Forum - View topicAnswerman - What Happened To World Masterpiece Theater And Shows Like It?
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kenshinflyer
 Posts: 58 Location: Philippines |
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Well, as of now, some of these titles--especially Little Lord Fauntleroy, Princess Sara, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, holds a place in Filipino hearts (the first two spawned blockbuster live-action versions; and all of them are favorite sources for meme material), and are occasionally being aired on a local TV channel.
But I'm really surprised when the gender-swapped version of Remi, which ws also shown on the same local TV channel as the ones previously mentioned, was originally a bust, though it gained favor with the viewers here. |
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davemerrill
Posts: 20 |
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Great piece on the WMT series. Always fascinating to see the Japanese interpretations of Western children's lit standards, and the odd ways these adaptations make it back to the West via TV and home video - and how the American market seems to miss out on the English-language dubs many of these shows got, from TVO airing 'Fables Of The Green Forest' right on through the dub of WMT's Christopher Columbus anime, which got at least one VHS release.
If you aren't blinking back tears during certain parts of Perrine Story, then you, sir, are made of stone. |
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Rocko52
Posts: 2 |
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I've actually been a big fan of WMT for a while. Learning about an anime version of Les Miserables was one of the things that got me seriously into anime back in 2013, though I suppose that one falls pretty far in time from the "classic" era. Still think it was great though.
The shows throughout the 70s were really great though, and are fascinating additions to the careers of Miyazaki, Takahata, Tomino, etc. Also cool to compare and contrast them with Dezaki shows of the era, some like "Nobody's Boy Remi" practically feel like WMT shows. Finally, I actually have a friend online from Germany, and he said shows like Heidi and Anne of Green Gables are really famous there & not thought of in the same vein as anime. They & their German dubs are classics that are pretty well known. It's really fascinating. I feel like these shows could have definitely caught on in the states back in the day if people had actually secured & dubbed them, but oh well. |
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Jayhosh
 Posts: 972 Location: Millmont, Pennsylvania |
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And this is exactly the realization that pains me as a general animation enthusiast. As a fan of Japanese animation and its particular history, it saddens me how obscure some really great older Japanese animation is. And even more so than general animation fans, "otaku" nowadays are mostly looking specifically for more "mature" fare, the stuff they can't usually get from western cartoons, with the kind of stories and art that most modern anime involve. When someone says they're a fan of Japanese animation, rarely are they ever talking about anything past the mid 90's (perhaps not even that old, I've talked to people who refuse to watch Cowboy Bebop or the original NGE just because of their age). That's a shame, because while fans of classic western animation aren't that prevalent as it is, the amount of people who know and/or appreciate classic Japanese animation before it was "anime" are even fewer. The earlier stuff that was inspired by the west's animation aesthetic is seemingly doomed to never connect with a large audience. EDIT: aside from Germany, apparently. 
Ooo wee. I feel like this is coming off as rambling, and I don't want it to come off as just some grumpy dude complaining about how things were better "back in the day" (I wasn't even alive when most of these works were produced), but it deeply saddens me to know that stuff like https://sakugabooru.com/post/show/23146/akira_daikubara-animals-animated-character_acting- > this will never be praised for its sublime animation like so much popular western works are. I could ramble on about this infinitely so I'll just stop there. Last edited by Jayhosh on Tue Oct 11, 2016 9:55 am; edited 1 time in total |
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MavenRaven
 Posts: 30 Location: USA |
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I've never seen any of the WMT series, but I remember watching The Dog of Flanders as a kid and just feeling devastated by the ending. But it is still a fantastic movie. I'm now wanting to re-watch it, and it looks like it's been out of print for years. I understand that businesses need to make money, but it's sad that many people will miss out on these classic tales.
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John Thacker
Posts: 1006 |
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That has always been the case with Western otaku, whether you were talking about Akira or a simple appreciation for serialized storytelling with shows from the 1980s. The point of the article is that this stuff has never really been all that popular with Westerners, because it's too available in western cartoons and media. People will generally prefer the similar item that is made by their own culture, simply because better cultural familiarity will make for better entertainment for most. (This is part of the same reason that sports anime don't catch on in the US; there's always been enough live action Western sports movies and TV series.) There's a lot more serialized US television in the last decade or two; consider that X-Files was very serialized for its time, but recent regular old police procedurals like The Mentalist have as much A-plot and B-plot complexity as it did. All that means is that fewer Americans are going to look to Japan for "normal but serialized" plots, especially since American media has been producing science fiction and fantasy serialized entertainment from Buffy to Game of Thrones and Westworld. The bigger problem is that there's not a market for them in Japan, either. There has been less "normal" anime in Japan watched by people other than committed otaku. The stuff shown during normal daylight hours has, as Justin said, been things like Shonen Jump's titles, PreCure, titles by big long-standing names (Rumiko Takahashi and Mitsuru Adachi), episodic stuff (many long running, like Chibi Maruko-chan or Meitantei Conan) and then maybe a few things on NHK. For some reason WMT type titles lost out. |
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phia_one
Posts: 1657 Location: Pennsylvania |
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I remember watching Swiss Family Robinson, Tom Sawyer, and Little Women with my mom and sister years ago. I especially liked Tom Sawyer and Little Women. I didn't know that these were WMT until a few years ago and I'd love to see some of the other series.
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0nsen
 Posts: 256 |
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I've seen most of them, but none were any good. The best of them were still way below average. They're exactly the kind of show I dislike. It's nice to see studios won't waste resources on them anymore.
Now if only the fandom of those idol shows would crumble, too..... |
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Paiprince
 Posts: 593 |
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You'll be wishing till you're old and gray. What separates Idol anime from WMT is that the former is a media-mix with merchandise, concerts and what have you to keep it more than profitable. WMT relies on penniless sentimentality. And who says suffering and drama don't sell? Anohana is a hit weapon and used those two as live ammo. It boils down to marketing. "Children stories" doesn't sound like an attention grabber these days. You don't need to update the content as much. Rather, update the way you advertise it. "From the classic tale of the grimm bros." makes it sound like mandatory movie viewing you have to watch as HW for Film Studies class. |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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A better parallel to Japan is "Oh, I remember all the WMT shows on 80's Nickelodeon, alongside Mysterious Cities of Gold, Noozles and Maya the Bee...Why won't they bring them back?" A quick look at current Nickelodeon will answer that question. The original WMT shows were easy to sell to the West before anime, and easy to sell as "glimpses of Classic Western Culture" to Japan before media became more global. Now corporate interests rule both Nickelodeon and anime, they're less interested in what they can scrounge up at world syndication markets and more interested in what they can sell themselves. Last edited by EricJ2 on Tue Oct 11, 2016 4:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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0nsen
Posts: 256 |
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Ano Hana is moe, WMT isn't. They had the chance to update WMT, but I guess making it moe would've only turned off their core audience.
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grouwl
Posts: 69 |
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Hi kids, is your old and gray 40-year-old anime fan here, yeah, it's time to find another hobby, I guess. The World masterpiece theater was the reason I became an anime fan to begin with.
I guess the sands of time are leaving us behind, but it's okay. Our Anime era was the best. I hope people remember the anime titles you love now, 35 years down the road. By the way, the answerman never mentioned that Nippon Animation still make movies that are part of the WMT like "Sinbad adventures" (2015) |
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Jayhosh
Posts: 972 Location: Millmont, Pennsylvania |
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Well I wasn't solely referring to Japanese animation that adapted classic Western literature. It was more along the lines of a point about older anime being dismissed in general. Stuff outside of WMT. Miyazaki's own Future Boy Conan and even Takahata's pre-Ghibli films seem to be completely overlooked, despite the immense and iconic talent behind them, not a lot of people are interested. And even late 80's stuff like Gunbuster that displays a more contemporary anime aesthetic at the time are still often dismissed because they don't look "new" enough. Like, they definitely look like anime, but those differing styles from more modern sensibilities still turn a lot of people off (at least from my personal experiences). I'm still perpetually waiting on western licenses for all of those, but I'm doubtful there's much of a chance of any of them showing up anytime soon due to disinterest for the majority of people who watch anime. |
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metalcoola
Posts: 27 |
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I might be wrong, but i feel like Tommorow's Nadja was an attempt to revive WMT, or at least create something similar, sadly, it flopped, at least Igarashi (director) next projects, Ojamajo Doremi and Pretty Cure, were huge success
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UkiyaSeed
Posts: 117 |
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They kinda did with Les Miserables, show was really good. Kid Cosette was kinda moe. |
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