American animation in Japan

juken16 said:
I have been wondering how does american animation do in japan and i dont mean shows like spongebob or power puff girls i mean action adventure shows like young justice, Batman TAS, Johnny Quest you know shows like that do Japanese fans take to them

Armiga21 said:
Well, as Anime_Name said, those companies tend to shoehorn in and force their shows in other countries because of how rich they are. It's not like anime here where companies have to license individual shows, Nickelodeon/CN/Disney buy air time in other countries and handle all that themselves in an attempt at globalization, which usually fails, but I guess they still make enough money back to keep doing it (except Nickelodeon, which got kicked out of Japan when Nick Japan shut down)

Anyway, the only western show Japan really knows of is Thomas the Tank Engine, but it's British not American so I guess it doesn't count. Also it's not really a cartoon, it's live-action stop motion.



Oh. Well, no, they don't like those shows. The only western animation that even blips on the radar is really one or two random preschool shows like Thomas. Mainly since they air on NHK, which is the Japanese equivalent of PBS. And to be honest, that's mostly because those shows help kids learn English (and some older teens as well.. it has very basic dialog which makes it a good learning tool to help them learn English and basic sentence structure)

But as far a like, the latest superhero or American action cartoon, not really. Not when they have shows like One Piece, Naruto, and etcetera at their fingertips. There's not much reason to watch anything else from other countries. Anime is a lot more popular in the US than US shows are there, especially with the online community. I believe since anime offers things western animation does not, while western animation doesn't really offer anything you can't find in anime.

juken16 said:



i thought that but then why do japanese like american superhero films live action i mean didnt the avengers do really well over there

juken16 said:
i thought that but then why do japanese like american superhero films live action i mean didnt the avengers do really well over there

Armiga21 said:


Did it? All my sources don't list Avenger's turnout in Japan, so either it hasn't premiered there yet or hasn't been collected yet.

Though you're talking about a live-action movie, not a television cartoon. The movie market is completely different than the television one. Movies aren't as big in Japan as they are in America (or really anywhere outside America, since Hollywood has a monopoly on movies) Most movies in Japan don't make more than 10 million dollars USD at the box office.

Though if you want a list of how well recent superhero movies performed in Japan. In 2011 Thor made almost 6 million, Captain America made about 3 million and Green Lantern only made half a million.

In fact, the top movie of 2012 so far in Japan is the annual Doraemon movie, which made 42 Million USD. That's be considered a flop by Hollywood standards, but pretty dang good for Japan's standards.

traed said:
Powerpuff girls must have aired there one time or another because they made their own anime adaptation Powerpuff Girls Z

I wonder if in japan there are american animation fans that boast how superior it is and how shitty japanese animation is like people here do against western and for japanese LOL

Enjolras1830 said:
Japan does not need western super hero animation

cuase we have longer tradition of live action super Hero Shows

Sentai been running since 75
Ultra since 50's
Kamen Rider since 72
Metal Hero 82-98
Non franchise Toku to or 3 run a year

CaptLuffy said:
I thought they loved HollyWood movies

juken16 said:
so let me get this, i have read that recent super sentai movies make it big but by american standards they would be flops, but anime movies make more then live action is that right

Since you live in japan i want to ask how did marvel anime do in Japan because it was all over the place here in America mostly alot of mediocre or bad reviews

juken16 said:
i thought that but then why do japanese like american superhero films live action i mean didnt the avengers do really well over there

MerronSoda said:

The Avengers isn't even in theaters in Japan yet (I really screamed when I realized this) :/ Its Japanese release date is August 17...

Fui said:

I'm pretty sure Pixar stuff (3D animation) does pretty well overseas.

verdstein said:
So, American animation can do very well in Japan, better in fact than Japanese animation has done in the USA.

verdstein said:


So, American animation can do very well in Japan, better in fact than Japanese animation has done in the USA, but as others have pointed out it depends on the particular product.

Armiga21 said:


It depends. It's just that 40 million is small compared to American theaters where the bigger hits tend to be over 200 million.



They were very poorly received. I don't think they even had a video release in Japan, but I didn't look very much into it. If it did, it was pretty small.

Anime_Name said:
I could go on but the point is to not just look at the top 1% when trying to making a generalization about an entire market.

Armiga21 said:


It's more like a small % of a market that is also a small % of the market; movies pale in comparison to manga and television in Japan. The problem is movies are the only chance American animation has to be noticed at all by Japan, and American cartoon fans know this which is why they cling to movie sales so much and use those every chance they get and completely ignore television and manga sales despite being a bigger market (It says a lot when sales from 1 volume of a manga can out do most movies's box office performances in Japan) It's like saying French animation dominates Americans airwaves because Totally Spies got the best ratings at 12:30 PM on Saturdays when it aired. It's too specific and narrow of a view to be a worthwhile measurement.

verdstein said:


Japanese viewers shell out big $$$ for Pixar and for other American animated films. It's not fair to compare box office receipts on a dollar-to-dollar basis as the population of Japan is less than 1/2 of the USA, but consider this:

2011 Toy Story 3 - Japanese box office ~ $108million - $0.85 per person (not too far from US gross of $1.33 per person)
2011 Arrietty - Japanese box office ~ $92.5million - $0.73 per person

More box office receipts for Toy Story 3 than Arrietty IN JAPAN??? Well, maybe Anime makes huge $$$ in the USA because we are film and anime fanatics? No.

Top box office for Japanese animated film in USA:
1. Pokemon: The First Movie - USA box office - $85,744,662 - $0.28 per person
It drops off fast after that.

So, American animation can do very well in Japan, better in fact than Japanese animation has done in the USA, but as others have pointed out it depends on the particular product.

Armiga21 said:


It's more like a small % of a market that is also a small % of the market; movies pale in comparison to manga and television in Japan. The problem is movies are the only chance American animation has to be noticed at all by Japan, and American cartoon fans know this which is why they cling to movie sales so much and use those every chance they get and completely ignore television and manga sales despite being a bigger market (It says a lot when sales from 1 volume of a manga can out do most movies's box office performances in Japan) It's like saying French animation dominates Americans airwaves because Totally Spies got the best ratings at 12:30 PM on Saturdays when it aired. It's too specific and narrow of a view to be a worthwhile measurement.

juken16 said:


so what your saying is unlike here in America where movie are always a big to do be it live action or animated in Japan they are small thing. So Avengers EMH might not be seen but the Avengers movie will be out

I do not get that considering the amount of movies japanese studios produce with in a year in its prime dragonball made 2 movies a year

i also wanted to add this the main reason for why i started this thread this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3JU4vUcRmw&list=PLF0129C205C0D2836&index=170&feature=plpp_video

KeiriChann said:
hey ^^ i'm kinda new here, is this anything like a chatroom? and is someone here from belgium, limburg?

juken16 said:
so what your saying is unlike here in America where movie are always a big to do be it live action or animated in Japan they are small thing. So Avengers EMH might not be seen but the Avengers movie will be out

I do not get that considering the amount of movies japanese studios produce with in a year in its prime dragonball made 2 movies a year

i also wanted to add this the main reason for why i started this thread this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3JU4vUcRmw&list=PLF0129C205C0D2836&index=170&feature=plpp_video

verdstein said:


Armiga21 might have been referring specifically to animated films, which are about 10-20% of the total anime market.
http://www.jetro.org/trends/market_info_anime.pdf
The total box office receipts in Japan (live action + anime) are substantial, and are about the same as the total anime market
http://www.eiren.org/statistics_e/index.html
American action adventure films can do very well in Japan. E.g. Spider Man 3 made 7.25 billion yen @ box office in Japan in 2007 (about $90million), which maybe explains the opening scene of the video you linked. Also, as Enjolras1830 pointed out, Spiderman has some history in Japan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_%28Toei_TV_series%29

It's a good point that if animated movies were irrelevant in Japan, Japanese animation studios would not be making them. Animated films are making ~30 billion yen per year in Japan, so nothing to sneeze at. The animated TV market is larger, but there is a glut of competition.

juken16 said:
so what your saying is unlike here in America where movie are always a big to do be it live action or animated in Japan they are small thing. So Avengers EMH might not be seen but the Avengers movie will be out

i also wanted to add this the main reason for why i started this thread this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3JU4vUcRmw&list=PLF0129C205C0D2836&index=170&feature=plpp_video

I do not get that considering the amount of movies japanese studios produce with in a year in its prime dragonball made 2 movies a year

Enjolras1830 said:

i hope you could brakw down were the impoted films came
from those impoted movies are not Just Us Movies

verdstein said:


Good point. It appears that about 90% of top-grossing imported films in Japan are from the US.
http://boxofficemojo.com/intl/japan/yearly/
http://www.eiren.org/boxoffice_e/

The reason I've been citing film stats is because they are easy to find and are generally well organized. In terms of DVD sales, it seems the ratios are comparable. E.g. the fraction of the foreign market in Japanese animated DVDs is ~10%
http://www.jva-net.or.jp/en/genre_2001-2011_en.pdf
For film, foreign animations box office receipts are also around 10% of the total for animations, though higher in years with foreign blockbusters like Toy Story 3.

juken16 said:
this is the first time i asked these questions and got really good answers so thank you everyone

i know from what i have found american comics are not big in japan and nor its seem american comic series well except batman from the 60's but i think thats because it was kind of toku

but i have one more question to ask how do american video games based on comics fair i mean exactly how big is capcom vs marvel series

Enjolras1830 said:


Us made games outside of Wizardry Ultima, very few USA made games make any Impact in Japan

MvC 2 is still a big money maker in Japan Arcade Wise so the Home version sell Ok