Rebuild of First Gundam

[ShadowCell]

Then who cares if you can find a few gunpla kits or DVDs somewhere?

[JoeD80]

This:

If you don't want to sell anything to Americans, then you have nothing to worry about, and that seems to be the road Bandai's chosen with Gundam, since they don't need to sell anything to Americans anyways.

is what I was originally commenting on. Bandai didn't choose this route, or Best Buy wouldn't be selling the show, and the non-Japanese toy stores wouldn't be selling the model kits. Was I discssing whether I thought Bandai was going to make money without a sponsor like Toys "R Us? No. But they *ARE* in the American market, even if it's a small portion, which was my point.

[ShadowCell]

Nobody said the American market is nonexistent. The entire point of this thread is about a proposed idea to make Gundam popular again, like it was with Wing. It's a niche market. A small niche market.

And I am still not convinced that Bandai really is "in the American market" when their products are bought in small quantities by independent vendors for niche markets. Show me where they, Bandai, are making an effort to sell stuff to people here. A handful of DVDs and gunpla kits do not count as an effort.

A pretty good symbol of that, I think, is how the official 00 website has not updated outside of its banner and a news blurb from June to reflect there being a second season--even though the second season of 00 finished airing months ago. And, for that matter, the rest of Gundam Official hasn't updated since 2007. Are those the signs of a franchise into which Bandai is putting any effort selling? I don't think so.

[mcred23]

Show me where they, Bandai, are making an effort to sell stuff to people here. A handful of DVDs and gunpla kits do not count as an effort.

Quoted for truth.

Personally, other than the random DVD in places like Borders, I haven't seen a Gundam item in a major or national store in years. It's hardly as it was in 2001, when one could find Gundam products anywhere, notably the major places like Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, Target, Best Buy, and the like. However, for the last three or four years, good luck finding more than kockoff figures in a dollar store...

So yeah, I guess you could technically say that the American market isn't being ignored, but their effort is so minor, and really, so futile, it might as well be.

[JEFFPIATT]

bandai will not update the gundam 00 site until the s2 dvd's come out. What I will comment on is the fact that of the more recent gundam series 00 did touch on world issues but bandai re-aimed gundam in the us to the older sci-fi market rather than trying to get the same market it gets at home. Even the current doctor who production gives a darker view of the us. But it still sells rather well here. Gundam 00 gave a UC style look at all of the factions but started before a federation formed and let us see the still flawed goverments getting reformed I was actually glad that for once someone non Japanese sitting in the lead gundam for once. I do think that bandai has gotten the message that gundam has to be sold to a much older audience here maybe in time bandai might setup a collectors toy service. but right now it seems the anime office it trying to stay open above all else.

----------------
Listening to: Yoko Kanno - Home Stay
via FoxyTunes

[ShadowCell]

bandai will not update the gundam 00 site until the s2 dvd's come out.

How do you know that?

The rest of your post makes me wonder if you're actually reading anything anyone else in this thread says, so I won't bother with it.

[Chris]

Show me the vast American audiences who are willing to be told that in their giant robot cartoons and you'll have a point. Otherwise, you missed mine, since my whole point is that it's alienating to an American audience to hear a lot of bitching about America (and you'll notice I never addressed whether or not they should hear it, which is a totally different issue and not one for this forum).

I get your point and I'm saying it doesn't matter because obviously Sunrise doesn't care about the American market. That being the case, there's no reason for them to alter their domestic audience for a foreign market that doesn't interest them.

[CidHighwind]

With the exception of DVDs, Bandai hasnt considered the US as a "market" for gundam merchandise since Gundam Wing. The toys/models/clothes/random crap you see in a shop, or being sold online is there because an individual (or a fan) has decided to import them from japan and resell them. There is no US localization, and no effort on Bandai's part to do this, its there simply because people like us care enough to try and sell a few things. You can only say Bandai is making an effort when they are making contracts with retail chains to sell x number of x item, like major movie merchandising, or the like. This doesnt happen anymore.

DVDs are a different story, you can actually find them in a major store, but they are by no means a huge seller, or a large moneymaker. The profit margins are very small to begin with (due to the cost of all the editing and the redundant licensing fees), and because very few people actually pay upwards of $40 for a handful of episodes, you can see where I'm going with this. How many people wait for a box set consisting of the entire series run, for the same amount, or just a little more money. The profit there is even slimmer.

As an Aside:

You want to make Gundam popular in the US? Take the pilots out of the cockpit and put them in a tournament where they throw out a ball/disc/card/cube/egg/etc and...

*snip!*

Sorry, I worked the toy department at a Wal-Mart on Black Friday

Yes, the secret to making money on anime in the US is to:
1. Remove all substance form the series.
2. Make it able to be understood by 5 year olds, or even better, babies!
3. Abuse the hell out of cliches, this goes along with #1 and #2!
4. Make a game around it, and merchandise the HELL out of it. The show doesnt even need to resemble the game. I'm looking at you, Yu-Gi-Oh!
5. Lace it with child-friendly addictive drugs.
6. Profit!

And in all seriousness, believe me, the companies know this formula, and that it works.

Another one for good measure:

It would help if they'd quit airing these Gundam shows once a week and go back to airing them five days a week. Gundam shows are not exactly fast-paced, and it's easy to see how someone could lose interest and stop watching during, say, the first half of SEED or the middle of 00 S2.

But that wouldn't really revive Gundam either, it's just another perk that shows like Wing and G enjoyed.

This is entirely true. It wouldnt completely fix gundam, as you say, but... 1 episode a week on a gundam show means it takes an entire year for the series to finish its run. This is acceptible when a market already exists for the show, and you can put in a good timeslot. But if you tell me I have to stay up past midnight (and still work in the morning) for each episode, for six months, before the series gets good. And if I miss a few episodes, I am not going to understand a thing thats going on anymore... Then I'll wait the for the box set.

Furthermore, the disco guns? They do realise this is a country where we air shows like 24 on primetime, when a child is most likely to see it. A show with real guns, real people, and criminals threatening to buttrape the protagonist. Lets not even get started on your average commercial. And we need to censor a similarly adult-themed anime... why?

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

Yes, the secret to making money on anime in the US is to:
1. Remove all substance form the series.
2. Make it able to be understood by 5 year olds, or even better, babies!
3. Abuse the hell out of cliches, this goes along with #1 and #2!
4. Make a game around it, and merchandise the HELL out of it. The show doesnt even need to resemble the game. I'm looking at you, Yu-Gi-Oh!
5. Lace it with child-friendly addictive drugs.
6. Profit!

And in all seriousness, believe me, the companies know this formula, and that it works.

In all actuality, part of the reason why Gundam isn't as successful as other anime franchises in the US is because it doesn't follow the "standard" shonen anime (which is the "standard" anime as far as 95% of the US audience is concerned) formula. Look at the really big anime franchises in America. Pokemon, Dragonball Z, Naruto. Bleach and One Piece to an extent as well, though not nearly as much as the first three. What do all of these series have in common, which Gundam notably lacks? It's not anything in the show itself. They all have their main characters fighting each other in ridiculous over the top battles. They all have some sort of thematic quirk (Pokemon has its pet monsters, DBZ has its superpowered kung-fu, Naruto has ninjas, One Piece has pirates, Bleach has grim reapers, Gundam has giant robots). They all have a merchandise line (though some are more prevalent than others).

What Gundam doesn't have is hundreds and hundreds of episodes. Pokemon has nearly 600. One Piece is over 400. DBZ has nearly 300. Naruto and Bleach are both over 200. Gundam has... 50, or fewer, per series. That means that Gundam has to re-grab its audience every 50 episodes (and we all know that that doesn't always work -- how many fans are there that love one Gundam series but can't stand another?), while the "big" shows only have to get you hooked once.

Granted, this is a large part of the reason why I like Gundam -- having Our Heroes continue to save the world six times in a row gets pretty ridiculous -- but all the same I don't think that it'd be wrong to say that it contributes to Gundam's lack of continued attention in North America. How would things be if Gundam Wing was still airing? Or had only gone off the air a few years ago? 10 or 12 seasons is not outside the realm of possibility. And it certainly keeps the show in the public mind, which is one of the hardest things to do in the entertainment industry.

[Red Comet90]

Furthermore, the disco guns? They do realise this is a country where we air shows like 24 on primetime, when a child is most likely to see it. A show with real guns, real people, and criminals threatening to buttrape the protagonist. Lets not even get started on your average commercial. And we need to censor a similarly adult-themed anime... why?

I think it has less to do with the fact that its on TV than it was put on a channel specifically for children. A channel for children "shouldn't" have guns and violence in it according to some parent out there who will complain about it. Thats the only reason why. I doubt the Cartoon Network people care if children watched it with blood and guns, but since parents get mad they had to.

[mcred23]

It may have been on a channel specifically for children, but it was at a late night timeslot (Originally, 10 or 11, I forget which), and there are a lot worse things on TV even at that time (Cue montage of stuff from South Park ). Like ShadowCell mentioned on the previous page, the edits in SEED were probably an over reaction to the situation on TV at the time following the Super Bowl halftime show crap, what with extra censoring and questions over content that have never really been raised before then.

And none of that forgives the sloppy, inconsistant ways those edits were done, either.

[CidHighwind]

Yes, I totally agree, Kirby. I will take 50 episodes of Gundam, with its character development and plot arcs, over Pokemon, which is 500 episodes of repeating the first season over and over with new pokemon. Thats what I mean by removing the substance from a series. Nothing of consequence ever happens. It seems you can only still make money off anime if you market them towards children. Still. A decade ago, I had more hope for this being different by now.

[JEFFPIATT]

the edits at the time were made when bandai hoped to have a gundam seed toyline in the us. of that line only 1.5 waves came out before the line was cancled due to stores haveing G gundam and SDGF toys warming the pegs and not wanting to waste space that could hold better selling transformers toys. Wing did well in a market that liked the Sentai style of show wing came out around the same time salior moon was big along with the generation who grew up with power rangers. Bandai responded by putting out any gundam series with a toyline only for the general public confused on all of the additional timelines and wanting to fit them together and not having it work. most casual fans will not get that the uc timeline does not connect to AC heck even the toy ads had odd interactios between ms like the GP01 and GP02 teaming up and a print ad where the 08th ms team fights in a AC timeline battle. When I finally got an wing fan to see 00 his first question was how did the show fit in to the wing timeline i had to explain the whole UC and AU timeline thing before he got the fact that only some gundam series connect to each other.

[ParaParaJMo]

If you want to see a remake with all the other OAV characters in the first series, you could always play Giren's Green Blood of Zeon. Hell, you can even make a team consisting of Char, Gato, and Norris with Red Gundams if you get to that point.

[JQuilty]

DVDs are a different story, you can actually find them in a major store, but they are by no means a huge seller, or a large moneymaker. The profit margins are very small to begin with (due to the cost of all the editing and the redundant licensing fees), and because very few people actually pay upwards of $40 for a handful of episodes, you can see where I'm going with this.

If I may chime in, I work for Best Buy, and our employee price is Cost+5%. Anime boxsets are easily $10-25 off the retail price, which is far greater than most DVD's or other boxsets. Profit margins are there.

[vindKtiv]

Yes, I totally agree, Kirby. I will take 50 episodes of Gundam, with its character development and plot arcs, over Pokemon, which is 500 episodes of repeating the first season over and over with new pokemon. Thats what I mean by removing the substance from a series. Nothing of consequence ever happens. It seems you can only still make money off anime if you market them towards children. Still. A decade ago, I had more hope for this being different by now.

Cartoons are seen as a children's thing in the western world. Nothing seems to interest the teens to young adult market that Gundam was made for in America other than footed balls and XBox. To distributors, there just is not a market for more "mature" anime.

And about a remake for the first Gundam: I would be adamantly against that. Usually, to me, when some company says they are remaking a game/movie/show/yogurt, they usually remake it in a half-attempted money-grubbing way trying to win over the more casual consumers while appealing to the more hardcore consumers, but in the end satisfying none of the above. The first Gundam is completely fine, and if the quality of the animation bothers you, well, then you are probably focusing on the wrong thing. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.