It's been a week of watching mecha anime from some of my favourite directors...
Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure - Episodes 9 - 13 [Final] + Special
Pleasingly, Dual! has stood the test of time well and I have had a good time watching it again, some of the Evangelion references in the final episodes are very on the nose but this is another good mecha anime from Katsuhito Akiyama, (he even gets some references to Gall Force in there). The Special is kinda pointless and doesn't add anything to the main series which wrapped up the story pretty well. To be honest there is very little Akiyama has directed that I haven't enjoyed.
Battle of the Great Demon Beasts: Demon of Steel
I've seen Demon of Steel loads of times and it's still a perfectly complete, self contained OVA with a great story and mecha designs and looks great too, man, I really want a HD version of this!!! In a discography of great work (I'll overlook Apocalypse Zero for now

), I think Demon of Steel is possibly Toshihiro Hirano's finest.
FLAG - Episodes 1 & 2
I first watched this back in 2010 and loved it, especially the unique way Ryousuke Takahasi uses the camera viewpoint to tell the story (expanding on an idea he used for the Dougram compilation film) to create a very 'in the moment' feel to the series.
Takahashi gave a lot of his shows a political, world events slant and FLAG was based on a lot of what was happening in the world at the time and was an intriguing view point of those events. It's interesting watching it again now, the camera view allows for a lot of shortcuts in the animation, which makes it feel a bit basic and it was a time when ugly CG mecha was common and the mecha animation in FLAG is no exception but given what has happened in the world since I last watched it, I am finding it a truly engaging and thought provoking show so far this time round.
Ranma 1/2 (2024) - Episode 16
Even though this is doing nothing new, it's easy watching and I'm still enjoying it.