So we have had super robot Western shows

So we have had super robot Western shows

Why hasnt the west given us alot of real robot shows?

Megas XLR got canned quickly for whatever reason then shelved forever as a tax write off. Then 'Super Robot Monkey Team Hype Force GO!' got cancelled just before the last episode. Symbiotic Titan suffered a similar fate. I think mecha shows are just cursed.

Too expensive.

well there's the new Voltron so hopefully that won't fall under the curse.

Because cartoons are for children. Super robots can be silly, while something more realistic implies a serialised military story that no network would want to take a chance on doing anything more than cheaply dubbing.

Maybe some day someone will be inspired enough to pitch something akin to Patlabor, but you know the answer will be "Not grinning potato enough."

The last time we tried was the Mechwarrior cartoon.
There was Heavy Gear, but the networks bowdlerised it into a Robot Jox type show.
We'd need a real paradigm shift, a change in the way animation is funded and distributed, before we have the equivalent of a Macross or a Gundam or a Patlabor.

Oh wait, we just have. GO GIVE ALL YOUR JEWGOLD TO OTAKING RIGHT NOW FAGGOT

I SAID NAOW

Fuck you shill, I'm not giving any money to anybody.

That's why you can't have nice things.

Same reason there's little non-comedic animation in general: it's a conceptual oxymoron to both audiences and network bean-counters. Anything on the level of the original Mobile Suit Gundam is going to illicit confusion from people wired to think of Voltron, Power Rangers, and Transformers when you talk about giant robots. Good luck getting the attention of toy companies.

Its been infected with cancer already.

The fact that the only Real Robot shows known in the west is mostly Gundam is pretty much the reason

But Megas is more Super than Real.

That's why creators should be working themselves away from the companies. That's the only things are going to be fixed.

Cultural Differences + Smaller market for cartoons

The size of the market, in terms of viewers, isn't the issue. Avatar averaged 3-4 million.

3-4 Million is not that much and those would mostly be children. For comparison, Gundam SEED got like 13% or more of the viewership for that time slot and there would be a bigger cross-section of people

3-4 million is at the tail-end of Japan's top 10 anime. Japan's Wikipedia says SEED averaged 4-6%, and that was when people watched a lot more TV.

Late night anime doesn't get those kinds of numbers, and most anime are late night. So the amount of viewers isn't the most important thing.

SEED was very popular at the time. Wouldn't be surprised if it were at or near the top
In which case it would have been about 13 or 14 million viewers
SEED was prime time

You're missing the key second point here. Yes, the viewing figures for Avatar might have been the same as the low-end of popular anime, but it's mainly children watching it and it's on cable. Something like SEED was prime time television on a major terrestrial network. The demographics are bigger for it than they would be in the West.

4-6% would have been 5,096,000 - 7,644,000 viewers in 2002. I went to look at some TV rankings on ANN from 2007, and at that time SEED's ratings would have put it at the bottom or middle.

I wasn't referring to SEED, and my point was that late night anime is successful even without large audiences.

I wasn't talking about what the demographics for a mecha anime would hypothetically be in America, I just pointed out that animation market there has enough viewers.

I looked at the same ratings for 00, which was in 2007, and its ratings were at about 4.4 million viewers. I've also read various things that said SEED and SEED Destiny's rating were much higher, at about 13-14 million, whereas 00's were consistent with most 90s Gundam shows like Wing or X
Not really. The late night anime that become successful do so because of DVD sales, like Code Geass for example. Most of them don't sell that many DVDs and often fail because nobody's watching TV at that hour
And my point is that viewer numbers aren't all that determine a market. America and Japan might have comparable numbers for animation but America has a smaller market because most of those viewers are made up of one demographic, children 6-11. Whereas in Japan the market is at least big enough for there to actually be animation targeted primarily at adults.

Working without the companies means working without the money to fund such endevors, which means quality animation is out of the cards entirely. And crowdfunding's never going to be the ideal replacement/hail-mary we want it to be. Not as long as people are skeptical about every project begging for money, and not without good reason.

JP Wikipedia says 8% was the peak rating.

I never said they get their money from commercials.

Obviously not all shows are successful and I never said they are. Obviously I was talking about the late night anime market in a broad sense, and it is successful.

Children watch mecha too, there are teen/adult viewers as well, and I never said that getting 3-4 million viewers is the minimum requirement.

Yeah, 8% of total viewership, which could mean anything. Basically, of all the people watching television in Japan at that particular time, 8% of them were watching Gundam SEED
I never said that you did
While true, this is where cultural differences come into play. You couldn't make something like Zeta Gundam for the American market. American children wouldn't watch it. Too adult for them. American teenagers might watch it but there's the idea that it's a cartoon and it's not an animated comedy. You could only really air it on Cartoon Network or some other mainly kids' channel that airs cartoons. American adults wouldn't watch it, unless they were manchildren or they had children who were into it which, see first point. Hence, smaller market.

If it can mean anything then surely there's no point in even talking about ratings.

I never said anything about what kind of mecha animation would be made, I simply pointed out the fact that the market is not too small.

Real robot was specified. Real robot is a specific type of mecha animation. It contains specific tropes, for lack of a better word.

I know what real robot is. I still didn't specify anything about this hypothetical anime.

The curse goes on, we were also supposed to get a Pacific Rim Animated Show too.

I don't know if that would've been better or worse than what we are still getting.

Does Mighty Orbots count?

The only real robot shows in the West I can think of is Exo-Squad, Battletech, and maybe Heavy Gear even if it was shit.

thank you very much for reminding me that and ruining the rest of my day

The Japanese version of Starship Troopers was literally the only adaptation that used the power armour.
Western studios just don't like giant robots unless it's a kid's show.

Let your hatred flow and give you the energy to right these wrongs. If we forget this tragedy then Skeleton King wins.

Gundam Unicorn's on Toonami now if that counts

Who could've guessed?!

No, we're looking for Western cartoons. That's kind of the point.

The guy who did the tie fighter animated short is apparently working on something.

Aaaand I just realised I'm posting on Holla Forums and he probably made this thread.

I think with the western Starship Troopers avoids the power armor because it would have strained the modeling and animation. At least we got the marauder suits, which were freaking awesome to my childhood self. They get used more often as the series goes on, which I feel lends credence to my explanation.

This just showed up in my Youtube suggested videos. Never heard of it before, but ROBOTS.
Also, wasn't Zoids a robot show?

There's been a few more comics in the west, there was Mechazoic, Starriors, Shogun Warriors, Hedrax, Sephen, Spitfire And The Troubleshooters, Armoured Gideon, Death's Head, and ABC Warriors.
Gammarauders was almost a giant robot story, but I think they were closer to kaiju.

And shitty Charles Band films like Robot Jox, Crash and Burn, Robot Wars, Robo Warriors…

But user..Shogun Warriors comic uses Combattler V, Danguard Ace and Raideen, all three of them were from Japanese animes (and the toyline even more so with the likes of Great Mazinger, Getter Robo G and Daimos)

It was a show to sell toys

ROBOTS


TOY ROBOTS