Neon Genesis Evangelion is definitely one of the most popular mech anime of all time, which is really saying something considering that it came from such humble beginnings, being pretty much a passion project created by a broke college student. Luckily for all of us, they made it through the incredibly troubled production history to create an entire franchise that started as a cult classic and quickly became just plain classic.
While the show is known for being much more than a mech anime, the reason a lot of people get into it is for the big fighting robots, obviously. That being said, let's have a look at some of the mechs that the protector of Earth Eva Unit 01 could defeat, and some it probably couldn't.
10 Win: Hero Man
Hero Man is surprisingly (or unsurprisingly depending on who you are and how much you know about Stan Lee's penchant for pretty generic names) created by Stan Lee in collaboration with Studio Bones.
While he's pretty powerful in terms of mechs, he's really not much to write home about in terms of power compared to Unit 01. The robot was built to protect Earth from an alien race in the same way Unit 01 was, but it's still not nearly enough to take out a whole mech with a proton sniper rifle despite its childlike charm.
9 Lose: Ideon
Ideon is an absolutely cosmic force to be reckoned with unfortunately for Unit 01. While the Ideon Sword and the Ideon gun would be more than enough to take out the fairly efficient and compact Eva Unit 01, it also has a gun that's capable of shooting entire black holes.
Yes, you did indeed read that correctly. Those giant space vacuums from which nothing can escape? Those things. This means that no matter how dedicated the pilot of the Eva is to taking care of business, this fight is pretty much done.
8 Win: Gundam Wing Zero
There are tons of pretty powerful mechs in the Gundam series and Gundam Wing Zero is absolutely no exclusion from that list. While Gundam Wing Zero has tons of little gadgets and gizmos it can use to completely destroy its opponents, the best part of the interface is that the Gundam Wing Zero has a system that can show the pilot pretty much every conceivable outcome for the battle.
The only issue with this is that Evas don't act rationally, and realistically aren't going to be predicted. This little oversight in the design of the Gundam Wing Zero is enough to make sure that Unit 01 comes out on top.
7 Lose: Demonbane
Eva Unit 01 is supposed to defeat angels which is explicitly its goal in the anime. Maybe there's a bit of truth to the name of Demonbane if we consider an Eva to be on the side opposite of angels. Demonbane is an absolute monster of a mech despite its holy-sounding name.
Demonbane is a mech that was made with a little bit of help from the Necronomicon. Yes, that Necronomicon. If this simple fact weren't cool and ridiculous enough to secure a win for Demonbane, there's also the fact that it's able to pull anything it wants out of time. That's a ridiculous power to have. It basically has access to anything in the physical universe, making it an easy winner in this case.
6 Win: Lion Voltron
Lion Voltron is really cool, don't get us wrong. When you take into account also that Lion Voltron is a combination of tons of other mechs that are pretty strong by themselves, it makes it even harder to decide who would come out in a fight.
That being said, none of the attacks or weapons that Lion Voltron has used really seem like they'd necessarily overwhelm Eva Unit 01, and it's likely that a single shot from the proton sniper rifle that Unit 01 wields would make pretty quick work of this King Of The Jungle.
5 Lose: Turn A Gundam
Turn A Gundam is another one on this list that really shouldn't exist. It's one of the most powerful mechs in the whole of any incarnation of the Gundam franchise. While it has your usual array of ridiculously powerful Gundam weapons like guns and swords, it also has the benefit of nanobots.
Nanobots that it can use to heal itself, nanobots that it can use to overtake and completely consume its opponents, and pretty much anything else you can think of that nanobots would be useful for. Eva probably won't fair well against something it can barely cause any damage to.
4 Win: Big O
Please don't get us wrong here. Big O is absolutely sick as a mech on its own. The issue comes in when we think about how it would do against Eva Unit 01.
Unfortunately for Big O, the only thing it really has to its name is a swath of fairly generic mech weapons. It's not that these aren't effective considering any military tech any country in the world most likely wouldn't be able to do much against it, but the pride and joy of NERV probably wouldn't think twice before smashing this thing to bits.
3 Lose: Gaogaigar
Gaogaigar is the second mech on our list that is formed from mixing smaller mechanical marvels together into something truly menacing.
While most of your other mechs have guns or swords which are pretty cool and all if not a little bit lackluster, Gaogaigar has a hammer so big that it'd be almost humorous if it wasn't for how devastating a weapon it is. Unfortunately for Eva Unit 01, Gaogaigar is playing a game of whack-a-mole with whatever mech gets in its way.
2 Win: Arale
Unfortunately, this is a bit of a joke entry, but Arale has a penchant for showing up in things she's not supposed to be in, especially since Akira Toriyama has mentioned that Dr. Slump is more or less a gag anime, and it's not unheard of for her to have shown up in Dragon Ball before.
With her seeming love of fourth-wall breaks, it only seemed fitting to put her here. That being said, she is a pretty tough little robot girl but she's really not anywhere near the league that Eva 01 is in.
1 Lose: Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Ugh. So the issue with putting Eva Unit 01 against Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is that the latter (which I'll refer to the 5-word name of the second mech in the first sentence for the rest of the article as) can literally use entire galaxies as weapons.
While at first, it seems unfair to put Eva up against this absolute behemoth of a mech, it is! Unapologetically so. This mech is so ludicrously powerful that we couldn't help including it here.