Bug tanks are totally mechs! I watched this one, but didn’t love it too much
I haven’t watched much non-Gundam anime recently because I’ve been trying to get more backstory to GQuux.
Mobile Suit Gundam (TV is better, but the compilation movies are fine if you don’t like 70s anime aesthetics), Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (the New Translation movies are an entirely different thing, watch them much later), Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (it starts as an odd comedic anime, but gets more serious and has a lot of cool political stuff), and Char’s Counterattack are the original Tomino run and should give you a full background on most of anything Gundam references.
If you work through all that and think “damn, I want more alternate history UC Gundam”, go for After War Gundam X. It’s technically an AU, but is clearly set in a world where their Zeon equivalent defeats their Federation Equivalent.
86 Eighty-Six was good, but it’s pretty light on the mecha. They’re more like 4-legged tanks anyway, rather than humanoid mecha.
Knights of Sidonia got canceled prematurely AFAIK, so I never finished it.
I haven’t watched much non-Gundam anime recently because I’ve been trying to get more backstory to GQuux.
Bug tanks are totally mechs! I watched this one, but didn’t love it too much
Mobile Suit Gundam (TV is better, but the compilation movies are fine if you don’t like 70s anime aesthetics), Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (the New Translation movies are an entirely different thing, watch them much later), Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (it starts as an odd comedic anime, but gets more serious and has a lot of cool political stuff), and Char’s Counterattack are the original Tomino run and should give you a full background on most of anything Gundam references.
If you work through all that and think “damn, I want more alternate history UC Gundam”, go for After War Gundam X. It’s technically an AU, but is clearly set in a world where their Zeon equivalent defeats their Federation Equivalent.
The UC also has a bunch of spinoffs.
0080 War in the Pocket, 0083 Stardust Memory, the 8th MS Team, as well as later ones like Unicorn.
Most are pretty good.
And then there’s the cream of the crop of all anime, Turn A Gundam! (well, at least it’s my favorite of all time lol)