i always find tomino's rep in mecha and otaku spheres to be very interesting bc it often acts as if tomino is a uniquely creative figure who Made Mecha Shows Good (and anime in general to a lesser extent). he's often shown, by people left and right and all in between, to be their Based Anime Grandpa Who Has All The Answers like miyazaki does. and like i can't blame anyone bc tomino's ideology is so all over the place that you can kinda get evidence of him supporting ANYTHING in his gundam writing lol.
and like none of this exceptionalist narrative is really true bc other mecha anime and non mecha shows did set up a lot of the shit gundam does. gundam itself was literally made to cash in on the yamato boom. without yamato we wouldn't have gundam. like a lot about how sayla, mirai and fraw are is explained by them being one third of yuki mori each lmao
like idk i find it kinda weird how people idealize him and see him as a purveyor of an agenda (or as the edgy depressed kill em all dude) over as like, a person, y'know. which is a shame bc his works uh, work, bc he is just a guy with his own takes! he isn't even as well read and sagely as people say he is, he says in interviews he mostly reads and watches whatever he likes like a normal person lol

thoooo lowkey i do think gundam's particular rep is also bc of the otaku guy fanbase who repped it later too. bc the original gundam fangirls jumped to gundam from grendizer/raideen/robot romance. a lot of early gundam doujins are actually mecha anthology works!! but to the otaku dudes....it had to be THE mecha anime, better than the other kiddy shit, and of course THEM buying model kits was the result of its success. and this reading IS very useful to bandai, so it's the official one lol

i do think tomino also has an anno eva deal in fandom/people who aren't familiar with the genre where like his work is seen as "depressed edgy metal rockstar dude barging in with his HUGE DICK telling all these STUPID CHILDREN THINGS that they are ASS!!!! and him killing them to establish rightful otaku supremacy!!!!" despite him respecting other creatives (and tributing their work) and being okay with making more straightforward robot shows lol
anyways i am just rambling lol. i just think it's interesting

i kinda wanna add this excerpt for a very recent interview where he mentions zambot 3 and it's interesting how people say it Deconstructs mecha when tomino himself said he was actually doing super robot tropes and stuff in a very straightfoward manner. it's very much like how eva fans see anno lol