I just finished the second season of Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne, a mecha show were the primary three pilots were all female. While Lagrange was not the best mecha show I have ever seen it was very enjoyable and did make me start thinking about female mecha pilots in general. The trio of female Aestivalis pilots in Martian Successor Nadesico have also started the gears turning in my head. So in turn instead of doing a lengthy rumination on the place of female pilots in mecha, which my thoughts are not entirely clear on, I thought I would do a simple top 5 list for now. Perhaps when my overall feelings on the subject are more settled I will do something with Narutaki on the more intricate topic.

As always for these lists I made a few rules for myself. Just as a note I went out of my way to only pick one character from any one series. While Gundam has quiet a few great female pilots it also has an equal amount of horrible ones. But I did not want Gundam to dominate the list so I narrowed it down to a single pick. Also I have not seen every mecha show ever made so don’t hate me because say Jun Hono or your favorite girl from Aquarion Evol is not on the list. And last but not least these are my favorite pilots not the best female mecha pilots of all time. You can argue who is a better pilot or character until your blue in the face. This is not a definitive ranking but a purely subjective list.

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