Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Isn't Gundam Bigger In America?
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TheMorry
Posts: 659 |
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For the record I love pretty much every gernem that includes harem and mecha lol.
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TnKtRk
Posts: 183 |
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Gundam will never be BIG in America for the simple reason: American, i.e. Hollywood doesn't own it.
Besides America/Hollywood already has its own giant robots to make money off of: Transformers and to a lesser extant Pacific Rim and Robotech. |
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Heishi
 Posts: 1325 |
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I never got into Gundam when I was younger.
I was more into, Sailor Moon, Tenchi, DBZ, Outlaw Star, and even Cardcaptors and Hamtaro. But I have developed a more appreciation for this franchise, not to mention the mecha genre itself. |
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Beltane70
 Posts: 3896 |
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It may not be mainstream in its popularity here in the States, but it is popular enough that Gundam models can be bought in just about any Barnes and Noble.
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Levitz9
 Posts: 1022 Location: Puerto Rico |
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SEED aired right after 9/11, when people were still extremely shaken up over gun violence and the like. People love to cry fowl over this, but it's better for people to err on the side of safety in these matters. Gundam fans got pissed over the changes, but nobody wants to watch a show that's uncomfortable to watch in hindsight of terrorist attacks. |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13230 |
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I think this alone is a good question, one I had been meaning to ask Answerman but never got around to it. Americans love their glorfied war machines and their sleek cars, so why don't they like giant robots, essentially the combination of the two? Megas XLR gets cancelled after one season and Pacific Rim didn't do that great over here either. Transformers still makes a ton of money but that mostly runs on nostalgia. Even among the anime fandom I have a hard time finding mecha fans outside of specialty forums. Even here on ANN mecha shows don't get much buzz (Aldnoah did but only because of Gen) and only like 3 people get mecha stuff I use in the quote and character guessing games. |
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Lynx Amali
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I doubt that actually has anything to do with it at all. It was probably more so Bandai, with wanting to push Battle Scared and all that. Canada got it uncut at roughly the same time, blood and guts, the whole shebang. We were more apprehensive about violence up here at the time to the point where shows' titles are renamed; Beast Wars was renamed Beasties just because it had War in the title. SEED also aired up here at 9:30 compared to the US's airings 10:30 airing and later, post midnight. Last edited by Lynx Amali on Fri Jun 10, 2016 2:26 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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stowrag
Posts: 47 |
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I was going to ask why Turn A never got shown on western tv, but then I remembered it never got a dub. Too bad, since it actually focuses on the characters more than the robots (or even the plot).
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Vaisaga
Posts: 13230 |
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Turn A mecha are too weird looking to go over well. |
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FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
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Close, but not quite, as a media "future space war" saturates the western markets, we have Halo, Star Craft, Mass Effect, and dozens of other miscellaneous media that feature "future space mech soldier". Gundam will never penetrate the Western Market as hard as it is ingrained in pop Japanese media because the West grows up with things like Star Wars and Iron Man, but that certainly doesn't mean there isn't a spot for the Gundam Narrative to have its fair share of Western audience fans. |
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phia_one
Posts: 1657 Location: Pennsylvania |
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The only Gundam I ever watched was Wing. I tried watching a few different ones (the names escape me), but couldn't get into them. I actually tried watching Wing recently but I just couldn't get into it.
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rizuchan
 Posts: 976 Location: Kansas |
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I'll blame Seed's lack of success in the US on lack of advertisement - I had no idea Seed even got a US release, much less on TV, and my friends and I got really into Wing back in the day. Maybe it was just released on TV too late - I remember being interested in Seed when it first came out, but by 2004 the giant robots we were all talking about were Zoids.
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HdE
Posts: 50 |
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It never ceases to amaze me how regularly the mecha genre, and certain shows in particular (like Gundam) are cited as a 'hard sell'.
I mean, we've had four Transformers movies with ludicrous budgets, only one of which has been genuinely entertaining (in my opinion) that have earned megabucks at the box office. There's clearly an audience for robot shows and movies. Maybe the answer is promotion. I've said that for years, till I'm blue in the face. Nobody seems willing to advertise. And yet, it ought to be pretty easy to sell as cool an idea as giant robots fighting interplanetary wars to potential punters. (I had to smile at the mention of Gasaraki in the article, though. Easily one of the most boring, pointless and badly written shows I've seen in 25 years of watching anime.) Last edited by HdE on Fri Jun 10, 2016 4:15 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Wyvern
 Posts: 1566 |
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You know, that's an excellent point. And while Transformers are a bit different than traditional mechs (they're living robots rather than machines operated by pilots) there are also franchises like Power Rangers, which has a huge mecha element, and Voltron, which has had a new series every decade since the 80's. Not to mention the success of Pacific Rim. I wonder if perhaps the barrier is in the sheer size of the Gundam franchise. That's really intimidating, and it's also confusing to keep track of which shows are self-contained and which ones are part of the ever-expanding Universal Century canon (especially since some shows, like Turn A and G-Reca, are sort of both.) Even though IBO has no plot connection to any previous Gundam and can be enjoyed on its own, there's no way for casual fans to know this. My solution to this problem is the same as my solution to most problems: Have Guillermo Del Toro direct a live action Giant Robo movie. |
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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If Patlabor bombed here how was Central Park Media able to release all of the OVA series, all of the TV series, and the New Files?
That could be. I think that one reason why I liked Patlabor so much is that it did not take itself too seriously.
That is what makes them so good. As for Gundam, I never really got interested in it. I did watch and enjoy The 08th MS Team because it was mostly about the soldiers in the front lines rather than the causes and administration of the war. I prefer war stories that have a small local scale rather than an epic scale. The rest of the franchise just seemed to be too political to appeal to me. I did try a few episodes of some other series but they did not work for me and I do not even remember which series they were. Maybe if therte was a Gundam harem comedy I might try that 
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