Pokemon, Sailor Moon, DBZ: Which brought the anime wave?

[Hurricane V1]

Just something me and my friends were discussing. Six years ago, there wasn't too many Japanese animated shows airing in America, you could count them on one hand. Now it seems every kid's programming block, excluding Nickelodeon, is 50% anime.

Which show did you think was most responsible for bringing the wave? The only three major animes airing around '98 I remember was Pokemon, Sailor Moon and DBZ. I say Pokemon was the number one influence since it's it popularity was obvious while DBZ was probably the second biggest influence. Everyone always argues with me there, probably because they don't want to give Pokemon any kind of praise for being what is, I mean I won't deny that better animes have been dubbed since then but I try to give credit where it's due.

What show got you into anime? Which do you think was responsible for making American(other countries too) broadcasters invest their money in importing Japanese animation?

[Sketch]

I suppose the 90's surge was due to Pokemon because before that there were just fans of DBZ and Sailor Moon who looked up websites and read spoilers to here the rest of the story... little did they realize how long it would take the US to air all of DBZ and most of Sailor Moon.

You do forget one show though... Gundam Wing really helped usher in the age of anime, but mainly for older viewers because we didn't see anything Gundam "clones" popping up but there were at least 2 rivals for Pokemon at any given time.

Of course anime was brought over here much earlier than that. Voltron, Astroboy, Speed Racer, Gigantor, Robotech, and etc. helped to, but probably nothing near what Pokemon did.

[Karl Olson]

Pokemon bought children into anime fandom.

Sailor Moon and DBZ (in their Toonami rebirths) bought older children and young teens into anime fandom.

Gundam Wing and Tenchi Muyo brought older teens and some adults into anime fandom.

Cowboy Bebop grabbed most anyone else who had the possibility of getting into anime.

FLCL might have won over some hold outs too since it's so radically different to most other anime (Dead Leaves is clearly in the same vein.)

Basically, anime fandom rippled it's way up from the kids to the adults as more and more diverse shows turned up. Since Pokemon, Sailor Moon and DBZ effectively all broke out at the same time, so I'd say they as a group were the edge of the modern anime wave. However, without the follow on shows, it wouldn't have been any different the airings of anime from the 1950s to the mid 1990's. Without shows that make it more than just a kids pop culture element, it's not permanent or lasting. Now it'll last as long as there is new, good shows being made for all demographics.

[Dudley]

Pokemon made people more aware of anime.
Not to mention starting a new (and still untitled) sub-genre, which includes cartoons like Monster Rancher, Medabots, uhm...Yu-Gi-Oh, I'm trying not to say Digimon...

[RAINMAN]

DBZ WHY?

Althougth DBZ air on normal TV it still got good rateing whihc made CN buy it for their toomni block, whhich in the rateing and popularty and put anime on the map. Sure there were voltron,robotech etc..that came before DBZ. But nobody didn`t know those were anime. DBZ change all that.

SM was dub before DBZ but nobody care until it shows on CN. The show also played on another cable channel before CN bought it. But nobody still didn`t care. Girls watch it cause of the silly girl power hype started up by the spice girls. Guys watch it cause of the fanservice. It was not until it was discover SM was a anime like DBZ that more people started watching it.

Pokemon came out 2 years later. It was just riding the big anime wave Z started. Soon older people lost inrest in it and only kids still watch it. Pokemon was a one hit wonder. The same whit gundam wing.

[StrangerAtaru]

You know, if you think about it there were several waves that could have started more anime awareness in this country. In the early 1960's, it was "Astro Boy" and "Gigantor" that started making a couple people aware. "Speed Racer" brought the whole "violence in animation" debate up front in the late 1960's. "Star Blazers" and "Battle of the Planets" were the big shows in the 1970's...and "Robotech" and "Voltron" did similar in the 1980's...but they weren't the huge breakout show. Heck, even while anime was making cinematic waves in the late 1980s with "Akira", "Robot Carnival" and "Vampire Hunter D", TV was still considered somewhat of an untapped frontier.

That's where "Sailor Moon", "DBZ" and "Pokemon" came in. While each show was sort of reaching out to a different audience, they were the trio that finally caused the great anime breakthrough. However, SM was one of the weirdest of the trio even if it was the first of the "big three". I remember an article that part of the reason the show was even considered to be brought over in the first place was due to the increasing effect of "empowered" women on kids TV, especially, believe it or not, on Power Rangers. For some reason, some advertisers thought they could reach female audiences by showing "girls who kick butt"..and since Japan already had a show available....well OK, maybe there were other girl-power shows that year, but this show had a bit impact on Canada's anime following...not to mention those who could follow it in syndication in the States.

"Dragon Ball Z" was always thought to be the perfect "action show" by certain people, but it took a while to catch on too. Like SM, DBZ was first aired in syndication on the Saban weekend block....OK, it was Funi who had the rights to the show officially, but they were working with Saban to bring it out. And also like the Senshi, they were a bit hard to follow for those who had to find out when and where in syndication they were going to be on the schedule. While it did eventually make a huge impact after starting on CN, it was only followed by first by anime fans and those who liked what they saw and were able to keep up.

If any of those though were to have the biggest impact, it would probably be "Pokemon". But it too had a cult following as well at first: it started out on syndication and was watched by anime fans and those who played, and liked, the original video game. But when the game sales took off and Kids WB started airing it as part of their own lineup, the show finally broke anime into the mainstream. Sure it eventually lead to more "product" anime being brought over at first, but I think that without Pokemon's success, DBZ probably may or may not have grown beyond its cult on CN...and without DBZ, we wouldn't have the Gundam shows and all the other anime we now take for granted on both cable and the networks! But then again, Pokemon probably shouldn't take all the credit with all the work paved out for its success....

[Sailor Chibi Otaku]

The first season of Sailor Moon was dubbed in 1995. The second season was dubbed in 1997, the same year the fifth and final season was being aired in Japan.

Remember: before Dragon Ball Z, there was the Dragon Ball series that began airing in the same year Akira began his series, 1984.

I've been watching anime before the '90s. Where I live, I had a BIG gap of seeing no anime on TV anymore. Now? Anime is all over the place and I hope it'll never ever leave on the stations that I get them on.

[PowerZord]

Anime on the 90?

I could say Pokémon brought them all

[Mog]

Pokemon by far. Not only did the anime attract fans, but the games garnered such a huge fanbase it wasn't funny. DBZ was the first anime that most americans would actually admit to watching, so that has due merit.

[Ajax]

Anime on the 90?

I could say Pokémon brought them all

Not only is that hard to believe but its also an insult to my ignorance . Like Karl Olson said Pokemon bought the children. But still if you think about it kids like pokemon because nothings better then a TV show and card game that have cute monsters fighting. I don't think kids cared were it came from I don't even believe they knew it was from japan. And I don't think kids went out of there way to watch more anime because of pokemon . If anything kids wanted more shows like it which would explain beyblade and digimon. so what I am trying to say is that I don't think pokemon brought the anime wave. Pokemon brought some kind of craze in america, but not an anime one.

If anything DBZ and SM brought the anime wave and besides that, they were shown before pokemon hit our shores. I mean DBZ was popular were ever it went, regardless of age group, and even SM brought in a huge fanbase of teens. I mean pokemon was a game before it was even a anime, some people like to call pokemon a 30 minute card commerical. And if you ask me pokemon success grew from it games more than from the anime.

[purplehairedwonder]

Well, when I think back on the time when I was like 10 or 11... the big thing around my area was Pokemon. It was the new fad after Crazy Bones (which I still have), though I never go into it. I remember Pokemon being big. But I also didn't have cable then, so I didn't know about DBZ or SM. I had friends who loved them both and talked about them, but I think the biggest thing was Pokemon around that time. It's what I remember.

[Animelee]

In 1995, when I was 9-years-old, all my Chinese friends were into DBZ and Sailor Moon, and I had no idea what they were talking about, but I did take note at how cool the characters looked.

Then when I saw Sailor Moon later that year, and DBZ two years later, I remembered that they were the same characters and started to watch the shows whenever I could.

Then, in October 1998, I saw Pokemon -- a gift from the Almighty God (I'm not kidding). I was 12, and I was hooked since.

So, anyways, I think it was a joint effort between DBZ, Sailor Moon, and Pokemon. But, uh, I'd have to say that Pokemon just started some super-anime-explosion that helped pave the way for more anime on TV. Y'know, after everyone saw how much money Pokemon was bringing in, they all tried to get in on it, or something like it -- other anime. Monster Rancher, Digimon, Mon Colle Knights, Medabots, etc. They all tried, but, Pokemon is often imitated, never duplicated. Since then, anime has become some kind of "cool and X-treme" thing that helps get ratings from the tween demographic, and well, anime is now part of pop culture.

Anyways, that's my opinion on things.

[Umino]

SM was dub before DBZ but nobody care until it shows on CN.

Last time I checked, DBZ was the same way....

[Sketch]

Gundam Wing gave people their first taste of true to form anime and their first taste of uncut anime on television.

It is true that few appreciated DBZ and SM before they aired on Cartoon Network. In fact, few people appreciated anime in general before CN started showing more and more of it.

Before anime because a real thing... there were just a few aquisitions here and there like Samurai Pizza Cats, Dragonball (Saban's original dub), Voltron, Robotech, Star Blazers, Speed Racer, Astoboy, Gigantor, etc.

[BabySealClubber]

For the explosion that occured in the 90s, I'd have to go with Sailor Moon over Pokemon too. I remember seeing episodes of it before either Dragonball or Ash and company were picked up.

But for me it was Battle of the Planets in the late 70s that had the greatest influence. At that time, Speed Racer and Astroboy were a long thing of the past, while the "G-Force" crew were something entirely new and unlike any of the American saturday morning shows or the blocks of classic shorts that ran in syndication. Later, in the early 80's, Robotech did something that no other toon was doing on tv, it killed off a major character. Additionally, the show was episodic, unlike it's American counterparts.

Eventually, the current wave will probably die out as the Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh fans grow up and move on to other things, leaving only those passionate enough about anime to buy DVDs to substain the market. Ten years later, something else will catch on and the cycle will begin again.

[Gary L Thompson]

That's where "Sailor Moon", "DBZ" and "Pokemon" came in. While each show was sort of reaching out to a different audience, they were the trio that finally caused the great anime breakthrough. However, SM was one of the weirdest of the trio even if it was the first of the "big three". I remember an article that part of the reason the show was even considered to be brought over in the first place was due to the increasing effect of "empowered" women on kids TV, especially, believe it or not, on Power Rangers. For some reason, some advertisers thought they could reach female audiences by showing "girls who kick butt"..and since Japan already had a show available....well OK, maybe there were other girl-power shows that year, but this show had a bit impact on Canada's anime following...not to mention those who could follow it in syndication in the States.

I think those advertisers made a serious mistake. Oh, there's no doubt that "girl power" was and will always remain a large part of Sailor Moon's appeal. But I think they overlooked her real novelty, which I think could have made the show a massive hit even in U.S. syndication if they had pushed it. Before SM, nobody on either side of the Pacific had ever thought of using a bubblebrain as the main character in a serious superhero story. I mean, it was equivalent of shoving Smiley Burnett into the Gene Autry role, Woozy Winks into the Plastic Man role, etc. The Lucille Ball donning George Reeve's costume for her son's birthday party suddenly taking up the role for real. More than anything else, it's this comedic aspect that broke the show into demographics far beyond it's original target audience of little girls, and not playing it up in the promotions was a serious mistake. Yes, in spite of this, Sailor Moon was still a big hit in Canada--but then Canada gave it a good time slot on a network, and serious merchandizing, neither of which the show ever got in the U.S. until Toonami. It's just I think with the right commercials promoting the show and more merchandizing, Sailor Moon would have overcome the handicap of syndication. After all, Pokemon did become a big hit in syndication (the last animated show ever to do so, WB snapping it up pretty much marked an end of an era that had begun with He-Man).

[Pepperidge]

Ahh Gary. You haven't been inputting as much of your valuable insight lately as I'd like. ^_-

Anyway, as has been pointed out, Sailor Moon was a bigger hit in Canada than it ever was, has been, or ever will be in the United States. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that Sailor Moon was to Canada what DBZ was to the United States. A vast majority of anime fans who had taken up the habit in the nineties were spawned from YTV's airing of Sailor Moon, and DBZ didn't really pick up until a good year after it became a breakthrough hit in the States. That was six years later. In fact, the success the series found up here was just a mere aftershock of the success it was seeing in the US, whereas in the case of Sailor Moon, the Canadian fanbase that formed was self-contained and developing entity.

In the States, it was DBZ that became hugely marketable and eventually led to Cartoon Network acquiring new anime leading to the growth and expansion of many distributors and an extraordinary expansion in their selection of titles. Of course, unlike with DBZ, the success of Sailor Moon never led to the airing of new anime in Canada, and the market never grew. To this day anime on Canadian television is in a dire rut with no stations willing to take another big chance with an anime series that isn't called "Yu-Gi-Oh!".

Pokemon was a little different from both. The franchise was a phenomenon in an entirely different way. The TV series gave anime a huge boost in exposure, merely adding to what was being established by DBZ and SM across North America.

[RAINMAN]

[QUOTE=Hyper Luigi]Gundam Wing gave people their first taste of true to form anime and their first taste of uncut anime on television.



Ronin Warriors air on normal TV untouch before GW.

[Zero Kagayaki]

Sailor Moon

[Gary L Thompson]

Anyway, as has been pointed out, Sailor Moon was a bigger hit in Canada than it ever was, has been, or ever will be in the United States. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that Sailor Moon was to Canada what DBZ was to the United States. A vast majority of anime fans who had taken up the habit in the nineties were spawned from YTV's airing of Sailor Moon, and DBZ didn't really pick up until a good year after it became a breakthrough hit in the States. That was six years later. In fact, the success the series found up here was just a mere aftershock of the success it was seeing in the US, whereas in the case of Sailor Moon, the Canadian fanbase that formed was self-contained and developing entity.

In the States, it was DBZ that became hugely marketable and eventually led to Cartoon Network acquiring new anime leading to the growth and expansion of many distributors and an extraordinary expansion in their selection of titles. Of course, unlike with DBZ, the success of Sailor Moon never led to the airing of new anime in Canada, and the market never grew. To this day anime on Canadian television is in a dire rut with no stations willing to take another big chance with an anime series that isn't called "Yu-Gi-Oh!".

And to think just a few years ago, shows like "Candy", "Mysterious Cities of Gold", the 1980s "Astro Boy", "Catseye", "Little Prince", "Sherlock Hound", Monkey Punch's "Three Musketeers", "Time Bokan", "Alice in Wonderland", Hayao Miyazaki's and Isao Takahata's "Anne of Green Gables", "The Jungle Book", and "Sailor Moon" ruled the Canadian airwaves. Not to mention that Canada introduced me to "Astroboy", "Eight Man", "Marine Boy", "Gigantor", "the Thunderbirds" (not anime, but I can well understand why the Japanese revere it to this day), and a whole lot of other great toons back in the 1960s. They had a greater anime tradition than the U.S., and it's a crying shame they've turned their backs on it and become content to become virtually a cable-only U.S. satellite in anime.

(P.S.--well, I do have to find time for mundane things like working, sleeping, and actually watching these shows. Feel free to look up my view profile and back posts anytime, I'm always happy to engage in dialogue.)