Forum - View topicINTEREST: "Yuri on Ice" Made Its Studio Very Little Money, According to MAPPA's CEO
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This again..
 Posts: 44 |
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Well yes.. Because that's what it literally was.. It's what its viewers and fans have rightly perceived.. And it's what its creator Sayo Yamamoto, also serving as the director a.k.a. the creative lead of the show has publicly stated..
Despite the censoring that's been done.. The "gay romance" as you'd put it was still very much a focus of the show.. Not just the backdrop under which it blossomed.. Which I'm sure the show's creative lead would also tell you.. Seeing as how she was practically willing to stake the show's creation on keeping it in.. Something you wouldn't plausibly do unless you considered it an integral part of your show's story.. As for your argument that interest for queer representation and romance is limited to some (imagined) fringe female fanbase (Which, judging by this thread are living rent free in people's heads).. I have no idea where this believe comes from exactly.. But suffice it to say, it is not particularly rooted in reality.. Global audience reaction focused overwhelmingly on the show's queer representation and romance..It is what drove much of the show's discourse.. What viewers and fans have chosen to vote for in awards.. And what media outlets at that time have pointed out as one of the major reasons for the show's popularity and appeal.. So, I'd have to disagree.. Considering what aspects of the show resonated with viewers and fans.. But also other (unrelated) indicators I am not going to get into at this point.. I can confidently argue that If they managed to sanitize its queerness and forced it to focus purely on its figure skating theme, the show would not have reached the global appeal it did back then.. I would even go so far as to say there's a very good chance it would have 'flopped' back then.. Or even now.. If they follow(ed) your strategy..
I guess I shouldn't be surprised someone would do a 'censorship is good actually' take.. Particularly for queer content being censored by Japanese animation studios.. Not sure why you would argue that studios censoring their shows to get ahead of any possible foreign broadcast alteration is a viable strategy.. Studios would have to cut out any element that could possibly be construed as objectionable.. By any foreign broadcaster.. For example, I imagine that would mean removing a lot of violence.. Intimate and romantic acts like hugging and kissing (Yes, that means you too heterosexuals..) would also be up for cutting.. Now imagine the amount of cuts studios would need to make to (supposably) comply with foreign broadcaster 'wishes'.. And keep in mind we're not talking about just one or two foreign broadcasters here.. We're talking possibly three, four, five dozen, maybe even more.. And when you consider the accumulation of all that.. Then it sounds a lot like a death by a thousand cuts.. You'd more or less be butchering the whole show, wouldn't you.. And the other thing is, you'd be forcing all that censorship on everyone else.. One foreign broadcaster may not want anything censored at all, while the other might choose to alter every aspect of a show.. But the former would be subjected to the latter's censorship just the same.. Honestly, this whole argument just seeems like an attempt to absolve MAPPA and other Japanese studios for their anti-queer conventions.. But if you have actual evidence that MAPPA chose to censor queer elements from Yuri on Ice to appease 'certain' foreign broadcasters or streamers, I would love to hear it..
A few problems with that argument.. First.. A Russian audience does not equal a global audience.. You're missing about 193 other countries.. Second.. The idea that having russian characters means they can reach a global audience, but that having queer characters means they can't.. Sounds a bit silly honestly.. A considerable proportion of the population is queer, in every country in the world.. So as you were saying.. "If they wanted to reach a global audience" wouldn't having openly queer characters seem more "like the right call to make".. And that's without including all the non-queer people who have an interest in queer themed shows..
The creator had trouble getting the greenlight with other studios because she wanted to keep the romance between Yuri and Viktor in.. Not sure how MAPPA ended up with the short end of the stick.. Because if the other studios didn't want to touch it, then I would presume they'd have more bargaining power.. Not that I have any particular interest in seeing companies who censor their queer content be rewarded for it.. |
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light turner
Posts: 168 |
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We're already at that point and have been for a few decades now. A pretty common example to see is a lot of instances of manji from series like Naruto and One Piece have been removed or altered in the anime adaptions because studios know that symbol would confuse and upset the less educated audiences of other countries who mistake it for a Nazi swastika. It's much easier to make them global hits by sidestepping that issue entirely so they change Neji's seal mark and Whitebeard's pirate flag pre-emptively. It's honestly kind of amazing Tokyo Revengers didn't do it, but I imagine it'd be hard to do so given how iconic it is for the series and it wasn't aiming for the same demographic as other shows were. The result is just the official Crunchyroll broadcast being heavily edited instead. Other examples I've noticed seem to be black character's lips. Chocolove in the most recent anime adaption of Shaman King had his lips altered, presumably because they know it's a sensitive issue in western countries. That change was made at a production level and affects even the Japanese broadcast of the anime. We're already experiencing the 'global standard' in media. Hollywood does it. Japan does it There's exceptions to the rule and those who do what they want and don't care about mass appeal, but we're already here. The best-case scenario is we get situations like Fire Emblem Engage where they allow same-sex romances in the original Japanese version but remove them in the English version so they still exist in the original for fans who know Japanese or use translation patches to enjoy the original version and those that don't like that stuff can play the Americanized localization. And yeah, it kind of sucks, but it is what it is at this point and there's not much we can do about it. I have no idea if Yuri on Ice was produced this way or made ambiguous on purpose for the sake of global audiences, but it wouldn't have been the first time. |
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Jin_Uzuki
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YoI was a passion project they didn't even expect to make much money (iirc basically they almost had no merchandise ready at the beginning of the show and they were caught with their pants down when it exploded) there is no way they even thought of the international market in 2016 when they didn't expect it even successful as something as Free, let alone become a Madoka-tier level of success all over the globe.
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yuna49
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So I assume the movie still never saw the light of day?
animenewsnetwork.com/news/2017-04-29/yuri-on-ice-anime-gets-brand-new-film/.115476 |
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feragarcia
Posts: 3 |
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At least I didn't see him. |
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