What is your favourite Gundam Anime Series and why?

Mine is Mobile Suit Gundam the original series because it introduces the RX-78-2 which still to this day is an awesome instantly recognisable iconic mech design and always will be. I like old school mechs. I love the show again because it is so old school complete with dodgy animation but an amazing story with great & realistic Sci-Fi ideas thrown in. Giant robots that are not autonomous... Life on remote space colonies... the next step in the evolution of mankind... Giant bubble gum dispensers for patching breached spacecraft hulls... main characters dying...

My favorite as of now would be 08th MS Team. One of the best stories out of all the Gundam series I've watched and the characters are very well developed. A lot of good human drama and great action scenes!!! Seeing a Zaku beat a Gundam is such a rare site but it happens!!

No surprise here, but I've always been a big fan of Zeta Gundam.
Continues the conflict from the original story, but flip flops protagonist/antagonist groups.
Introduces us to some pretty high tech transformable mobile suits and armours. Lots of characters that are well defined and developed...then killed off! That's what war is all about.

But all that is just icing on the cake of Qubeley. This mobile suit is now the ultimate power in the universe. I suggest we use it. Though I shouldn't be too proud of this technological terror they've constructed...Wait, what?
Anyhow. I love the Qubeley and it's awesome sauce design.

I think my favorite series will still have to be Gundam Wing, simply because I have such fond memories of watching it when I was in middle school....

However I think the best Gundam series is 0083 Stardust Memory. The production value of this OVA is amazing. The characters are all believable, there's action and drama in almost every episode and despite being made in 1990, the animations is every bit as good as a modern Gundam series!

I'm pretty much the same with Japanesesandman about Z gundam series. From time to time I've heard people complaint about the new-type power being unrealistic(e.g How Zeta KO The O). But IMO that's why Zeta is good because it is bad, I mean it's a tragedy, the main characters have psychological flaws unlike in 08MS where the main characters are made up of a bunch of idealists, even the series tried to have realistic battle scene and took new-type out of the equation, I found it to be unrealistic because if you put such an idealist like Shiro on the battlefield, he would die instantly. The same way I like 0083 because Kou was such a looser.(to put it short)

Mines Gundam Wing. It was the very 1st Gundam show I'd ever seen. Funny I saw the Endless Waltz OVA before the actual series on YTV. Like a lot of people that see 1 series then a new series comes out they'll like what they 1st saw. I've watched almost all of the different series, OVA's and movies of the Gundam line I just need to see some of the old SD Gundam Gaiden shows, Gundam X and that 1 bad movie which names escapes me. I still like Wing more then the other series.

My favorite Gundam series would have to be 08th MS Team. I loved the redesigns of familiar mobile suits and the overall dark and gritty take on the One Year War made for a realistic picture of what life as a mobile suit pilot would be like. Top it off with some of the best character-driven storytelling in the metaseries and you've got yourself a winning combination, in my opinion.

I also very much enjoyed Turn A Gundam, and it is easily my favorite of the alternate universe series. It's certainly nontraditional both in terms of story and mech designs, but that's not a bad thing. At fifty episodes long, I had my initial concerns as to how long the series could keep going, but a few plot twists here and there kept the story going strong and led to a very satisfying conclusion. Way to go, Loran Cehack.

(This might be tooting my own horn a bit, but if any of you are interested in reading a full written review of any of the Gundam series I've watched this far, head over to my blog and feel free to leave me some feedback at: http://kuragawa.blogspot.com/)

Mobile suit gundam Seed.
because it's the only one I've seen a significant portion of....
I reserve the right to change that opinion in future...

Without a doubt, 0083 Stardust memory. So incredibly epic in scale, and focuses on one large battle plan that is hard to predict and keeps you guessing all of the time. It is the most realistic of all of the gundam series, and one of the few that addresses the development of one off prototypes and superior technology in war. The designs are also incredible, having much more mecha detail and ranges of form. It is also one of the only series that balances ground and space battles. As others have mentioned, the animation is excellent. Nina is also one of the least annoying of the gundam girls in my opinion. If this series had the sound track redone, it could easily pass for a modern mecha series. If you enjoyed this series, you would enjoy Macross plus, as well as yukikaze.

but seriously, there were so many classic designs in that series:
gp-01
gp-02
gp-03
neue ziel
val varo
RGM-79n GM custom
GM cannon II
The albion
the Musai redesign

08th Ms team is my second favorite, but as time progresses I get less and less patient towards the cheesy plot. I'm also sick of the chiche main character personality, which basically goes like this : " Oh hi, I joined the military to kill people in giant mecha machines. Oh, wait, I've decided I want to make peace in my giant mecha machine." Its like every bad series from machross made into a gundam series.

Also, the coolest battle in the entire thing was the 08th team vs. the gouf custom, which wasnt even the climax of the story. That quality of fighting was only in one episode of the whole series. In stardust memory, those battles are seen in almost every episode. (the 1st episode even opens with a mock battle in similar awesomeness)

The mecha designs are classic (dont care for the zeon prototypes though..) but are pretty much the same design really. (rx-79g, ground GM, GM sniper, etc. ) I actually thought the hover truck was the coolest design in the series.

If you love this plot, you might enjoy macross 7.

My 3rd favorite series is wing. That series started out so well, with the young pilots trained since birth and colonies acting in conspiracy. There was plenty of political agenda, and the first 5 mecha designs were classic. Once the series shifted to space however, I thought the series spread out too thin, became too over the top, and the mecha design suffered.

thats just me though

I think, of all the gundams that I have seen, it would have to be 0080 War in the Pocket. Yeah, it was short, at only 6 episodes, but damn it showed the darker side of war. Of course the Alex looked cool, especially with the gatling guns it the forearms, but it also showed a prototype getting messed up by a grunt. I honestly wish I could get the dvds in my possession, only actually rented the dvds from Netflix.

I actually haven't watched the entire series of the original gundam. I rented the movies and went straight into zeta. As such Zeta has been my fav gundam for the last 5 years or so. I enjoyed the charaters, interesting mechs, everything. The body count at the end was a bit depressing, but in a battle like that how many people would really be coming home?

I did also enjoy the new translation movies, and its nice to think there was an ending that happened without Kamille getting his brains scrambled.