Forum - View topicNEWS: Toonami's Adjusted Schedule Cuts Attack on Titan, Cowboy Bebop, GiTS, Space Dandy
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enurtsol
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Don't underestimate the monetary power of those oft-rerun Fox shows. There's a reason that Seth MacFarlane got paid $100 million. That's more than Eiichiro Oda earns. (Of course, that reason is making those networks a lot of money.) Methinks anime in general simply doesn't appeal to NA general audience, but it appeals to some portion of audience. However, what happened was, after the boom years, during the Great Recession when businesses took an economic downturn and became more risk averse, anime producers in Japan went insular and played it safe by playing more to the core, instead of risking trying to better appeal to a larger audience. So if they went for appealing less for general audience in Japan, then it'd be even less so for general audience in NA. (Even Right Stuf owner Shawne Kleckner noticed this in a recent ANNCast, and he knows the anime sales.) Although it's been gradually changing the last couple years now that they're recovering, but back during those lean years, it was tough going for anime that general NA audience could latch onto. So that's when NA TV networks showed less and less anime for general audience. |
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walw6pK4Alo
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I don't buy that, because people were bitching about insular moe otaku-centric risk-averse anime for years before the financial crisis. Every single season before, during, and after that period has had good and bad shows, shows that appeal to Western tastes and strawman otaku tastes. Every. Single. One.
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Guile
Posts: 595 |
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If anyone's risk aversive, it's American networks and companies, not Japanese producers, because plenty of general anime is made every year. The fault is all the general anime doesn't come over to America anymore. Back during the 90s people talked about Pokemon, Dragonball Z, Sailor Moon, and all the mon-type shows companies licensed up to cash in on the PokeSuccess. Mon Colle Knights, Flint the Time Detective, even shows like Tokyo Pig. American networks and companies were grabbing literally everything they could. Nowadays, those shows get passed up by companies and don't get licensed. Half the time Crunchy Roll doesn't even stream them. I would say of course anime had a general audience in America back then, because they were airing them all over TV. Now? Nothing. The only general shows they bother to air on TV are continuations of old shows trying to cash in on nostalgia: Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh. There's dozens of general anime every year in Japan waiting to be licensed, but companies don't. America only gets a few of the more action oriented WSJ titles like Fairy Tail and Attack on Titan, which get stuck to DVD only or put on Adult Swim where kids can't watch them. Non action WSJ titles like Haikyu, Sket Dance and Gintama get passed up entirely. Otherwise the majority of general shows get ignored. There's dozens of general anime airing right now, but western audiences who are not into fansubs will never watch them. Pretty Cure, Hero Bank, Kaito Joker, Youkai Watch, Battle Spirits, Vanguard, Tribe Cool Crew, Jewelpet, and so forth. The general anime is there and thriving in Japan, but American companies no longer bring them over. The fault is not with Japan, but American networks and licencors. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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The thing with those shows that aired on Saturday mornings and such was that they were all highly marketable: It was pretty expensive to get a show over, more so than making your own programming, but these shows had a shot at earning more than that back through toy sales. Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! remain on the air not because of nostalgia, but because they still have very strong merchandise empires.
The two things that happened afterwards were children moving away from television to viewing strictly online stuff, and the children growing up in general. Whereas in Japan, merchandise is a major part of adult-oriented animation too, in the west, merchandise for shows aimed at adults are seen as a geek thing and somewhat shameful. (Just look at how savagely Lootcrate is criticized as a company--most of the hate towards it is from the fact that it distributes merchandise!) Hence, shows aimed at adults in the west must stand on their own without any merchandise, and to justify the increased price of anime, the ratings have to be that much higher.
Nah, based on that post, I can definitely understand why you'd have a viewpoint as it is on Toonami. Whereas in the English-speaking world, anything that has to be subtitled is either meant for a periphery audience (such as K-dramas, which are aimed primarily at Koreans, having English subtitles for the small audience of devoted K-drama viewers who don't know enough Korean), or it's ratings suicide. In addition, children's television, despite many images of the family viewing together, is rarely watched by parents with their children, at least in North America. Kids watch TV alone or with other kids, original Toonami included, while the parents did their own thing elsewhere. And later in the day, the parents would get their turn at the television, watching it while the kids are asleep.
And most streamed stuff is subtitled. That's what I had meant. Toonami is a way to showcase dubbed programs. |
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Mr. Oshawott
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If I correctly recall, I thought Nicktoons [and possibly other networks that may still have it] wanted to abandon Yu-Gi-Oh because they were losing interest with the show? |
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Snackster1001
Posts: 32 |
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Honestly, maybe toonami should branch out of being just action-oriented. Think about it, most of toonami's block relies on action shows with a progressing story, so missing out on one episode can really make you cofused or lost, thus potentially making you just stop watching it due to not being caught up (this is exactly what happened to me when I was watching blue exorcist on toonami). It sounds crazy, but maybe comedies would fit with adult swim (a channel based on adult comedies). I know that's not what toonami was originally created as, but having a few comedies wouldn't hurt to experiment with that way things are looking. Space dandy was mainly comedic (and that had good ratings when first airing), so mixing things up as a comedy/action block could work
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Mr. Oshawott
Posts: 6773 |
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^
Agreed. I don't see how it would be that big of a problem for Toonami to air a comedy show or two since Space Dandy fared so well. Plus, they can only get so far limiting themselves to just action shows since they're aren't many popular actions shows out there for them to pick up. |
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Doug-348
Posts: 11 |
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Doug-348
Posts: 11 |
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People this is just a sign that tv is going away. American broadcasters are so risk averse that the quality of the product has gone down on these networks. I want you guys to think about how do you guys watch anime probably on crunchyroll or hulu. Your parents watch tv can you look at the gap. I don`t look at tv much these days.
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Mr. Oshawott
Posts: 6773 |
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^
Come to think of it, I watch very little of TV myself these days, at least when it comes to animation. Thanks to the Internet, I have relatively simple access to any show that I want to watch at any time. So...Yes, streaming is a partial reason that the ratings of Toonami have been dropping for some time now... |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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People always bitch about something. Perhaps it's just the vagaries of memory, but to me a much more diverse range of offerings appeared between 2006 and 2008 than between 2008 and now. Where are the equivalents to shows like Moribito, Dennou Coil, Oh! Edo Rocket, or Claymore since the recession? I pore over every season's offerings to find shows like those and rarely see many contenders. Adult protagonists are also less common these days than they were before the recession. |
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Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
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What are we classfying these as? Moribito is a light-novel adaption, which we see a number of every year. More specifically it's a fantasy light-novel adaption, so shows like Log Horizon and Sword Art Online would qualify for recent shows. Oh! Edo Rocket is set in feudal Japan, which I don't think needs much elaborating on. People seem to complain we get too many feudal Japan shows, especially about the Sengoku period. I also must mention the date of anime being cited is getting later and later. Before it was people wanting more 90s anime and now it's Morbito and Claymore which are from the later end of the 00s. In 10 years will people be clamoring for more anime like the ones airing right now? It tells me it's less about the era and more about perhaps when people first got into anime. -Stuart Smith |
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TnKtRk
Posts: 183 |
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give Toonami some of those yummy licensing rights, whether it be to release DVD/BD, merch rights to make figures/toys/shirts, or 'gasp' movie rights and I bet you'll see them "treating" them anime shows like AS treats their shows: top priority.
Not gonna happen. |
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enurtsol
Posts: 14754 |
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Moe otaku-centric anime always exist; that's not the point. Rather it's the extent of the other, general audience market focus by anime producers. For instance, take the most hyped anime list every year - see how many can be marketable with the general audience, let alone N. American general audience. In those lean years, chances are it's low; whereas in the boom years prior, the most hyped shows at least there's some good chance to be marketable. Earlier I referenced about Right Stuf's Kleckner's ANNCast - he also noticed around the 29th-minute mark (e.g. "then anime producers retreating to the otaku market...... now increasing more mass marketable stuff") and he sells the stuff, so has some idea which marketable to which audience (upon which NA TV networks can have slim pickings - BTW, I'm not just singling out CN here: besides the obvious channels, I recalled watching anime on channels like Fuse, VH1, ABCF, IFC, Starz, Encore, etc).
People remember, ya can find these videos on the Adult Swim website; so when ya miss an episode, there's still that safety net. (J-TV networks don't even offer that much, so it's the J-audience that has the beef.) |
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Guile
Posts: 595 |
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The top three most hyped anime last year were Youkai Watch, Magic Kaito 1412, and HappinessCharge PreCure. Both of those are aimed at general audience and were smash successes. Unless someone feels like breaking down the numbers, generalizations aren't going to be very informative. But what we do know is more anime was made in the past few years than any previous year, so there will be more anime to choose from. |
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