Series that surprisingly "Didn't" became big

T

Tom Goodman

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Have you ever watch or read a series and thought in your mind, "Oh, this series will be big once it comes here". But, once after it come to the U.S, it wasn't so big?

Like, Hajime no Ippo. I'm little surprise that this series isn't a underground hit yet. Its very underrated. But why? It has everything good about a shonen. Action, good story and its pretty damn funny. And both Manga and Anime are pretty damn good. Yeah, Japan is well known, but here in the U.S, I bearly see ppl talk about it.

Yeah, Yeah, I know what your about to say, "Maybe it wasn't market right or not many ppl are big fan of sports". True, but I'm just surprise Hajime no Ippo isn't that big here in the U.S. Or least a underground hit.
(And, I think there's a difference between underground & underrated)

So, have there been a series that you thought it will be big but didn't?

(Yeah, in opinion wise, it could be anything. But sometimes there's an anime series that has so much good stuff in it, that really did have a good story, animation, art work, that you kinda got a little hint it will be big.)
 
Might as well put this as shows that could have been very successful here at the right time and right place.

GaoGaiGar - America doesn't want giant robots they want SUPER ROBOTS. Too little... too late I'm afraid. Picked up in the early 2000s it may have been a hit here.

Hunter x Hunter - YYH did well, one can only assume HxH could have done great as well but it like GGG was picked up after the time was right to air it.

Zeta Gundam - I guess it was doomed when MSG got the shaft but it probably could have done well on Toonami or Adult Swim (or both like it once was supposed to air).

Code Geass - I hate the dub but given how big it was the bad ratings on Adult Swim are pretty sad.

I fully agree on Hajime no Ippo. On Toonami or Adult Swim it could have been a contender.

The jury is out on SGT Frog and One Piece until its determined if either can get a TV deal for the FUNimation dub but I've just about given up on that.
 
Geass was doomed as soon as the worst treatment of a show I've seen yet, between constant time-slot changes and breaks in the middle of a season.


Sports anime have never done big-well in USA. That's pretty much the norm.

Zeta Gundam I would say would fail regardless, mostly because 1) It ain't Wing and 2) It's old animation which fell MSG in the first place.

As for me, nothing comes to me at the moment though I have low expectations for anime mass appeal in general.
 
Transformers: Kiss Players.

It's got Optimus Prime, Hot Rod, Starscream, etc. All your old favourites in previously unseen adventures. What's not to like?



More honestly, SEED. But that's because Neo-Era totally jinxed it!
 
SEED got plagued by the last stranRAB of archaic censorship and timeslot changing.

Oh god, those disco guns....
 
I thought Code Geass did pretty well for itself, I know it's airings on CN's Adult Swim helped it to garner good DVD sales and from what I have read the ratings were not exactly bad, I guess it's all in what you consider to be "successful" and "unsuccessful". I considered Geass to be a success in the United States.
 
D. Gray-Man. When I first started reading it I assumed it was more popular than it actually is. It has all the elements to be a big shonen hit, but it hasn't made much of an impact at all, at least from what I've seen.
 
Heat Guy J and Gundam in general are the two giant missed opportunities of the last decade of the American anime industry.

I give SGT Frog a year before declaring it an even bigger failure. I give Michiko to Hatchin six months to get licensed and six months after that to get a TV deal before its doomed forever.
 
While maybe not 'big', I'm surprised no networks made much of a bid for Soul Eater. They could try to piggyback on Tim Burton's line of work, or if they wanted to gasp at the straws, Twilight with all the supernatural stuff in it. Just seems like the type of show the Hot Topic crowd would eat up.
 
Soul Eater was doomed because of the fanservice and run time. The 1st is a no-no for Adult Swim, the second a no-no for ScyFy.

GaoGaiGar released 4 years earlier would have been a mainstream hit instead of a fringe cult one.

Hajime no Ippo, as much as I love it, would never be popular with otaku. A guy in a sport, working out? No merchandise? No way in hell would it have ever been popular in the US. Mexico, maybe due to its boxing heritage. But the US? No way.
 
Well, I was going to see if anyone posted it first but Last Exile instantly comes to mind.

I won't harp on it's awesomeness overly, but let's look at it critically here. Excellent animation, easily the equal if not the superior of anything else coming out at the time, pretty excellent dub with a few... weirdnessesm, but overall excellent dub, giant air ships and steam punk awesome sauce right around the time when a lot of movies were adopting steam punk stylings.

Yet, it doesn't even have a sort of cult classic status.

It's got all the elements needed, well, all except for one and I think this is ultimately the reason it's not another Bebop but I'll save that for last...

It's good for cosplaying, Really good for cosplaying because there's all manner of different styles, several military uniforms, there's the Urbaness white, Anatoray Blue or Sylvana black and then there's the Disith's badass Longcoats. There's the Vanship flight suits which look like a steampunk'd gundam normal suit then there's all the guild stuff.

It's got a pretty confusing story line that actually requires you to watch the series many times to figure out.

It's got lots of fun characters too, though I'll be the first to admit what it's lacking is a strong lead character and that's probably ultimately why it isn't popular. If it had a Vash or a Gene Starwind or a Spike Spiegel, it would have been a lot bigger, but no... It's got a Claus...
 
One Piece?
If FUNi was able to get the license at the start?
We wouldn't even be mentioning it.

Heat Guy J?
Oh my god that and Gungrave should've been on [as].
Though, I know Gungrave did pretty well on Anime Unleashed. (I remeraber G4 reran it into the ground).
 
I was thinking the other day, 4KiRAB issues aside, I sort of wonder if One Piece might not have caught on better if they'd pulled a Dragon Ball and started in the middle of the story instead of from the beginning. Come back to the boring crew-asserabling East Blue stuff later and start the American audience off right as the crew is first entering the Grand Line, just when it starts to get really good.



If Eva's not considered "big" I don't know what is.
 
They almost did have the license early on, but 4KiRAB outbid them at the last minute. I remeraber it well.

It was on MTV2, but was given a timeslot where no one watched it.
 
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