Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyuu
Two genres are particularly dying:
Mecha
Sci-fi
This is true regarding the space exploration type of stories. It seems as if the dream of going into outer space is dying for most people.
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Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in 1969. The fact that we successfully put a man on the moon caused futuristic dreams to take hold and technology-based imaginations to soar.
So back in the 70s and 80s, concepts like "space exploration" and "robotics" were still
very hot topics that wowed a lot of people, and greatly impacted on the world of entertainment. At the time, these concepts were seen as new, exciting, and dynamic.
In the anime world, this likely contributed to the rise of mecha.
But as time when on, people became more cognizant of the practical limitations of what we'd be likely to see achieved within our lifetimes. For older generations, this caused some dreams to fade. For younger generations, this caused a shift in focus to more immediate and impacting technologies like the internet and smart phones.
Sci-Fi is still reasonably popular, but mecha, space exploration, and robotics have all taken a bit of a hit. A lot of the futuristic dreams people had back in the 70s and 80s simply never panned out, and that has shifted the focus of modern sci-fi works.
We see this most clearly in the 80s Back to the Future movies. It's now 2013, a mere 2 years away from the 2015 future that Marty Mcfly experienced. For some reason, I doubt we'll be seeing flying cars and hovering skateboards take off within the next 24 months.
Technology has become increasingly small, compact, personalized, practical. It is not big, flashy, and with noticeable mechanical bits everywhere, as humanity had previously dreamed it would be. So Sci-Fi works start to reflect that, and become a bit more restrained.
Meanwhile, escapist entertainment now focuses more on fantasy and magic, where what the real world has to say about science and technology is less important.
Mecha hasn't died, and there's still good mecha shows out there. But I think it's now more driven by nostalgia than anything else. Maybe this will change some day, as I've read reports of robotics technologies really taking off in Japan. But for now, mecha does seem in decline.