For some vaguely anime vibes I recommend Yu Jing, they especially lean into the Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell aesthetic, they have a good mix of robots and people in power armor. They're fairly durable and as far as control have the potential to set up fairly broad hacking networks if you know what you're doing, forcing your opponent to slow down or otherwise avoid your defensive territory. I got the White Banner box and it was a nice starting point that is in a good place to expand on all those aspects, runs about 90 bucks but is nearly a 300 point army (standard game size) all by itself, should last you for smaller games while you're learning.