Speculation about an anime's name from a recent ANN article

[Kumagawa]

So Anime News Network has an article about problems in the industry and changes the name of the problem anime for what ever reason.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/tale...5-03-10/.85753

So what is the anime? since I haven't got a clue.

[AnimeFangirl]

Maybe Card Captor Sakura? It doesn't have 100 episodes but it fits the bill for most of the other stuff (mascot, name change, magical girl series, etc).

EDIT: Wait, no, that was a major hit and got a TV deal. Check their forums and see if anyone came up with a good guess.

[Jaden]

well this is fun! there are certainly lots of clues in there.

Hi there, nice to meet you! My name is Brad Hall, and I'm the brand manager at Genom Corp [...]

Publisher = Geneon USA?

[...] my first long-running TV series, a 100+ episode show called Mechanical Godless RINNA-CHAN.

A mecha anime with lots of episodes.

We did not license any further installments of Mechanical Godless RINNA-CHAN. I'm not sure we even could if we wanted to. As far as I know, nobody else has either.

Has at least one undubbed season.

I'm pretty sure it can only be Zoids.

[AnimeFangirl]

There was a Zoids plushie keychain?

Internet speculation suggests it was probably Kodomo no Omocha (Kodocha).
- It has 102 episodes.
- It was extremely popular in Japan.
- The first half was released by FUNimation on DVD in 2005.
- The second half never came out and now we know why.
- It has a white mascot character, Babbit.

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[CrowKenobi]

Changed the thread's title to make it not sound like a forum game.

Also read the article in question and I have no idea about the anime's name (though Kodocha does seems to fit all the criteria, imho).

[AnimeFangirl]

It's most likely Kodocha, seeing as how image searches show him in a large range of hues from white to almost tan. I hope they try a little harder to hide the identity of the shows in future. They didn't have to mention a lot of the details they did.

[Jaden]

Oh, you're right. I thought it had to be something from the 90s but they said mid-2000s, heh.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by AnimeFangirl

It's most likely Kodocha, seeing as how image searches show him in a large range of hues from white to almost tan. I hope they try a little harder to hide the identity of the shows in future. They didn't have to mention a lot of the details they did.

I hope they realize that there will never be a way for the internet not to figure out what they're hiding except to never talk about it. You just can't beat the detective powers of thousands of minds collectively working on one thing.

[GDiddy]

ANN is crazy because people are gonna to play detective on finding out who this is!

[Lord of Fire]

Originally Posted by GDiddy

ANN is crazy because people are gonna to play detective on finding out who this is!

It's probably for some legal reason, given that they work closely with some of these people. If the names of some of these people were to be found out, at the very least ANN can't be held legally responsible for it, if this were to tarnish the reputation of the people (once) involved.

In that regard, I think this is a rather bold move of theirs, and it gives us a nice insight at how messed things can get when it comes to anime and everything related to it.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by Lord of Fire

It's probably for some legal reason, given that they work closely with some of these people. If the names of some of these people were to be found out, at the very least ANN can't be held legally responsible for it, if this were to tarnish the reputation of the people (once) involved.

In that regard, I think this is a rather bold move of theirs, and it gives us a nice insight at how messed things can get when it comes to anime and everything related to it.

It's needed, in my opinion. The more transparency into how things work on the business side, the better for the consumer. It does no good to hide, for example, how difficult it is to work with two completely different business cultures.

That's why I really like reading about things such as the early history of video games. It's absolutely amazing hearing about what could have been, or how things people enjoy now came to be. It's often really easy to think that so much of what businesses do is planned, but the truth is often much stranger than one could ever think.

[Draco Spirit]

So basically things went very wrong for the sake of a key ring mascot creature and its color....

[brocko]

Companies can get very protective of their property. Some simply won't stand for anything that could potentially damage the intended image that they want to build. Disney is an outstanding example of this mentality.

It was just unfortunate things went south due to working with false information.

It'd be interesting to see how off the colours actually were though.

[Solace]

I think in this case it was more of an issue with two very different business cultures. I've heard a lot of stories over the years about how difficult it can be to work with Japanese businesses because they either don't know or don't care what it's like to operate overseas. Most of them aren't so bad, but you'll get the occasional horror story like this and it can be an eye opener.

As for Disney, you can thank them for being instrumental in helping to destroy copyright law in the US.

[AnimeFangirl]

Originally Posted by Solace

I hope they realize that there will never be a way for the internet not to figure out what they're hiding except to never talk about it. You just can't beat the detective powers of thousands of minds collectively working on one thing.

They could easily have stymied our detective efforts by falsifying every detail except the key one: something was printed in the wrong color.
They could have said it was: "A fairly new anime, 26 episodes, mecha, easy to translate, not that popular, no mascot, the item to be printed was a bag or a t-shirt, it was printed in light green instead of dark green." Good luck figuring that out.

I think ANN wanted us to know the series without calling it by name.

[IceHism]

Lel at someone actually caring whether the creature is the color of an egg shell or optic white.

This guy gives me cancer.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by AnimeFangirl

I think ANN wanted us to know the series without calling it by name.

I suspect this is basically the case. This is a way for the person involved to send a message to the fans who keep asking them about it, but it do it in such a way that hopefully won't get themselves or the Japanese companies involved in any trouble. Basically, "plausible deniability." For all the Japanese companies know, there could have been 50 releases in North America that could fit this problem. It's really only the fans who were around at the time and pick up on the hints that would be able to easily narrow it down, and they're the ones who the person involved probably most wants to reach.

[sunchips18]

Originally Posted by Draco Spirit

So basically things went very wrong for the sake of a key ring mascot creature and its color....

That might sound silly (and it really is), but stuff like that does happen. And when you're in a situation like that, there really isn't very much that you can do. It's rather unfortunate.

[Last Sinner]

That is a real shame if the title from that article was Kodocha. That was a really daring, zany comedy. Some 90s gold. If something petty like that caused it to never be fully released rather than the 'it simply didn't sell because it's shoujo' reason that had been spun around for years. Friends of mine have that 1st half, even though they knew the other half would never release.

I'm aware of the author-director feuds causing releases to never happen or adaptations to suddenly end. But a piece of merchandise causing this much animosity is quite something...

I guess from the perspective of those involved in the original product - when you invest so much time and energy into it, you take it to heart. But expecting the masses to see it the same way is futile, even naive.

A pity. Another reason that one must be grateful for the internets. Some titles will never see release or completed ones for various reasons. I'm just relieved Siren Visual acquired Monster and made sure it got a full release after Viz released one volume and sat on it for years after.

[AnimeFangirl]

There's a complete version of Monster out there? I have that first volume and had long given up on seeing the rest. I've never even heard of 'Siren Visual' before.