[Samari]

Originally Posted by donquigleone

There were a lot of great Japanese films made in the 50s and 60s (see Akira Kurosawa, etc.), and American movies were imported back then too.

Exceptions to the rule. The epicenter of good quality television and movies were in America.

Originally Posted by donquigleone

I may be off by a decade, it's still a relatively recent phenomena compared to American Comics (which go back to the 30s and earlier)

Not really. Superman, the first superhero started in 1936 I believe. Then the first inception of modern manga was in the mid 40's. That's not very far off at all. If you want to throw the superhero genre (a.k.a. modern), then American comics go back further. But if you throw out the modern form of manga, then that goes back further too, before contact with the United States and their comics were made.

Originally Posted by donquigleone

I never said they weren't iconic, just not as iconic as Manga (from your own point that there are manga characters everywhere, representing prefectures etc.). You don't see American states with their own super-hero mascot. On the other hand most Colleges do have a cartoony mascot so...

You questioned it. And attacked it. It's right here:

Clearly the Manga companies were succesful at making their product iconic in that time. Meanwhile American comic icons faded from their position.

That's a completely false fabrication seeing as Superman is probably the most iconic comic book character to have ever been created. And other American comic book characters have been around for decades. I don't see how they faded away seeing as they're still around and being embedded in various media like big budget movies and video games. If anything they've gotten more popular.

My point is that they shouldn't have changed Superman to be less campy in the first place. They should instead have started other franchises that were squarely aimed at adults. Or had an adult Superman line and a kids superman line (though that could get confusing).

If there was a decent marketing push, and it established a presence in Libraries and newsagents, I think Comics could come back over a number of years. I'd put $1,000 down on that. Kids will always find the same stuff entertaining whereever and whenever you go, so long as it makes sense (IE is written in their language, is not obsolescent in the technology it depicts. They wouldn't be impressed if Bruce wayne had a mobile phone now, whereas they would have in 1950).

So you would actually put a significant amount of money down that children would drop the video games and run straight for the campy American comic books? Doesn't matter if there would be a decent market push. This isn't the 1950's where they was nothing else to do except read comic books. American audiences have different tastes due to cultural upbringing that comic books have had to adapt too. You make all the superheros campy these days and you lose the adult audience. And then you have no audiences because children wouldn't go for that with every other distraction around. All you would have would be a bunch of complaints. That stuff may work in Japan, but it wouldn't work here with Americans...especially if you consider the type of cultural mannerisms here compared to Japan.

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Didn't Son Goku wear a gi every day because he was training most of the time?


Though it's not really the outfits. It's the fact that you have a world with super powered freaks running around punching eachother at mach 10 and with hyper powered energy rays. But at no point does Dragon Ball Z ever ask us to seriously sit down and contemplate the ethics/politics/sociology of super heroes. It's just an action packed romp where people act silly one minute than beat the crap out of each other the next.

My issue isn't that many American comics ask me to turn my brain off for some silly things. My issue is they ask me to partially turn it back on to intelligently examine some aspects of their story lines, while double thinking to ignore the silly stuff.

And I like stuff like that too, but I think I'm the exception to what most American audiences would like. At least the older crowd. We as adults like to have things we can relate too. American comics hits that. If you started throwing Dragonball Z and Naruto filled comics at older American audiences they'd puke and probably be turned off. American's love drama, and they love to relate, and they love for things to make sense. But it will work with the children here...who have probably grown up with a good amount of anime anyways since it's been really big in the states now for at least 15 years. So while a world filled with superheroes doesn't make sense, the ideals behind a lot of these characters that have been established and the backstories have some degree authenticity and realism to it. An anime like Dragonball doesn't fit that mold. It's probably why I'm more in tune with more serious anime now and days. The gleamy eyed, Japanese custom manner mantra you see in manga...that wouldn't fly with American audiences that are older. And then if you try to turn that into a big budget film...oy.