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Answerman - Why Isn't Gundam Bigger In America?

Ajc228 wrote:

I always thought one of the core contradictions of Gundam was the constant harping on the "war is terrible" message while simultaneously saying " but isn't it awesome?"

There is no contradiction, unless you subscribe to the idea that any war film is fetishing war.
The core message of Gundam is that war is terrible and brings nothing but pain and misery to those involved. The main characters suffer emotionally in Gundam. No one, not one is gung-ho lets massacre the other side willy nilly. Amuro, Judau, Camille, Uso etc... all have existential crisis because of this.
Of course you can like the mecha there is nothing wrong with it. It doesn't detract from the main message and it certainly is not an endorsement of how war is a cool thing.

This is one of the reasons why IBO is such a shit Gundam show. For the first time in the history of the franchise Bandai/Sunrise have decided to create a main character that "likes" war. He is a full blown psycopath, showing no remorse for cold blood killings. Now this is fetishing war and misery. Perhaps this is the main reason why this particular Gundam series resonates so well with the american audience.

I think all in all, however, Americans do not take giant robots seriously. The machines that Americans (and British, if Top Gear's enduring success is any indication) are interested in are real ones, or at least ones that can conceivably exist. Even in science fiction, technology is built in strictly practical terms, so I think Americans largely consider mecha to be too impractical (with Transformers getting the justification that they are actually lifeforms). Humanoid robots in modern fiction are always meant to imitate humans to some degree; without that, I think a lot of Americans ask, "Why did they design them that way?"

It's the same reason that Doraemon is popular like Disney in Asia and Gundam is huge there as well. Neither Gundam or Doraemon will ever do well because those 2 franchises started way before anime became mainstream in America and never influenced anime viewers in America.

Just like Akira is not a big thing in Asia but huge in America. I think US anime audience have more limited taste than Asian anime audience which is why some animes are only popular there but not here. One Piece is huge in Asia but not much here.

In Asia, anime influences are everywhere you can see Pokemon, Gundam, DBZ, Doraemon everywhere on the streets and stores. Here you rarely see anything anime in public.