I'm not even an anime fan but...

This CGI short of Neon Evangelion looks pretty sweet.

Anyone recommend me some mecha anime? Is Neon Evangelion any good?

Quick edit: I am a fan of Mayazaki's stuff and Ghost in the Shell

Evangelion is good. The ending is sorta meh. If you like it I also recommend you check it FLCL and Gurren Lagan, more mecha animes by the same studio.

I love Evangelion, but it's sort of difficult to recommend.

The thing with mecha anime is that while they have robots and stuff, the more serious ones are actually about people and spiritual stuff. You see some detailed procedures, combat, technical details in the beginning? Well, usually it's only going down from there since toward the end it's going to be less and less about those. It's as if the makers need to dupe us first with mecha before relaying their message.

I'm DEFINITELY not an anime fan, but there are some good examples of it out there. I would count Evangelion among them, I really liked the series as a whole despite some silly teenage crap that leaks its way into pretty much all anime barring Miyazaki and Satoshi Kon.

Evangelion gets into some crazy stuff...the lead character is REALLY unlikeable (on purpose) and there's some bizarre religious stuff that turns up in it. The mecha are great, some really cool designs. Huh, I'd kind of like to watch it again.

I tried to watch Gurren Lagan since it's supposed to be just nuts and has a lot of influence from the old "super robot" genre (which is actually very different from the usual post-Gundam mecha fare)...but I can't stand the goofy, lame sex comedy elements.

Gundam is actually good, depending on which series you watch. It's much more serious, hard military SF. I like the older ones way better, the vintage Mobile Suit Gundam stuff.

Favorite is by far Macross. I _adore_ Macross. The original stuff, not all of this later jive, although Macross Plus was pretty good.

The original series (Superdimensional Fortress Macross) is total space opera, and the mecha are still IMHO the best ever (the Valkyries in particular). This was the basis for the first part of Robotech, which is the one everyone remembers the most and for good reason. There's a lot of great characters (Max Sterling, Roy Fokker, Breetai and Exedore, Lisa Hayes, etc.).

The second Robotech series is a mess, Southern Cross. It can be skipped. But the third is really awesome, the Invid Invasion/Genesis Climber Mospeada. It's basically a post-apocalypse scenario where the Invid have taken over Earth and the heroes wear these incredible transforming motorcycle suits. They also have Valkryie-like transforming mecha.

I watched a few episodes of that Netflix original one, Knights of Sidonia the other day- it seems like it's pretty good, if a bit vanilla. It's thankfully more on the adult end of the spectrum, no schoolgirl crap or teenybop sex shit.

For mecha anime I like Big O. Its heavily inspired by the Batman animated series from the 90's. Ending is ambiguous, but it has giant robots fighting in a post-apocalypse domed city and a cool soundtrack.
Another mecha anime I really liked was RahXephon. Its probably most similar to Evangelion, which I think is overrated. Skip the movie though as its garbage.

I watched quite a bit of anime as a teenager during the '90s. There are very few movies or series I can actually recommend nowadays, Neon Genesis Evangelion is definitely among them. It's got cool mechs and bizarre religious overtones as Barnes said, but I don't even mind the soap opera drama. Am I weird that I like unlikeable heroes?

Then later on I watched Cowboy Bebop and I really liked that show. Not about mechs, but it and Evangelion are the only anime I really have found memories of. Dragon Ball Z to some extent and Slayers, Slayers was kind of funny.

RahXephon.

Calling FLCL a mecha anime seems like a huge stretch.

Knights of Sidonia was enjoyable.

I watched Knights of Sidonia (1st Episode) yesterday.

I found it quite difficult to masturbate to. Is this normal?

Not normal at all. See a doctor.