I did this because 1) I'm a little strapped for bloggy ideas, and 2) the thought occurred to me because of the previous posts I did on spacecraft. (Also, I must credit Siskoid for pointing out the one list and doing the other list that inspired those posts.)
In no particular order.
1. Axeman/Axman (Battletech). The funny thing about the Axeman (I will always spell it that way!!1!) is that it's really hard to find good pictures of the darned thing if you aren't looking the right way. (This is the right way. Specifically, those first two pics [as of the time of this post] are the ones I'm talking about-decent pictures, anyway.) Specifically, it's really hard to find pics of the "AXM-2N," which is the one I'm really referring to. In terms of design, the Axeman stands out, with its huge beefy body, its skeletally gawky limbs, its axe, its mini-spaceship head, and its decided and open need for moar dakka than you. It's pretty much one of my all-time favorite mecha/robots, and it's certainly my favorite Battletech design ever (certainly better than that stupid Madcat everybody thinks of when they're talking about Battletech).
2. Gouf (Gundam). I'm not really a fan of Gundam stuff, but there's a story behind my love of the Gouf. Years and years and years ago, my mom bought me some pencil toppers. As it happened, they were bootleg imitations of licensed Japanese robots, including a Dougram, SanKanOh, and a mess of little Gundam guys (the "man" himself, plus some villain mecha). One of them was a Gouf, and he was the most awesome of the little mooks. The problem with Gundam in general is that they reuse the same designs over and over again to the point of monotony and disgust, but the Gouf came early, and it doesn't look like the RX-78, the "original" and "true" Gundam... which is the most imitated and boring design of the Gundam set. (Nothing against the thing itself... it's not a bad design, and was pretty good for its time period. It's just that there're five billion of the stupid things imitating it now. But I digress, and entirely too much for my own good.) Anyway, what qualifies the Gouf for this? Well, aside from a just generally solid and interesting design, it has the most perfect shoulders of any robot ever. Yes, that's a legitimate reason.
3. Qubeley (Gundam). I know I just said that I'm not a big Gundam fan, but I do tend to like the really weird and quirky designs (read: villain mecha) that their designers came up with. This thing looks like it ought to be hanging out with the Zentraedi fleet or something. Also, darnit Gundam namers! It took me forever to find that thing! Give them names that vaguely resemble real words, for crying out loud!
4. Valkyrie (Macross). I'm not going to link to a specific page, but if you go here and look at any of the Valkyries on this page, well, you'll see that they're all generally similar. The Valkyrie is one of the greatest robot designs of all time, and all the better for being 1) a transforming robot, 2) something that had an incredibly well-engineered toy back when it was designed (I loved that thing), 3) a huge selection of accessories in the form of least two add-on armor sets and tons of variants, and 4) an expy to Transformers (lawsuit included).
5. Jungle Fiver (Bots Master). You might wonder what the heck I'm talking about, as I haven't linked anything like an image. Well, here you go, a little image.
The thing about Jungle Fiver (so called because "they're the hottest 'bots on Earth!!!"-forgive them, it was the '90s-and it came from France) that I like is that it audaciously addresses the difficulties suffered by combining robots, such as where to keep the darned giant hands. Its solution-make them the hands of the little guys stuck together-is hideously ugly, but it's novel, it's interesting, and it works better (though not as a toy) than one would expect.Honorable mention: Regult (Macross). That thing gives me the heebie jeebies.
-Signing off.
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