Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Isn't Gundam Bigger In America?
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Sahmbahdeh
Posts: 712 |
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"To get the mainstream fans to show up, the show has to be about the characters. Mecha can be in the background, but can't be too prominent."
I find this to be my exact mentality. The only mecha shows I've been able to get into (Code Geass, Gurren Lagann, Full Metal Panic) had the mechas more as secondary elements, with the human drama first and foremost. |
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Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
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Power Rangers is a shadow of it's former popularity these days and the only people who still care about it are MMPR nostalgia people, and the only reason Voltron still exists is because of, again, nostalgia. People don't like Power Rangers and Voltron because they're mecha, they like it because it's a show fom their childhood. Even that new Voltron show said the robot wont be the focus. Pacific Rim was a box office dud here in the states as well.
Mecha was originally for kids during the 50s to 90s with stuff like Gundam, Wataru, and Eva, but kids lost interest around the time Pokemon became big. Kids have lost interest in the genre and these days the few mecha anime that come out are either otaku oriented or try for the kids market with little success. The last big push for a mecha anime towards kids was Gyrozetter, which was a huge flop. It was popular with otaku but kids had zero interest in it. Kids these days are into proxy battle shows like Yokai Watch and Pokemon, not mecha. Every so often you get a show like Gundam Build Fighters which tries to market towards them but they generally aren't that popular with anyone other than otaku. I remember reading an article that interviewed some Japanese kids on trends who said that Mecha anime was lame and just something their dads watched. -Stuart Smith. |
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Paiprince
 Posts: 593 |
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Gundam Re:0096 is a bad starting point for Gundam. Its plot structure and characters rely heavily on past series, OVA's and movies. If you don't even have a clue who Char Aznable is, don't even bother with this one.
I say also that the only real way to pull new fans with the Gundam franchise is through the newer Alternate Universe Series. Sure, there's Gundam Origins but behind its spruced up modern animation, the designs and aesthetics still hark back to the 80's (the cast is mostly ugly grownups which isn't very appealing to modern anime fans.) Oh, and lots of hot guys because fujoshi seem to be the only demographic that is growing within the mecha circles. |
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FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
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Going to have to disagree, narrative wise Gundam the Origin is effectively a Game of Throne's storyline: IN SPACE!!!, so if the mass populace can follow Game of thrones they can easily handle a character whose sole purpose in life is to get back at the Lannisters I mean Zabis. |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4397 Location: New York |
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When "Gundam" is synonymous in English for giant robot like in Archer, it hasn't done THAT poorly. That said, only Wing and G seemed to get real traction in pop culture.
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FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
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Wing just seemed to have a moment of simply clicking with American audiences while G was just meme-riffic due its over the top nature even for its time and certainly when looking back on it G is still an amusing example of "ANIME!". |
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Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
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Ah...I was wonder what happened to that show since its announcement four years earlier, around the time I first appeared at ANN... Totally unfortunate that Gyrozetter was a colossal failure among kids. Perhaps they found the mecha action a bit boring... |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5982 |
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If the success of Transformers is owed to nostalgia especially where the live action movies are concerned that's ironic considering how bad the genwunners like to complain about how bad Bay is pissing on their childhood. Also Megas was 2 seasons
While Wing's afternoon/early evening broadcast was mostly unedited it was still kind of prone to forgetting the fact that humans are supposed to bleed when shot, caught in explosions, or suffering from internal injuries. |
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Juno016
 Posts: 2394 |
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At least Zeta Gundam is "NOT AN ANIME!" Jest aside, I also just started with Gundam last year. I wasn't sure I'd really get attached to the story or characters, especially since I'm not a huge fan of mecha stuff (and Gundam mecha designs aren't really an exception). I had even seen Char's Counterattack twice before (once in Japanese, once in English) thanks to circumstances out of my control. And I didn't really get it either time. But I finally went back and watched the original series. And I enjoyed it. It's space drama stuff with really interesting politics and flawed characters all around. I took a few months break between that and Zeta, which ended very, very depressingly, but I enjoy tragedies, sooooo... yeah, it hit me right. Again, I took a break and then somehow marathoned all of ZZ in a month, having only finished about a month or so ago. It was my least favorite of the three, but nonetheless had my attention due to interesting moments and characters and politics. Then I went back to Char's Counterattack for the first time and I FINALLY UNDERSTOOD IT! I enjoyed it more this time than the last two times, even if I did feel Char went a bit... one-dimensional. From here, I'm trying to figure out if I want to delve into more older stuff to flesh out the in-between content within the early U.C. or go straight into recent stuff, like Origin and Unicorn. Anyone here have any advice? I have a list of the U.C. series in release order and chronological order, but I honestly don't know what to move onto next. I typically prefer to understand everything needed to get the fullest experience out of a story before I get into it, so if there is a recommended order to follow after having seen MSG, MSGZ, MSGZZ, and MSG:CC, I'd be interested in your thoughts. |
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PurpleWarrior13
 Posts: 2027 |
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Simple. They didn't start importing the series here until the late 90s, and most of it was already "old" even then. It's just too big and complex of a franchise for us to keep up with. Gundam Wing was a huge hit here because it stood alone, and appealed to western tastes. The original series was obviously over 20 years old by the time it hit Toonami, and had no chance of finding much of an audience. They still gave it a cool intro though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11aXcupxH-o
The giant robot genre in general is a hard sell over here. We're mostly used to Transformers, where the robots themselves are characters that walk, talk, and have emotions. It seems to appeal to us far more than having robot battles fought with pilots. Voltron and Robotech were huge hits in the 80s, but look at recent stuff like Pacific Rim. I mostly blame that movie's failure over here on it being an original I.P. instead of an established franchise, but it didn't even come close to matching Transformers' success. |
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la_contessa
Posts: 200 Location: Pennsylvania |
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I always had it in my head that Gundam shows were just a bunch of boring moralizing about how WAR IS BAD, so I never tried to watch any . . . and then I married a mecha fanboy. He was smart to start me off with G Gundam, which is one of the most fun shows I've ever seen. That made me realize that Gundam maybe isn't boring, so I agreed to watch Wing, which was kind of meh and I stopped after 14 episodes. Then I tried Zeta (because it was the only one streaming at the time), and that didn't work, because I want to punch Kamille Bidan every time he's on screen. I took several years off from Gundam, but last year I decided to start on my immense to-watch list and used a randomizer to pick a number. I got Mobile Suit Gundam 0079, so I pulled out my husband's DVDs and started watching. I absolutely loved it!. I'm relatively old, I guess, so I have a soft spot for hand-painted cels, and OMG the explosions in that show are beautiful. And the characters! And the drama! The last two or three episodes were out of place, but the rest of the show was top notch and set a really high bar for the time period.
All of that is to say, it's sad to hear that so many people didn't give 0079 a chance because of the animation. I'm even going to try Zeta again because of it. Re:0096 isn't bad, but the animation quality changes noticeably between the mecha fights and the scenes of people just talking to each other. Another thing that helped keep me interested were the Dynasty Warriors: Gundam games. I played them with my husband for years, and that got me interested in the characters (and why M'Quve was so attached to that vase). |
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AnimeLordLuis
 Posts: 1626 Location: The Borderlands of Pandora |
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I'm a huge long time Gundam fan and although I would love it if the Franchise would really take off in the USA I'm perfectly happy the way it is right now so long as we keep getting home video releases with an English dub I'm perfectly fine with the way things are right now.
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gravediggernalk
 Space Cowboy Posts: 246 Location: Alabama |
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I'm probably the last person who should be posting their opinion on the matter spoiler[(I've seen most things Gundam and I think that Unicorn (and The Origin, for that matter) is one of the LAST things that anyone new to the Universal Century (much less Gundam) should see. I love most of the different series and wish that all of them got the treatment they deserve on releases, but know that the sales will never justify it.)] but I don't think that Gundam will ever gain ground in America again unless a new TV series gets released that:
That list of things doesn't really match up with what usually ends up happenening with Gundam, does it? I think that Nu Gundam is the best looking mech of all time, and I had to change my pants when I saw how amazing The 08th MS Team looked on BD, but those things don't keep tthe target audience watching on TV or Netflix, and I doubt that they'll get most children to beg their parents for the discs when they go to the bookstore. I just don't think that our favorite glorified toy commercial will ever get big in America if it doesn't sell said toys to Americans, whether that's what we (the niche mecha fans) want or not. Mecha anime and Sports anime are pretty much the same. Mecha anime just gets its Haikyuu or Free! (ever so slightly) more often. |
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MrBonk
Posts: 192 |
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But really, i'm with the other person that as long as they are getting decent quality BD/DVD releases and do well enough to continue. I could care less. Honestly, people bitch and moan all the time these don't have dubs. But those people don't realize how stupid and unfeasible dubbing decades old 30-50 episode shows is with how incredible niche the fanbase is. There's no way you can justify it financially with this fanbase, unless you want to pay 300+$ per series instead of less than 100$. And then only a select few will really be able to afford it. It's bad enough Sunrise is dubbing stuff straight on the Japanese releases but then charging absurd amounts of money and only offering us the even worse LE versions without any translated extras for Thunderbolt and The Origin. My first exposure to Gundam was subbed VHS tapes before Wing even aired. And if only other kids could see Gundam and see how awesome it was like I thought it was. Probably also doesn't help that we keep getting some of the WORST Gundam games released in the last decade, with all the licensed music ripped out and insanely bad translations and even more laughable voice acting. (Yes, you Tecmoei). The PS2 ones we got were actually good, shame we missed out on so many more. (If you have a PS4, import the Asian version of GBreaker 3 now!) |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5350 |
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↑ I've heard that Build Fighters is supposed to be a very user friendly way in for kids, don't know if it is considered cool though, I always thought the one with angel wings from Wing looked cool as a kid, but that's just me. I know you said opinion, but still, I wouldn't of thought anyone would claim that Wing had above average animation.
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