Forum - View topic

Answerman - Impenetrable Markets

ikillchicken wrote:

They're just asking to see both. The industry is plenty big enough that we can have plenty of both the usual glut of "Japanese" shows and plenty of so called "American" ones too. Nobody asking for that is trying to monopolize the industry. If anyone is doing that, it is the subset of people on the other side who seem to get weirdly mad at the mere fact that we occasionally do see something different like Space Dandy.

So.. how is an action/comedy anime with fanservice like Space Dandy different from other action/comedy anime with fanservice?

Is there anything explicitly stating Bebop, Trigun, and Redline were made for American audiences, or do they just happen to be what we fawn over: fetishized zany action with a little brooding?

To echo what was posted earlier on in this thread, anime that succeeds with Americans to a greater extent than it does with the Japanese only does so by accident.

ikillchicken, if there's no label then why did you say "the industry is plenty big enough that we can have plenty of both the usual glut of "Japanese" shows and plenty of so called "American". What does that even mean? What's the difference and how do they make more if they don't exist? I mean the label HAS to exist if people keep talking about catering to Americans. Can't do that unless there's a distinction.

The legitimately good shows will always succeed in the US

I find it odd how in the answer regarding drama CDs, Justin never even brings up the possibility of dubs. Is that physically impossible, or just unprofitable? He only talks about subs or publishing translated scripts, which strike me as a rather roundabout ways of doing it.

If this is true (IF, mind you), I have to ask...why? Won't the same thing over and over again get boring? Is it wrong to hope for something different?

Banken wrote:

The legitimately good shows will always succeed in the US

In other words, Dragonball Z, Pokemon, and Naruto are the only legitimately good shows in existance there because the only stuff that does well here are action shows aimed at little boys. I suppose if one has no ambitions outside shonen jump properties that's fine, but some people might require more than that. America has some of the most narrow minded tastes in anime. No comedy, no drama, no sports, no romance, no art house stuff; nothing but power levels and action scenes. Hope you don't like shojo anime because no one's going to license magical girl stuff in this day and age anymore. I like shonen as much as the next person but there's more to anime than that stuff.

I didn't say that arguably bad shows would not succeed, only that legitimately good ones almost always do.

FWIW, Dragonball Z is a classic of its genre and always will be. Naruto comes close... Pokemon was only successful (commercial speaking) because of the popularity of the games and trading cards.

It's almost as if this "American/Japanese" label is nothing but a bullshit way of making what you like seem more natural, more what anime should be, while rendering that stuff other people like as something abnormal, something for foreign tastes that anime has no business catering to.

Otaku ruined anime for the rest of us. Don't act like this isn't the case. Moe and loli-loving flesh piles sitting in their manchild caves buy that shit in droves, and over ten years it's been the norm. The companies just feed into that popularity, crushing any hope of something worthwhile and provocative. The days of great 80's and 90's anime series, or even a good non Ghibli film are over. Time to go hunting though the crap to find those diamonds.

I detect a sort of...pride.

Won't the same thing over and over again get boring?

At least one other person in the thread has suggested dubbing as well. But part if not most of the appeal of drama CDs lies in the performances of the Japanese VAs, so cutting them out is kind of counterproductive. Though I've long thought that NA companies should sell Drama CD versions of anime with just the dub VAs reading their lines, since the "no dub, no buy" crowd doesn't care about anything else.

To people who don't like Mecha anime, they're all the same thing over and over again as well. They aren't interested enough to pay attention to the details that differentiate them. People who like them do, so they don't get bored because each one is usually different enough in the ways that matter to them.