Release Fate of X, Turn-A, V, and ZZ--no Plan B?

[Kenji]

As for Robotech and Power Rangers, those worked precisely because they were the trailblazers.

Don't stop there, Arbiter: Why were they trailblazers?

You can't just dump something new out there and automatically cause a sensation. However they did it, Robotech and Power Rangers were trailblazers because they were popular. They were popular not just because they were new, but because they scratched an itch that nobody else was scratching, i.e. they performed a function, fulfilled a purpose, and did it well. Macross and Zyuranger wouldn't have come anywhere close.

Any "Robotech-ifying" beyond 2000 is a terrible idea. If continuity is a problem, then that's just too bad. I can only speak for America; the problem here is we're practically programmed to enjoy long-running shows. For frak's sake Survivor is still on! And what are the popular anime here in the States? Stuff like Naruto, Bleach and One Piece, all long-running shows.
Trying to mess with X to suggest it's some vague sequel to Wing is a big no-no in my book. If people can't get it around their heads that there are individual shows, then that's their loss. If you can't broadcast a show in its relatively original format, at that time or this time, why even bother?

Why is it a terrible idea?

Let me define what I mean by "what works." It works if it gets you ratings and sales, that is, a return-on-investment to make the enterprise worthwhile; it doesn't work if it doesn't. You present an all-or-nothing context and, well, Gundam has followed a more purist path so we're well on our way towards "nothing." Rather than complain about how Americans prefer their television, wouldn't it be more productive to adapt to it?

Personally, I'm a huge fan of the UC continuity, but I recognize that the rest of the States isn't. What I suggest has nothing to do with my personal preferences, but what appears to work. Wing was popular. Is it not a logical suggestion to build upon that success however one can, especially if the Japanese studio is largely insensitive towards these differences in viewership?

Let me be clear: "their loss" becomes the company's loss, which eventually translates into our loss, as we pay $60 per individual, imported Gundam Unicorn episode. Who do you think has the final say, in these matters?

But I think when you get right down to it, even if Gundam had been saved by following Wing up with anything other than First Gundam, I'd bet that anime in general would still be where it is right now. Would we have more Gundam DVDs? Maybe, but I'd bet we'd still be paying through the nose for Unicorn and I'd also bet that B.E. would still be dead.

That said, I think you're spot-on here. Anime has become more niche and, in the context of importation, more divorced from American audiences than ever. Not too long ago, I watched an episode of Sasami-san @ Ganbaranai and it made my skin crawl. Ended up driving circles around my city to clear the squick feeling it elicited.

And I collected all 20 volumes of Angel Sanctuary, so I don't think I can rightly be called a "prude."

All of this is hypothetical, as we aren't sliders and can't find alternate (counter)examples. Still, I think it's worth noting that Dragon Ball Z and Studio Ghibli movies (and, I suppose, Naruto and Bleach to far lesser extents) have not been affected by the general collapse of the anime distro business. The general collapse of an overly bloated industry doesn't axiomatically prevent standouts from rising to prominence.

In all honesty, it's probably far too late for Gundam, but that doesn't mean that there aren't lessons to be learned.

[Khandri]

They need to refocus their efforts to a smaller niche, and we need to make a coordinated effort to express our interest. If that means no new series getting airtime, that's fine. But having series streamed here would be nice. Having importable discs with English subtitles would be nice. Anything that actually lets them get material out to the fanbase in the US instead of forcing us to rely on fansubbers and pirated material. We want Bandai to give us something, anything, right?

I think the problem with this is that the remaining Gundam fans in the West are far and few, and pretty loosely organised these days. We don't have the big, bustling forums of old anymore where all the fans congregated, and it would be that much harder to get the word out. (Sure, there are still some Gundam or Gundam-heavy forums out there, but we'll probably never see anything on the level of, say, the original Gundam.com or Gundamwatch from 2001-02 or so anymore.) Even on Tumblr, where there are a fair number of Gundam fans that I've seen, trying to coordinate something like that would be difficult. I've seen people try. It never went anywhere.

Back to the main point of the topic, I'd pre-order barebones, officially-subbed DVDs of all these old series in a heartbeat. I'd love if the products could actually be made, even as a limited run, with no frills. Is Bandai incapable of serving a niche audience at all? Could some interest be drummed up?

I'd be content with something like that too. I think all of us here would be, if only to have legitimate copies of everything rather than having to rely on pirating/fansubs. But I don't know if a few hundred or even a few thousand or so people is enough for Bandai/Sunrise to want to take that risk. Yes, even if it was just a limited run based largely on pre-orders, like what Vertical is doing with the Origin manga (and the future of that isn't looking too good either). In the grand scheme of things, we just don't matter enough in comparison to Japan.


And to address a different thread of conversation here... I would be pretty mad if someone were to screw around with Gundam X and try to somehow connect it to Wing, just because "they look similar." No. That would just take out all the things that everyone likes about it in the first place and turn it into something that makes no sense whatsoever. Being aesthetically similar and coming out at around the same time doesn't mean they need to be connected.

[bullethead]

Ok then. So my point stands that for the foreseeable future we won't be getting a new gundam show that will somehow revive the emaciated fanbase here.

That's right, but I am holding out hope that one will be made in the future. I think Sunrise knows what western fans are interested in, they just need to find a way to produce a series that meets those requirements as well as ensuring that it caters to fans in Japan. Such a balance is doable, it just depends on how much Sunrise is willing to try.

The small fanbase doesn't warrant that anymore. A series will not get airtime here unless that basic fact changes. Gundam 00 was the last gasp, and it's unlikely to change.

I wouldn't call Gundam 00 a last gasp, mostly because I think Bandai (and probably everyone who licensed stuff on Ani-Monday) assumed SciFi would actually run Ani-Monday competently and actually advertise what they had. If the Toonami revival had happened back then, the staff behind it certainly would've done more to promote Gundam 00 than SciFi did (which was not at all).

I feel a tad betrayed as a fan because Bandai takes that as a cue to abandon us entirely. I suppose we should be thankful that we even get a complete run out of Unicorn. Business realities and all.

They need to refocus their efforts to a smaller niche, and we need to make a coordinated effort to express our interest. If that means no new series getting airtime, that's fine. But having series streamed here would be nice. Having importable discs with English subtitles would be nice. Anything that actually lets them get material out to the fanbase in the US instead of forcing us to rely on fansubbers and pirated material. We want Bandai to give us something, anything, right?

Well, the problem is (and always has been, at least according to interviews) Bandai Japan. They just don't get that the way they handled releases outside of Japan (with absurdly high prices on DVD sets, few Blu-Ray releases, etc...) was alienating Western consumers, even though their people running BEI was totally aware of that. They have to wrap their heads around the idea that the world doesn't work like Japan and they need to seek out other ways of getting their product to people at a price they are willing to pay for. If they can do that and get a good Gundam show on Toonami, they might be able to regain some of the ground they lost when they blew off the legs of the American fanbase by showing 0079 on Toonami.

Back to the main point of the topic, I'd pre-order barebones, officially-subbed DVDs of all these old series in a heartbeat. I'd love if the products could actually be made, even as a limited run, with no frills. Is Bandai incapable of serving a niche audience at all? Could some interest be drummed up?

They strongly implied that this material would be released eventually, and I think the interest is still there. Bandai Entertainment closing its doors before we could finally get Turn A rubbed quite a few fans the wrong way. Could even a small-but-devoted fanbase convince Bandai to even consider a very-limited release, perhaps based on pre-orders? Something they don't have to dump a lot of money into beyond getting official English subtitles set up and putting out some DvDs based on demand?

How does one get this sort of word out there, though? I we don't speak up, nothing will happen. Not with Bandai's clear disinterest. And even if nothing happens, I'd hate to say that we didn't even try to reach out to Bandai.

You are the minority of anime fans my friend, the kind of guy that Discotek is set up to serve. But as far as Bandai releasing sub-only stuff - that's up to the guys at Bandai Japan, whose policies on things are far from coherent. I guess you could get some people together and tell them what you want on their social media pages, but I wouldn't hold my breath for them to comprehend logic.

[monster]

Why is it a terrible idea?

It's not necessarily a terrible idea, it's just not what some people want. For some of the people who want X to be released, releasing a Robotech version of X is no different than not releasing X.

So the disconnect here is that you're talking about possible ideas at bringing and sustaining new international fans, while these people are already existing international fans who just want what they already like to be brought officially to their own countries.

[Mark064]

They need to refocus their efforts to a smaller niche, and we need to make a coordinated effort to express our interest. If that means no new series getting airtime, that's fine. But having series streamed here would be nice. Having importable discs with English subtitles would be nice. Anything that actually lets them get material out to the fanbase in the US instead of forcing us to rely on fansubbers and pirated material. We want Bandai to give us something, anything, right?

Coordinated efforts can amplify the problem. For a coordinated effort you are able to gather the fans in one place and show how many of you there are. The problem is just that how many of you there are. If your numbers are small they're going to show the exact opposite of your intended effect.

The second problem is this is Gundam and you are following the whole Bandai America (or whoever) logic. This is why Gundam failed. They release Gundam Wing, so everyone loves all Gundam right? Wrong. Since Gundam is so varied every single series has it's own fans, and people like different things. So you can't really coordinate fans to say they'll buy ZZ, X, V and Turn A. How many people here are willing to throw down the money for all four series?

Personally, I'm a huge fan of the UC continuity, but I recognize that the rest of the States isn't. What I suggest has nothing to do with my personal preferences, but what appears to work. Wing was popular. Is it not a logical suggestion to build upon that success however one can, especially if the Japanese studio is largely insensitive towards these differences in viewership?

See above for the logic of old.

You might not recall this but a lot of people thought that First Gundam and Wing Gundam were connected that the RX-78-2 was a prototype to the Wing Gundam (or was it the other way around?). That didn't help Gundam in the end and throwing in "real" connections won't either.

The problem with your logic is actually cited in your own quote itself. Wing WAS popular, not Wing IS popular. You can't connect to a series that originally aired 13 years ago in North America and hope to achieve any success. Because any success that was there is long dead and gone. And they did try to build upon the success of Wing, that was called releasing the rest of Gundam.

[Admiral Larsen]

Like many of the oldtimers have said, Gundam in America is pretty much long dead and gone and there is a large chance it ain't coming back. Considering the direction the series is mostly heading then why should it come back here in the US.

[Kratos]

Back to the main point of the topic, I'd pre-order barebones, officially-subbed DVDs of all these old series in a heartbeat. I'd love if the products could actually be made, even as a limited run, with no frills. Is Bandai incapable of serving a niche audience at all? Could some interest be drummed up?

I would too. But something interesting to note: we recently had the "preorder release for hardcore fans" waters tested, by Vertical with THE ORIGIN. It's no secret at this point that numbers have been extremely disappointing - enough so that Vertical is nervous about having to potentially release a shorter 11th and 12th volume (the series has an odd number of paperback volumes in Japan, and Vertical's releases contain 2 paperbacks each; in Japan, the hardcover releases have left vol. 23 to its own 12th hardcover, even though vol. 11 was shorter than most by ~50 pages).

If this release model can barely support a manga localization, it's not a good sign for a TV series, which would cost a great deal more to bring over in even a bare-bones release.

[bullethead]

Back to the main point of the topic, I'd pre-order barebones, officially-subbed DVDs of all these old series in a heartbeat. I'd love if the products could actually be made, even as a limited run, with no frills. Is Bandai incapable of serving a niche audience at all? Could some interest be drummed up?

I would too. But something interesting to note: we recently had the "preorder release for hardcore fans" waters tested, by Vertical with THE ORIGIN. It's no secret at this point that numbers have been extremely disappointing - enough so that Vertical is nervous about having to potentially release a shorter 11th and 12th volume (the series has an odd number of paperback volumes in Japan, and Vertical's releases contain 2 paperbacks each; in Japan, the hardcover releases have left vol. 23 to its own 12th hardcover, even though vol. 11 was shorter than most by ~50 pages).

If this release model can barely support a manga localization, it's not a good sign for a TV series, which would cost a great deal more to bring over in even a bare-bones release.

To be brutally honest, Vertical's advertising campaign (which was mostly handled through Twitter), was horrifically bad. If you weren't following the Vertical_Ed twitter feed or checking /m/ periodically, you wouldn't even know the release existed. I remember Ed Chavez or someone else from Vertical explaining why their advertising was so terrible on /m/, but I forgot the details beyond "the old guys up top don't understand it".

Also, they got screwed when The Origin anime adaptation was pushed back - one reason they picked it up was because they thought they'd be able to cross-promote with the anime.

[Kenji]

The problem with your logic is actually cited in your own quote itself. Wing WAS popular, not Wing IS popular. You can't connect to a series that originally aired 13 years ago in North America and hope to achieve any success.

Indeed. Which would be why I refrained at least twice, "It's far too late now, hindsight is 20/20, and maybe this would've worked had they tried it a decade ago." That's part of the logical package I was presenting, a hypothetical scenario that exists as a thought exercise, not as an actual suggestion for the future.

What Bandai tried to do, and generally has continued trying to do, was replicate the Japanese success of the One Year War and try to export the distinct "Japanese-ness" of the Millennium-era shows, what could be described as "shades of Evangelion" (i.e. SEED, Destiny, 00 S2, and presumably AGE, as I never bothered watching it). For whatever reason -- and this is probably worth analyzing, at some point -- the One Year War just doesn't resonate, over here, and neither does the distinct idiosyncrasies of Japanese pop culture (cf. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker).

Sure, we on this board anywhere from tolerate to celebrate those idiosyncrasies, but the general American public doesn't, and they, not us, were responsible for Wing's success.

Yeah, the book is closed, and that's why I kept calling this a "sad topic," but I still think there's plenty to learn from it. That's why I brought it up, even though it does venture far from the original point of the thread.

And I dare somebody to tell me Destiny couldn't have used some good ol' Robotech-ization.

It's not necessarily a terrible idea, it's just not what some people want. For some of the people who want X to be released, releasing a Robotech version of X is no different than not releasing X.

So the disconnect here is that you're talking about possible ideas at bringing and sustaining new international fans, while these people are already existing international fans who just want what they already like to be brought officially to their own countries.

Oh, it's not like I wasn't expecting pushback. I basically came out and said "Carl Macek was right," which is like going to an AEUG meeting in a Master Paptimus t-shirt.

I basically wanted to present the idea that there are levels of sacrifice that we could've accepted, to ultimately get what we want, because the current scenario is most certainly not what we wanted.

The best method of release, I think, would've been a "massaged" television airing, a faithfully-translated DVD sub track, and (if there's enough money being made) a secondary, more faithful dub track. Honestly, it mystifies me that Harmony Gold hasn't tried adding more seasons to Robotech via the last three decades of Macross (and, of course, done stuff to satisfy what Macross purists are out there). You can't just sit on a twenty-year old show and expect it to make bank forever.

[Ceiling_Squid]

They need to refocus their efforts to a smaller niche, and we need to make a coordinated effort to express our interest. If that means no new series getting airtime, that's fine. But having series streamed here would be nice. Having importable discs with English subtitles would be nice. Anything that actually lets them get material out to the fanbase in the US instead of forcing us to rely on fansubbers and pirated material. We want Bandai to give us something, anything, right?

Coordinated efforts can amplify the problem. For a coordinated effort you are able to gather the fans in one place and show how many of you there are. The problem is just that how many of you there are. If your numbers are small they're going to show the exact opposite of your intended effect.

The second problem is this is Gundam and you are following the whole Bandai America (or whoever) logic. This is why Gundam failed. They release Gundam Wing, so everyone loves all Gundam right? Wrong. Since Gundam is so varied every single series has it's own fans, and people like different things. So you can't really coordinate fans to say they'll buy ZZ, X, V and Turn A. How many people here are willing to throw down the money for all four series?

I'm not even talking about all at once. Hell, we could start small, ask that they pull Turn A out of the trashbin, because there were ALREADY plans to release that before they canned it.

I understand the realism here, really, I do. I just fail to see how doing NOTHING is a preferable option. The level of defeatism in this fandom is painful right now. We're hamstringing ourselves here. Bandai left us, the ball is in our court now. Doing nothing will achieve nothing. Hell, maybe doing something might achieve nothing as well, but at least we can say that's Bandai's fault instead of having the blame rest squarely on our shoulders. If we want to be noticed, we have to indicate to Bandai that we're willing to speak with our wallets.

As it stands, cynicism will get us jack squat. Even if a coordinated outreach to Bandai, however small, might be doomed to failure, isn't it better that we at least tried?

[Mark064]

What Bandai tried to do, and generally has continued trying to do, was replicate the Japanese success of the One Year War and try to export the distinct "Japanese-ness" of the Millennium-era shows, what could be described as "shades of Evangelion" (i.e. SEED, Destiny, 00 S2, and presumably AGE, as I never bothered watching it). For whatever reason -- and this is probably worth analyzing, at some point -- the One Year War just doesn't resonate, over here, and neither does the distinct idiosyncrasies of Japanese pop culture (cf. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker).

The One Year War does resonate well over here, the problem is that the main One Year War show the First Gundam series was created in 1979 with lots of poor inconsistent animation and as it's been said in this thread it's animation what makes the series. Just like how kids these days with their video games require the highest graphics and anything else is garbage. If you look at 08th people liked 08th.

The problem is after First Gundam went down in America the factors of various things changed. The place to air Gundam was lost and by the time SEED came around it got worse time slot after worse time slot and by then the merchandising lines were already gone thanks to the various unsold merchandise.

Honestly, it mystifies me that Harmony Gold hasn't tried adding more seasons to Robotech via the last three decades of Macross (and, of course, done stuff to satisfy what Macross purists are out there). You can't just sit on a twenty-year old show and expect it to make bank forever.

There are two things to look at here.

The first is that Harmony Gold did try to add more seasons to Robotech by creating their own sequel in 1986 called Robotech II: The Sentinels. This got turned into a movie after 3 episodes were created out of 65 as it got cancelled when Matchbox pulled out due to the dollar to yen conversion at the time.

The second is that it's Macross. Macross is a huge rights mess and has been for a long time, this is why we never saw Macross Zero come out in America and even Frontier.

I understand the realism here, really, I do. I just fail to see how doing NOTHING is a preferable option. The level of defeatism in this fandom is painful right now. We're hamstringing ourselves here. Bandai left us, the ball is in our court now. Doing nothing will achieve nothing. Hell, maybe doing something might achieve nothing as well, but at least we can say that's Bandai's fault instead of having the blame rest squarely on our shoulders. If we want to be noticed, we have to indicate to Bandai that we're willing to speak with our wallets.

As it stands, cynicism will get us jack squat.

You say if we want to be noticed we have to speak with out wallets, the problem is the time for this is long past. There's been 13 years to speak with our wallets to support Gundam in America. The end result of that is you didn't speak loud enough, you didn't pay enough for continued support. You want to speak with your wallets now? You want to show this to Bandai? Go buy Unicorn, go get your friends to buy Unicorn, get everyone you know to buy Unicorn, meet more people everywhere and convince them to buy Unicorn. Birthday, wedding, holiday, graduation, divorce, any occasion give away Unicorn. That is how you speak with your wallet, anything else is shallow promises that mean nothing.

[Ceiling_Squid]

You say if we want to be noticed we have to speak with out wallets, the problem is the time for this is long past. There's been 13 years to speak with our wallets to support Gundam in America. The end result of that is you didn't speak loud enough, you didn't pay enough for continued support. You want to speak with your wallets now? You want to show this to Bandai? Go buy Unicorn, go get your friends to buy Unicorn, get everyone you know to buy Unicorn, meet more people everywhere and convince them to buy Unicorn. Birthday, wedding, holiday, graduation, divorce, any occasion give away Unicorn. That is how you speak with your wallet, anything else is shallow promises that mean nothing.

Right then.

I strongly advocate paying for media you believe to be worthwhile. That's a given.

But the "constructive" cynicism? Consider me officially rubbed the wrong way.

In the interests of not getting into a fight, I suppose I'll just have to give up on these stupid notions, then. I am, if nothing, consistently disappointed by the fact that I have to pirate just to keep up with a franchise that I love. That puts me in a small minority of anime fans who pay for stuff on principle, I realize.

[angelwingzero]

Hey guys, I hear a lot of arguing over popularity of shows and bad marketing, but sit back for a second and think about it; there is nothing based in reality that we can do, as a group of people on computers, to "bring Gundam back" or get olders shows released here. I'm fairly certain in saying that most of, if not the entirety of, the American mecha fan that is willing to actually pay for these shows (as well as other old shows like Xabungle or SPT Layzner) reside here, in this forum. I'll be generous and say that that equates to a couple hundred buyers. With Bandai's well established "you license it all or not at all" policy, what sensible company would go after us?

I won't start repeating the business rhetoric that's always being thrown around in discussions like these and instead offer a solution. No there is no magic bullet that will get Gundam back over here, no new or old series, no technological innovation, no online petitions or talking to executives. My solution is simply wait because the root of all of these issues isn't truly monetary, but cultural. Big companies in Japan are run by old Japanese men, and as such these Japanese executives are culturally programmed to preserve pride and save face over everything, including making a profit. I don't know for sure, but I can infer from some of the business decisions Sunrise and Bandai has made that this is the case. This mindset means that they'll keep doing what's worked for them in the past and keep doing it even if it doesn't work now, look at Nintendo (using nostalgia well) and Sony (expanding into so many markets that the PS3 is the only thing that was truly profitable for them last year). So again I reiterate to wait, pretty soon these old Japanese execs are going to retire or die, and younger minds with a global outlook who are more accepting of America and change will take control. Only then will a small but fervent group such as ourselves will ever be at least heard when we try to talk to them.

I don't like long posts but there was no soundbite way to articulate my point and try to bring a possibly new perspective to this argument we all regularly have. What do you guys think?

[Chris]

I understand the realism here, really, I do. I just fail to see how doing NOTHING is a preferable option. The level of defeatism in this fandom is painful right now. We're hamstringing ourselves here. Bandai left us, the ball is in our court now. Doing nothing will achieve nothing. Hell, maybe doing something might achieve nothing as well, but at least we can say that's Bandai's fault instead of having the blame rest squarely on our shoulders. If we want to be noticed, we have to indicate to Bandai that we're willing to speak with our wallets.

As it stands, cynicism will get us jack squat. Even if a coordinated outreach to Bandai, however small, might be doomed to failure, isn't it better that we at least tried?

Recognizing reality for what it is is hardly defeatism. It's known that Bandai regularly overruled the advice and opinions of BEI employees, so if they won't even listen to people who work for them, why are they going to listen to random people on the Internet? And what counts as coordinated outreach? Is it a bunch of people uselessly tweeting over and over on Saturday to bring Gundam back on TV? If it is, that certainly has't accomplished anything. Who, specifically, do you reach out to to get their attention (and who has the ability to make things happen)?

This isn't the kind of cause where expressing your opinion will achieve anything. People can comment all they want about something, but companies care what you buy, not what you say. The opportunity to buy Gundam products in large numbers has come and gone. All we've got left now is The Origin manga and Unicorn, and neither of those is setting the world on fire. What I think people fail to understand is that Gundam's popularity in America was a brief and fleeting thing. People need to stop trying to force the square block into the circular peg. It's not ever going to be as popular as it was, and Bandai is never going to pay as much attention to us again short of a full scale executive sweep with new people coming into power (assuming they have any new ideas).

In other words, people just need to get over it.

[LoveTurnA]

I have to agree with Chris.

We're never going to see a release of any of these series or probably even AGE either and I gotta say I don't care. However nice it would be to own official releases of Turn A, X, Victory and ZZ I don't need them. There on my shelf with all my other Gundam DVDs sit all five series that I acquired and made DVDs of myself. I know that sounds bad but quite frankly I don't care. I'd love to put my money in Bandai's pocket and have every Gundam series on DVD or Blu Ray but I can't and that is Bandai's fault not mine so I don't feel bad.

[LightningCount]

THIS JUST IN. SUNRISE'S NEW DECISION: Overseas Streaming Network Partnership

500 shows from various anime companies. This isn't the DVD solution I wanted, but it's something. Wonder where this will go.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... e-overseas

[Strike Zero]

Yeah, I'm not going to be terribly shocked if their Gundam lineup turns out to consist only of stuff that has been released in the States before like Wing and SEED.

Still, if this means more free streaming of old classics, I don't have any reason to complain.

[Amion]

This is good news. so there IS hope. Has-ah!

Now we just have to wait and see where this thing goes.

[Khandri]

It's a step in the right direction, that's for sure, but I'm going to stay in "wait and see" mode. Will this include all the Gundam series, even the ones we haven't legitimately seen in the West, or will it just be the stuff that's already been released here? It's simply too vague to tell yet, so I'm not going to run out into the snow and start dancing in the street just yet.

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

Yeah, they've tried this before and it only included stuff that we already had.