The western mecha community (as much as there even is one today) is always talking about the distinction between "super robot" shows and "real robot" shows. At first glance the distinction seems reasonable. A show like Mazinger Z or Voltes V is certainly different in many key ways than a show like Mobile Suit Gundam or Patlabor. Generally the classification is supposed to go like this:
This seems plausible when you want to compare a show like VOTOMS to a show like Gurren Lagann. Given the above framework, VOTOMS is obviously "real robot" and Gurren Lagann is obviously "super robot." But there are in fact very few shows where this distinction is clear cut. For example, take Aura Battler Dunbine. This is a show set in a parallel fantasy universe where the robots are capable of magic (it is at least heavily hinted that they are drawing on the power of fairies.) But they were also designed by a roboticist, and are constructed in a setting as close to a modern factory as you could expect in a medieval fantasy world. The tone is certainly not cheerful and the size and manueverability leans "real robot", but the robots do get all sorts of special abilities that are not well explained. So which is it? You can't really classify it, though I've seen many places call it "real robot" primarily due to the fact that the robots are smaller, the tone is bleak, and they are explicitly shown to be manufactured by relatively normal means (assuming that you can harvest shells from slaying fantasy monsters and such.)
But now take the Vision of Escaflowne. The basic premise is very similar to Dunbine, with the fighting taking place in an alternate fantasy world. But there is an important difference here: in Dunbine the robots were introduced when a robotocist from Earth was taken to the world of Byston Well. While they have magical components, they are made using "real world" knowhow. On the other hand, the robots in Escaflowne were created in that unvierse, and were generally built by quasi magical means over decades. The primary robots are also much bigger and fantastical than the robots in Dunbine, and the tone of the show is more idealistic (though of course both shows use a range of tones.) So should Escaflowne be a "super robot" show? But how useful is this, when Escaflowne is clearly much closer to Dunbine than it is to other "super robot" shows?
What about Dancougar? This is a show that follows many "super robot" tropes like having robots that transform into animal modes, and then combine into one giant mega robot. However, this is interpreted in a military setting where these just happen to be designs that are effective for that purpose, with the whole thing being a war against an alien invasion. This supposedly gives it "real robot" elements. The thing is, the basic set up of a military using a combining robot to fight off an alien invasion is not substantially different than something like Voltes V, which is treated as a "straight" super robot show, not a hybrid. Similarly, the setup of Dancougar is not every different from Gaogaigar, which is considered as the primary super robot show of the 90's. Yes, Gaogaigar definitely hits a lot of the "super robot" tropes, like combinations, transformation sequences, over the top charcters, etc. Yet the show takes pains to go over the scientific and engineering effort necessary to design, build and maintain the giant robots, with this being considered just as much as the human potential for greatness as the bravery of the protagonist pilot. You could say that the show is more light hearted than Dancougar. On an epsiode by episode basis that is largerly true, but Gaogaigar actually gets much more bleak than Dancougar does in the scope of its conflict, especiallly in the Final OVA. The fact is that the distinctions are largely arbitrary, and if "Dancougar" is a hybrid show, then show are Gaigaogar and Voltes V. But then practically every super robot show would only be a "hybrid."
The same is true on the real robot side. I've seen people try to disqualify shows as "real robot" due to including combining robots or psychic powers; but the original Mobile Suit Gundam has both and if that show isn't "real robot", basically nothing will be. You might point to VOTOMS and Patlabor as "realer robot" but even that doesn't quite work. The Special Vehicle Division in Patlabor has faced off against ghosts and kaiju, and at the core of VOTOMS is the idea of a very unrealisitc "ultimate survivor."
The reality is that the bulk of mecha shows defy easy categorization. For exmaple, I think that each of the following shows have a signficiant amount of "real robot" and "super robot" elements: Big O, Ideon, Geneshaft, Star Driver, Evangelion, Vandread, Nadesico, Dai Guard and even Macross.
If there is an easy distinction to be made in mecha it's between the piloted mecha and the robot controlled by a remote style mecha (ex. Giant Robo, Tetsujin 28) though the latter has largely been forgotten (though even that one sometimes gets mixed in with the piloted type; see for example Big O.)
As far as I can tell the Japanese fans don't really make a distinction between these things, as much as western fans obsess over them. The only place the distinction ever really came up was in the Super Robot Wars series of games. The first three games have different gameplay between the units from various Gundam series versus stuff like Getter Robo or Mazinger Z. The former generally are quick with reliable attacks, but fragile, while latterr are slow and durable with attacks that need to be charged in some way. In the fourth game the player can make a protagonist and can design various things about the character, including sex and blood type. You could also select a "super robot" or "real robot", which affected your initial unit and piloting style. This game would also include series that had units that worked much like Gundam units but which came from different series, like Dunbine. These could be called "real robot" types, which I suppoose might people are so insistent that Dunbine is a "real robot" show. But really, it was just a shorthand for gameplay mechanics and not an honest attempt to distinguish between different types of shows. It'd be a bit like if a Star Trek game let you make your own captain and gave you the option of a "dashing" type (i.e. like Kirk) or a "gentleman" type (i.e. like Picard) after which people tried to classify all science fiction into "dashing" fiction and "gentleman" fiction.
Now really they did do something just as stupid with "hard" and "soft" science fiction, which is just as stupid, but that is another essay. (You may note that "real robots" largely correspond to "hard" science fiction and "super" robots largely correspond to "soft" science fiction, though in reality mecha anime tend to be a mixture of "hard" and "soft" elements, because the distinction isn't meaningful in the first place.)