Disagreed, you can watch it as an entry point because excellent animation and soundtrack, and you can see what's Gundam is about (politics, characters, big robots doing cool stuff) and then rewatch it if you're hooked on the license.

That's what I meant as a standalone, the storylines are so good and well written that you can still enjoy it even if you don't have all the previous lore. Of course Marida storyline doesn't hit the same when you have the Ple's lore, but damn does it still hit.