Quote:
Originally Posted by Triple_R
The only difference is demographics - It's largely shifted from being mainstream with kids to being mainstream with adults. But in any event, video gaming has been pretty consistently mainstream from the mid-80s until the modern day.
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I think that
is the entire difference. Cartoons have also always been "mainstream" for kids, and anime continues to be popular in Japan with kids as well. When people talk about anime going "mainstream", they generally mean that it becomes part of mainstream
adult culture -- things that working adults talk about around the proverbial water cooler just like sports, celebrities, and the latest TV shows and movies. Or perhaps more to the point, that adults can say they're an anime fan and not be looked-down upon or thought of as weird. It becomes part of the "public consciousness" and begins to get attention in the media. It becomes "normal".
Of course, I think anime isn't even that mainstream among adults in Japan, so it's a pretty steep hill to climb. And, like I said before, the main issue is why you'd choose animation as a medium for something designed to appeal to a broad cross-section of adults given all the other options at your disposal.
(And also Super Mario Bros. was a pack-in game with the NES system in a lot of countries... so not sure if that should really count.)
Edit:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako
It'll take someone in the marketing department at Sentai or Funimation looking at Moe School Girls Doing Cute Things and saying, "Hey, Bob, why are we trying to market this show to geeks? Why don't we get a good dub cast -- like professional actors, not the usual assortment of squeaky voiced girls -- and convince Disney to put this on with their teenybopper shows?"
Let's face it, if you show K-on or Squid Girl to an American and ask them who the target demographic is, they're going to say, "Ten year old girls." And yet that's not who the shows are marketed to -- companies assume that if the show is aimed at adult men in Japan, it should be aimed at adult men in America, never mind cultural differences.
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There are some problems with this:
1. There are already a lot of other shows being produced locally to appeal to this demographic. So the show not only has to be applicable to that demographic, but it has to be deemed better than the other choices specifically designed for that age group.
2. There are still a lot of Japanese cultural elements and references in these shows, and there's still a lot of hesitation to having that much "foreign culture" in entertainment for this demographic. This is why 4kids did what it did to localize the shows, even though it was hated by anime fans for it.
3. A show like K-On is still sequential; it's designed to follow a certain progression. This isn't well-suited to the sorts of shows Disney (etc.) likes to air in their cartoon shots for that demographic.
4. Shows aimed at this demographic are really designed to sell merchandise (toys), so it's fine and good that they bring the show over, but they'd have to have a marketing campaign with merchandise specifically for the local market. Getting all that merchandise and getting all the rights issues worked out can be a pain. (And again, this merchandise angle was something that 4kids specialized in.)
All in all, I think it's a lot easier/more cost-effective for them to just create their own franchises where they produce it and control all the rights than to try to "import" a foreign show and localize it to make it palatable to a different demographic than originally intended. (Because even though they may decide it's a show for young girls at first glance, and it's true young girls can enjoy it, it wasn't created for that demographic in particular.)