Okawara
Okawara was the first person in the anime industry to actually get credited as a mechanical designer—which might sound like a small thing, but it basically established the whole role as we know it. Before that, nobody really got singled out for designing the robots.
He's best known for creating some of the most iconic mecha ever made, spanning both the Real Robot and Super Robot traditions. His work helped define what giant robots could look like on screen, and his designs have influenced pretty much every mecha anime that came after.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
