I couldn't find a relevant thread for this, so i'll put this here.

A few years ago there were two or three animes that i started getting into, but for whatever reason i can't find a trace of them anymore. So maybe the collective group can figure it out.

#1 A 'Stuck in a game' type of MMO game, however this one was unique. It wasn't SAO or the like, rather in the MMO game a player died (outside the game). Then like 6-20 months later, rumors or the person returned, as a ghost or echo of the original but who now was 'stuck in the game' since they had no body to return to; so a friend started investigating to find them.
edit: Identified as Subaru of the Seven Stars

#2 A Japanese girl in Tokyo happens to buy one of these line of 5 something Gundam-style toys. Once on a train (or something) a portal opens up and she's sent to another world where she's actually using the gundam against monsters, but the world was effectively an apocalyptic warzone against monsters/aliens/machines and they would take jobs protecting towns or the like so they could try to survive.

This one sounds like the Dot Hack(./) series of anime/games.

First thought would be Seven Senses of Reunion (although mostly because it was widely disliked).

Not dot hack. I've watched Signs like 8 years ago (which was a prequel to the PS2 games). Roots is a prequel to the GU series, and it's not that.

Though it's easy to see how it is very similar, considering the main character windmaster is nearly in that exact state that's mentioned, except he didn't die (but part of the story says he was tortured repeatedly to remove unwanted parts until the AI got a state of him they wanted). Couldn't find it at first; Then looked under it's alternate names, Subaru of the Seven Stars, and then Shichisei no Subaru and found it. Glancing over the first episode a lot of it is very vague as i only watched a couple episodes like 2-3 years ago. But it does seem to be this one.

edit: There's also In the Land of Leadale which is very close; But that wasn't the anime in question, as a note.

Not sure if this counts as relevant, but: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/anime_recommendations
Maybe someone there has mentioned the animes you're looking for.

Nope, not it. I distinctly remember the intro being a girl buying a toy gundam and then falling into a black hole, before arriving on the scene (parallel world of the city she was in, but at war for like 5 years) of a battle in gundam/mech she bought. And no boys were involved that i remember in the first episode anyways.

Still i'll look into it, might still be good. I'm already familiar with Death Note, Attack on Titan, but Tokyo Ghoul and Blue Exorcist i've not yet watched.

When I was very young in the mid-90's, I'd record 4 anime on VHS that would air every Sunday morning while we were at church (in Oklahoma City, if it helps). The first included in its opening song the same kind of launch-rail as we see in X-Com: Enemy Unknown/Within. The second was Dragon Ball Z, most memorably Gohan's survival training. I completely forget the remaining two. Any chance I could fill the gap in my memory?

first thing to come to mind is Robotech (Macross + other series)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEe0kzyFOyU

second thought would be that you're mixing up the time frame and it's actually in/closer to the 00s and you're thinking of something that ran on Toonami like one of the Gundams (what with mentioning that it was on a block with DBZ).

I 100,000% guarantee you I'm not misremembering the timeline; we were going to a church on the north edge of downtown and there was a very small letter P-shaped tree on the curb a few blocks north of it. Dad often listened to a cassette of gospel music but the back-up singers sounded like chimpanzees. In the 00's, I forsook VHS because Dad gifted me a PS2 and DVD was the way of the future; we also never touched cable with a 90-foot pole, so Toonami is disqualified. Early morning cartoons in this time of my life also included Beast Wars, but that wasn't Sunday.

Toonami, ahh yes.

Some shows included Hamtaru, possibly Gundam .... something... Otherwise, Tenchi Muyu, Inyuyasha, Vultron, Reboot and Sailor moon.

Go to wikipedia, it has a 1997-2000 block with basically the list of likely candidates midway down the page.

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Girls, magic worlds and robots: the first thing to come to mind is Magic Knight Reyeart or Escaflowne.

MMO: other than Hack//Sign and Sword Art Online, I'm not really familiar with anything there.

When I say mid-90's, I mean no later than 1996 and probably more like 1993. Have we really forgotten the Ocean dub of DBZ, or whatever it was called BEFORE airing on Toonami?

You might try trawling the relarant tags on anidb.net. For #2 that would be "piloted robot". There are looots of anime like that, but if you know roughly when it was released then you can whittle it down. Oh look! The onslaught of AI-generated spam is already here.