Comments on: Failure of Maho Shoujo in USA

By: Kylone

Kylone — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:28:22 +0000

You emphasize the point of Toonami, but miss the issue that formed: advertisers wouldn’t jump on board for the viewers who watched the shows. Without advertisers, you don’t have a program. Period.

By: animewriter

animewriter — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:22:31 +0000

No, equating why American otaku don’t buy large amounts of Dakimakura to why U.S networks have never been able to successfully introduce magic girls anime is a mistake. I would like to remind anime viewers that when Sailor Moon ran on the afternoon Toonami block Cartoon Network never had higher ratings.

In fact, if you go over to Crunchyroll’s website you’ll find that over half of their featured anime showcase strong female characters or have female characters as the lead characters.

The magic girl genre is one of the earliest genres in anime, it started long before any of the popular otaku genre such as the harem show and it was also around long before the rise of Moe anime.

If you look at viewer ratings in Japan a show like Fresh PreCure gets the same ratings as Bleach and Naruto combined, or to put in another way, an anime like Fresh PreCure gets higher ratings than these American anime fan favorites combined; Saki, Canaan, Kanamemo, and Bakemonogatari.

I’ll say it again, the only reason that Maho Shoujo anime never gets a fair shot at American TV is because it’s guys running the networks and they only think that shows that appeal to them will be popular when they forget that over half the country is female.

By: roog

roog — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:16:06 +0000

You’re overthinking this. WAY overthinking it.

Maho Shoujo is not successful in the USA for the same reason body pillows printed with the girl from Bleach aren’t successful.

Because we’re not totally insane.

By: animewriter

animewriter — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:56:05 +0000

Yes, I agree that fans who grew up loving those shows still buy the stuff when possible, and the Japanese rights holders still make a tremendous amount of money off their properties. But, because there are no American rights holders it forces American fans to pay for expensive imports. American anime companies have never known how to, or do I ever think they’ll figure out how to properly introduce shojo or maho shojo to a television audience. Even though over 50% of this country is female, god forbid that they try to introduce programing for that market, the real reason I think that they’ll never figure it out is because most of those companies are ran by male otaku, the only females they know are the females they see in harem anime series.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:27:48 +0000

I agree that the attempt to put Sailor Moon into the American television market was a slow and brutal failure, however you have to agree that whoever holds the rights are still, after time, making money because of countless people in the world who still like the series are still getting countless dolls, advertisements, DVDs, posters and other paraphernalia. No matter how complicated the process of getting things may be, kids from the time that Sailor Moon, Fushigi Yuugi and Cardcaptor Sakura were made (like me, who grew up in the eighties and nineties) still love the culture, and the series, so we buy things that advertise it.

By: toadold

toadold — Sat, 23 May 2009 06:36:06 +0000

I doubt that the major broadcast networks will ever figure out how to market Japanese anime of any kind. They can’t wrap their minds around the concept of cartoon soap operas for kids and young adults. I’m an adult so I prefer subtitles to dubbing, because most dubbing is pretty bad. My brother follows European movies and reports that most dubbing for German movies is pretty bad. He understands German.

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By: darkprincess

darkprincess — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:35:55 +0000

I’m a girl hwo is in love with a boy name ben.

By: Lauren

Lauren — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 08:20:32 +0000

Hey, I’m from Australia, and when I was a kid I watched Sailor Moon on tv everday before I went to school. I’m 21 now, so about ten or so years ago, Sailor Moon was really popular down here in OZ! So was Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z and then Card Captor Sakura. Now you can watch Inuyasha and Naruto on telly. I loved Sailor Moon!! I was very happy to read your blog! I also studied a bit on Japanese mythology and found your blog about Shinto mythology very interesting and informative. I’m just sad that I only found your blog today! From a fellow manga and anime fan – keep it up! ^_^