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amatulic t1_j41zaon wrote

I never particularly enjoyed mecha anime. I rather liked Patlabor but didn't see anything else of interest since then.

I also wouldn't say it's a decline without seeing the actual rate of production. For all we know, the production rate of mecha anime might have increased over the years, but the production of other genres has increased more.

If it isn't a decline, possibly one reason for it is that you can't do much with the genre that hasn't already been done, and those few recent are well regarded because they did something original. Other than that, the genre is likely tapped out. OR... it gets absorbed into other genres as an everyday feature, with the anime work not being about mecha itself.

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urgjotonlkec t1_j420y6x wrote

The whole Shonen genre seems incredibly played out and yet they keep making money regardless so I'm not sure you can blame recycled plot points as the issue with mecha specifically when you've got so many nearly identical animes about killing demons and such.

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The_11th_Guild OP t1_j420khr wrote

Yeah, I also think the most probable cause for it is the genre getting tapped out. Thanks for your point about the actual rate of production btw, added it in my explanation comment.

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HehaGardenHoe t1_j44j151 wrote

That's funny, considering how often Sci-fi is the genre that breaks through with revolutionary ideas about previously unimagined futures.

It'll come back once enough people start having newer ideas of the future, it's hard to do sci-fi when technology keeps catching up (Heck, look at drones and smart phones... How many years back do you have to go for those to be purely sci-fi? ~25, if I had to guess.)

But given how other mediums have been doing sci-fi, Like the Expanse series, I think it's only a matter of time for some new ideas to appear in anime.

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