“…he leaned on different sporting allusions, particularly a fusion of pilot and mecha evocative of equestrian sports or bicycle racing – where Gunbuster imagined the machines as fighter jets, Diebuster reconceived them as more like living mounts with wills of their own. They were not so much vehicles now as participants in school life, organic personalities that invited a form of cross-species bonding, like a young girl befriending her pony, which can fly, and shoot things.”

From my essay in the sleeve notes to Anime Limited’s release of Diebuster.