Jman

I'm sort of reminded of the problem with the Ghost in the Shell movie, not Scarlett Johannsen, surprisingly enough, but the distance between the original anime and the LA movie made a lot of the visual aesthetics and plot points cliché because of decades of them drawing influence from Shell. So when that happens, you're sort of stuck in the unenviable position of telling a story people have heard plenty of times before, and wondering why they should care. Bebop is much the same. Firefly jokes abound, but the fact is, a lot of Bebop's aesthetic and character work have been put through the ringer in everything from Space Sweepers to Guardians of the Galaxy. It's not original anymore, and that means that the casual audience is going to need some hype to care. Which brings us to...weebs. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the phrase "you only have one chance to make a first impression" is an apt one. And now and forever, the first and last word on live action anime is Dragonball Evolution, or if you're feeling generous, Death Note 2017. Alice in Borderland? Never happened. Rurouni Kenshin? Didn't happen, plus the author is a perv so fuck him. With Hollywood's stellar track record (I know Kenshin and Alice are Japanese productions, even if Alice's director is apparently being hired to make the MHA film) and only two examples that are considered some of the worst movies of their respective decades (if you really wanted to be generous, there's the equally awful Fist of the North Star movie and the awful and cheesy Guyver and the less bad Guyver II: Dark Hero from the 90s), this show has zero benefit of the doubt. So even the tiniest change (Faye's outfit, which led to the usual nonsensical Twitter spats) is sacrilege and proof that the show will be shit. Which brings me back to my first question - Why? I know why in a broader sense, Netflix is scrambling to find shows to compete with the juggernaut that is Disney and their plethora of recognizable IP and they figured that mining anime was the next logical step, but all things considered, Bebop is one of the worst shows you could do this with. It's gone from being a trendsetter to something of a cliché unto itself, much like Shell.

This might explain why every big streaming service has anime on it, even if it's just a token amount from RetroCrush.

It's a metaphor for interrupting to ruin people's plans.

Surprisingly enough, Netflix places Baki and Seven Deadly Sins on the same level of stuff like Stranger Things.

I could care less what Jesu says. But you just know Toonami probably has an ad campaign for Bebop ready to go, probably including TOM making cracks about the Netflix version.

They’re holding off on that till November to piss in Netflix’s Cheerios.

My mistake, I meant a successful adaptation of Outlaw Star. One people actually watch.

They missed the perfect artwork to homage in promo art -

Possible Toonami interference?

Gentlemen, start your Dragonball Evolution jokes. And be happy that no one’s adapting Outlaw Star.

If they’re going to do filler, they oughta take comic influence like a lot of the movies seem to be doing. At this point, just strap Izuku and Toga to a bomb.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2021-08-22/attack-on-titan-the-final-season-anime-part-2-to-premiere-next-january/.176524 Toonami airing is probably going to be set soon after.

It's worth noting that at one point in the late 90s, production was set to begin on a live-action Sailor Moon movie, then Steel and Batman and Robin happened. The superhero genre was dead at theaters until X-Men came along. Now we're approaching another glut of superhero movies with everyone warning of a crash. Maybe it will thwart this movie as well.

The anime that will do well on Toonami, for better or for worse, isn't the anime that people can watch on Netflix or Crunchyroll whenever they want. You have to make Toonami appointment television again, which is VERY difficult in an age of mass streaming and on demand services. Even wait periods aren't enough, as JoJo and Demon Slayer both proved when people held out for the Netflix releases. The Harley Quinn marathon and the locked behind paywalls DC movie events are appointment television in a way weekly airings of shows available elsewhere aren't. Stop thinking of it in terms of geographical origin. Start thinking of it in terms of exclusivity and hype.

The most recent one on Netflix, that came out a few years ago. It was an unmitigated failure on every level, but its small audience of weirdos keeps trying to spin it was a success. What, you thought I meant the 1984 series?

Those last two bombed. Voltron was such a disaster Dreamworks up and gave up the rights to the franchise. No I won’t let that go. The show was a complete failure and I won’t let people rewrite that. A lot of this is just that DC is iconic for better or for worse, and a lot of the anime can be seen elsewhere. Fena is brand new. Harley has had not one, not two, but three major movies. Of course people will be curious about her show, especially when it’s usually behind a paywall.

Well huh. Meanwhile here Netflix is holding onto it because it was in their top 10 shows for June.

Yes it was.

Yeah but the MCU is Murican. Doesn’t get much more Murican than a team lead by a guy called Captain America. Guy still punched Nazis. Most of the changes involved pouring through old comics and picking what worked and what didn’t. Things the Twitterati will demand changed in an MHA movie in no particular order - 1. Mineta 2. Momo’s Outfit. 3. Uraraka’s outfit. 4. Bakugo’s full dipshit early personality where he tells Izuku to kill himself. 5. Mt. Lady. 6. Midnight. 7. Mineta. With X-Men they just threw everyone in black leather. Carol Danvers skipped the swimsuit. But that was all relatively minor.

Sky High was also a box office failure. It’s one of those films people would rather forget. I’m admittedly hoping this gets lost in Development Hell. I mean, Naruto’s had a director since 2018 and nothing.

This will be his international film debut...if it ever gets made.

Honest to God answer? Because a lot of times it doesn't feel like the kids shows are actually being made for kids. It feels like they're being made for 20somethings who watch them to feel validated about something? And it's kind of disturbing. I've gone off on Infinity Train repeatedly in this thread and how it deserved to be cancelled (and apparently was because kids weren't watching) but while there are some token jokes for kids, most of it feels like it's about the writer working through something traumatic including an interview one of their cancelled seasons was going to be about someone going through Alzheimer's. You seriously wonder why you got cancelled? The second admitted reason is because following ratings data on streaming services that aren't obligated to give it out is a pain in the ass and a half and that means I have to go to other means to see if the core audience is invested in it. Merchandise, the willingness of the primary audience to invest in the show, can be a fairly reliable metric when all else is absent. That's actually what made me find out just how unpopular Voltron Legendary Defender was with its primary audience, when Playmates out and out declared "no one buys the toys, no one cares". So you have all these unsuccessful shows, and you hear "new management" and you think, at the very least, we'll see something different. But apparently we're just going to get more of the same.

..No. We're more likely to get live-action movies back on Toonami. Of course, given that anime is the next frontier for live-action films now that all the good comics have been adapted, (case in point, Saint Seiya is apparently being filmed in Budapest as we speak), who knows?

The box office results clearly show that the Nielsen’s don’t work. I still remember once upon a time when it was rumored FX wanted to put AOT after Archer.

Steven Universe merchandise was such a spectacular failure most of it was marked at clearance by Season 2. Even if you like the show, which is fine if you do, the idea of something different would have been fun to see. Besides, I don’t have the vitriol for Steven that I do for Infinity Train or…The Owl House (not CN, but really the worst example of modern “action” cartoons.)