Forum - View topicINTEREST: Meet Adventure Time's Finn & Jake at Tokyo's Animate Ikebukuro
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mdo7
 Posts: 6500 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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This is really interesting and also unexpected. Did those 2 series got any popularity in Japan??
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Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
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An interesting surprise that Animate is holding a special event for Finn and Jake from Adventure Time. Perhaps the cartoon show has garnered a cult following in Japan?
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I knew Adventure Time had some degree of popularity in Japan, even if very niche and geeky. I just dind't know it was big enough for an event like this. I do know that Adventure Time is at or near the lead of the non-Disney pack though, due to its developing story, weirdness, and lack of need of cultural knowledge to understand (the last of which has kept The Simpsons niche in Japan).
Currently, western animation isn't big enough to be mainstream in Japan, but you have a bunch of young Americanophiles who are producing fansubs of shows that aren't on Japanese airwaves or their Japanese dubs haven't caught up yet (and some that have and are constantly running around the authorities), some of which have horrible and inaccurate translations, especially the speedsubs. And they get watched by young Americanophiles who will make references to The Fairly OddParents and Wallace & Gromit, among many other western animated works. Considering the astonishing popularity of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic over NicoNico, the number of teenage and young adult male fans of the show in Japan is comparable to the little girls who tune in to watch. It's like the early 90's all over again. As a fan of western animation, I find this reversal--Japanese-language fansubs of English-language animation getting small but dedicated followings--very fascinating to observe. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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MLP got a ton of doujinshi and pixiv art, but I think it's dropped off recently. Still, a rare accomplishment for a western property, and it might continue to attract Japanese furries.
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Yeah, as far as fanart goes for western animation, they seem to move from one thing to another, though they never really let anything slide off completely.
Not sure what it currently is, but Adventure Time continues to have a moderate presence throughout. |
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CallumKeyblade
Posts: 536 |
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The Masaaki Yuasa episode of Adventure Time was fairly recent so they must be getting close to catching up to the US release.
Adventure Time has a good ability to incorporate a continuity whilst still keeping each episode mostly self contained. That and the fact it has next to no pop culture references must make it a relatively easy cartoon to export and be enjoyed in other cultures. It also doesn't speak down to kids and treats them with respect which is quite rare for western children's animation. Not sure how much this quality will be kept in the translation but hopefully they retain it. |
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gloverrandal
Posts: 406 Location: Oita |
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Unless I am missing something, I don't see much popularity going by those links. Those videos only have a few thousand views each. I knew MLP had a very small fanbase in Japan, mainly comprised of kemono fans (Japanese furries) but I don't think you can really say it has astonishing popularity. The show was cancelled and didn't show all the episodes in Japan from what I remember hearing. Transformers (I forget if it was Prime or Animated) experienced a similar fate Adventure Time has no real fanbase in Japan, though. While MLP attracts a few kemono fans, Adventure Time does not really have anything that would appeal to people in Japan. I think this is more of a publicity stunt by Cartoon Network to see if they can make it popular in Japan, which might explain why they hired Masaaki Yuasa to do an episode and are mainly promoting it at this event. |
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walw6pK4Alo
Posts: 9322 |
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If that were true, hiring Yuasa was dumb because he barely has any fans in Japan so it wouldn't have made a difference.
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Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
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However, he is known in the western world, at least by comparison, so that might have been an influencing factor in the decision to hire him. Imagine if the people behind Korra hired Watanabe to direct an episode to help promote it in Japan. Popular in the west, but in Japan it's not as much of a selling point as they might hope. Who knows if it'll work, but it seems a bit late considering how many seasons Adventure Time is at now. The main issue is it airs on Cartoon Network Japan, which is a very obscure channel in Japan and not many people watch. My Little Pony at least aired on TV Tokyo which is more mainstream, but anything airing on Cartoon Network Japan is probably not going to generate more than a handful of fans over there.
-Stuart Smith |
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Emma Iveli
Posts: 679 Location: Hobo with internet |
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Did anyone else notice one of the pictures on display was Fionna in her ball-gown? Can't say I'm surprised... it is an anime reference after all...
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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All right, I hadn't heard about what happened to the show in Japan for some time. I'm not surprised it was ultimately canceled, as it was barely making its quota of viewers in Season 1, most of which weren't interested in the merchandise. The show is not over yet, so no region has had "all the episodes" though. As for NicoNico, Hasbro is pretty aggressive in removing episodes, so the view counts would seem smaller than they actually are.
It's never too late, at least until the visuals start looking dated. One Piece took a long, long time for anything official in English but has slowly gained momentum. Is it as difficult to establish a new channel in Japan as it does in North America and Europe? |
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Silozin
Posts: 9 |
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Mlp has a large fanbase in Japan, they even have a Ponycon in Tokyo next year. The reason it was ripped off the air was because, as the naive TV broadcasting stations are, slotted the show at a 9am time slot, effectively removing 60% of their fanbase who got to school and work.
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Fedora-san
 Posts: 464 |
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American animation channels are generally regulated to satellite only services so I would assume it's pretty tough. Nick Japan ended up being shut down due to lack of viewership. Disney Japan and Cartoon Network Japan are still running, though. I was originally surprised Cartoon Network lasted longer than Nickelodeon did in Japan considering how much more popular Nick is in America, but then I realized Nickelodeon's programming is 90% Spongebob and Cartoon Network actually makes new content more often so that probably helped them survive longer in a culture where reruns are much more rare. As for the whole popularity thing, I take any claim about MLP's popularity in Japan with a grain of salt. So much of it seems to be manufactured from what I've seen. That Ponycon in Tokyo, for example, is being organized by western fans and the guest list is full of white people like MLP YouTubers. Likewise, I've seen doujinshi done by western artists at booths during Comiket which are being run by westerners. I also remember the aggressive campaign /mlp/ had to sub it and put it Niconico to get Japan into it back in the day of it's early life. I don't doubt some Japanese people are into it, but most of them seem to be furries as people have pointed out, and the whole thing just seems too contaminated with outside influence to make a real accurate assessment of certainty. I've never seen that kind of aggression out of a western fanbase to force something on Japan like it before. I would also pose the question why there's no anime version of MLP. Monster High got an actual anime. Various Marvel properties got an anime. Disney's Stitch got an anime. Cartoon Network's Powerpuff Girls got an anime. Hasbro themselves had a few Transformers anime as well. If MLP is really as popular as one might have you believe, you'd think think they'd have cashed in on making an anime version of it. That's just a personal observation, though. Again, I find it a bit hard to judge MLP in Japan simply because of how involved the American fanbase is with it compared to those other properties I've seen. |
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mdo7
Posts: 6500 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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I don't know about My Little Pony popularity in Japan, but I do remember reading an article From Rocketnews24 about the Japanese dub. |
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Drac
Posts: 165 |
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Most of the success foreign cartoon characters have in Japan usually comes down to how cute the actual characters are. I doubt Stitch has such continuous popularity because of the source material or why else would the local adaptions jettison everyone in favor of just him and his fellow aliens? Peanuts has a similar problem in that no one really knows much about the comic strip or its characters expect that Snoopy is cute.
I have no idea if the art aesthetic of Adventure Time is considered "kawaii" to the general public or if they come off as cute in a weird way like Spongebob who isn't popular at all but I guess time will tell. |
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