Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Did Only Cartoon Network/Adult Swim Stick With Anime?
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
Author | Message | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
nobahn
Subscriber
Posts: 5139 |
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Spastic Minnow
Bargain Hunter
Exempt from Grammar Rules Posts: 4629 Location: Gainesville, FL |
|
|||||||||
Has it really been ten years since the last time I could have been considered a "Television viewer"? At that point IFC and the Stars/Encore channels seemed to be the last other stations to attempt anime blocks for other than children's audiences. Have there been any others since that time? I'm speaking of North American stations here.
and SyFy... but even though the dates show them lasting into 2011 my mind tends to think of that block as being older. |
||||||||||
EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
|
|||||||||
(Well...what would YOU put second?: Pokemon? Cardcaptors? Okay, maybe DBZ, forgot that one.)
Ted Turner was infamous out of making channels of things he owned, and if he didn't own them, he'd go out and buy them. Once he'd tied in with Warner, that meant he either owned or had just bought Hanna Barbera's catalogue, and that, Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry was enough excuse for a channel back in the glorious late-80's/early-90's rerun days. Until CN wanted to market their OWN money for Dexter's Laboratory and Johnny Bravo, and then they began treating their H-B reruns like a millstone around their necks...Resulting in the infamous '00-'03 "School bully" campaign, where they embarked on an organized "ethnic rerun-cleansing" propaganda campaign to make sure we would only remember H-B for Aquaman, the Wonder Twins and Quick-Draw McGraw--So that no nasty, stubborn fans would beg for them back when they heave-ho'ed them off the network and piled on that moolah-making Original programming. And we tended to get passive-aggressively ironic "parodies" like Space Ghost:CtC and Harvey Birdman. Expect one Superfriends joke per episode, each series. Anime soon became the next target, when it was taking needed Adult Swim time away from Squidbillies, especially with most of Williams Street's fumigated ideas of what was "animated entertainment" to begin with.
That's because, like most cable series in the mid 80's to early 90's, AYAotD was Canadian. You didn't think they made that themselves, like they did with Hey Dude, did you? |
||||||||||
Primus
Posts: 2802 Location: Toronto |
|
|||||||||
Doraemon wasn't buried. It was given a chance and proved it wasn't worthy. Saying it aired after The 7D is only a sign of that. A strong lead-in usually greatly benefits the show after it. Doraemon didn't benefit. Compare its treatment to Stitch! and see which got buried. Yo-Kai Watch got a big push. Merch in all mainstream retailers, high profile video game releases, English manga, promotional airings on the main Disney Channel, accessible video-on-demand options, Happy Meal promos, even a limited theatrical screening for the first film. English speaking kids just didn't take to it the way those involved hoped they would. My take on it is that Yo-Kai Watch is a little too atypical compared to what's been hugely successful with kids in the past. Pokemon, Beyblade, Sailor Moon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, etc. all have big "be the best in the world/save the world" kind of plots. Yo-Kai Watch storylines are significantly more mundane than that. I don't really know what you're talking about re: Mononoke. That was 20 years ago and a theatrical film. Its failure or success is irrelevant to what a children's show would do today.
I'm sure there's some correlation between the end of that block and the start of Syfy expanding their slate of original material. Syfy's sister channel, the now departed Chiller, attempted a late night anime block a few years ago. It was mostly moldy oldies and lasted less than a month.
I found it very surprising Funimation picked up Puzzle & Dragons Z and Monster Hunter Stories. I then found it very unsurprising when both of their dubs got cancelled. Those are kids shows and their service isn't being watched by kids. Even in Japan, those shows don't move home video product. They move toys, video games, trading cards and licensed confectioneries. Maybe Funimation predicted the Sony buyout and wanted some programming inventory for a potential US version of Pop? :roll: On the part about the lack of licensing kids anime, it's really difficult to get placement on these channels now. Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon all have solidified original production pipelines. Third party shows are rare and those that make it, aren't treated as well as shows owned by the channel. That usually leaves anime's opportunity to the secondary channels in deep cable, like Boomerang, Disney XD and Nicktoons. The issue is that two of those are so dead you might as well just upload the show to YouTube or hope Netflix notices you. Disney XD can only run so much when it has Marvel and Star Wars shows. I suspect you might already know this, but the Asian Disney XD actually ran an English dub (produced in Hong Kong) of Mysterious Joker. That is kind of becoming a trend for kids anime. Disney XD Asia has run English dubs of Stitch!, [url=]Disk Wars Avengers[/url], Heroman, Gigant Big Shot Tsukasa and Naruto SD. Toonami Asia runs Beast Saga, Gaist Crusher, Yo-Kai Watch and whole host of Dragon Ball and older Beyblade shows.
Most pilots don't get picked up, so ...
Qubo isn't really an actively competitive commercial channel. IIRC most of its lineup is oriented towards educational content and a lot of its stuff they get from long term programming deals with companies like Nelvana. |
||||||||||
PurpleWarrior13
Posts: 2034 |
|
|||||||||
Chiller tried anime for a bit. It’s not like their channel has much original programming anyway, and hardly anybody watches it. They licensed four obscure shows from FUNi’s deep catalogue. They had Devil May Cry: The Animation, Black Blood Brothers, Is This A Zombie?!, and one more I can’t remember. Nobody cared, and it only lasted two weeks. I think I read somewhere that Chiller’s about to shut down anyway.
Also, The Hub showed the Deltora Quest anime, when they were just starting, but I think that’s all they ever got. Really, with how big streaming has gotten, there’s not much incentive to show anime on traditional cable. Toonami has certainly carved a niche, and it looks like it’s doing okay for Disney too, so I guess that’s all we need. Something tells me that Disney only ran Stitch! for some kind of contract requirement. I’m surprised they didn’t give it more of a chance since it’s tied to an original Disney IP. It’s the same with Marvel Discwars, and Cartoon Network and Powerpuff Girls Z. It’s a damn shame how hard Cartoon Network has fallen though. It’s actually depressing. I still watch Boomerang sometimes though. The only anime I recall them showing is Pokemon and Voltron. |
||||||||||
veemonjosh
Posts: 315 |
|
|||||||||
Already shut down. As of midnight on January 1st, Chiller no longer exists. And yeah, Chiller's anime block did ABYSMALLY in the ratings. The highest ratings it pulled in was 36,000 viewers during the first week, while in the second week the ratings dropped as low as 3,000. That's not a typo, a mere three thousand viewers. Even if we were to assume that 36k was acceptable ratings for Chiller, the ratings dropped by 92% by the second week. There was no way they were going to risk a third week. (The fourth show you couldn't remember was Tokyo Majin, by the way). |
||||||||||
AJ (LordNikon)
Posts: 513 Location: Kyoto |
|
|||||||||
Also let's not forget that The Family channel, later to become FOX Family channel, and then after that ABC Family Channel. They had an entire blocks of just anime starting in the early 90's where even in the commercial breaks they did Japanese language bumpers. The history of TFC was kind of fascinating on its own merits, but even more so, for a long time, they showed more anime than FOX and Sci-Fi did combined. |
||||||||||
ninjamitsuki
Posts: 620 Location: Anywhere (Thanks, technology) |
|
|||||||||
Actually, Disney did show a ton of anime during the bubble, (a lot of Saban acquisitions like Digimon and Shinzo, as well as Battle B-Daman, Beyblade, Oban Star Racers, and some others I might be forgetting) but only on Toon Disney's Jetix block.
Right now Disney seems the most open to showing anime out of all the kids channels, maybe Funi could try pitching something to them. Last edited by ninjamitsuki on Mon Jan 22, 2018 8:26 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||||||||
cheezenub
Posts: 4 |
|
|||||||||
Just before the bubble burst, Nickelodeon had signed a MAJOR deal with PIXAR to create original content. I am sure that deal, good or bad, earmarked quite a bit of budget dollars. Nick was just coming off their "bring it in if it is overseas" period and was desperate to change themselves.
Every kids channel has come through a period of "in the dumps" with crappy shows. Then they come out with a popular show and lately have run it to death. CN does it, Nick does it, and Disney does it. It is corporate mentality. Get the money before it dies. It will happen again. In the USA's current climate of USA!, USA!, USA!, I doubt there will be an expansion of Japan only produced show aired in the mainstream. Back before the bubble is was about re-branding at Nick and trying not to drown in crappy shows at CN (look how many late 90s early 2000 shows they reran at that time). |
||||||||||
veemonjosh
Posts: 315 |
|
|||||||||
Disney bought Pixar in 2006 (after a decade of working almost exclusively with them), so there was never a Pixar/Nickelodeon deal. Did you mean a different company? |
||||||||||
FLCLGainax
|
|
|||||||||
I was under the impression Tenchi Muyo only aired on Cartoon Network because somebody at the network really wanted it on TV. Same with Cowboy Bebop on Adult Swim.
|
||||||||||
CatSword
Posts: 1489 |
|
|||||||||
Those are both true. The Toonami crew loved Bebop, but the Standards and Practices department told them it was just too violent to edit to a children's level, which is why they were ecstatic about the creation of Adult Swim. |
||||||||||
EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
|
|||||||||
And Outlaw Star--During the time when Pioneer and Bandai depended on CN for their daily DVD-exposure bread, there was a fair amount of goodwill toward anime on CN, up to a certain point. Fans still debate what that point was. My theory is two to three years of DBZ's Majin Buu Saga, in the early-mid 00's. The network's interstitial treatment of anime became a little more "ironic", hostile, competitive against the "rivals" to their OP series, and sophomorically nerd-bashing toward their fanbase ever since. If there was one thing that would turn a newbie off of anime...
Again, Adult Swim didn't start with Bebop--it was only a rebranded Toonami After Dark--but Bebop certainly gave it a core-viewership identity and a network brand label. Until Aqua Teen Hunger Force came along, that is. |
||||||||||
TheAnimeRevolutionizer
Posts: 329 |
|
|||||||||
To add some other insight on the list about Nickelodeon, around the time when Pete and Pete was never given a fourth season in 1996 (still to this day, that still haunts me to no end), Nickelodeon was pretty dead set on trying to maintain its "For Kids, By Kids" quota. Granted, most of the time they were showing reruns in the late 1990s, and that did rake in their cash. However, a big culprit remains seen in how popular both their live action programming like Snick and The 0 Zone (hey, remember that Friday night block on Nickelodeon?) and how they easily pulled in a lot of money with The Rugrats Movie.
Of course, let us remind people of the era the 1990s was like. This was the age that saw total backlash against a lot of established mainstream media. This was the age where gangsta rap and grunge, as well as more underground and heavy, as well as artsy and darker fare was sought out after Milli Vanilli was found out as lip synchers paid to take the blame for all of the recording company's wrongdoings. This was the age where after Frank Miller's The Dark Knight became popular for going against the Comics Code, aspiring writers and artists who wanted to do comics were dead set on trying to shake up the norm. This was the era where early mocapped Mortal Kombat was once on par with Street Fighter. This was the decade where The Simpsons shook down a lot of comedy sitcom conventions and taboos of what you could write and depict on television. Even Nickelodeon did this with their Nicktoons Renaissance and live action shows like Pete and Pete and Salute Your Shorts. Of course, I would have to admit, it didn't last long. If I recall, Hey Arnold! was the among the last of noteworthy Nicktoons into the late 1990s, and while there were good live actions shows like Alex Mack and Allen Strange, things got a bit more shaky into the 2000s. By that time, Nickelodeon was practically struggling with how their losses offset their gains, and you can bet that anime was one of the indirect causes. While Jimmy Neutron was a great show, and this time did see Invader Zim come out of the woodwork, Nickelodeon was a nutcase and a half of a scrambled mess. While they did do great on The Rugrats Movie, this lead to a wave effect of giving the impression that you could just slap "The Movie" onto an existing series and that would somehow equal instant money- My buddy Pan Pizza knows a ton about that time, remember Doug's Movie via Disney? Due to this, viewers were rubbed the wrong way and summed up the question "If studios are going to do movies of syndicated TV cartoons, what's the difference in quality? Why pay money for a movie if I could get such animation out of my TV for free/a monthly rate that's insignificant to my budget?" Getting back into live action and Nick overall, Nickleodeon REALLY wanted to get back on the money train as they did with Alex Mack and Pete and Pete- After all, why fix what wasn't broken? However, the difference was clear as night and day concerning the time periods those shows and later shows were born from. As I could tell, Nickelodeon was catching onto Disney Channel for their live action shows and movies into the 2000s. Much of Disney Channel's stuff back in that era was what I could say was watered down in comparison to what Nick had to offer, but yet, Nickelodeon saw they could pull off Disney Channel Ditto and be done with it. This practically led to a decrease in quality, I could say; Eddie McDowell was a bland, forgettable show that wouldn't be saved even if you revamped it into manga, and Animorphs was gutted from its source material, I heard, badly. The cherry to end this all was that they were riding high on their reception for the Harriet The Spy movie, and this all crashed when Snow Day was revealed to be an unused script for a Pete and Pete movie. This even bled into their animation division; CatDog was what I could remember being a much more sarcastic, sour, and even more pessimistic clone of Ren and Stimpy- I don't know how they did it, but they did. Spongebob was great for its first few seasons, but as time went on, I grew up and wanted to watch Toonami and Zim. Let's not even bring up their SLAM block, shall we? All in all, Nickelodeon was going down with a hard case of pride to swallow before even Avatar came out, and even then, I remember the backlash against Avatar and even the 2000's Teen Titans when they hit the air. Trying to market anime hybrid shows and even out of Japan made manga were a dead zone back in that time, and unless one could pull it off very well, there was much snubbing to be had. The only thing successful I recalled was Megas XLR, and sadly, even that show didn't last too long. A lesson learned: If something with integrity and a reminder of what can be with dignity is ever heralded strongly, don't get in the way. You'll get trampled, badly. CN took a lot of notes and threw in for a big gamble, and man, did it payoff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED0ySD51Z2U Last edited by TheAnimeRevolutionizer on Mon Jan 22, 2018 9:48 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||||||||
Lord Oink
Posts: 876 |
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
||
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group