Escaflowne

So I knew Escaflowne was another older anime that featured giant robots fighting each other, but I didn't know how much of a fantasy bent it had. It's actually a much larger part of the show, and even the robots themselves are rooted in that sensibility. It starts with a girl from Earth being transported to another world called Gaea where her home planet is visible in the sky along with the moon, and the lands are roamed by dragons, several warring nations, and some weird animal hybrids. The robots are powered by extracted glowing dragon hearts for some reason, and they spend a lot of time wrecking each other's shit. The bad guys also have these invisibility cloaks like Harry Potter and it's all kind of bad ass for a while. Especially when this one dude holds them off all by himself with just his sword, letting the heroes escape.

The series also does a lot to appeal to girls though, as a lot of time is spent with the female characters unable to decide which attractive male character they "really" like. It's a bit tedious, but it generally doesn't put the brakes too hard on the main plot. Which is a bit weird, actually - it starts out with the normal mix of fighting and political upheavals, but as it gets into the secret of Atlantis and how the world was formed and such it gets a little odd, and then they get into crap like rewriting the good luck gene into DNA and it spirals a bit out of control. It all ends up resolving well enough though, although there wasn't quite the action climax I expected, and the ending left me just sort of wondering, "Really, that's it?" Escaflowne started off strong, and didn't totally capitalize on its interesting and unique premise, but I mostly enjoyed it.