There are many who enjoy mecha anime, but it is very obvious that the popularity of mecha has declined significantly in modern anime. Unfortunately, in many cases, those who enjoy space anime have often had to look to the mecha genre to get the space setting they desire.

While the stars have captivated humanity since the dawn of our species, I think anime creators used to think there needed to be a little more going on up there. While it’s rarer, you can find space anime that isn’t a battlefield of clashing mobile suits.

If you like space anime but don't necessarily need to have robots fighting in it, try these anime about space that aren't mecha anime recommendations.

14. Legend of the Galactic Heroes

Legend of the Galactic Heroes has the unfortunate lot of often being confused with Gundam. Both series are long-beloved space operas that enjoy intergalactic battles, conflicting ideologies, and character drama, but Legend of the Galactic Heroes isn't really a mecha anime.

They're not fighting with mobile suits, they're fighting with space fleets like you see commonly used in non-anime space series like Star Trek.

So, if you enjoy a good war epic that has a heavy focus on tactics and tells a gripping story where each side fights for what they believe to be the right reasons, there’s a reason why Legend of the Galactic Heroes is considered one of those “legendary” anime series.

13. Astra Lost in Space

While Astra Lost in Space requires a bit of suspension of disbelief and “just go with it” when it comes to some of the things it presents, it’s actually one of the rare space anime that showcases actual diversity in the planets the characters visit.

This series follows a group of teenagers who were on a camping trip planned by their school. However, a wormhole opens up on the safe planet and throws them 1,000 light years away into outer space. “Luckily,” they appear next to an abandoned spaceship and use it to return home, gathering the resources they need to survive on the planets they visit.

Along with space travel and using planetary issues as a catalyst to address character drama, Astra Lost in Space also explores an overall mystery surrounding who tried to kill these children by opening that wormhole in the first place and why they tried.

12. Planets

Planetes is a near-future space anime that addresses a current issue with humanity's activities in space – all the trash we generate up there.

A bolt breaking your windshield on the highway on Earth is bad enough, but a bolt in space breaking the glass between you and the infinite expanse of space is increasingly catastrophic. Scrap metal, loose parts, and other debris in space are quite dangerous to the structures up there.

As such, Planetes follows those employed as what are essentially space garbage collectors. They collect space junk and dispose of it to prevent it from causing problems and having a ripple effect.

While this series starts off as a lighter type of workplace space comedy, it really develops its plot and characters as the series becomes quite an intriguing drama.

11. Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop never really emphasizes the “space setting” of it all. The crew, if not getting into mischief inside their traveling ship, are on planets getting into mischief. So while they frequently planet hop, it never focuses on the actual space travel between those planets, except on the rare occasion when they have to throw a moldy refrigerator at it.

Regardless, Cowboy Bebop follows a ragtag crew of bounty hunters who are skilled fighters but often left chronically poor when the work goes south for one reason or another.

It doesn't highlight the space as much as some would like, but it definitely highlights the future colonizer of its setting.

It’s hard to call Space Brothers a true “space” anime because ninety percent of the series actually takes place on Earth. However, it’s impossible to put it down because it’s the most realistic depiction in anime of what potential astronauts go through to get to space.

Space Brothers follows two brothers who have been passionate about space since childhood. While both wanted to grow up to be astronauts, only one ended up following that dream. The other brother, learning that his younger brother has been chosen to go on a lunar mission, is encouraged to try to follow his childhood dream again. Furthermore, as the older brother, he vows to surpass his younger brother by being the first to reach Mars.

While you do eventually see the younger brother make it to space, Space Brothers is beloved for its likable, grounded, and realistic characters rather than the time spent among the stars. It's refreshing to see, in a sea of sci-fi anime, someone trying to be firmly rooted in realism that may have actually inspired some young watchers, showing them that maybe they too could be an astronaut if silly Rollin' Mutta could do it.

9. Moonlight Mile

You know how Space Brothers was a realistic and detailed depiction of the steps potential astronauts must take to get to space? Moonlight Mile is like that too, but made unrealistically ridiculous by its main characters. It's like America trying to make Space Brothers.

Moonlight Mile is about two friends who, after casually climbing Mount Everest, decide to aim even higher – Space. It turns out that a new energy source is discovered on the moon and NASA launches a special project to search for and harness it, and the main characters seize the chance.

The series itself follows the two different paths that the pair of friends take to reach the moon before each other. The main characters are portrayed as what I can only describe as “ultra manly men” because all they do is either reckless action or laid-back womanizing.

8. Outlaw Star

Not unlike Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star follows outlaws in space. The series follows a guy who realizes his dream of finally getting a spaceship and starts taking any job, legal or not, to keep it flying.

It's definitely a series for those who don't necessarily need sci-fi with realism, but enjoy endless space adventures that aren't afraid to be a little silly.

7. Starship Operator

I think a lot of people looking for harder science fiction anime set in space, where battles are fought on radar and won by tactics, will dismiss Starship Operators, if not because it has a name that's easily confused with Starship Troopers, then because it has female main characters. characters.

The anime has conditioned us to see a group of women as main characters and think that the series is a harem, ecchi or moe without direction, when Ship Operators is nothing like that.

Instead, you get a story about space cadets nearing graduation, returning to their home planet in a new starship. They soon discover that their home planet has been claimed by a more powerful kingdom and quickly surrendered without a fight.

Rather than accept this, they decide to launch their own fight for their home planet. This is done not through a reckless frontal assault with an ultra-powerful starship, but rather by maneuvering to avoid deadly trouble in order to find allies, secure funding, and engage in smaller, purposeful skirmishes.

6. Bodacious Space Pirates

While the premise of a high school girl discovering that her long-absent father was a space pirate and now she’s inherited his ship and pirate crew is kind of silly, Bodacious Space Pirates isn’t really “far-fetched” sci-fi. If anything, it’s a space anime that teeters somewhere between space opera and slice-of-life series.

While Bodacious Space Pirates is actually a better “pirate” anime than a “space” anime, it’s still a series for those who enjoy a more lawless universe.

5. Toward The Terra

Towards the Terra is set in a universe where, after ruining Earth, humanity has fled into space, where they work on terraforming Earth to make it habitable again. Rather than the colonies being driven to war with each other over ideological differences as is common in space science fiction, Towards the Terra follows a main character who is part of an evolution of humanity, the Mu, who has developed psychic abilities.

As is our custom, normal humans persecute and engage in strict population control of these individuals.

The series follows the main character as he grows to lead the group of besieged people. He travels and rescues Mu, who has awakened to her abilities while trying to find a place where they can live in peace.

4. Edens Zero

Due to the immediate and very obvious similarities between the characters, Edens Zero is easily described as “Fairy Tail in Space”. It’s a fair thing to say, since they share a creator anyway.

While Edens Zero is its own thing with its galactic space story, Eden Zero is still a shounen fighter. Like Naruto, My Hero Academia, or even Fairy Tail, it features the characters going to one place, fighting a powerful enemy or solving some problem with the power of friendship, and then going to another place to do it all over again.

If you're into shounen fighters like many, it's rare to find a set in space, but Edens Zero takes full advantage of the endless expanse of opportunities.

3. Space Dandy

Space anime tends to be terribly serious. It’s all politics, wars, and characters who always have some kind of tragic past. Space Dandy takes the bold stance of being the silliest space travel anime you’re likely to watch.

This series follows Dandy, who is paid to catalog new alien species. In order to earn money to fund his frequent visits to BooBies, the best restaurant in the universe, he travels the galaxy with his robot vacuum cleaner and alien cat.

The series is, by all accounts, a comical mess all the time. Juvenile humor and over-the-top action rule the day here, and that's exactly what some people want.

2. Legend of the Galactic Heroes

While it never becomes as legendary as Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Crest of the Stars tells a similar kind of universe-spanning space opera, but is told from the point of view of two teenagers who are the children of what is essentially space nobility.

The series follows a human boy whose father sold his homeworld to the Abh Empire. Traveling to his new school in the Empire, his ship is caught in a skirmish between the Alliance fleets and the Abh fleets. Suddenly, he is thrust together with a princess of the Abh Empire as the two travel across the galaxy to safety in what has now exploded into a full-scale war between the Abh and humanity.

1. The Orbital Children

The Orbital Children tells the story of several children who are visiting a space station for various reasons when disaster strikes. With their path to evacuation blocked, the children must deal with a variety of deadly problems in order to escape safely.

This is a short series and it has some problems, but it's also a younger adventure in space where these kids, raised in a high-tech age, often rely on low-tech solutions to high-tech problems.

Do you know any other space anime that takes place in space but isn’t mecha? Let your fans know in the comments section below.