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Answerman - Why Is Animation Only For Kids In The US?

And I barely find any of those limited western shows good. Damn it must really suck to have few shows come out every year that aren't even good.

You realize that American television works differently, right? If your show is a rating juggernaut it will continue to exist as long as producers and showrunners want to. In Japan, this system only applies to very mainstream stuff like One Piece and Detective Conan, late night slots are not ordered by TV stations, they are bought by people who make a product, thus, nobody cares about how well the show is doing during the broadcast.

I'm aware of the rerun system, which Im not a fan of.

That's another canard, though. While some young teenagers might stay up to watch latenight otaku anime or record it, it's not young teenagers who're buying the industry-sustaining expensive 2-episode Blu-Rays, expensive figurines, expensive pillowcases... you get the picture. While highschool romcoms, ecchi battle harems, and moemoe "cute girls doing cute things" slice-of-life shows might not be mature in terms of themes or content, they still largely target adult consumers. They may have different career trajectories, living arrangements, or levels of romantic success from what the bitter old-guard fuddy-duddies might approve of, but that doesn't make them any less of "adults."

Pierrot. wrote:

And I barely find any of those limited western shows good. Damn it must really suck to have few shows come out every year that aren't even good.

Not really, especially when you already grew out of "edgy anime kid" phase.

And the American animation model can't follow the Japanese because the Japanese animation model can barely support itself,

and we have guilds and unions for workers and try to make sure people get living wages.

Good for you mate, as for myself, I can barely find 5-6 interesting anime in the whole year.

Gargoyles: Hanna-Barbera was doing it too at about the same time with The Pirates of Dark Water. That one ended on a cliffhanger!

I suppose the idea is that there isn't much point to cutting them up into episodes when you can have one long continuous story.

The Futurama post-FOX pre-Comedy Central run was pretty close though, with a series of DVDs that were then each spliced into four episodes.

Here's the kicker to me:

In Japan, a great anime can be made and sold to the general public. They get plenty of anime movies targeted to the general population EVERY YEAR. In the US, we apparently think that if a "great" anime is going to be taken "seriously" or become popular, we should re-make it AS A LIVE ACTION movie.
Why, WHY if we take animation so seriously in this country did NONE of those either get American funding or even full American production for a theatrical ANIMATED remake but HAVE gotten either a full "live action" remake or optioned with extensive effort for a live action remake? ?

By "using the japanese model" I never intended to mean "bring back animation jobs to america" (unless you mean latinamerica, which is also in said continent), I am just saying that instead of investing huge sums of money in watered down adaptions that no one is watching, they should invest in doing true adaptions of classic comics (they know what graphic novels have sold the most), the dark knight returns is a good start and the killing joke will be nice

Actually, it's the other way around--

Damn, look at American Animation already doing a whole ton of comic adaptions targeting adults. For years.

And I've been watching anime for 20 years now at least, and it's hard to find something each season that doesn't make me want to stab myself in the eyes for various reasons.

Stuart Smith wrote:

Keep in mind none of those shows actually came out this year.

You realize that American television works differently, right? If your show is a rating juggernaut it will continue to exist as long as producers and showrunners want to. In Japan, this system only applies to very mainstream stuff like One Piece and Detective Conan, late night slots are not ordered by TV stations, they are bought by people who make a product, thus, nobody cares about how well the show is doing during the broadcast.

By "using the japanese model" I never intended to mean "bring back animation jobs to america" (unless you mean latinamerica, which is also in said continent), I am just saying that instead of investing huge sums of money in watered down adaptions that no one is watching, they should invest in doing true adaptions of classic comics (they know what graphic novels have sold the most), the dark knight returns is a good start and the killing joke will be nice, but there are a bunch of other superheroes with great stories to be animated. While we are at it, they could also do something without superheroes (at the very least, some Swamp Thing from Alan Moore), that is what is great about anime, there is variety, even thought they also are afflicted with the copycat syndrome, there still is a lot to choose from.

...

The point is that if the first one was succesful, make another one, as I have mentioned before, there are a tons of good old (and new) comic stories begging to be animated. i.e. They could do one movie of Empowered and if it was successful enough continue releasing more.

In Japan, ironically, if a manga sells well enough to be a hit with regular mainstream train commuters to be a bestseller, it immediately gets a LIVE TV or movie adaptation (Nodame Cantabile, My Love Story)--Not just because it's cheaper to make J-drama for prime time, but possibly because regular mainstream train commuters would rather just see their favorite book-story characters adapted without suffering the crippling public stigma and prejudice of being, gasp, anime watchers!

Another thing to realize is a lot of Otaku are adults. And their interests change. Over here there are -no- cartoons for the average working person. A 10-year old isn't going to watch or enjoy a mindless healing anime, but sometimes it is what I need/want. A lot of us want to watch shows with things we want. We've been alive for decades and want certain things. Mainstream shows are often insulted because they cannot possibly cater to everyone. Thusly the niche model prevails. Anime can do whatever it wants, and as long as it is pleasing people it gets made. Some shows become vastly experimental. But aiming to the masses keeps people from shelling out the big bucks.

Above someone mentioned some 'rare' Hulk stories that he claims people would pay Aniplex prices for. By all means, if our industry could experiment and deliver undiluted content people would start to pay up too. But I look at the new Voltron and Mr. Toole's assessment of its strengths, but then says its a Voltron for everyone. The transformation sequence of the robot calls back to GaoGaiGar. I don't want a mecha show for Everyone. I want a mecha show for Mecha fans, and the hard earned money I make will go to the people who are most accurate. I'll probably still enjoy the new Voltron, but I won't shell out money for it like I would a show I care more for. Now if you were to release me a GGG:Finale box set at Aniplex prices I'd buy two. Because I bought the main series at least twice already.

The Western Industry doesn't treat us like adults, and until then the industry isn't going to gain respect.

EricJ2 wrote:

Actually, it's the other way around--

I'm sorry, honestly and sincerely without trying to be dense, I don't follow at all what you're trying to say with your example of US movies. Regarding Japan movies, Japan is making more J-Dramas, that's true (and I find that trend disappointing as well). But, I'd point out 2 things. #1. (In my opinion) they are following Hollywood's lead to an extent, and #2. (more relevant to this discussion) they are STILL making impressive animated movies. Whereas the US is not.