Why did the whole "teenagers piloting mechs" thing never really take off in Western animation?

Culture. Japan is raised on shitno where everything has a spirit, including tools and weapons including mechas. The US sees mechas just as disposable tools. That and they have been raised on gun culture.

The Right to Bear Arms including mecha would be hilarious in some new anime.

>The US sees mechas just as disposable tools.
>This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
STFU.

The same reason why "western cheesecake" is a 35yo-looking woman who appears to have undergone extensive plastic surgery to maintain her fading youth.

The right to Pilot Mechs?

Because the culture and consumptive desires of Western countries (America in particular) differs significantly from those in Japan.
The most well-known pieces of mecha Zig Forums media in the West are Transformers and Megas XLR, which both follow ensemble casts of adult characters. In the former example specifically, the robots themselves are the main characters and have personalities of their own and aren't simply extensions of the characters that pilot them like in most /m/ media.
And ironically, in a society that prioritizes the importance of spirit in objects and how they act as extensions of a person's will like mentioned above, the audience that /m/ media generally appeals to can only identify with human and humanoid characters/waifus, whilst in America, whose people supposedly view inanimate objects as just that, inanimate, are much more prone to anthropomorphize and grow attached to said objects. It's no surprise then that they have an easier time enjoying a show about robots that don't look conventionally human nor are piloted by some 15-year old moe jailbait character.

Also the nature of teenage power fantasy in media from both countries is profoundly different based again on the nature of American and Japanese society, and as such, the kind of fantasy that is built into many mecha and non-mecha shonen media won't work on Western kids.

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Couple of reasons. First, as said, American boys don;t care for girls in their action shows. Second, japanese mecha series are split in 2 categories: Big Robot and Real Robot. Big Robots functions on the Shinto premise of object gaining personality through use. Which, obviously, doesn't fly with western audiences. Our closest equivalent qould be Transformers, which are fully sentient robots. Real Robots, like Gundam,are almost universally imbedded within a military-industrial complex. It's hard to make a show for american audiences about child soldiers.So you need a way to tell stories about kids fighting in giant robots, but not as child soldiers. That's a very thin needle to thread. Which we did, via Power Rangers.

Because Japanese animation is obsessed with high school settings, where as western animation isn't.

I'm pretty sure Coop is in his 20s. Maybe close to 30.

Japs teens have enough discipline to make it believable.

Because the animation in the murica is shit and because western kids love war in the style of Call of Duty. So it would make more sense to make cartoons like GI Joe.

>It's hard to make a show for american audiences about child soldiers.

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neural link slowly burns out the pilots. you don't want to start testing it on air force aces you have or higher ranking officers. So you take orphand kids, the mechs mostly fight themselfs, or are highly assisted. So while they go crazy and burn out, your scientists are working on how to make the neural link safe.

see not everyone is China and has a cadre of 10000 pilots ready to die over a span of 2 years.

Americans like robots that are just robots. The humans are pests.

Why do you think Canti is absolutely beloved by American weebs and vaguely anime adjacent people but is just kind of a mediocre whatever to the Japanese? It's the autonomy and TV head.

yeah, western animation is obsessed with elementary school settings.

THIS DESU !

Japanese modern warfare experience ended with them getting nuked, so they want to forget it.
A mech is just a bigger samurai armour.

Because as usual American's have garbage taste

Because nobody loves to see children being endangered in cartoons and forced to be soldiers, I think.

>meatbags
>good

Bump

As if army grunts aren't disposable tools.

robots who aren't alive are boring and lame

I don't think you would have a War is Bad franchise of giant robots still running after 40 years if you wanted to forget.

>soulless vessels

Nah give me sentient AI

I WANNA HAVE A PURE TIME

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