Mecha Vs Isekai: Which One Is MORE Popular For Anime Fans?

I famously wrote the article: why anime fans hate Mecha. That pissed a lot of people off, and it went on for so long I had to laugh.

Then I followed it up a few years later with: why mecha has been declining since the 2010s.

That pissed even MORE fanboys off despite, yet again, making valid points which didn’t include denouncing or dissing Mecha as a genre.

And now, I’ll be expanding on some of those points, especially with Isekai as a genre vs Mecha and how one has become more popular over time.

And, more importantly, what that looks like with the statistics we have available.

Let’s get started.

Data is from a global perspective.

1. Mecha vs Isekai past 30 days popularity (June – July 2023)

First, we start off with data from the past 30 days to compare the popularity between mecha and Isekai.

I know Isekai isn’t an “official” genre, but it doesn’t matter because that’s mental gymnastics.

In the last 30 days between June and July 2023, Isekai is clearly the winner showing more trending interest, which Google has reliably been predicting and estimating since 2004.

2. Mecha vs Isekai past 90 days popularity (April – July 2023)

The popularity curve is clear again when comparing the past 90 days (April to July 2023) with Mecha vs Isekai. Isekai is absolutely dominating, and that shouldn’t surprise anyone in the anime community.

Mecha is still holding its own in a small way, but it’s not even close to half the graph of Isekai either.

3. Mecha vs Isekai past 12 months data (2022 – 2023)

The bar hasn’t changed When comparing the past 12 months from 2022 to 2023. Isekai is still that much more ahead, regardless of the time frame getting bigger.

That being said, Mecha hasn’t dropped much, except for the past 12 months’ graph, which is only slight.

Another win for Isekai’s popularity.

4. Mecha vs Isekai popularity from 2018 to 2023 (past 5 years)

When dialling back the clock of time with the graphs worldwide, we can see the graph is now shorter when comparing the two.

The Isekai bar is still higher, and the mecha bar is still not even half of the Isekai bar, but we can see in 2018 that the Isekai graph wasn’t nearly as high as it was later on as the years went by.

This suggests Isekai started to surpass Mecha during this time or a few years before this recorded event (as far as Google searches and trending data).

Mecha has been consistent, though, so you can’t knock it, and it has been around for longer than most fans have been alive (myself included).

It’s an OG anime genre.

5. Mecha vs Isekai popularity since 2004 (compared)

And when you dial the clock back even further, you can see the data more clearly than ever.

In 2004, when Google started recording trends and gathering data in this way, Mecha was shown to be dominating Isekai. But it didn’t last overall.

Makes sense. Isekai never popped off until years later (10 years at least). No one cared about the term despite many Isekai coming before the more modern ones like SAO.

Speaking of which, in 2013, there was a bump in the red bar, which is when SAO and No Game No Life made Isekai historically more popular than ever.

But only the bump in 2016 mattered as far as Isekai beating Mecha in popularity, and Mecha ultimately declining more and more in the 2010s, as I pointed out in that article I wrote.

One of those reasons being Isekai is preferred by the youngest fans and anime’s core audience.