>>11587318
They did a lot. Some of their earliest animes like Astro Boy were of robot characters. And it was Tomy itself who presented Starriors as living robots in spite of the human-shaped pilot inside. That got explained in the comic books as them all having human-shaped "brains" to remind them that their purpose is to seek out lost remnants of human civilization as well as humans themselves kept in cryo-stasis.

The problem was no media support to go against Transformers, GI Joe, He-Man/She-Ra, GoBots, Thundercats, and MASK playing five days a week to keep kids focused on their shit. Not even Star Wars survived that era with how powerful daily infomercial cartoons had become.