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Originally Posted by Dan the Man
Well, it was aired on TV in japan, became a huge success, so the only logical step thereafter is to release it internationally on TV in other countries. The problem with a lot of that is that, America and Canada in particular, people are extremely sensitive about what content is deemed appropriate, and they often fail to put the fan's opinions into the matter. In an English episode, a sake cup Jiraya was holding was inked over to look like a coffee mug. It sucks, but that's what you have to do to ensure that your show is released to a mainstream audience. I know you could always suggest putting it on a late night anime block, but Adult Swim in America shows their weekly ratings constantly, and anime is always dead last, unfortunately.
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I agree that you have to take steps to ensure that your work can be released to a wider audience and, in certain situations, necessary steps can be made to make that work "appropriate" for certain audiences. However, I do think that putting Naruto in a late-night anime block, with less edited content, could have been more successful. Especially on Adult Swim, certain popular animes are generally ranked higher than many of their other shows (excluding Futurama and Family Guy, which always rank highest because they started as prime time shows, and continue to air first in the line-up). Cowboy Bebop and Trigun were two shows (Bebop is back, finally) that continually received high ratings in the late-night block for Adult Swim. Naruto has developed a similar following as these two shows, though it has been dumbed-down for a younger audience, something I consider a great disservice to both the show and the fans. At the very least, I think they owed it to the fans to try it in a late-night, anime-filled block first, and see what happened in the ratings. It can always rebound as a children's show later, but it could have been successful in it's original form, and now we'll never know.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan the Man
To sum it up, it's all about money. If something is a hit in Japan, they'll put it in America, but they'll make subtle changes, such as alcolohic and drug references, culture-specific jokes, and other content will be altered so that it becomes a hit over here. (Though 4Kids usually feels the need to utterly butcher whatever they touch.) The more people you get to see your show, the more money you can make off them with merchandising. The fan's won't like it, they may even completely hate it, but as long as gullible kids see the product, and the parents buy them all the crap that comes with, the fans don't matter.
Thank god for fansubbing and DVD's...
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Agreed. If not for fansubbing and DVD's, I probably wouldn't watch half of the shows I do. This is something that can be remedied with the whole-sale embrace of the fansubbing culture, as well as human nature in general. It seems like fansubbing is some sort of taboo for a lot of people, especially those people who have younger children. People don't seem to want to believe that other cultures might be different from their own --find certain taboos okay-- so they shelter themselves and their families from them. Hell, my 14 year old cousin loves Naruto, and my aunt yelled at me (ironically and hypocritically, with some vulgar language of her own) for showing him some fansubbed episodes, because they contained vulgar language and references to alcohol (granted, she apologized later, but how long can you really protect your kids from that stuff, if you can at all?!). Concurrently, if people would stop worrying so much about minor things like drug/alcohol references, swear words, partial nudity, et. al, and start focusing on the more important things like murder, grand theft, sabotage, et. al, we'd probably all be better off.
I'd go into the whole merchandising thing, but I've ranted long enough for one post, and I don't think my personal beliefs on how terrible consumer culture is, is something people really want to hear about.