Garandoll (1)
Back Arrow (3)
Listiners (2)

Interesting story behind this one. I wanted to get 32 series because that is how the bracket works. I chose a series based on the amount of votes per category and when there were some close calls, I made the choice for myself to see which show would fit where. So this is how everything turned out and I know that some people will disagree. Too bad, it already happened. I liked the spread of things in general though. I think it captured how mecha anime changed in general. 

Round 1 Contestants and Results

It’s going to continue as a trend. Winners are in bold and votes are in parentheses through out.  

Fight 1

Mobile Suit Gundam (13)
Tetsujin 28-Go (5)

Fight 2

Space Runaway Ideon (8)
Voltes V (9)

Fight 3

Armored Trooper Votoms (8)
SDF Macross (10)

Fight 4

Gunbuster (15)
Zeta Gundam (3)

Fight 5

Metal Armor Dragonar (5)
Neon Genesis Evangelion (14)

Fight 6

Martian Successor Nadesico (15)
G Gundam (4)

Fight 7

Magic Knight Rayearth (8)
The Vision of Escaflowne (12)

Fight 8

The Big O (11)
TTGL (10)

Fight 9

Code Geass (9)
RahXephon (10)

Fight 10

Gun X Sword (5)
Full Metal Panic (15)

Fight 11

Planet With (11)
Aldnoah.Zero (9)

Fight 12

Gundam: IBO (9)
Knights of Sidonia (10)

Fight 13

SSSS.Gridman (11)
Gundam Thunderbolt (7)

Fight 14

Aqaurion Evol (6)
Robotics;Notes (12)

Fight 15

G-Witch (14)
SSSS.Dynazenon (6)

Fight 16 

Back Arrow (8)
86 (11)

Round 2 Contestants and Results

Fight 1

Gundam 0079 (7)
Voltes V (3)

Fight 2

SDF Macross (4)
Gunbuster (5)

Fight 3

Martian Successor Nadesico (7)
Neon Genesis Evangelion (3)

Fight 4

The Big O (3)
Vision of Escaflowne (7)

Fight 5

Full Metal Panic (7)
RahXephon (3)

Fight 6

Planet With (2)
Knights of Sidonia (7)

Fight 7

Robotics;Notes (5)
SSSS.Gridman (4)

Fight 8

G-Witch (4)
86 (6) 

Round 3 Contestants and Results

Fight 1

Gunbuster (9)
Gundam 0079 (3)

Fight 2

Martian Successor Nadesico (2)
The Vision of Escaflowne (10)

Fight 3

Full Metal Panic (9)
Knights of Sidonia (3)

Fight 4

Robotics;Notes (2)
86 (9)

Semi-Final Contestants and Results

Fight 1

Gunbuster (4)
The Vision of Escaflowne (10)

Fight 2

Full Metal Panic (9)
86 (5)

Final Contestants and Results

Fight 1

The Vision of Escaflowne (5)
Full Metal Panic (6)

Fight 2

Gunbuster (7)
86 (3)

The Battle for Mecha Madness Supremacy

Fight 

Mobile Police Patlabor (4)
Full Metal Panic (3)

Final Thoughts

So there we go, that is the whole tournament put into one post. It’s kind of great all around here with a lot of interesting surprises and details for them here too. Well produced and excellent places on the coolest level here. Next year, I will have to figure out how to make this even more special than these two previous years here too. It means I have a little less than a year to figure it out. But I just want it to connect here on some level in aspects there too.