>>149389275
You would not have Evangelion if anime had been cowardly and just kept on rehashing Mazinger Z.
Because Evangelion, and many other mecha anime required that the mold be broken and something totally new be made. Something that is completely impossible if all you're doing is adapting an older series.

Comics could have beem like the manga examples in >>149389237
Superman, Batman and Spiderman could have existed in the 60's and then the 70's could have been something else entirely. And the 80's something else yet again, and through all those decades, something far better than Superman, Batman, and Spiderman would have been made, just as stuff far better than Astro Boy and Mazinger Z were later made