Do non-shonen animes have a shot?

[RogueMartian]

It seems pretty clear that shonen animes have made it in the U.S.

We get plenty of fighting and mechs thanks to toonami and adult swim.

But does anyone think the more offbeat or even shoujo animes will ever have a shot to getting on television. Shows like Jungle, FLCL or Abenobashi Mahao Shotengai. I knew when i was watching those that that would be the only way i'd ever see them. I'm almost positive that those will never be on television. Recently I also saw Fruits Basket and Kare Kano, but again, I am almost positive I'll never see anything like that on tv.

Does anyone think the offbeat of shoujo animes will ever have a shot? Or are fighting and explosions the only thing that will ever get aired?

[Cyporiean]

Sailor Moon (Mahou Shoujo) had a pretty big following back in the day..


and FLCL is Shouen Comedy..

[Ludicris]

Anime-wise, it seems like the action animes will hit big first(already have) and stay popular for quite awhile until animes are so usual in America that one cartoon block decides to stand out and show ones like youre speaking of.

-Ludicris

[ohmrbill]

Hard to say. Network execs all seem to be under the impression that girls don't watch TV, so that hardest part may be for a shoujo to even be given a chance.

[Senbei Norimaki]

The execs. in Hollywood think Americans (especially males) only like things with nonstop action. Look at all the crappy action flicks that are always released. This is why I watch foreign films. They don't rely on catch phases and special effects to keep their audience entertained. Things don't look good for shoujo when Cardcaptor Sakura get turned into a boy's cartoon. So I guess the girls are stuck watching stuff like Lizzy McGuire, Kimpossible and As Told by Ginger. :p I'm a guy and I love shoujo anime but I know the odds of me seeing it on TV are slim.

[LEGACY]

I don`t like shoujo animes. You seen one you seen them all.

[Zero Angel]

i feel that there is going to be a time in the very near future where networks are going to be trying to pick up shows that are not like the ones we already have on the stations. shows like Gundam and Dragon Ball Z are all well and good for the blocks they are on but i am pretty sure with the success of shows like Lupin the III and Reign we are going to see our fair share of slightly off key shows. i personally think that shows like GTO and Kare Kano would be huge successes on tv.

[Zechs]

I don`t like shoujo animes. You seen one you seen them all.
You haven seen enought shoujo. I could say the same of shounen but I won't go there. IMO Shoujo might make it but you would have to find the right one and air it at the right time. Guys rule the air waves now with shounen being the most popular so untill a channel that's mainstream shows shoujo us girls are going have to stick to our mangas and DVD's. As fro other non-shounen anime I think they could work but once again you'd have to find the right one at the right time.

[Rabi~en~Rose]

you'd have to find the right one at the right time.

sakura wars tv/ova + CN + right now?

I can dream! http://members.aol.com/kimminakochan/chicken.gif

[shogunthethird]

I can think of a few shoujo that would make it on TV, hell I'm a guy and I like some of them, a list of the most viable candidates? let's see here, granted a lot of these have nudity but if they continue to loosen standards, who knows?


Love Hina
Ranma 1/2
Fruits Basket
Mahoromatic
angelic layer

granted these are the few I've seen but they've got the most likely chance, and bear in mind these aren't the horrible over-edits like Escaflowne was, athough I did enjoy it much better in Japanese

[sedorna]

I can think of a few shoujo that would make it on TV, hell I'm a guy and I like some of them, a list of the most viable candidates? let's see here, granted a lot of these have nudity but if they continue to loosen standards, who knows?


Love Hina
Ranma 1/2
Fruits Basket
Mahoromatic
angelic layer



Actually, of all these shows, only Fruits Basket is shoujo. The rest are shonen.

[Elven Moon]

As a huge shoujo fan, I can think of dozens of shows I would be tickled to see on US airwaves - but it looks like what people (the viewers) want is more action, less cute. It's unfair, but that's the way it is. Whether or not that will change I can't predict or say.

[Jaguar]

I hope--I'm a shonen and shojo fan. If there could be more shojo on the airwaves to even things out, there won't be any more complaining about "girls hate this show because of blah blah blah". Not that I'm saying channels need to cater only to guys or girls, but that we need to even things out.

And if any type of shonen or shojo anime with nudity in it aired...I'd scream in glee.

[Artemis]

Well we have Hamtaro which is a little kids show and .hack//sign which is a character drama on the air. We also have Lupin III, even though it has action in it, skews more toward comedy.

I'd say it's possible more non-shounen anime will appear in the future. Maybe when there's so much shounen out there, they won't seem special anymore so some company might decide to break the monotony and try to get something else on television. I'm sure the success of Sailor Moon could be reproduced through another shoujo. Card Captor Sakura had potential until it was bastardized like hell.

[Zechs]

Yeah CCS would have done good had they have not tried to make it into more of a guys show. IMO if you think a girls show sucks don't try and change it to where it's a guys show just leave the hell alone. Cause girls know what they want to see and it's not theri show being carted to boys. As if girls don't have enough crappy so called "girls shows" to choke on. People have to go ruin CCS and make it seem like crap just to make a buck. Some times I just wish they'd leave anime alone if they are going to do a relllllllllllllllllllllllly bad job of editing it. But hey that's why there's mangas and DVD. That way the anime fans who are being ignored by the money grubbing media have a way to get thier fix. Without wating for the retards of the mass media to wake up.

[ohmrbill]

For a bunch of people who don't think that girls watch TV, they promoted the hell out of Sailor Moon back in the day.

Really? I remember it being largely ignored by the networks and often being placed in obscure, out-of-the-way time slots.

Even on CN, WS complained that the commercials they made for it often went unaired.

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

Sailor Moon was a success on cable, but it flopped on network television and would have flopped no matter what. Even now it would flop. It IS true that girls aged 6-11 don't watch as many cartoons as boys do.

Do I think this can change. Yes. Do I expect it to? No. I've seen the rise and fall of many shows I've liked, and I know that what some people like may not be what MOST people like. Look at movies. Crappy, "safe" crowd pleasers always succeed.

[Mackenzie Rainelle]

Hmm....I dunno if it's shounen or shoujo, but I always figured some of CLAMP's stuff (CCS aside, we've already cringed at what happened to that) like Clover or X might do well, especially in a later time slot.

[Lachesis]

Sailor Moon was a success on cable, but it flopped on network television and would have flopped no matter what. Even now it would flop. It IS true that girls aged 6-11 don't watch as many cartoons as boys do.



Sailor Moon was never on network. It was a syndicated show, sold as independant programming with the likes of Beast Wars (before FOX) and Pokemon (before KidsWB). Most networks never had national children's programming, so they let the individual stations buy their own if they wanted. Sometimes this was a block, like Disney Afternoon, or just a random collection of individual cartoons.

Girls used to watch more cartoons, I'm sure. Or else My Little Pony and Jem never would have been made. I think the way it turned out was that advertisers found boys were easier to sell stuff to, and constantly pressed things to become more boy-centric. I can hardly think of any current non-Disney, non-infant-targeted cartoons that aren't obsessively focused on action, and FOX and WB are completely aimed at boys now. I think the reason girls don't watch more cartoons is that they just don't make them for girls anymore.

[Karl Olson]

Hmm....I dunno if it's shounen or shoujo, but I always figured some of CLAMP's stuff (CCS aside, we've already cringed at what happened to that) like Clover or X might do well, especially in a later time slot.

X or Clover (should Clover ever be animated, and I hope it is someday, as it's probably one of the most stunning manga I've ever scene), would probably be the best shots at getting something shoujo-eque and adult on TV IMHO, because though they are shoujo, they've got some beautiful action in them also. It'd be a good crossover that might get networks more willing to experiment. On the more kid oriented tip, CLAMP's Man of Many Faces and the other CLAMP school-centric manga would also probably be pretty good as intermediate steps. Granted, even when CLAMP is trying to do shonen-stuff (IE: Chobits, Angelic Layer and the upcoming alternate universe CCS manga), the shoujo-ness usually shines through anyway (the TV ending of Angelic Layer was incrediblely emotional in a shoujo manga-way while still providing wonderful action and the romantic entanglements in Chobits match dead on with those of a shoujo manga), and some of those CLAMP Shonen works probably stand a good chance of getting on TV (if Angelic Layer doesn't hit Toonami, ADV and/or WS are stupid, and should the AU CCS manga not get too strange and should it get animated, I'd say it'd be a pretty safe bet too).

Personally, I think offbeat animes (FLCL, NieA_7, Haibane Renmei, Arjuna, Abenobashi, Texhnolyze, Azumanga Daioh and FLCL will be the first of that set to hit TV) will probably breakthrough with next year or so, probably on AS as way of giving people interesting stories without previously seen situations (IE: Not another Mecha/Cowboy/Magical/Fight of the Week anime), and shoujo will probably breakthrough some point not too long after that, though where it breaks is the question. It could hypothetically break on network TV as part of 1980's nostalgia, given that 80's saturday mornings did actually have some cartoons targeted at girls (remember It's Punky Brewster, My Little Pony, Popples and Care Bears?), though I'd hope and probably guess that CN, Tech TV, International Channel and the Anime Network are bold enough to go after shoujo anime first, if only because those networks would treat it with respect.

As far as straight shoujo titles that stand a good chance of hitting tv, I'd that Fruits Basket would be a pretty solid bet and that Kodocha would also be solid, if it could be licenced (which apparently is way easier said than done).

[JohnCrichton]

Bah.

Non-shonen anime is for girls.. :p

[Zechs]

Sailor Moon was never on network. It was a syndicated show, sold as independant programming with the likes of Beast Wars (before FOX) and Pokemon (before KidsWB). Most networks never had national children's programming, so they let the individual stations buy their own if they wanted. Sometimes this was a block, like Disney Afternoon, or just a random collection of individual cartoons.

Girls used to watch more cartoons, I'm sure. Or else My Little Pony and Jem never would have been made. I think the way it turned out was that advertisers found boys were easier to sell stuff to, and constantly pressed things to become more boy-centric. I can hardly think of any current non-Disney, non-infant-targeted cartoons that aren't obsessively focused on action, and FOX and WB are completely aimed at boys now. I think the reason girls don't watch more cartoons is that they just don't make them for girls anymore.
Yeah the media seems to only care about girls what think if it has to do with makeup or clothes or other so calld girl things. So for thoses of us who aren't to into that are stuck and have to scrounge around for anything good that we like. The good thing is that the international channel ,Tech TV and the action channel relize that girls count as well when it comes to T.V and have shown some girl shows. It's a small start but a start none the less hopefuly if these shows do good enough other more mainstream channels will follow suit and we may see if only a few more girls shows on the air.

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

Sailor Moon was never on network. It was a syndicated show, sold as independant programming with the likes of Beast Wars (before FOX) and Pokemon (before KidsWB). Most networks never had national children's programming, so they let the individual stations buy their own if they wanted. Sometimes this was a block, like Disney Afternoon, or just a random collection of individual cartoons.



As I recall, FOX did give Sailor Moon a short spin while it was in syndication (similar to how Fox picked up Monster Rancher for a few weekends <MR was airing in syndication at the time>, then just bought the TV rights to it). One or two weekends, I don't remember, it was aired sometime early on Fox's Saturday Morning block.

The point is, it flopped on broadcast TV ("free" TV, whatever you call it). Pokemon was already a HUGE syndicated hit by the time it hit KWB. Despite Pokemon airing early in the mornings when it started out, it was creaming the competition, even one week outdrawing Good Morning America. If Pokemon bombed, then we'd all be saying that it was because it was in a crappy timeslot, etc, etc,. Sailor Moon was in the same crappy early morning syndication for many years; it never caught on like Pokemon did.

Pokemon was more successful because of its boy appeal, and exploded in popularity due to its cross-marketing (Video Game, Cards, Show).

[LEGACY]

Yeah the media seems to only care about girls what think if it has to do with makeup or clothes or other so calld girl things. So for thoses of us who aren't to into that are stuck and have to scrounge around for anything good that we like. The good thing is that the international channel ,Tech TV and the action channel relize that girls count as well when it comes to T.V and have shown some girl shows. It's a small start but a start none the less hopefuly if these shows do good enough other more mainstream channels will follow suit and we may see if only a few more girls shows on the air.

I dougth it. It will be along time before CN show any females shows on their channel. And I love it. :D

[Zechs]

I dougth it. It will be along time before CN show any females shows on their channel. And I love it. :DYou don't know that for sure besides you act like any show with a girl in the lead would kill toonami. You haven't seen enough animes with female leads then there are some that would IMO do good on toonami they are not shoujo or magical girl and they don't have fan service yet they do have enough action to hold a guys intrest. My point is that their are some show with female leads that would appel to both sexes. I wouln't mind seeing these types of shows on mainstream T.V I don't think I'm asking too much if I just want to see one show with a girl in the lead that's not a wuss.

[LEGACY]

You don't know that for sure besides you act like any show with a girl in the lead would kill toonami. You haven't seen enough animes with female leads then there are some that would IMO do good on toonami they are not shoujo or magical girl and they don't have fan service yet they do have enough action to hold a guys intrest. My point is that their are some show with female leads that would appel to both sexes. I wouln't mind seeing these types of shows on mainstream T.V I don't think I'm asking too much if I just want to see one show with a girl in the lead that's not a wuss.


That the problem. Most animes that have females lead don`t have good characteric. The only animes I saw where the female lead and the other female characters have good personlity is Bubble gum cries 2040 and silent morbius. Japan must have a dem view on females.

[Mackenzie Rainelle]

::snort:: Go see Slayers. That'll kill your little stereotype REAL fast.

[sedorna]

::snort:: Go see Slayers. That'll kill your little stereotype REAL fast.

So will The Rose of Versailles. (However, that's not available commercially in North America.)

However, just because a show has a female lead, doesn't mean it's shoujo, and vice versa. X is shoujo, yet the lead is male.