Tributes and Homages: Where do they begin?

So I was poking around YouTube, and found this clip from a series called Gear Fighter Dendoh:



This clip is a lot of fun because the creators are tributing series that they had created previously.

For instance, the numerous guns with which that robot (Dendoh) has armed itself all belonged (more or less) to the robot Xabungle:



The bow and arrow come from Raideen:



And that sword could probably come frome any number of different robots, although I don't currently recognize-WAITAMINNIT!!

He uses the bloody yo-yos!



COMBATTLER V's YO-YOS.



(Note: The above video seems to be taking Combattler V seriously. This should be a felony.)

After getting over the fact that this robot is using the crazy awesomest silly robot weapons I can think of (the only weapons I can think of offhand that are cheesier are all from recent Super Sentai, and they're less believable), I started thinking in a serious way about tribute/homage-heavy stuff.

Hardly anything new for me. I mean, I like Transformers, for crying out loud. Anymore, that's almost one big fat tributefest.

But still, I was looking around some more...



That robot (Baan Gaan) looks an awful lot like Xabungle in terms of general scheme, doesn't it? (Mr. Wholelottaguns from up a little ways.) He even transforms fairly similarly.

Then again, that transformation might be homaging the more closely related Exkaiser:



I mean, these two robots are from the same metaseries, and they do both have sword type weapons and animals on their chesplates (features Xabungle doesn't share with either).

I suppose the only people who know the truth are the designers and God.

Anyway, so I was looking around a little more, and found this clip, which for me is sort of like an "oldie but goodie," as I found it a long time ago and really loved it, and finding it again is great fun:



What makes this clip for me is the theatrical music. It's so... so... I'm not even sure how to put it, but it makes the clip both completely typical of anime and completely un-anime somehow all at once. (Fun fact: This clip technically would qualify for my Super Robot Wars Sunday posts.)

Anyway, not the point. Big swords often are given to robots, and there are lots of them, but the first really big robot sword that did the mass-shifty thing that I know of belonged to Great Exkaiser, a form of Exkaiser:



Where does it end/begin?