4Kids Talkback: The Crossroads of Destiny - The 4Kids Discussion V10

4 Kids isn;t going to be producing their own shows anytime soon, if ever again. Their sticking soley towards anime licensing. I do agree with the people on the Anime Forum saying that 4 Kid needs to break out of card game series. Their action shows are what are performing the best according to the usual ratings. I know the One Piece fiasco probably made them a bit nervous on the subject, but 4 Kids needs to pick up a new action anime that will require little editing and can be marketed towards kids. NOW
 
Does this mean that 5D's isn't going to be completed the same way GX wasn't? That would suck royally for 5D's fans if 4kids did that again. I would just try to charge through 5D's so its fans (and it has some, it doesn't do that bad) can enjoy the end of the series. 4kids isn't that far behind Japan anyway, might as well hop to it.

I remember there being rumors that 4kids has acquired other properties besides the monkeys series and Tai-Chi Chasers. What were they again? I know a lot of it is hearsay, but if they're really in negotiations for a ton of stuff they gotta have something in the bank. They at least have enough to re-acquire Magi-Nation again.
 
Yeah, that is strange. I thought Cookie Jar would have revoked the rights due to having a competing block on CBS (do they still have it?) and also 4Kids removed their website they made awhile back... not to mention a rep on the forums stated they could not obtain streaming rights for it...
 
Disney Channel doesn't air ads or promos, and The Hub isn't very popular, not as much as Nicktoons and Disney XD, it's competition, and I don't think they have the money to afford to run ads on Nicklodeon, I just think they struck some kind of a deal with Warner and are able to air ads on Cartoon Network. I was under the impression Sonic X and Dragon Ball Z Kai were the top contender's of the block and 65% seems like a big big big amount to say, considering Sonic X and Yu-Gi-Oh! seems to be doing the job as well. I do agree about the whole,"nothing but 100% anime", thing anime are going to take a while to dub and 4kids shouldn't rely on nothing but, them especially right now, I could see Asian like cartoons airing like Xiaolin Showdown or Skunk Fu! or older Saturday morning cartoons that did well, like Static Shock, in the ratings.
 
That's certainly true. I'm quite surprised with how the ratings turned out. Sonic X did as well as it usually does, but both Yu-Gi-Oh! and DBZ Kai did quite a bit better than they usually do. I'm especially surprised with the ratings for 5D's. It usually only gets between a 0.6 and a 0.8, but I guess more kids were watching the end of the Crashtown arc.
 
OH MY GOD! Toonzai raced ahead, leaving the other networks in the dust! Toonzai beat all of it's competition, the respective shows for their slots as well, even those ABC shows! Cubix leaped a little, 0.6. The first two Sonic X's get a 0.9 and 1.2 a good increase, the original Yu-Gi-Oh! gets a 1.2 a leap from the 1.0's it usually gets. Now this is huge Sonic X got a huge 1.8! Kai got a 1.4 and 1.3 a good giant leap for Toonzai! Sadly, 5'DS didn't get a 0.8, again it's too bad, this is 4kids's freshest, and newest show, with nice animation and characters, but it continues to not break even, this happens all the time, but I feel like it's sad truly this time, Toonzai's overall ratings were dragged down by Cubix and 5'DS, Toonzai might have gotten a 1.4. But, it's nothing to cry over, but this is something :)
 
Well today's the big day. It's actually a pretty big milestone for 4Kids, since they've never produced any series with more than 500 episodes (Pokemon is in second with about 450 episodes including Pokemon Chronicles). In fact, the only similar occurrence I can think of in the entire American anime industry is FUNimation with Dragon Ball. There's slightly over 500 episodes between Dragon Ball, DBZ and DBGT.

Wish we could say "Here's to another 500" but there seems to be very low chances of that. :sad:
 
While I see where you're coming from, there are kids who haven't seen these episodes of classic Yu-Gi-Oh! before if they haven't watched the series on 4KidsTV or Toonzaki or bought the out-of-print DVDs, even though they haven't released all of the episodes of the series in that format ye, so it could be considered new for them. Plus, outside of Tai-Chi Chasers, I don't think that they have any new material that they're working on and they haven't announced any finalized deals to air other shows from other companies like with DBZ Kai.

Right now, I think that they're better with keeping classic Yu-Gi-Oh! on the block. It still does pretty well in ratings and I like that there's finally a block that airs two different Yu-Gi-Oh! series. Though, when they do have a new show ready to air, like maybe Tai-Chi Chasers or something from another company, then I think that they could risk taking it off the block, as well as maybe one of the Sonic X repeats, but I don't think that they'll change their schedule format in the foreseeable future.
 
Goes to show once again that there is really no rhyme or reason for these ratings - one week they could be terrible, and the next they're the best the block has seen in months.
 
I'm not sure if being teenagers and acting serious would really turn kids off. Like Divinenega mentioned, the cast of DBZ Kai is mostly full of adult characters and it has a fairly serious tone for the most part too. Besides, the characters in both DM and GX were teenagers, even though the characters in GX were younger until the third and fourth season, and the heroes in DM definitely acted serious during arcs like Battle City and DOMA/Waking the Dragons.



I don't really see why six to twelve year olds wouldn't understand everything. While 5D's is generally serious, especially during the first two arcs, I don't think it's that complicated to the point where it would lose anyone without decent attention span. 5D's is aimed at children after all.



I'm not sure about that either. I don't remember the ratings for other episodes where Crow was dueling, but I don't believe that they were even close to the what we saw last week. I'm not sure if kids would be that picky about watching the show if their favorite character was dueling or not. I think it's really hard to understand these ratings and determine the exact causes for why 5D's has never really been able to get a solid audience. It might have to do with other shows playing during its timeslot and the fact its at the end of the block. I'm not sure if kids really don't like the idea of a spin-off since most of the kids watching the block now probably weren't around when DM was originally airing on Kids' WB.
 
Actually...he's absolutely right. 5D's has way more mature themes that yugioh/gx. Its not so much the age variations, but the more adultlike themes that take place with the given series.

DBZ, regardless of its age, is a goofy shonen anime. Its all about training/resurrection/saving the world. DBZ lines up with DC comics cartoons. Edit: more later
 
I'm not so sure that they'll start Zexal alongside with the last batch of 5D's episodes to coincide with the TCG releases. While that's definitely possible, 4Kids hasn't been that interested in trying to catch up with the latest 5D's booster packs in the dub. At least I imagine so since they wouldn't have gone back to one new episode a week format for the series if they were really trying to do that. Though, even if they had a full hour of premiers, it probably would be pretty hard for them to catch up with the 5D's cards at this point either. So, I don't know if the chances are that much better with starting Zexal to tie in with the new TCG releases. I'm still wondering if they're even financially capable of dubbing both series at the same time, especially since there hasn't been any official word from 4Kids at this point that they even have the series, although it's pretty much guaranteed that they will acquire Zexal and air it at some point.



I don't think that's going to happen. Given that they have acquired those 90 episodes set after the Dark Signer arc, I believe that they have the rest of the 5D's series. They apparently didn't have the last batch of GX episodes before they acquired and had to work on 5D's, which then led to them stopping the series even before they technically finished season three, and because of their financial state, couldn't do both series at once. At least, that's what I recall from the answer when NCOG was answering questions on their YouTube page. So, I think it's quite unlikely that they'll just stop 5D's like they did with GX.
 
It's good for Toonzai that they're beating the other broadcast networks but oh man are those ratings for other broadcast networks low. Cable really has taken over Saturday mornings.
 
In case anyone is wondering about the Q4 2010 results, 4Kids reported a net loss of $7.4 million. While that's certainly not as bad as the $21 million they lost in Q4 2009, it's still a very big hit (for some reason, Q4 always seems to be the worst quarter). As of now they're left with $4.2 million in cash and $7.1 million in investment securities. (Source)

So yeah, a $4.7 million loss would be crippling. But even if they do win the case, they'll still be in a tight situation.
 
Wouldn't a change in leadership maybe lead to a change in philosophy about making their own shows? If they stay away from toyetic concepts then maybe they have a chance of making a successful show. I would love for them to get back into producing shows again. I'm not sure how likely that would be though.

The only thing that i'm afraid of is 4kids just breaking away from animation altogether and going back to merchandising exclusively. I feel like the odds of that are good if they get someone brand new. Unless the block is doing pretty well, and i suppose it looks like its doing alright right now.
 
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