Forum - View topicHow Anime Helped Save Superman
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Cardcaptor Takato
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RickyTheRat
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Origins is based on the 80s show though. Much like how the the toys for the older She-Ra series's lasted much longer than Princesses of Power which got canned almost immediately, nostalgia-focused toylines seem to do better than ones aimed at newer kids series. Just like they'll keep selling G1 based Transformers until the sun explodes. I have also heard Revolution is a lot better than Revelation but I'm not sure if I can really muster the interest in watching it to find out for myself. Anyway, my experience with Superman is primarily some comics I read in the 80s and 90s and the 90s cartoon series by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini so that's mostly what I consider to be my version of Superman. I never cared for the gritty movie version and this anime-esque version isn't my cup of tea either especially after seeing what they did to some characters like Livewire who I loved in her origin cartoon. I thought the other woman was supposed to be Volcana at first but noo it's a genderswapped Heat Wave. Weird. I do have to laugh at Deathstroke being a young bishi though. Or, "Slade" I guess they're doing what the old Teen Titans cartoon did to avoid saying death. Sidenote I really miss when cartoons could show guns. Someone mentioned the "bulletproof" scene earlier and I looked it up and found it kind of funny they weren't actually bullets but lasers so the line doesn't make much sense 
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FishLion
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I think there is also a big difference in the 80's toy culture and how these things are marketed. When shows like He-Man were being originally published toys were the main focus and the children enthusiastic to mimic their favorite shows were something like fandom. Kids don't focus on toys the same way today and thus the focus of excitement for people their age is not cartoons. Western shows targeted at adults do well because they draw on established fandom. Anime does well because the characters and designs generate enough fandom to be compelling to a larger audience.
Action anime and the major shonen series have always been about pushing the envelope in terms of the fights, the powers, the stories, and the characters. The competition between those sorts of stories has always been so fierce that it inevitably creates some really interesting art and toys. If the character designs are strong enough to be a successful in such a competitive genre then it is going to automatically create more fandom and long-term interest. When you had toy companies competing to create the most eye-catching designs that children would choose over the others, the downstream effect is eye-catching cartoons that drew in viewers and created more toy buyers. That means that a reboot of an 80's cartoon targeted at children published now may produce good viewing numbers, but not nearly the profit margin of the past. In terms of selling toys, it is much easier to sell to nostalgic fans or iterate on existing franchises with original character designs already there than it is to design a new IP from the ground up and roll the dice on if people like the characters. Another factor is it is really hard to build a fandom around an original action series because the fans that seek out action animation tend to like older cartoons or anime. There really isn't a good media market in the US to publish something that appeals to children and young adults as CN is focused on children and Adult Swim is focused on adults very specifically. This series very nearly being on CN but being moved to Adult Swim is a perfect example of how shows trying to appeal to older children and young adults simultaneously do not have a perfect place to live in the west. Manga has always been a more big tent affair where the readership includes a broad age range of readers. I brought up Shonen earlier because the vibes and themes match up to 80's cartoons well, but this is true of all genres of manga. The fact that manga is enjoyed by such a broad age range means that there are all sorts of merch to be marketed. There are older fans who buy more expensive merch like figures and clothing collaborations and there are all sorts of smaller and more disposable merch for children. Building this bridge from the content to long-term profitability and fandom is possibly why we have manga series that have fans after decades still making content targeted at kids but being watched by adults. This tendency to make merchandise and engage with fans of all ages also makes it easier to stay in the fandom. When toys are your primary driver and the show ends at some point, there is nothing attracting a teenager to remain a fan of Transformers. The newer fans want something different than the older fans and many corporations base their decisions on demographics and appealing to a specific segment. Because western toy cartoon design was always specifically designed around this sort of demographic targeting, they produced many hits for their intended market but nothing with the universal appeal of something like One Piece. The IPs themselves certainly have universal appeal, but the media produced is always targeted very narrowly. That is why we have really weird takes on established IPs like Riverdale, but almost no media specifically made to appeal to fans young and old. This difference means that in the western media environment corporations are incentivized to either target more children by making shows that appeal to kids and younger kids as well like Teen Titans Go! or to make content targeted at older fans who have established they will spend money on merch tie-ins and the other types of fandom that make franchises profitable in the long run. Series like ATLA that appeal to young, old, and have enough depth to fuel fandom as people age are very rare because it is very difficult to pitch something like that in today's market. I hope that as anime rises in popularity companies get more comfortable making those sorts of big tent shows that appeal to broader demographics. Shows made for kids while not talking down to older viewers along with stories that teenagers and young adults will both flock towards. I am hoping that as anime becomes more mainstream American companies see that and take more risks on stories with broader audiences that aren't so narrowly tailored to who they think the viewer will be. |
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