History Anime / DaiGuard

* RealityEnsues: Pretty much the main appeal of the show. Fighting with a giant monster destroys the city? Insurance claims and repair costs quickly follow. Put a drill arm on Dai-Guard? The massive torque causes the robot to lose crazy control.

* TalkingToHimself Aoyama with [[MobileSuitGundam00 Lockon Stratos]] [[spoiler:both of them]] in VideoGame/{{Super Robot Wars Z}}2.

* HotBlooded: Akagi... oh, Akagi.

''Dai-Guard'' plays a lot of standard trope arrangements from both ends. It takes a [[RealRobotGenre Real Robot]] and drops it in alongside the standard [[MonsterOfTheWeek crazy monsters from another dimension]]. It uses [[PowerTrio common character arrangements]], but avoids many anime stand-bys, employing relatively little FanService or {{UST}}. It alternates its focus between the day-to-day "realities" of a company utilizing a giant robot and said giant robot punching things in the face.

* HotBlooded: Akagi...oh, Akagi.

* AHouseDivided: Surprisingly, the Heterodyne are a serious threat for only the first nine episodes... out of ''twenty-six.'' At the end of episode nine, the behavior and weaknesses of the Heterodyne have been figured out, and one gets [[OneHitKill one-shotted]] for the first time in a repeatable fashion... only for Shirota to stab the team in the back and assist in the military's attempt to hijack the operation. It takes four more episodes to iron out the mess, after which they pull off a perfect Heterodyne elimination with ''zero collateral damage...'' only for the [[PointyHairedBoss company executives to screw things up in an even more spectacular manner.]] Four episodes after that, just as they get that ironed out, things go ''international;'' EagleLand purposefully interferes with a Heterodyne attack in the hopes of capturing one for study, then spins the resulting near-attack on their spy plane into an attempt to shut down the entire operation. While a Heterodyne is wandering around that can ''freeze entire cities solid.''Safe to say, the Dai-Guard team spends at least as much time arguing with egotistical authority figures as they do fighting monsters.

''Dai-Guard'' provides examples of the following tropes:

These tropes can be seen in individual episodes of ''Dai-Guard'':

* [[NamesTheSame Name's The Same]]: The monsters share a name with the family of GirlGenius characters. Almost certainly a coincidence.

This is the motto of ''Dai-Guard'', an extremely non-traditional HumongousMecha {{anime}}. Set in [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture the year 2030]], the show focuses on three employees of the 21st Century Defense Security Corporation, a company that owns a giant robot named Dai-Guard. Dai-Guard was originally built by the military to protect the world against Heterodynes ([[IThoughtItMeant no, not]] [[Webcomic/GirlGenius those]]), aliens from another dimension that show up to destroy everything they can get their hands on. However, the first and only attack occurred 12 years ago, and when the series starts, Dai-Guard has been retired and is seen as little more than an overblown corporate mascot.

** They are considered straight-up monsters by the general population, but specialists consider them tantamount to natural disasters, as they don't have a particular purpose or capacity for thought.

* ShipTease: Akagi had this with Ibuki but has much more teasing with Ooyama, the final shots of the cast in the final episode even has the two of them standing rather close together as Dai-Guard is repaired. Nakahara is also teased with Aoyama.

* SuperRobotWars: Making an unexpected debut in ''VideoGame/{{Super Robot Wars Z}}2''.

* GlassCannon: Dai-Guard in both the series and SuperRobotWarsZ 2 can dish out a lot of pain, but it gets damaged extremely easy and isn't very fast.

* SuperRobotWars: Making an unexpected debut in ''SuperRobotWarsZ 2''.

* TalkingToHimself Aoyama with [[MobileSuitGundam00 Lockon Stratos]] [[spoiler:both of them]] in SuperRobotWarsZ.

** Faithfully recreated in ''SuperRobotWarsZ 2'' as part of the drill arm's animation against air units.

* AttackItsWeakPoint ForMassiveDamage: Hitting a Heterodyne in its its central Fractal Knot instantly destroys it and causes its body to dissolve.

* ChristmasEpisode: One with a decidedly western feel to the holiday.

* DaddysGirl: We see in one episode that Ibuki used to be one until [[DeadLittleSister her father died in the first Heterodyne attack.]] When she realizes her biological father only studied the Heterodyne ForScience, she has a HeroicBSOD in the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izAdFAkz_MI very next battle]]. When she realizes her stepfather's heroism is real, she's one all over again.

* AHouseDivided: Surprisingly, the Heterodyne are a serious threat for only the first nine episodes... out of ''twenty-six.'' At the end of episode nine, the behavior and weaknesses of the Heterodyne have been figured out, and one gets [[OneHitKill one-shotted]] for the first time in a repeatable fashion... only for Shirota to stab the team in the back and assist in the military's attempt to hijack the operation. It takes four more episodes to iron out the mess, after which they pull off a perfect Heterodyne elimination with ''zero collateral damage...'' only for the [[PointyHairedBoss company executives to screw things up in an even more spectacular manner.]] Four episodes after that, just as they get that ironed out, things go ''international;'' EagleLand purposefully interferes with a Heterodyne attack in the hopes of capturing one for study, then spins the resulting near-attack on their spy plane into an attempt to shut down the entire operation. While a Heterodyne is wandering around that can ''freeze entire cities solid.'' This arc only lasts two episodes, as it barely dodges a SpaceWhaleAesop about Japanese militarization. Safe to say, the Dai-Guard team spends at least as much time arguing with egotistical authority figures as they do fighting monsters.

* ArmiesAreEvil: A variant version where the army feels it's the only ones qualified to battle the Heterodynes, despite having no HumongousMecha piloting experience, and only cares (strangely, for TheEvilArmy) about civilian casualties and not their quality of life, willing to destroy hundreds of homes so long as nobody dies.

* CombiningMecha: Justified within the series. At first, Dai-Guard has to be carted to the battle site in pieces and assembled. Eventually the pieces are outfitted as vehicles in their own right, presumably to avoid this hassle, but they have to transform back to their "parts" form in order to assemble, and are demonstrated to lack weapons or any other non-transportational functions.

* DaChief: Subverted -- the main characters' boss, whom they call "Chief," is actually friendly and just as put-upon by the higher-ups as they are. The actual DaChief is military liaison and "tactical advisor" Special Agent Shirou Shirota.

* {{Deconstruction}}: In many ways even more than ''Eva''.
** Arguably, more of a {{Reconstruction}} as for everything it tears down it builds back up bigger and better.
** DeconReconSwitch

* HandsomeLech: Aoyama. Subverted in that his flirting always seems to have a business purpose behind it. Then, when the office suspects he has a girlfriend because he's always talking on the phone and disappearing, [[spoiler: it turns out it's his mom, who's in the hospital]].

This is the motto of ''Dai-Guard'', an extremely non-traditional HumongousMecha {{anime}}. Set in [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture the year 2030]], the show focuses on three employees of the 21st Century Defense Security Corporation, a company that owns a giant robot named Dai-Guard. Dai-Guard was originally built by the military to protect the world against Heterodynes ([[IThoughtItMeant no, not]] [[GirlGenius those]]), aliens from another dimension that show up to destroy everything they can get their hands on. However, the first and only attack occurred 12 years ago, and when the series starts, Dai-Guard has been retired and is seen as little more than an overblown corporate mascot.

* AttackItsWeakPoint ForMassiveDamage: Hitting a Heterodyne in its its central Fractal Knot instantly destroys it and causes its body to dissolve.

** And to effectively use most of its weapons it has to give up ''at least'' one usable hand. Later in the series a new weapon is developed that takes away ''both'' hands.

* TalkingToHimself Aoyama with [[MobileSuitGundam00 Lockon Stratos]] [[spoiler:both of them]] in SuperRobotWarsZ.

* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: In the series finally [[spoiler:Shirou Shirota disobeys orders to stop a [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo Over Explosion Bomb]] from being dropped on Tokyo to stop the MonsterOfTheWeek from covering the world. His plan works, but the bomb might not have.]]

* AHouseDivided: Surprisingly, the Heterodyne are a serious threat for only the first nine episodes... out of ''twenty-six.'' At the end of episode nine, the behavior and weaknesses of the Heterodyne have been figured out, and one gets [[OneHitKill one-shotted]] for the first time in a repeatable fashion... only for Shirota to stab the team in the back and assist in the military's attempt attempt to hijack the operation. It takes four more episodes to iron out the mess, after which they pull off a perfect Heterodyne elimination with ''zero collateral damage...'' only for the [[PointyHairedBoss company executives to screw things up in an even more spectacular manner.]] Four episodes after that, just as they get that ironed out, things go ''international;'' EagleLand purposefully interferes with a Heterodyne attack in the hopes of capturing one for study, then spins the resulting near-attack on their spy plane into an attempt to shut down the entire operation. While a Heterodyne is wandering around that can ''freeze entire cities solid.'' This arc only lasts two episodes, as it barely dodges a SpaceWhaleAesop about Japanese militarization. Safe to say, the Dai-Guard team spends at least as much time arguing with egotistical authority figures as they do fighting monsters.

* NobodyCanDie: Everyone is ''always'' evacuated before the heterodyne (or Dai-Guard) can start smashing the place up. No one's ever caught in the crossfire, and the few times someone ''does'' get trapped under falling rubble or somesuch, don't worry, rescue crews will be along shortly.
** Justified to an extent: Japan is known for having a ''really good'' disaster alert and response system to begin with, and there was at least one Heterodyne attack in the past - it's not a leap to assume that there's a Heterodyne alert system in place.

[[caption-width-right:320:To Serve and Defend (but not to spend).]]

* [=~Screw The Rules, I'm Doing What's Right~=]: In the series finally [[spoiler:Shirou Shirota disobeys orders to stop a [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo Over Explosion Bomb]] from being dropped on Tokyo to stop the MonsterOfTheWeek from covering the world. His plan works, but the bomb might not have.]]

** And to effectively use most of its weapons it has to give up ''at least'' one usable hand. Later in the series a new weapon is developed that takes away ''both'' hands.