I thought Akane Maniax has been pretty good so far, since Akane was the only character I actually liked from Kimi Ga Nozomu. Everyone else had only themselves to blame for how miserable they were.

I find AM to be a good mix of comedy and drama. I don't think you need to have seen Mazinger Z to "get" the humor, seeing Nadesico would probably do it. Or just having some sense of what the giant robot genre is like. The humor's not for everyone, but neither is most of the humor in anime.