American Animation that's popular in Japan

N

Nanina

New member
I usually bring this topic up now and again on other forums. With anime a mainstay here in America, what animation of ours do our friends in the rising sun like?
Due to multiple Google searches over the years, this is what I've found.

*Disney (Obviously. Disney is popular everywhere. Most notable works there are Lilo and Stitch and The Nightmare Before Christmas.)

*Tom and Jerry (Arguably the most popular Western Toon there. So popular, It's been on several 'Top 100 Anime' lists in Japan.)

*Wacky Races (This is easily the most popular Hanna Barbera cartoon (Besides Tom and Jerry) there.)

There's some other ones that can be named later.
Discuss please.
 
I know The Powerpuff Girls is very popular there, so much that an anime version of the show was created there.

I believe The Simpsons and South Park are quite popular there too.
 
Sylvester and Tweety has a following in Japan as well. I used to see Tweety merchandise everywhere in Japan.

I also remember seeing Betty Boop merchandise in Japan, but I don't think many Japanese ever saw the original cartoons.
 
Wacky Races apparantly garnered it's fair share of popularity over there, managing to get it's own NES game (involving zero racing, I might add.) and a crapload of merchandise, ranging from talking money banks, models of the vehicles and the obligatory ufo plush toys. It's recieved it's fair share of homages too, found in the likes of One Piece (Foxy and Hamburg couldn't be more obvious) and Digimon (that one train race episode). Even Meowth from the Pokemon anime is allegedly modeled after Muttley.
 
Doesn't Japan make a crapload of merchandise out of anything?

I think Popeye is also famous in Japan, which is kind of funny (not really) considering the way they were portrayed in his WW2 cartoons.
 
Pingu and Walace and Gromit are popular in Japan.Walace and Gromit even had a few TV ads made for Japan with them in. Thomas the Tank Engine must be popular as well it has it's own Japanese only DS game. So does the childrens book The Very Hungry Catapilar that was published by Square Enix for DSI ware.
 
Oh, it does. I read quite a few Japanese blogs and a lot of them seem to be into it. Other ones include Ruby Gloom (a Canadian cartoon), Iron Man: Armored Adventures (called Iron Man the Adventures over there), Teen Titans (ironically), and generally any Transformers series (currently: Animated) Then of course you have Lilo & Stitch and Powerpuff Girls, but that's obvious given they made adaptions of them.
 
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