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EireformContinent wrote:

Mike Hazama wrote:

Last I checked Pokemon was still huge all over the globe and one of the biggest franchises ever.

Pokemon were created to be based on toys and gadgets. I don't see how should it be paired with shows not meant to become toy advertisement.

Young Justice is based on a long running comic characters... don't see how it's much different, it's been around longer so it should be bigger if you go by time. I'm sure if those shows COULD be as big as Pokemon they'd love to and try to, but they're clearly not.. and I did list other shows besides Pokemon.

Don't forget Crunchyroll was a bane of fansubbers cause their original source were other group's fansubs. HorribleSubs is essentially a protest against their early actions.

But hey, guess what they got to work? Exactly.

Darkmagick wrote:

Tanteikingdomkey wrote:

one of the things that crunchyroll does right is that they have a way for you to say X at XX:XX in episode X of series X is wrong.

At the risk of sounding like an unobservant idiot, I have to ask...Where is this way to comment? I've seen it mentioned before, but I've never been able to find it... Embarassed

(It's annoying because I occasionally do notice things...)

http://www.crunchyroll.com/bugreport?src=showmedia&type=video
if you check the drop down list subtitle problems are listed.

Alot of members of my anime club, watched avatar, and watch adventure time and my little pony FIM, though if that could happen world wide is doubtful.
glad to hear someone else still remembers the fan sub ethics.
I am glad to hear that people still respect fan subers, to a certain extent, and am really glad people stopped treating them like a witch. I agree ALOT of rip groups deserve to die. however some people actually do work with those scripts, and actually do release a superior product, that I tend to collect in addition to watching on crunchy.

Mike Hazama wrote:

The recent Lagrange got SLAMMED by a critic here in his preview guide, but you can't honestly say it's still not better and more unique than anything the US is making or has ever made.

Not if you're a Japan humping Weeaboo. Otherwise though...yeah. You actually can.

RyanSaotome wrote:

Fansubbing is important to give Crunchy some competition. Crunchy wouldn't have made many of the improvements they have done in the last year (upping bitrate, better sub quality, no more hard subs) if they weren't being pressured by fansubs doing their shows better.

This is the main reason monopolies are so horrifying. No real need for the company to change or evolve or even give two craps about their customers when they're the only people around. See: Blizzard and World of Warcraft as of recent months which now has competition so it's actually trying to give their customers some decent content.

Haterater wrote:

The problem is that shows who have extra "stuff" like toys and video games have an advantage over shows that don't. Avatar didn't really have a toyline, so no extra audience there. Shows like Yu-Gi-Oh!, My Little Pony, Pokemon, Beast Wars, etc have the potential to gain more fans from those who like those toys and stuff. Now, if Pokemon started off with no ties to things like video games and "stuff," would it be popular based on just the merits of the show?

The thing is Avatar tried to have a toy line, but it bombed hard and was canned after one line of toys. Nickelodeon obviously was trying to market it like the Toonami shows it was trying to compete against (mainly Dragonball Z, and most likely the upcoming Naruto dub that was already a huge hit in the fansub community) but it obviously failed for them. I mean, DBZ still puts out games that sell despite it's age. Naruto just sold it's 10th million video game, and so on. So just because one show tries to do the same and fails I wouldn't say it's at a disadvantage, just that it failed to get an audience or profit off them.

Just like 4Kids tried to cash in on their success with Yu-Gi-Oh by creating the Chaotic cards, figures, and show, but that also bombed hard for them. It tried to do everything YGO did, but still flopped. I did play the card game at a demo at a convention once to try it out, and while it wasn't a bad card game, the cartoon itself was dreadful and had none of the good characters, good story, or heck, any kind of story at all, it was very sitcom-y and pointless. I'd think if a show doesn't capture their attention, they won't buy the product.

So I would say yes to the last question, since after all the Pocket Monsters anime dub aired in the US before the games came out there and was super huge. Satoshi and Pikachu stick around even after the first generation. Pikachu, from the anime, is the official mascot of the franchise. The anime is just as important as the games or toys are for any franchise, I would say.

Or for an American example. Ninja Turtles. Sure, it existed before the 80s cartoons, but it was the 80s cartoon which put it on the map and everyone loved. No one cared about any toys until the show became a huge hit.

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Yes, the stuff about the show with good characterization is wonderful and nice to see in cartoons, but the problem is that if it tanks, then we loose a show that tries something different. And I think that's the problem in general these days, not just for animation. Companies want things to sell to. Sailor Moon manga has the nostalgia factor along with the anime, so I can see why its doing well. But can a new magical girl manga with no ties succeed? That's the concern, and I'm sure that's what the business people are sadly thinking about. All what sells, creativity be damned.

For the record are we speaking about the Japanese market or in the US market? In either way, shoujo manga still seems to do fairly well in the US judging by the charts that get posted.

RestlessOne wrote:

It'd like to note that there are series that deal with actual human death, sometimes to a greater degree than that. For instance, take a recent episode of Young Justice. spoiler[The basic plot revolved around a psychopath that killed his sister with a dagger and buried here in his backyard, all in order to become "pure" and rid himself of human weaknesses. They don't attempt to hide it; the guy has several taxidermy animals in his house, the character indicates he's proud of killing her her, and the rudimentary grave is given focus.] Not that the majority of US cartoons are like this, but there's more than just Beast Wars.

I actually went and watched the episode just now to see for myself. It was only about 5 minutes once you skip all that annoying high school teen party stuff going on (which I did) and.. I was really let down from the way you explained it. Saying someone is dead before the series began is vastly different than showing them be killed. "My parents passed away when I was little" is fairly okay, but not to actually show them being killed by being stabbed and falling to the ground.

And they never actually say 'kill' or even 'dead', so that's even less impressive. They were really vague about it in the episode spoiler[ "How did this happen to you? .. Huh? That's his dagger?" then a minute later addressing the guy "You did this? *points to tombstone* And given even with my little knowledge of DC heroes, I know that Secret is a superhero with magic ghost powers.. her being the girl you're referring to is a huge cop out and kind of cheating when she's still technically a 'living magic ghost' thing and paling around as a hero with her friends. I was expecting something actually serious like an episode of Law & Order Special Victims Unit.]

And if, as you said "the majority aren't even like this" then that makes me wonder how toned down the more censored shows play out. My statement still stands. spoiler[Dinobott] going all out and being killed over the course of the fight, and then his final words of not to call him a hero as he died was so much better.

TitanXL wrote:

I actually went and watched the episode just now to see for myself. It was only about 5 minutes once you skip all that annoying high school teen party stuff going on (which I did) and.. I was really let down from the way you explained it. Saying someone is dead before the series began is vastly different than showing them be killed. "My parents passed away when I was little" is fairly okay, but not to actually show them being killed by being stabbed and falling to the ground.

And they never actually say 'kill' or even 'dead', so that's even less impressive. They were really vague about it in the episode spoiler[ "How did this happen to you? .. Huh? That's his dagger?" then a minute later addressing the guy "You did this? *points to tombstone* And given even with my little knowledge of DC heroes, I know that Secret is a superhero with magic ghost powers.. her being the girl you're referring to is a huge cop out and kind of cheating when she's still technically a 'living magic ghost' thing and paling around as a hero with her friends. I was expecting something actually serious like an episode of Law & Order Special Victims Unit.]

And if, as you said "the majority aren't even like this" then that makes me wonder how toned down the more censored shows play out. My statement still stands. spoiler[Dinobott] going all out and being killed over the course of the fight, and then his final words of not to call him a hero as he died was so much better.

I never said anyone was killed during the course of the episode. I said it revolved around Harm, whose entire character is based upon his past actions. Quite frankly, we don't need to see someone die to make it serious, and we don't need an episode of SVU. We don't even see children being killed in the latter; at most, you'll get an adult. I don't know why you would even think a US cartoon would include even a semi-graphic death scene. It's a Cartoon Network show. You mentioned yourself that expecting more is idiotic. Doesn't mean it has a darker plot than other series. Kids aren't stupid. They understand what happened, even if they don't outright say the word "kill."

Also, YJ doesn't follow the same continuity as the comics; it's set on "Earth-16." In this case, spoiler[Secret isn't a superhero; just a ghost. We have no indication that she will appear outside of that single episode.] (And the party stuff didn't last that long. I think you're exaggerating there. It's a B-plot to Harm.)

I guess for Avatar, it did everything right in the show. Characters, story, etc for them to continue the show without any strong merchandise to go with it. You have a point there that shows can stand out without the toys and "stuff." Which I guess the question is, are the businesses happy about that if the ratings aren't super high, but still profitable. Need more to accept that so that we can try new ideas. Just never know if it'll strike gold.

But for Pokemon, I think the anime just came out just a few weeks before the games, which isn't a huge indication if you have the video game commercials going all out with the show being in syndication at the time, so I'll probably still edge that more towards the games helping the anime moreso.

What I'm concerned is that people kind of put Sailor Moon as the forefront for magical girl manga being super strong, but you still have the factors of the "stuff" though. But as long as shojo in general are doing at least okay, then that's alright. Are we going to have another manga that doesn't have the advantage do Sailor Mooon numbers? Not sure.

enurtsol wrote:

But would ya have sympathy if possibly the Japanese anime industry itself make stupid decisions and run itself into the ground?

"Stupid decisions" isn't my place to say, though I do certainly raise my eyebrows when decisions are made which seems to go against common sense.

Your example only scratches the surface of a much deeper problem in that the internet has changed the face of economics worldwide.

While so many are focused on the medium and distribution, they always tend to forget about the biggest movers of anime: retailers.

Landscapes around the world are changing as "For Lease" shops plague empty windows, usually in a line. Online shopping sales have surpassed retail sales in many locales, and this is just now starting to panic those who sell DVDs.

Here in the US, when the largest retailer of DVDs (Walmart) says it's cutting back retail space to the most current + 15% overstock, that's a warning sign, and indeed it was.

Take a walk through a retailer and it's easy to see the number of disks (both music and movies) has dwindled. Borders? Zapped into history.

In Japan, there are specialty shops which cater to the anime market (Animate and Gamers, I think). Outside of Japan: tumbleweeds. Our two largest specialty retailers are managing, but it's inevitable their sales will continue to slide as well.

It's dire in terms of business outside of Japan, but it gets tremendously more difficult when all attempts to try and keep the market from shrinking even further are quelled when the Japanese come back with "No bluray. Tell your customers we're terrified of reverse importation."

Now that's a stupid decision.

RestlessOne wrote:

I don't know why you would even think a US cartoon would include even a semi-graphic death scene. It's a Cartoon Network show.

That was my point originally, but when you bring up a situation as a counter example and say there's shows that deal with death "to a greater degree than that" after I list a character dying on screen, I was expecting to at least see the same thing happen, if not done better. It ended up just being numerous steps backwards and no better than a Spider-Man cartoon mentioning how Uncle Ben dies in passing.

Haterater wrote:

I guess for Avatar, it did everything right in the show. Characters, story, etc for them to continue the show without any strong merchandise to go with it. You have a point there that shows can stand out without the toys and "stuff." Which I guess the question is, are the businesses happy about that if the ratings aren't super high, but still profitable. Need more to accept that so that we can try new ideas. Just never know if it'll strike gold.

There's no real reason for Nickelodeon to do anything creative or unique in the first place. Not when they can make a show like iCarly which pulls in over 9 million viewers. That kind of goes back to the dangers of a monopoly. Nick is on top.. they don't need to do anything so long as they have no competition or threat to their throne. They can pump out whatever they want, and even their mediocre stuff will still get better ratings than their competition. The X's was a short-lived show a few years back and was a bust, but those ratings numbers would make it's competition drool in envy, just not Nickelodeon who are used to better numbers. They're not exactly making anything to fill in any void of Anime companies leaving like the person who wrote it was suggesting. Anime fan's aren't going to be turning to Kim Possible, Avatar, Thundercats, or whatever else the big three kid's channels here make. Is Kim Possible even on anymore? Answerman already mentioned Avatar is dead and gone. Thundercats.... well it's safe to say 'no' to that.

Quote:

But for Pokemon, I think the anime just came out just a few weeks before the games, which isn't a huge indication if you have the video game commercials going all out with the show being in syndication at the time, so I'll probably still edge that more towards the games helping the anime moreso.

What about Yu-Gi-Oh? The cards came out in America 7 months after the dub began showing. Or Dragonball Z while we're at it, I suppose. Where exactly do we draw the line at 'merchandising'? I think it just undermines Mike's original statement of these shows are huge properties. These shows are huge with or without their merchandising. Merchandising is the result of a successful show, so holding that against the show is just silly.

Or if you want a more empirical example. Bandai reported Ben 10 made $37.1 million dollars world-wide last year. Ben 10 is the biggest cartoon franchise in the US. In comparison, Kamen Rider, which is primarily marketed in Japan only, made $190.9 million. If Kamen Rider can do that, I'm willing to bet every show mentioned so far (One Piece, Naruto, Dragonball Z, and so forth) do a lot better than Kamen Rider does when you factor in how big they are in countries all over the globe. Ben 10 is the closest America has to a legitimate franchise, and it's still small change compared to your fighting-shounen anime or game-based anime. If it's not Ben 10, then nothing else is going to come close.

(Actually the main problem is 1 or 2 shows aren't going to change it.. animation as a whole needs to become for the nerds, so to speak. It's not just 1 or 2 anime that's huge.. anime itself is huge. The whole western media needs to change, which is kind of impossible)

Mike Hazama wrote:

Soundmonkey wrote:

Personally i disagree abit with the reply on the cartoon/anime thing. I mean yes many U.S./EU toons suffer from being genaric, but is that anyworse then so many anime & manga suffering from the same overused cliche/trope? Not IMO.

Well duh, of course it is. The thing is even using the word generic for anime would be considered super unique and innovated for an American/EU toon. The recent Lagrange got SLAMMED by a critic here in his preview guide, but you can't honestly say it's still not better and more unique than anything the US is making or has ever made. It takes more risks than any of those Batman/Avatar/Thundercats cartoons that the guy mentions. Stuff here just doesn't even compare to anime. I doubt US animation can pick up the slack for any anime market leaving the US.. they can't even measure up to a, as that guy put it, a "Zzzz/5" anime. And let's face it, people might cite Batman/Avatar/Thundercats as being their childhood favorites or whatever.. but they're not really popular at all in the grand scheme of things. They ain't no Dragonball Z or Pokemon. Even in the US they're really niche and obscure.

BATMAN IN THE U.S. IS NICHE AND OBSCURE?!?!?!?!
Come on,that one statement invalidates anything you're ever going to say on this subject.

TitanXL wrote:

RestlessOne wrote:

I don't know why you would even think a US cartoon would include even a semi-graphic death scene. It's a Cartoon Network show.

That was my point originally, but when you bring up a situation as a counter example and say there's shows that deal with death "to a greater degree than that" after I list a character dying on screen, I was expecting to at least see the same thing happen, if not done better. It ended up just being numerous steps backwards and no better than a Spider-Man cartoon mentioning how Uncle Ben dies in passing.

Haterater wrote:

I guess for Avatar, it did everything right in the show. Characters, story, etc for them to continue the show without any strong merchandise to go with it. You have a point there that shows can stand out without the toys and "stuff." Which I guess the question is, are the businesses happy about that if the ratings aren't super high, but still profitable. Need more to accept that so that we can try new ideas. Just never know if it'll strike gold.

There's no real reason for Nickelodeon to do anything creative or unique in the first place. Not when they can make a show like iCarly which pulls in over 9 million viewers. That kind of goes back to the dangers of a monopoly. Nick is on top.. they don't need to do anything so long as they have no competition or threat to their throne. They can pump out whatever they want, and even their mediocre stuff will still get better ratings than their competition. The X's was a short-lived show a few years back and was a bust, but those ratings numbers would make it's competition drool in envy, just not Nickelodeon who are used to better numbers. They're not exactly making anything to fill in any void of Anime companies leaving like the person who wrote it was suggesting. Anime fan's aren't going to be turning to Kim Possible, Avatar, Thundercats, or whatever else the big three kid's channels here make. Is Kim Possible even on anymore? Answerman already mentioned Avatar is dead and gone. Thundercats.... well it's safe to say 'no' to that.

Far be it from me to interrupt your weeaboo nonsense,but isn't Thundercats made by 4°C? Why keep bashing it in comparison to Japanese animation when it itself is Japanese animation.

Young Justice,on the other hand,may be made in Korea,but it has AMAZING animation that stands up against any animated TV series.
I realise it isn't dark,bloody,and mature enough for you,which is odd because from what I can tell your favorite show is Pokemon. Excuse me,Pocket Monsters. Rolling Eyes

Don't get me wrong,I like Pokemon,but if you're making fun of shows for not being "mature" enough (usually a sign of immaturity),then why does Pokemon make the grade,but not Thundercats?

TitanXL wrote:

RestlessOne wrote:

I don't know why you would even think a US cartoon would include even a semi-graphic death scene. It's a Cartoon Network show.

That was my point originally, but when you bring up a situation as a counter example and say there's shows that deal with death "to a greater degree than that" after I list a character dying on screen, I was expecting to at least see the same thing happen, if not done better. It ended up just being numerous steps backwards and no better than a Spider-Man cartoon mentioning how Uncle Ben dies in passing.

I said specifically human death, and I still consider it to be done to a greater degree, especially considering context. While shows have time and again made people connect to non-animal characters, there is easily a difference between a human murder and a destruction of a robot. Also, it "dealt with" death. Your wording indicated that shows never dealt with death properly, however that may be, and spent more time beating around the bush. The episode did deal with death, and I wouldn't consider it on the same level as mentioning someone dying in passing. spoiler[There was a body buried in the backyard of a man with several taxidermy animals in his house. He keeps his sisters bedroom untouched. You refers ti people as "its." You don't have to come out and say something or show an onscreen death for it to be meaningful or dark.] Sometimes what's being implied only enhances the feeling.

TitanXL, knock it off.

Your soapboxing hatred towards all things US is getting old and your attempt to take one small comment and turn it in to another opening for you to soapbox your bias is very transparent and will not be tolerated. Keep this on topic and stop twisting any mention of industries outside of Japan as your invitation to open this Pandora's Box of yours. If you keep up this rampant soapboxing and thread killing there is a good possibility you will be placed under moderation. Far too many threads have been derailed, locked, or simply killed as a result of your obsession with the topic and if you think we're going to sit idle while you derail a major Talkback thread you are clearly mistaken.

So no one has heard of the upcoming Avatar: Legend of Korra, or are you solely referring to the first series? Just curious, is all.

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There's no real reason for Nickelodeon to do anything creative or unique in the first place. Not when they can make a show like iCarly which pulls in over 9 million viewers. That kind of goes back to the dangers of a monopoly. Nick is on top.. they don't need to do anything so long as they have no competition or threat to their throne. They can pump out whatever they want, and even their mediocre stuff will still get better ratings than their competition. The X's was a short-lived show a few years back and was a bust, but those ratings numbers would make it's competition drool in envy, just not Nickelodeon who are used to better numbers. They're not exactly making anything to fill in any void of Anime companies leaving like the person who wrote it was suggesting. Anime fan's aren't going to be turning to Kim Possible, Avatar, Thundercats, or whatever else the big three kid's channels here make. Is Kim Possible even on anymore? Answerman already mentioned Avatar is dead and gone. Thundercats.... well it's safe to say 'no' to that.

But they are making a sequel to Avatar, something that they don't really need to do with that logic. From what you're saying, they actually do have the chance to experiment even more. If whatever they bring out still gets ratings that beat the competition, they can expand their genres if they want to. So that does give a little hope there if they are able to find another creator person who gets a chance like how Avatar did, then we're on to something.

For merchandising, it just really depends. Remember how DBZ Kai got canceled due to merchandise not selling out to expectations? And that example with 4Kids and that card game, doing too much merchandise without the focus of what brings that together. For America, seems the show might have pave the wave for things to come for that franchise.

The goal should be a show being popular without the help of merchandise, as we're trying to say the show's merits are the reason its popular on its own in this case of discussion.

PS. You don't have to use the Mike persona for me. Just be yourself.

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