Grant White wrote: > I'd agree. The actual number of US based fans who domestically support > Gundam is a small number, regardless of what delussions some fans have on > their size. Add in that at least a small number of those sales is also
Right on. Gundam is actually making more (global) profit now than ever before, all these talks about Japanese aversion to money and supply/demand are just silly. Cutting back on Gundam Official, I am sure, contributes to the profit margin. We also know that Bandai USA is making a ton of money, with Power Rangers, Teen Titans and Digimon what nots. So are we suppose to believe that Bandai USA has a unique bias or ineptitude against Gundam alone? Somehow US fans think that they are unfairly screwed by Bandai or Bandai USA. We know at least in HK and Philipines, Bandai is roaring along with big promotion budgets. I would guess that Taiwan, Korea and China are not neglected either. So globally Gundam is doing great for Bandai, and regionally in USA, Bandai is doing great without Gundam; if someone is at fault for anything it's for wasting money promoting first Gundam on a post-XBOX US market. As for complaining about timeslots. Check the new schedule on the channel I most love to hate. G4 has dropped it's 2 hours a week (including a repeat) of Anime Unleashed, we now get 4 hours of Star Trek (TOS & TNG) on weekdays, 9 more hours on Saturday and 2 more on Sunday. That's a freaking 21% of air time! (not counting paid programming) And those 21% isn't sitting in the graveyard or soap-opera hours, it's 2 hours of prime time (8-10pm) 7 days a week! Well what does it have to do with Gundam? It tells us that 19-40 years old domestic big hits are more profitable than 1-27 years old imports. No one says "you can't show Star Trek on TV, it's 40 years old and the visual effects are crappy!" On Cartoon Network, NGE looks like it will run to its bitter end (literally) without interruption (unlike first Gundam). Other animes are sustaining their decent timeslots. New animes are brought on at a good pace. Eureka 7, especially, is a Bandai produced 50 episode TV series about giant robots with a good line of model kits. Sounds familiar? Does whoever picked Eureka 7 instead of Seed Destiny know something we don't? > I personally think a big problem is all this jumping between the timelines. > If MSG had worked we'd probably have seen a steady chain of UC releases but > all this AC to UC to FC to SD to CE just makes things confusing for people. Well in Star Trek, you have TOS and TNG which are kind of connected, but then you get DS9, Voyager and Enterprise which are effectively parallel. Likewise Transformer, Beast War and Reboot all manage multiple timelines and/or plotlines. I think Final Fantasy can also be put in this category. It's tempting to find things to blame: either it's Bandai's fault, CN's fault, age, visual quality or confusing timelines, somehow they are supposed to affect only our beloved Gundam. But in fact, Bandai is making tons of money, CN is doing great with shows both original and import, old and new, ST:TOS busted the age & visual argument, and lots of other products thrive on confusing multiple timelines. -- Dr. Core -------------------------------------------------- The Gundam Mailing List MK-II [email protected] Archives: http://www.gundam.com/gml Help: Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with this in the BODY: help list
