Hey thanks for this, I've seen a lot of the older stuff but I missed some of these and it sounds like your taste is great. I've always heard Patlabor is a sign of good taste.

What is Gundam 00 like tonally speaking? Like if G Gundam is a 1 and Zeta/Ideon are 10, how upset am I going to be by the end of this thing?

Here are some of the most popular ones;

Code Geass is a masterpiece with one of the best main characters of all time and a suspenseful plot.

Gurren Lagann is one of the best mecha of all time. It has amazing characters, story and visuals while also being beloved by those who don’t like mecha. Probably the one I recommend most.

86 is a really popular modern one.

Gundam: The Witch From Mercury is a modern Gundam series.

Iron Blooded Orphans Gundam is standalone and an entry point for Gundam for many.

Macross is a classic.

Eureka Seven is a popular 2000s mecha show.

This person mechas

I'd add Gunbuster, Macross Plus, Giant Robo and Knight x Magic to the list personally as well.

Oh and if you want the oldest one I know of Tetsujin 28

Patlabor rocks

You have excellent taste. Escaflowne and Big O never get mentioned.

Gundam is a massive massive franchise. These days people mention iron blooded orphans and0080 as good entry points. And they are. But back in my day the Gundam entryway was Gundam Wing and G Gundam.

Gundam Wing is a child soldier political war story and G Gundam is more akin to a sports anime. Both fantastic in different ways.

And that difference in tone also perfectly exemplifies my other two suggestions. Zoids. Chaotic Century is the child soldier war story, and New Century Zero is the sports anime.

Speaking of sports mecha anime. IGPX was awesome.

And one last one that I almost never see mentioned that I really loved a lot was Vandread.

Someone else finally mentions Rahxephon, I never see this series recommended.

Evangelion is amazing. It got me into anime as a whole

Either Zeta Gundam, Votoms, Giant Robo the animation, Gundam 0080, Turn A Gundam, GaoGaiGar, Evangelion, or Gunbuster. It is hard to pick between them

Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn is by and far my favorite, but it kinda requires having seen four other entries in the series beforehand. One of those four entries, Zeta, is my third favorite mecha, my second favorite being Gurren Lagann, and my fourth favorite being Code Geass. Those are all actually in my top ten favorite anime in general list.

Eureka Seven is also very good.

Macross is my favorite

Gurren Lagann! And FLCL might count. I also hear Eureka Seven is great.

Gargantia is really good.

• Bizarre tonal shifts.
• Bland mecha designs.
• Nonsense plot full of gaping holes.
• Lelouch is a cringe worthy uber chunni Char knock off, and Char was pretty chunni to begin with!
• One of the most nonsensical endings in anime history.
• The surrounding cast is fairly bland outside a few standouts like Orange Boy.
• Hilariously dumb tech leaps.
• Really offensively in your face fan service.

I mean, it is fun to watch and laugh at but there are better shows for that, looking at you Wings of Rean. To be fair I do tend to drop stuff I don't enjoy and I don't include those in these lists but even so it would still be near the bottom.

Super Robot:

• GaoGaiGar
• Shin Getter Robo Vs. Neo Getter Robo
• G Gundam
• DieBuster
• Gundam Build Fighters Try
• Mazinkaiser Vs. The General Dark

Real Robot:

• Zeta Gundam
• Turn A Gundam
• Macross Plus
• Patlabor Movie 2
• Macross Frontier
• Flag

Giant Robot:

• Giant Robo the Animation

Fusion Robot:

• Gunbuster
• Escaflowne
• Neon Genesis Evangelion
• Full Metal Panic
• Gundam Build Fighters

Also, let's do a top 10 least favourite for fun:

• Gundam Build Divers
• Darling in the FranXX
• Mokei Senshi Gunpla Builders Beginning G
• Gundam 00
• Demon of Steel: Battle of the Great Demon Beasts
• Gundam Wing
• Gundam G Reco
• Macross Zero
• Valvrave
• Code Geass

Neon Genesis Evangelion, Full Metal Panic, Iron Blooded Orphans, Zeta Gundam, Code Geass, Gurren Laggan.

Not even Pixar's best Mecha anime tbh

ZZ Gundam (and the rest of the UC if you haven't), the Macross franchise, Big O, patlabor, GaoGaiGar, Votoms, Ideon, Dunbine, Nadesico, Escaflowne, Rahxephon, Eureka 7, Mospeada, FSS, Gunbuster.

Could list more but there be plenty enough in that list.

I haven't seen it all the way through yet.

But yeah, Votoms is amazing from what I've watched of it.

It might be antihype, but fairly justified tbh.

A lot of non-mecha watchers think it's one of the best mecha anime around and the reason for that is because it doesn't really play out like a mecha anime.

Except for the fact that Code Geass plays out exactly like every mecha anime ever.

I personally think 86 is very similar to Code Geass in a lot of ways. Code Geass started my lean towards mecha anime that has mechs in it, but aren't the centerpiece of the entire plot. (Oh no, the alliance has the super duper mech and we need to capture it! plotline for example.)

I love Mecha and Gundam, but my favorite mecha anime are:-

• Escaflowne - isekai, dragon mecha, Yoko Kanno OST
• Code Geass - R2 has one of the best endings in Anime
• Tengen Toppa Gurenn Lagann - stakes kept getting higher and higher, but the message is awesome. It's just great.
• Macross Plus OVA - I'll never forget the president of our college anime club rushing up to us with a Laser Disc, announcing "I just got the last 2 episodes and booked the AV room tonight!" The Yoko Kanno OST in this OVA is beyond awesome. "I've been waiting for you!"

Gurren Lagann is just such a masterpiece. Like it's hard to take it completely seriously because it's so ridiculous but the writing, flow of the show, and character design are just so good

It's so rare to see a show that can have you laughing, crying, and then motivate you to do anything you can dream of

Attack on Titan, meat mechas ftw.

Iron Blooded was something so much needed after the Seed, Destiny, Jupiter (forget actual name) series.

https://preview.redd.it/hj1u816vindf1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=90ab38eaf15085fa52b763a36a5966835cebff49

https://preview.redd.it/9p5ydyn4indf1.png?width=267&format=png&auto=webp&s=5caccd3f3a11d22c31886d86d74e99d3995d276d

https://preview.redd.it/8x98d8iejndf1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f9ac8e1f11a74eb955137d3d8ccaca10c13dc94

https://preview.redd.it/skizi8e7mndf1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=22c3e0621297f70a3a1037e1760d52d6653479be

Has to be Gurren Lagann

Gunbuster and Diebuster

Gunbuster (1988-1989) is great look at the mecha transition between the 80s and 90s. Paving the way for Evangelion. Also it has a nice dose of hardcore sci-fi to it.

And Diebuster (2004-2006) is a balls to the wall sequel where you can see Trigger flexing its style before they left GAINAX.

RaXephon is a great successor to Eva and pretty underrated imo.

Full Metal Panic for everything from comedy, romance, tsunderes, the works.

For Super Robot, I highly recommend Shin Mazinger. It's a re-telling of the original 70s Mazinger Z, a highly influential anime that essentially birthed the modern mecha genre. Shin takes the general plot of Z, characters, even a lot of the weekly monsters and takes it all in a new direction, while referencing other Go Nagai works.

For Real Robot(i;e the story is more serious and the robot is more "realistic") I'd recommend two things: Turn A Gundam, this is from the original creator of Gundam and while it has elements from other Gundam shows(namely some grunts and vehicles) it's totally separate from everything.

Unlike your typical Gundam, the sky isn't falling here, Earth isn't at war, well not totally. Usually space invaders as is typical in Gundam, but they're not fascist bad guys, in fact Turn A is not really battle heavy. The Moonrace aren't out to destroy the Earth, they want to resettle it, as they once did. A lot of the series is more political in nature, with the fights being short and sweet. The body count in this show is extremely low, especially for the main character, who only kills 2 or 3 people total.

Then there's Gunbuster, an anime that starts off as a mecha homage to Aim for the Ace, while quickly becoming a beautiful and powerful series in its own right. Combined with amazing mecha designs and great writing. It's from Hideaki Anno, who later did Evangelion. I highly recommend this, but for right now it's sub only, with a dub TBD.

Gundam Unicorn

Full metal panic is my favourite. The first mecha show I watched. Good overall plot and good romance. Will always have a special place in my heart.

I'm not sure I'd classify 86 as Mecha but it IS fantastic.

Code geass is definitely a mecha anime I've watched and naruto

• Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn

• Macross Frontier

• Gundam Build Fighters

• Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans

• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

• Giant Robo the Animation: The Day the Earth Stood Still

• Macross Plus

• Juushinki Pandora/Last Hope

That covers a number of my favorites. I love mecha.

Have to cosign Iron Blooded Orphans. Looks great, great story, doesn't require extra Gundam knowledge. It's a great stand alone story.

I don't know why but this rant reminded me of the Count of Monte Cristo anime, they changed the setting into being in 5053, and the duels are fought in mechs, would recommend.

Mecha is one of my favourite genres of fiction, and I find this dichotomy between human drama and mecha action to be a common but odd one that we don't apply to other genres. If we are discussing an action movie, we don't generally say "action movies should be balanced between gun action and human drama", or of a romance novel "romance novels should be balanced between romantic scenes and human drama" or of horror "horror should be balanced between scary scenes and human drama".

All of those statements are and should be considered ridiculous, because in an action movie the action and the drama are not two discrete parts that sit next to each other and are unrelated(at least, in a competent action movie). Likewise, in romance the drama is the romantic story, in horror the drama is in the frightening situation, etc.

But in mecha, there is this discourse that X mecha show is about the drama instead of just being cool robot fights (the classic example being Evangelion, since Evangelion was widely popular among people who were not otherwise mecha fans and so needed to be differentiated from what people imagine as standard mecha fare). But I would challenge anyone to find a mecha show where the primary activity in the show is just contextless robot fights. In mecha shows, interacting with the mecha in some way IS the drama. And because all a show needs to be a mecha show is have mecha in it, this drama can take a variety of forms - a mecha show can be a space opera (Gundam), a superhero comic style action story (Mazinger), a cop comedy (Patlabor), a cosmic horror (Ideon), a psychological drama (Evangelion), a gritty military-political thriller (Dougram), a romance (08th MS Team) a tragedy (Bokurano) or anything else. But what they all have in common is that they all involve human drama inseparably tied up in interacting with a big robot. It's that simple. There's no dichotomy between the two.

Also, Attack on Titan doesn't get this drama/mecha dichotomy treatment, and that show is a mecha show. Specifically, Attack on Titan is literally just Gundam. If it were a Gundam AU it wouldn't even be the first Gundam show where an angry kid who likes getting into fistfights swears revenge against all Titans after he watches a Titan kill his mother.

It’s actually astonishing how much emotion Armored core 6 has despite not showing a single human face in the game

86

BELIEVE IN GETTER

The last time this was asked, I recommended series most alike Armored Core, barring Gundam:

Ghost in the Shell, Madox 01, Appleseed, Megazone 23, Macross, Arcadia of my Youth, Patlabor, AKIRA, Votoms, Cyber City Oedo, Angel Cop and MD Geist.

Lots of Gundam series. A franchise doesn’t go on for 40 years and not have great content.

My pick to start is Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans. It’s self contained so there’s no need to know anything before it, and it’s also the closest Gundam series in feel to AC6.

A story about mercenaries and fighting against oppression. Themes of finding your own will and place in the world. Human Augmentation. Quick, zippy, and gritty combat (albeit, melee focused). Interesting and unique mecha design style. PILE BUNKER. etc.

Gurren Lagann. The animation is insane, the mechs are badass, the soundtrack is amazing & the plot is batshit crazy.

Gundam 08th MS Team is pretty good. Feels somewhere between Mechwarrior and Armored Core.