When Banagher threw up in the second episode of Unicorn, I thought it was natural. Marida just punched him in the belly, after all.
But that’s ridiculous. The Kshatriya, not Marida, punched the Unicorn, not Banagher, in the belly. He succumbs, I suppose, to the amount of force applied to the cockpit as a whole (and the NT-D’s demands?), rather than to any particular part of his body. And yet part of my mind still thinks these are human-scale bodies or suits of armour.
(Compare that scene in Votoms where Chirico’s wounded in the leg, and his blood, escaping from a bullet-hole, runs down his Scopedog’s leg. Though, re-reading what I just wrote, we could probably do other things with that.)
Animanachronism 
Hehe, humanoid robots are also the way they are to make the battles as human as humanly possible.
(sorry, I had too much fun with that sentence)
Evangelion is an obvious example I think, but this kind of thing happens A LOT (IIRC) in super robot shows particularly Voltes V and Daimos (especially the latter since the controls are almost exactly like G Gundam).
Also I feel that at the heart of every real robot show is a desire to become super, to become that kind of great hero — that human oh so human tower of metal protecting everyone.
@ghostlightning – but aren’t those metal shells trapping our heroes, separating and isolating them from everyone else?
Maybe those metal shells are the armour of inhumanity which God-fearing men must put on when the barbarians are at the gates, simultaneously isolating and tragically necessary.
Or maybe their damage in battle drives home the fragile, frangible nature of our constructed masculinities.
If you tell me which way the political weather-vane is turning, and thus where research funding is likely to go, I’ll tell you which alternative I think is correct.
What IKnight said.
Evangelion again, wherein the robot units are a cruder form of the A/T field conceit — as a metaphor of what protects us and harms others while doing so.
The hero stands alone, and is defined by his violent, threatening acts. These acts are given dramatic portrayal by projecting them gigantically and in metal, while at the same time bloody and sinewy in Eva.
Oh dear, now I’m seeing it everywhere – this action http://i835.photobucket.com/albums/zz278/Jexhius/warub.jpg leading to this consequence http://i835.photobucket.com/albums/zz278/Jexhius/warub.jpg
Somehow I didn’t find that strange the first time I watched it.