Forum - View topic

Answerman - Why Did Saint Seiya Bomb In North America?

When it aired in Canada on Teletoon, I don't recall them trying to make Li an equal to Sakura. The show was primarily about Sakura. Li was just a member of the supporting cast, from what I remember. While we got the same dub (I think), there wasn't really any cut episodes nor was there anything aired completely out of order to the detriment of the story. Of course, I could be mis-remembering all this as the last time I watched the Canadian airing was years ago when they had it running absurdly early in the morning alongside Spider Riders and Megaman NT Warrior.

Ronin Warriors was popular enough to be geocities anime fansite standard fare back in the mid to late 90s, only a little less common than heavy hitters like Sailor Moon and Evangelion. It also had a huge slash fanfic community, and I promise that most readers of that genre at the time read as much RW as they did Gundam Wing.

Nigel is the leader, Hoagie is the engineer, Kuki handles distraction, Wallaby is the scout, and Abigail is the long-range specialist), and they also all had at least one story to themselves.

In my opinion,the main reason for "Saint Seiya" not doing well here is that it just wasn't handled well. For me,the older look isn't the problem. Both "Sailor Moon" and "Dragon Ball Z" was well handled.

I don't understand calling the art dated. It's unique and characteristic. And still looks good.

Kung-fu and ninjas are mainstream in North America, across numerous demographics

Wasn't that Toonami Midnight Run and thus still Toonami? (An odd choice to put there though, as, based on what people said, it was heavily edited for content.)

Starting buying LOST CANVAS so we can see the rest of the Gold Saints. Pronto!

Timing seems like the most appropriate answer. As for the comment about team-based Sentai shows I think the obsession America has with GoLion aka Voltron shows they are open to it. In Voltron's case it came out at the right time and was first. Even to this day I see Americans say Power Rangers ripped off Voltron or any kind of sentai team gets compared to Voltron. It was the first so therefore it is the de facto. Saint Seiya airing 20 years after its prime is just too much.

-Stuart Smith

You're the first person I've ever seen refer to the kids by their names and not their numeral designations.

If memory serves correctly Saint Seiya aired on "Saturday Video Entertainment System" which was a precursor of sorts to Prime-Time Saturday Toonami.

Companies like Discotek and RightStuf/Noizumi probably take a loss on older titles just to satisfy the old codgers like me who sit in their rocking chair scaring the children away. Sentai must've been out of their MINDS to license LoGH (I thank them, however).

If what the mainstream likes and dislikes was easy to figure out, we wouldn't have box office bombs on the scale of The Lone Ranger.

I always find interesting how some shows just blow up with a certain audience like with Saint Seiya. The show was just simply too old by the time it got released here to get an audience.It probably would've found an audience if got released during the 90's.

A bigger problem is that, by the time the show got past the gatekeepers of the American market, it was simply too old. The original TV series ran in Japan from 1986 to 1989. While TV broadcasters in other markets picked it up and adapted it to great success, American interests never took the bait. Perhaps they considered it too bloody, or too visually out-there.