I was going to try and stay out of the debate, as so much seems to have been covered above. But it is my site after all…

I think when recommending a mecha show to people it’s important to know their tastes to begin with. I mean most of my friends – and I’m talking about people that generally don’t watch much anime at all, have loved it when I’ve showed them something like Patlabor or Macross Plus. But then they’re mature, 30 something geeks. People that grew up on the original Star Wars trilogy and 1980s James Cameron and Paul Verhoven films as children – their taste is more inclined to a harder scifi feel. And bizarrely they look at mecha shows and go ‘Oh shit robots! Cool!’ far more than most modern day otaku do. For them the romance, soap opera and day-glo fantasy stuff of a lot of modern shows is a complete turn off. I happened to watch Maddox 01 last night, for the first time in at least 10 years – and while the artwork might look a little dated to younger fans, I know I could show that to some of 30 year old my non-anime friends right now and they’d just freak out.

I guess, what I’m saying, is get to know your targets before launching your indoctrination attack

(Man, I’ve had those Giant Robo DVDs sitting on my desk for weeks now.)

I suggest Shin Mazinger-Hen. Sure it’s fetishistic, but in very goofy way; as storytelling goes, it’s a great example of the breadth of the genre.

Perhaps Giant Robo too, plus it’s relatively short. A lot of the battles should appeal to more mainstream shonen anime fans.

Lastly, we made this over a year ago: Find Your Gateway Gundam http://ghostlightning.wordpress.com/find-your-gateway-gundam/

I think it’s in the same spirit that this guide was made (check out the link at the end of the post; the real guide starts there).

I agree with you, TTGL was a great “mecha” series… wasn’t full of techie stuff so it got my attention, beginning mecha viewers probably aren’t sci-fi junkies, I remember thinking I’d never watch Ghost in the Shell because of it’s lingo… “never” can be pretty short, but point is I had to acquire an interest in the genre over a period of time, and some of the less dialogue heavy series (i.e. more “ooh shiny”/action-fanservicey-packed) helped to do that

@Shinmaru

Escaflowne was awesome, I loved it… ended up watching it on vhs tapes :3

I hated Mecha shows at first, because people just kept throwing around the old Gundam series at me and what not, if it weren’t for some of these series listed above I’d probably have never even considered going back and watching any of these older Mecha series

@sean

you’re wrong bro, code geass is a good way to get people subconsciously interested in mecha, and of course the newer Gundam series, 機動戦士ガンダム00

We all know the Colony Drop stance on 0080 as a Gundam introduction, but the article didn’t advance it as such. Do you see it as a bad beginner’s mecha in general, and if so, why?

The goal of the beginner shows is to show the wide range of storytelling that goes on within the mecha genre. It is also to help dispel the idea that all mecha shows are purely robot porn with characters slapped on.

I won’t disagree with Gundam Wing, but original Macross I will have to beg to differ. The TV series animation alone might turn people off. Possibly Do You Remember Love, however that movie is indicative of the 1980s and so many younger fans just shy away from such things. While I agree about Macross Plus, it isn’t representative of the Macross franchise which was your complaint about our suggestion of Gundam 0080.

And again, I can appreciate not wanting to throw people into the midst of the more hardcore mecha series, but it might be nice to actually show them something that is more representative of the genre. If they’re so adverse to having mecha in their mecha anime, mecha anime might just not be for them!

The fact is, nobody is going to “ease” into mecha fandom with a show like Code Geass. Your definition of a good beginner show seems to be a modern show with some mecha in the background. You might be better off looking at the history of fandom and the kind of shows that actually got people into this stuff: Gundam Wing, Macross, etc.