I've heard that phrase before often, and I've seen gundam fans constantly say this to folks like myself who often say we don't like mecha anime, and it sat with me for years; I like code geass, I also like gurren lagan, also evangelion, neoranga (never finished it though), and bokurano, so what the heck am I talking about?
Well actually I don't like war anime; I've no interest in hearing about how empire fitzlik has loyalist factions and friendly rebel alliances, or how princess dokemon is trying to end the conflict between the union of dinguses and the gearshmear confederation, or how colonel flatulence is moving his troops to some rear flank somewhere, or how the struggling economy of the gadunkadunk dictatorship has them occupying the mines formerly controlled by naboo free army, etc; and all the characters are military personnel or politicians.
I have zero interest in this stuff even when mechs are NOT involved; I tried watching gundam something something orphan and yeah, this is not for me; ironically the mecha battles are the highlight. I stopped early in the show when one of the main characters, a prodigy at mech battles, is supposed to duel some colonel who wants to avoid killing the forces on the main character's base because they're mostly kids, and this duel is the only thing I'd go back for.
I used to think I hated mech battles because it's not the physical capabilities of the MC that matters, but how powerful the mech was, but no, a well done fight (choreography and animation) is still a well done fight; nah, it's the politics, logistics, economy and doing away with as much of the fantastic that I find dull.
Gonna go back and look over anime series I'd passed up because I'd originally seen they featured mechas, and there's a lot of them.