Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Isn't Gundam Bigger In America?
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FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
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You might enjoy the Muv Luv series then, hyuk hyuk. |
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AkaRed
 Posts: 411 |
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I am now a longtime fan of Gundam starting by Wing in France during 1996. But I think we westerner need Gundam show like Wing more to be able to bring more fan.
And If you look well only Gundam show like: -Iron Blooded Orphans -Gundam Wing -Seed & Seed Destiny -Build Fighters -After War X -Gundam 00 Have a chance to please our Market. Also I remember a well know game Mechwarrior, The Mecha are quite real in this Game and have a descent gameplay as well as the story. I think Japan & Sunrise must do two type of Gundam one appealing for their audience and another one oriented Western Market using inspiration why not on Mechwarrior. Another thought Gundam need to appeal the patriotic side of Americans and why not westerner in a more general sense; of course I don't know how but it can be a good start, going in that way can make Gundam more bigger. |
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2417 |
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Yeah... just hope he is cool with incest in his harem (at least for the animated ones). |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8499 Location: Penguinopolis |
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It's no big mystery, really. People don't want to watch shows older than they are unless they watched them growing up. If they're past the nostalgic cutoff- that is, if the show didn't debut on TV during their formative years- they're less likely to give an older show, a show with dated animation and art, a chance. This is why you have so many people who still love Voltron and Robotech, but won't get into the original Gundam or its following couple of sequels. The sources of those shows are only a little younger than Gundam, but they were brought over at just the right time.
I have to admit to a little ageism in my original reaction to the airing of Mobile Suit Gundam on the Toonami block. I'd been watching Gundam Wing before that, and it just seemed in line with the visuals of the time, and animation being a visual medium, occasionally it will triumph over storytelling and characters. When you look at them closer, the original Gundam is by far the superior show to Wing, but I just didn't have the patience for old animation, unless it was a show I had watched while banging toys together in the living room after school. It wasn't until I started watching Gundam 08th MS Team that I started getting into the original material, and I think Bandai Entertainment should have emphasized the newer material in the UC timeline to promote the old stuff. Still sell the original, even push it, but push it in a way that tells the audience, "If you're interested in the Federation/Zeon conflict, the original is full of that, look at how they share that universe." As far as the other shows, it's more of a lack of TV airing, and more recently, premium pricing. It would be so easy to get people into The Origin if it wasn't prohibitively, almost punitively priced. It would be an excellent jumping on point in terms of the Universal Century timeline. Unfortunately, because Gundam Wing was the only competently promoted Gundam series in North America, you now have a generation of people who will not accept any other Gundam than that show, either because "too old" or "UC timeline is too daunting". I think a competent English dub for the Gundam movie trilogy probably would have helped a little. Especially if they streamed it today. |
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HdE
Posts: 50 |
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I think there's a lot to this. I'm not going to complain too loudly, because we're getting vast swathes of Gundam in the West that we'd never previously had. As a long term fan, I'm really grateful and pleased to be able to legally own decent to high quality home video releases of these shows. BUT... if Sunrise and their Western partners are hoping to make Gundam accessible to new fans, I think there's some work to be done. As much as I love the franchise, I do believe that the recent release of the 1979 debut series is overpriced. Even the prospect of owning it on Blu Ray isn't enough to persuade me to replace my old Bandai DVD sets. And were I a newbie forking out the £80 (or whatever the asking price in US dollars might be) I think I'd feel a tad disappointed in what I got for my money. That show is still a classic, but its sights and sounds haven't aged very well at all. Multiply that cost by the rate with which shows seem to be appearing (US fans have got After War X, ZZ, Build Fighters, Build Fighters Try, Evolve and now Char's Counterattack all in the space of a single year) and fans are going to need deep pockets to keep up. Methinks there's room for a bone to be thrown. |
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DuelGundam2099
 Posts: 533 |
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Sorry Answerman, but I have to disagree on this. If that was true why did Patlabor fail and NGE succeed? The idea of US folks leaning toward characters more in their fiction is more of a meme fanboys and Channel Awesome use for persuading their views, most people in the states want spectacle (that's why TTGL and Code Geass did well). A good chunk of the Gundam franchise doesn't have "wow" factor and 0079 had lackluster animation and music for its time (I say this as someone that's seen a LOT of vintage mecha anime from the 70s and 80s including Tomino's entire mecha discography minus Xabungle Graffiti).
Only one episode aired so far, even horrors like Infinite Ryvius nor masterpieces like Genesis of Aquarion showed their true colors in the first episode. The only reception of it I could find was the livestream thread on /co/ with the general consensus being "that was boring" and that was one of the few eps WITH mecha action!
It entered Sandman.
Megas isn't a great example, Cartoon Network will cancel shows at random without warning for no reason at all or a very dumb one. As for Pacific Rim, not only is it one of those movies where the Asylum mockbuster was better, but it was competing with an Adam Sandler movie at the time (and with other famous comedians as co-stars), he still has a fanbase with people that like 90s movies, old people that want semi-clean comedy, children, and anyone that doesn't like sad endings. Pixels only failed because most of the population here is over 50 and likely wouldn't get the movie. I work at a movie theater, specific age ranges like specific genres with the exception of Deadpool which even the retirement homes had interest watching. Edit because my post disappeared and nobody told me why.
Except it wasn't, it was for world building, plot development, mysteries, art, the grandeur of the best monsters of the week of all time, and the fact the episode NERV recovered the Lance of Longinus pretty much shoots that idea down. Last edited by DuelGundam2099 on Thu Jun 16, 2016 9:26 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10007 Location: Virginia |
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DuelGundam2099 wrote:
Regardless of the success of Patlabor, (it did well enough long term to get a Bluray release) NGE isn't about anything but the characters. All of the action was in service to revealing or developing the characters involved. Even the minor characters were clearly delineated. |
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Bamble
Posts: 130 |
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While it's true that Patlabor must have initially done moderately well for releases of the TV series to be sustained from 2001 to 2005, this was also coincidentally during the infamous R1 boom years. This might have had an effect in skewing the perceived sales value of the show, which has otherwise been described as having "slow sales". By 2005, the New Files release dropped the English dub after the first disc, with CPM deeming the costs to dub the remaining 12 episodes unsustainable, but only after having already dubbed just under 60 episodes (OVA, TV, and the first 4 New Files episodes). Also that same year, the final DVD of the TV series was only released with the final TV boxset, and never got a separate release despite one originally being solicited. Neither event, particularly the former, is emblematic of the series doing well by that point. Then again in 2005 CPM itself was probably on shaky ground anyway, as they laid off most of their employees and stopped licensing anime just a year later. |
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EricJ2
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Thank you--Four sentences, for what it took me four paragraphs to say. 
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5574 |
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Gundam Wing was dope and I rewatched it 15 years later..still dope. But Seed was a struggle to re-watch....ironically I would now compare it to a Mari Okada show full of yelling and teen angst. When she was actually involved in Gundam, with Ironblooded Orphans...it was freaking great. I absolutely LOVE mecha..but recent years have not been good. Majestic PRince is the only thing that sticks in my head as good and that was only after the rather slow first half that I had paused for 6 months. The 2nd half I couldnt stop until I was done at 4 am lol. IBO is the first mecha anime in years that I think will be memorable. Build Fighters was good but s2 didn't...build upon it well and kinda let the magic wear off.
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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I adore mecha, but even I'm not a fan of Gundam (I've seen almost all of the mecha he listed later in the answer). And I typically like them to be either over the top silly (like Gaogaigar, or Gurren Lagann) or awesome with good characters and maybe being more space opera or realistic (Patlabor), but the only two Gundam series that I've actually liked are 0080 (which fits my second type of like) and Mobile Fighter G Gundam (which definitely fits the first type and I love the hammy dub, but seeing how the dude directed Giant Robo and Mazinger Z: Impact, it's clearly not supposed to be normal Gundam in any sense, I mean, they wouldn't even let the word "suit" into the title). But for all the other Gundams I've seen, the characters annoyed me or the story bored me, or some combo of both.
I will gladly take Ryosuke Takahashi any day (VOTOMs, Dougram, Flag, though Gasaraki was average), I really wish people paid more attention to him instead. And that Dougram would get a release (hint hint, Discotek!), so after seeing stuff from Takahashi, and things like Macross and Legend of the Galactic Heroes (get on that, Sentai! I want it! NOW!), most Gundam just doesn't so anything for me. I recognize that it was historically important for anime and developing the scifi genre and mecha in the 80s, so I'm grateful to it, but that doesn't mean I actually think it's good, but that it sparked much better things from other people. |
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Topgunguy
 Posts: 258 |
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I dare say Wing has the best story and characters. To me Wing is the best Gundam to date.
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CoreSignal
 Posts: 727 Location: California, USA |
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Commitment is a big factor. The average Gundam show typically has a huge cast, dozens of names of organizations and places, and plenty of in-story/Gundam lingo to remember. On top of that, with most Gundam shows being around 50 episodes, that requires a big comitment both in time and attention. If you're watching Turn A or Iron-Blooded Orphans alongside 5 or 6 other shows, it;s easy to lose track of what's happening. One-cour shows are pretty much standard nowadays and it's shaped the viewing habits of most current fans. I hear people all the time say: " It's 50 episodes?, might as well watch 4 or 5 one-cour shows instead".
Mecha in general has fallen out of favor with most fans nowadays. Case in point, mecha designers have been finding more work in video games than anime in recent years just because there's little demand for mecha anime. Definitely an extreme contrast with the 80s where mecha shows were all over the place. Of course, Gundam still has a huge fanbase but it's partly because the franchise has been around for so many years. We have yet to see a mecha series/franchise in the past 15 years that's been able to follow up Gundam and I'm not sure we will with how niche the genre has become. It's too bad because I think mecha is something that's unique to anime. When I think about it, with the exception of Gundam, there's very few mecha manga, light novels, or movies out there. As for the West, outside of MechWarrior and Titanfall, and possibly Warhammer 40K, there's pretty much nothing. I don't really count Transformers, since I see the transformers more as giant metal aliens rather than giant robots.
I don't exactly have hard proof but I suspect the Knights of Sidonia anime was more popular among non-anime fans/ western audience than with the general anime community. I remember a lot of reviews and impressions for Sidonia on several popular western tv and film sites that generally don't cover anime. I'm sure being on Netflix helped a lot. In any case, there is definitely a market for mecha in the West. @DuelGundam2099, I actually had a different interpretation of the line in the article: "the show has to be about the characters". I took it as an observation that slice of life shows and shows where character interaction takes precedence have been really popular for awhile now. @classicalzawa, I'm a big Takahashi fan too. Votoms is probably my favorite 80s mecha show. It's a shame that Votoms and much of Takahashi's other work isn't legally available. Hopefully, that'll change in the future. |
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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Many anime fans lament: "Why do normal people think anime is for kids? I've seen some that prove otherwise!"
And I have heard, often, throughout the decades: "All Mecha anime are for kids." Current anime fans overseas have an innate bias against mecha anime. Not many mecha shows have put forth much effort that mecha can do characters well. how many kids at cons are sharing their favorite scenes from Gunbuster? Outside of Mecha fans themselves, mecha aren't mentioned. Also the age of mecha has passed for the time being. Many of the great mecha anime that can prove the genre is great are old. And new fans don't watch old stuff. So Mecha are "Old" and "For Kids." For Gundam, or any mecha show to be popular they gotta not only be new, but be violent and/or sexy, and have nothing to do with a child demographic. Easily explains why TTGL is more popular with the masses than the king of the genre, GGG. |
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brankoburcksen
Posts: 126 |
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[quote="DuelGundam2099"]
According to the trends it did pretty well. http://toonamifaithful.com/toonami-trending-rundown-for-june-4-5-2016/ |
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