Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Isn't Gundam Bigger In America?
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Parsifal24
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Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn RE:0096 is actually the first Gundam series I can actually say I like after haveing attempted to watch Zeta Gundam and getting bored after a few episodes. Never understanding the appeal of Gundam Wing and Gundam Build Fighters felt like a commercial to me.
Part of it for me is I was never a fan t begin with so when Bandi was putting out stuff I had no jumping on point other than what established Gundam fans said were good like Zeta or that I had vague memories of other people liking. I hope Gundam Unicorn 0096 gets a new audience in because it seems like a good jumping on point for neophytes. |
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Munchmunch
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Sunrise has been posting English-dubbed versions of the episodes on their Youtube channel. |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5424 Location: Iscandar |
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I am a Gundam fan, but I am happy as long as BD's and DVD's with (at least) English subtitles are released in North America. I don't really care how big or small Gundam is in the U.S.
Gundam Unicorn is certainly a well made anime, but much of that anime deals with paying homage and trying to tie loose ends from past Universal Century shows. I am not sure viewers will appreciate Unicorn if they don't know much about the Universal Century knowledge. And yes, the dub seems to have been well retooled for 0096 based on the few dubbed episodes I watched on Crunchyroll. Last edited by Angel M Cazares on Fri Jun 10, 2016 12:33 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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redranger
 Posts: 271 |
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Nonsensical plots. Half the time you can't tell which characters are on who's side and/or why their killing each other.
Boring politics. Douchebag protagonists. Universal century garbage. It's not shounen. Just a few reasons. |
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Lynx Amali
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It's actually being streamed with a dub on Daisuki as the Japanese episodes go up. Episode 1 Link: It's the literal definition of a redub. |
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princess passa passa
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Though I'm not American, I suppose this topic can still be applied to me as I live in the West. Also, funnily enough I literally just became a Gundam fan this year and I feel like I can say a few reasons as to why I just didn't get into it earlier even though being anime fan(and mecha fan!) for quite some time.
Gundam Universe is dense as all hell. There is the long list of UC series that have never made its way over this side of the world and then you have another truck load of list of the stand alone ones. Alot of people when it comes to anime like to involve themselves in the universe and there's just way too much for some people to wade through along with the very good point that Justin made about people not wanting to watch the older stuff (which can be rough already but especially rough for a mecha anime). The people of Gundam have their hands full catering to diehard UC fans and trying to bring in new ones Thunderbolt, Origin and Unicorn are some of the best looking and most interesting Gundam series to come out in past few years and they all set in the UC Universe.... I would love to recommend these to people but then see point #1. Also, it casts a shadow on the new stand alone ones because people are already thinking "nah" about UC. The fandom is the most divided one I have ever interacted with. This year, I made the mistake of wading the Gundam forums to looking for advice and all I got was shouting over which Gundam is considered elite and must watch or absolute trash SMH. There will be absolute vitriol for SEED and then someone's head vein showing (figuratively) when showering ZETA with praises. Politics, war and more politics. Justin mentioned this, but Gundam has a lot of politics, war and overall some depressing things that leave you thinking you need to rewatch some Ouran High School Host Club to make you feel better (I'm looking at you Gundam 00). People want badassery that Lelouch can deliver not philosophical pining and war strategies of war a la Legends of Galactic Heroes. Despite all these points though, I took the plunge and I never looked back. I truly love the Gundam Universe and all its flaws. I can truly see why when people do become fans of it and they become die hards. But it took me a long time to give a try... |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5317 |
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I don't understand why someone could not like Mecha, it's like the best thing since whatever the best thing was before Mecha.
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terminus24
 Posts: 304 |
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Yeah, finding a jumping-on point is part of the reason I haven't seen any Gundam before, especially since I don't really know anyone who's seen any of it. Like, is it a long-running series where I've got to start at the beginning and go through everything, like other Long-Running shows such as DBZ, One Piece, or Naruto, or is it more Final Fantasy-esque, where each entry generally stands alone?
However, I've got a small Gunpla collection despite knowing absolutely nothing about these figures, other than the fact that they've got some cool mecha designs. |
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Kicksville
 Posts: 1175 |
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I am honestly pretty sure Mobile Suit Gundam's failure on Toonami, the 1979 original, is by far primarily due to the animation. I knew so many people who took one look at it and turned it off immediately - never mind anything about the story or characters, they never got that far.
It really did strike a blow to the franchise's momentum, although at the same time, 08th MS Team was still well liked (and managed to air during the day after previously being a midnight run only thing - but it was short!), and G Gundam, as far as I'm aware, sure seemed to be decently popular and ran for a while. But there was a second killing blow, and that was Super Defender Gundam: people seemed to be just baffled by it and figured Gundam as they knew it was done. |
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Wyvern
 Posts: 1555 |
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Whether it was Toonami's fault or Bandai's, I still think that following up Gundam Wing with the original series is one of the great blunders in anime history. Wing was a major hit in its time, easily Toonami's second biggest show after Dragon Ball. But instead of capitalizing on that with a newer series, they went back and aired the then-20 year old original series, which had been low budget even by 1979 standards. It looked like an antique, and kids never looked back.
That said, it's hard to say what Gundam TV series might have worked instead (keeping in mind that Seed had not aired in Japan at the time.) Maybe Turn A, though it might have been a bit too unusual for the Toonami crowd. They did have some decent success with G Gundam a few years later, but that one is kind of its own unique beast. Anyway, the Adult Swim trailer for IBO uses almost the same narration as the classic trailer for Wing, which is a very deliberate choice. Toonami wants people to associate IBO with Wing, the Gundam most Americans remember. Which is a good move, since IBO's writing feels a lot like a more intelligent version of Wing (particularly the characters of Kudelia and Mikazuki, who can be described as "What if Relena and Heero weren't complete idiots?" ) |
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brankoburcksen
Posts: 126 |
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Iron-Blooded Orphans seems to be doing fine on Toonami. It airs at midnight after DBZ Kai. You cannot ask for a much better slot than that.
I have seen some Unicorn, the original Mobile Suite Gundam and Gundam Wing back in the day. Iron-Blooded Orphans is the only one recently to really grab my attention. Like Justin said, it focuses more on the characters, and it serves as a good introduction (not to mention Toonami selling it as a Gundam Wing nostalgia trip. If I were putting my money on Gundam regaining some popularity, I would put my chips on Iron-Blooded Orphans. However, I do not see it getting anywhere close to Attack on Titan/One Punch Man levels. |
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FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
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Gundam the Origin seems like a logical place to start off an otherwise unfamiliar viewer into the UC verse, drama, revenge, the rise of one of the most prominent characters in the UC verse.
As for Iron Blooded Orphans, I think it will be a difficult piece to get a wide audience to recognize the Gundam franchise as "kids these days" have a multitude of avenues to watch shows and probably would rather binge watch an assortment of series on Netflix. I think there are "better avenues" to get the unacquainted into Gundam now than say a decade ago, but if such a viewer doesn't know that they might actually enjoy SOME of the Gundam storylines they probably won't find it for themselves. |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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The only real memory of watching Gundam Wing as a kid on CN is thinking "why do these miserable kids keep interrupting the robot fights?" Now, having watched a bit more of what the franchise & genre have to offer, my thoughts remain pretty much the same.
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Angel M Cazares
Posts: 5424 Location: Iscandar |
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The first show aired in 1979, and it deals with a war between humans in space (and sometimes in Earth). The story from the first show continued in the form of series (Gundam Z, Gundam ZZ, Gundam Victory), OVA's (the 08th MS Team, Gundam 0080, Gundam 0083, Unicorn) and movies (Char's Counterattack, F-91). All this long story is known as the Universal Century Timeline. But there are shows like Wing, X, G Gundam, SEED that are standalone, and knowing about Universal Century is not a requirement to understand them. I hope this helps. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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I'd venture the simpler guess of "because the Gundam fanbase didn't watch the broadcasts or buy the discs" -- if even they weren't going to support it, who would have? Of course, Gundam Wing also had the advantage of airing on US TV in the pre digisub/BitTorrent era, so (unlike with SEED/00) there wasn't a large contingent of consumers who'd already seen the show fansubbed and were predisposed to hate the dub under "First Audio Track Wins" bias.
Definitely agree that Sunrise pushing Bandai to get Gundam 0079 on US TV was a mistake. If they'd had the sensibilities of the current anime market, that show would've been quietly snuck out sub-only for the hardcore fanbase, maybe after letting the decidedly non-grim G Gundam fill the time between Wing and Seed on Toonami. Come to think of it, that's one reason I  whenever people say that Japanese companies should "cut out the middlemen" -- it's not like they always know best when it comes to the Western markets.
I'd theorize that that window of introduction has shrunk from 15 years to 5 years or less at this point. Yu Yu Hakusho did pretty well despite being ~8-9 years old when it aired, but in this era of hyper-focus on shiny newness, even stuff from the late 00s is on the verge of becoming "old-looking" -- to say nothing of early/mid-00s content, which suffers from often being 4:3 and/or SD, in addition to having character designs people aren't used to and that subpar early digipaint animation we keep hearing about. Newer fans still seem okay with post-2010 shows for now, but if these trends continue, I'm expecting to see any 2-cour Fall 2019 shows dropped en masse midway through because they'll become "so outdated/last-decade" once the clock strikes midnight on January 1st, 2020.
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