Dayakkaiser

The Dayakkaiser belongs to the brigade's collection of appropriated Gunmen, lifted from the Beastman Empire and reworked for its new owners. Its trademark is a cannon mounted on the crown of its head, which lobs explosive solid shot. It changes hands over the course of the war and eventually returns for the campaign in space against the Anti-Spirals.

Like most units in the brigade's stable, the machine was taken from the enemy and customized. Its signature weapon is that head-mounted cannon, firing explosive solid rounds at a distance and making it a natural fit for support and artillery duty rather than close brawling. The frame can also lock together with King Kittan and Kiyalunga to assemble a larger combined machine called King Kittan Deluxe.

Late in the war, hidden work by Makken and Leite kept the retired unit running and fitted it with Spiral Power weaponry. When the conflict moved off-world, Leite constructed a warship-scale version, Space Dayakkaiser, equipped with arm-mounted rocket launchers and a far heavier cannon. Of all the Space Gunmen, it alone remains intact after the last clash with the Anti-Spirals.

Dayakka flew the machine only a handful of times, most memorably during the siege of the Dai-Gunzan. Once that fortress was seized and he was named captain of the renamed Dai-Gurren, he handed the Gunmen to Kittan's sister Kiyoh, who piloted it for the rest of the conflict, mostly as rear support since Kittan was reluctant to send her to the front lines.

Everyone assumed the unit was gone once the human military swapped Gunmen for Grapearls, but it resurfaced when the Anti-Spirals struck the surface and the Grapearls failed against the Mugann. Yoko took the controls, startling Dayakka when he spotted it aboard the Arc-Gurren, and she carried on piloting both the ground and space versions through the campaign that followed. In the movie retelling, she instead favors the Yoko M Tank in its place.