The main source of anime is manga and light novels, there's hardly any mecha titles in either of them (FMP, Linebarrel come to mind) and if they make up, lets just say 80% of what we have as anime, that doesn't leave much room for mecha.
Secondly it should be pretty obvious that mecha series are more high budget than a typical series. Not to mention that mechanical animators are a dying breed, hence the increase in CGI, even in series where they tried not to like in Unicorn. If you only have like (lets make up numbers) 200 animators who can do mecha at an acceptable level compared to say 10000 who can do typical shit... and there's only a certain amount of CGI studios around... guess what happens?
Thirdly mecha series still continue to sell well, 4 of the top 10 selling anime titles from 2000 onwards are mecha, 5 of the Top 11. Unicorn is probably the best selling anime OVA series of all time, also probably the closest thing we'll get to the sales of NGE TV.
Movie charts based on Movies from TV series... Top 5, 3 are mecha (and before anyone goes with the Frontier movies only sold well because of the bundled 30 minute game, look up DYRL sales for me first)
(2009) 211,367 Macross F: Itsuwari no Utahime (Regular: 41,434)
(2011) 182,337 Macross F: Sayonara no Tsubasa (Regular: 45,647)
(2005) 171,919 Full Metal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa
(2011) 163,547 K-on! The Movie
(2010) 155,867 Kidou Senshi Gundam 00L A wakening of the Trailblazer
Add the Eva movies and it's a wrap.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Triple_R
Let's be honest, AGE was a flop, at least commercially. If anything, AGE's problems speaks to how traditional mecha really is in decline.
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What does AGE being a flop have anything to do with such a bullshit argument as "No gundam is airing right now?". Besides it's not like Unicorn is easily outselling every Gundam OVA series that predated it or anything right now, or that it's the best selling Gundam series ever.
Eva 4 is due next year? So is the last Unicorn title and than Sunrise transition into Origin, Kawamori has a new project lined up (not Macross), Code Geass Akito is still airing, Yamoto (if you want to count that) is about to take over one of the best time slots in anime, we have 3 mecha titles airing this upcoming season. Probably get a IS sequel sometime next year too since the book issues have been dealt with and it sold like crazy.
Yet mecha is dead?
If genres were boxers and we measured them up pound for pound.... (balance the weights/releases) Mecha would slaughter everything else.