Mine is pic related, the Victory Gundam. What I like about it is how modular the mobile suit is. It's the result of years of ms tech late into the Universal Century where now the Gundam is mass produced. In the show the rebel forces are shown to have a stockpile of Gundams in a bunker so they can burn through parts.
Honorable mention to the RX-79 G ground type Gundam from 8th MS Team.
Show
ok so my advice to you, as someone who fell hard down the rabbit hole last year, is to watch only one gundam. watch turn a gundam, it's the best one, if you search my posts for it you'll see me gushing about it a million times, and it's from the 90s and wasn't successful so it's impossible to find merch for it (i need the mg turn x reprint or mg sumo so fucking bad but it's never going to happen)
I'm gonna start from the start when I do it. I got into model building via Trek and I the baubles I decorate with were also built and painted by me it feels more curated and less man child. I've got plenty of restraint for merch unless it's Enterprise or earlier trek stuff, then I legit just want all of it cause I legit love Trek. Finding out how fucking cheap used action figures of annoying characters from bad episodes are has been a bit of a spending sink, but I want art project merch or the dumbest shit they've sold. It'll just give my parents more options come Christmas really.
Gotta be real, I just don't want anime shit in my house.
yeah i'm watching from the start and mostly having a great time. you're in for some good scifi when you do get around to it! i learned that when the model kits are fun to build i do not have as much restraint for merch as i thought, but that's not the end of the world.
i cannot relate, i have a bunch of gunpla and then also regular anime figures of characters i like. i would have more if they weren't all expensive as hell. but i do respect that
I'm a Sci fi guy and that's where my Gundam interest lies. Also I think it's a being a masc looking person in my 30s that doesn't wanna signal FULL WEIRD NERD ALERT and adding anime to my star trek shit starts to look a little Funko Pop or on the more likely hand they may think I'm someone who genuinely is into more than like 7 anime shows and I don't wanna date weebs either
the crucial difference between having gunpla and the funko pops is that i had to spend hours on all the gunpla i have to make them look good. some of them took weeks of sanding and painting, and even the ones i just built and stood up out of the box took a few hours. that's what i tell myself at least, it makes me feel less cringe for displaying them lmao