About Licensing the other Gundam animes

[Chris]

I'm not suggesting anything that rash, that would be a train wreck. Heck, even if it were given a crappy time slot, at least an honest attempt at airing a more mature anime on a more feasible medium. Hell, it would be interesting if a station decides to take the risk to even a small degree, just giving it a try.

What you're proposing would be very unlikely simply because it involves taking a risk. Most American broadcasters are very risk-averse and want to stick to established formulas of what works. In some cases a risk does pay off - back in 2001 no one ever expected that 24 would last a single season, let alone become one of the top shows on TV. But 24 and Family Guy and all those shows have something in common - they're American. There's still that built-in bias that anything animated is for kids, but there's also a bias against foreign things. Just look at live action foreign films - most of them usually get very little exposure anywhere, and the rest of them get mocked by people who say they don't want to do things like "read a movie." A Gundam show airing on a major broadcast network would just never happen because it benefits no one at all to air it. The only place I could see giving Gundam the slightest chance is Sci-Fi, now that they've finally started airing anime again.

[Kavik Ryx]

Well, in that case, the off chance that Sci-FI decides to air a Gundam series is actually good enough for me. Actually it would be most suited. Not having the channel myself, I'm not quite sure how people would react. Though if it plays stuff like old episodes of Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, and The Twilight Zone, Gundam could have a fighting chance. Heck they have Samurai X on I think.

[Chris]

Since they've aired mecha titles like Macross Plus and Ghost in the Shell, Gundam could have a decent chance, but there's two very big IFs involved. The first is that Sci-Fi currently airs content exclusively from Manga Entertainment. The second is that we don't know what kind of broadcast deal Bandai signed with Cartoon Network back in 1999 with Gundam. It wouldn't surprise me if Bandai signed a deal giving CN a 10-year exclusive broadcast right to Gundam shows. If we run with an assumption like that, Gundam would still be tied up until 2009, even though CN hasn't aired any Gundam since 2005. I'm sure Bandai would've liked to put Zeta somewhere after CN rejected it, but they probably couldn't. I'm sure they probably wanted to put DESTINY somewhere too in North America other than YTV, but if CN has exclusive US rights, there's nowhere it can go.

[Quiddity]

I doubt we'll see any of the older Gundam series anytime soon due to low sales, and it's not just stuff like Gundam that is suffering from low sales the whole industry is. Since you can get almost any anime for free these days who is gonna pay for them? Why buy when you can get it for free? Look at what happened to Geneon the whole anime industry is being torrented into oblivion. I even have doubts if 00 will get released and I really hope if it does that Bandai Ent. will get ahold of it instead of Bandai Visual USA since BV likes to charge $50 a volume with two episodes and no dub!

Well I usually don't go along with the "fansubs is the reason the industy's in turmoil" excuse, because the fact of the matter is that just a few years ago when the anime industry was in a much better position than it was now, you still had that fansubs cloud over the industry's head. Yes, a meaningful comparison can be made to say fansubs today vs. fansubs in 1990, but fansubs in 2007 vs. fansubs in 2003 or 2004? Its just not a valid excuse.

My reasoning behind the matter has been that anime's quality as a whole has been in decline the last few years, and as a result the sales have fallen as well. There'd be better sales here in the US if the Japanese could make higher quality products in the first place. At least that's my opinion.

Another thing to keep in mind is that people's tastes and habits change over time. People who may have been huge anime fans just a few years ago may not be any more. As they age, if the industry can't replace them then those sales will go away permanently. I was a huge anime fan from around mid 2000 - 2004 during my college days. Since 2005 my interest has significantly plummeted; I don't think I've bought a single new anime DVD in at least 2 years. While I do dislike the quality of anime the past few years, another major factor is that as I get older, its just not something I'm as into anymore. I love to occasionally go back and watch old favorites, but getting into new stuff is quite hard at this point.

And finally, don't discount the Netflix factor. 'Rentals' rather than 'Purchases' have increased tremendously in the last few years as Netflix and its clones have exploded in popularity. Why spend all that money on an expensive new anime series when you can rent it through Netflix instead, and only buy if it was something you loved? The days when I would buy an anime despite knowing nothing about it (like Serial Experiments Lain, which I bought the first disc for simply because I thought it was a cool name, boy, that turned out to be a great choice ^_^) are gone forever. Even if I bought a ton of anime like I did a few years ago I'd be almost certainly renting it through Netflix first to try it out, and if it was something that wasn't good, I certainly wouldn't buy it, which would cut down on potential sales.

Sorry if I'm rambling on or bringing things off topic. I think what I've said apply to Gundam, not just anime in general though so I don't think its a total waste

[Yak85]

Well, they did just dub various characters from Turn-a-Gundam and Gundam ZZ for the US release of that Dynasty Warriors Gundam game. I don't know if thats any indication of things to come or if Bandai did that solely for the game. Either way the voice actors weren't that great especially Loran's (they made him sound like a little girl).

[Bkings]

As much as I hate to say it.....Gundam is dead here in the US and unless Bandai does something serious its going to stay that way.

[Leroy Landers]

What Bandai needs to do is to get Gundam back on the air, on a channel that most people get like Cartoon Network or the Sci-Fi Channel, air it at a reasonable time so no 4:30am, and get Gundam toys back into stores, but that is easier said than done in todays world of constantly pandering to the lowest common denominator.

[Albireo_818]

In Australia, the only Gundam franchises licensed (that i with all my shopping prowess have been able to locate) are SEED, SEED Destiny and WIng. you guys are complaining because there isnt enough old classicsbeing released-in Australia, with our extremely low Gundam fanbase, we are crying because we cant even watch any U.C. Gundam over here. Its simply just not licensed for wholesale over here.

EDIT: PS, if anyone has managed to find a copy of any U.C. series in region 4 (PAL) format in english, please tell me!

[Nightwing03]

Actually, In Australia, SEED/D and Wing are the only ones that have been shown on TV. There are shops that sell licensed Gundam ie Shintokyo, which sells: G Gundam, CCA, Zeta, 0083 Stardust Memories, 08th MS team and the F91 movie.

[Koshernova]

In Australia, the only Gundam franchises licensed (that i with all my shopping prowess have been able to locate) are SEED, SEED Destiny and WIng. you guys are complaining because there isnt enough old classicsbeing released-in Australia, with our extremely low Gundam fanbase, we are crying because we cant even watch any U.C. Gundam over here. Its simply just not licensed for wholesale over here.

EDIT: PS, if anyone has managed to find a copy of any U.C. series in region 4 (PAL) format in english, please tell me!

Well, in Europe, at least UK/EIRE, we've had Gundam Wing and nothing else. However, there's lots of DVDs. Here's what has been released, I think you could watch them in Australia as well:

Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy
Gundam 0083: The Afterglow of Zeon
Gundam Wing Endless Waltz
MS Gundam Seed (complete)
MS Gundam Seed Destiny (complete)
Gundam Wing (complete)
Char's Counterattack
Gundam F91

That's all I know of at least...

[Albireo_818]

This is what has been eleased in Australia so far by our (virtually) solo anime distributor, madman entertainment.
Gundam Seed (complete, no spec. editions)
gundam Wing
endless Waltz (just OVA, no movie)
SeED Destiny (Incomplete, only up to ep. 44)

and.... thats it.

What DVD region format is UK/EIRE?

[Dendrobium Stamen]

What DVD region format is UK/EIRE?

We're in Region 2, alongside the rest of Europe, and Japan for some reason.

But yeah, Kosh's list is right on the money for what we've seen get native releases in the UK - nice that we're getting the DVD releases, if nothing else...

[Celestial Gundam]

Well, I still wish that Bandai would bring the rest of the classic Gundam series over to the US.

[AU_Gundam MK II]

If the situation is like that in the US, Europe, and Australia, then the situation in the Philipines is a little better. Several hobby shops exist, each selling a certain grade of Gudam merchandise. Models are even available in the toystore. Also, from what I've read in ANN, all the AUs save for Turn-A showed in GMA. Don't know about UC, though. From what I've seen, the situation for UC here isn't good save for the fact that its models keep showing up in the hobby/specialist shops.

Also, I read or heard from somewhere that the situation for anime is much better in the China/Hong Kong/Singapore/Taiwan/Korea/ area is much better but that may be attributed more to proximity to Japan rather than anything else.

[Mendou]

I still think there's a chance.....i can still dream..can i?

[Albireo_818]

Actually, In Australia, SEED/D and Wing are the only ones that have been shown on TV. There are shops that sell licensed Gundam ie Shintokyo, which sells: G Gundam, CCA, Zeta, 0083 Stardust Memories, 08th MS team and the F91 movie.

Well, is there a shintokyo in Sydney>>>>? Because if there is, i havent seen it.
Whereisit?