[ SECRET POST #939 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #939 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 17 pages, 403 secrets from Secret Submission Post #135.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 1 2 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 - too big ], [ 1 2 3 4 - repeat ], [ 1 2 3 4 - doing it wrong ], [ 1 - "how the hell is this doing it wrong?" ], [ 1 2 - empty comment ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[kuromitsu.livejournal.com]

I don't know much American kids' shows but those I do are original productions that don't depend on anything. This makes a lot of difference. As I said above, think of the logistics. Shows can't just take breaks and come back when they want to - it all has to be planned, negotiated, etc. Now, say Bleach reaches the end of an arc and decides to take a break. How long that should be? Three months? Six months? Three months is only 12 manga chapters, plus it's around the time they need start pre-production, so that's too short. Six months? Well... yeah, but that's still only 24 manga chapters which are like 12 anime episodes... still not enough. All in all, they'd have to wait for at least a year to have enough chapters for ~30 episodes, then they have to start pre-production which is another two months or so... Well, yeah. It's just not working. Plus, as I said, this would force the mangaka to write the story in a way that conforms to the anime, instead of the other way around. It would really harm the creative process.

Not to mention ratings. Anime have notoriously low viewership ratings - OP and Naruto are doing pretty well, but Bleach, for example, hasn't been in the top 10 list in years (if ever). Now imagine that Bleach takes a break and the network fills its spot with something that ends up having better ratings. Yeah. Not good. They won't just let Bleach back to the same slot. If they do they'll give them a worse time slot. If there's no break the network says, "well, at least the ratings are consistent and we still get the money from the production company so it's all good, if it ain't broken don't fix it."

As for the audience, these shows are constantly on rerun in Japan as well, that's not the problem - it's the attitude of the audience. In my experience they're a lot more casual about it. (Case in point: I've heard a lot less whining about fillers in the Japanese fandom than in the western fandoms. They just don't care.) Sure, there are fans, but there are a lot of casual viewers as well who are not really invested in the show. And even fans are fickle at that age - they're into this today, they're into something else tomorrow. If they're bored they just move on to something new. They won't wait for the show to come back.

[malik-chan.livejournal.com]

Well considering that most anime are directed at chldren, I think if Japanese TV took a more American approach, they'd have season breaks and during those season breaks, they'd put reruns in place of new episodes, instead of rerunning them however they do it. Like I said, I highly doubt children have such low attention spans.

Japan is used to fillers because that's what happens, they're used to it, plus most children aren't watching for the plot, but for the action or to see their favorite characters moving and talking, compared to American anime audiences who tend to be older and more likely to want a good story along with good characters, we don't like the fillers because they tend to have crap plot and crap animation, we notice how bad they are because we are older and look for quality while children, no matter the culture, typically don't.

[kuromitsu.livejournal.com]

But why should the Japanese adopt the American approach? I mean, the current system is working fine as it is. As I said, the audience is only part of the problem, another, also significant part is the production issues. All in all, it's way easier to just keep the show on air instead of taking breaks and going through hell every single time. Their primary audience doesn't mind fillers, so why should they care about foreign audiences who are not even a faint blink on their radar?

By the way, being targeted at children doesn't mean that the shows' audience consists of only children. There are lots of older and adult viewers (whose attention you need to keep up otherwise merchandise sales dwindle and then the entire franchise dies - this is another reason for fillers). And believe me, they notice crap plots and crap animation, too - they just don't care because they take it far less seriously than western fans. This is what I meant by being more casual about it.

[malik-chan.livejournal.com]

The way American TV works is that a network will approve of a certain number of seasons if the show is already established, if it keeps doing well then more and more seasons will be approved. Plus it gives all those involved, cast and crew, time to relax. I'm sure they rotate the crew in Japan, but nobody ever gets a break. I don't think the current system in Japan is fine if the the only good arcs come from relying on a manga's plot. Also do you have a source or something saying the Japanese audiences don't mind fillers? I'm wondering about that since you keep saying it.

True, but their target is children so most everything is aimed at the target audience, not the few others who also happen to watch (in which case, they have niche items for those who aren't the target audience anyway unless it's adult oriented). Do you have proof that the Japanese fans don't take it seriously? As far as I'm concerned there are always casual fans and die hard fans everywhere and die hard fans will take things more seriously regarding the thing they like, no matter the nationality, and those types are typically in the minority, even in the US.

[kuromitsu.livejournal.com]

I have no other proof than the years I've been spending in Japanese fandoms. Obviously it's not a homogenous place, but as far as fillers are concerned by and large they're like "whatever, it can't be helped" and either watch the filler out of curiosity/boredom or not. I've never seen anyone rage about fillers, unlike in the western fandoms. (I'm not saying nobody ever does, but I've certainly never seen such a thing.) Maybe it's partly because most of them read the manga as well so they already know what's going to happen, unlike many western fans.

As for networks, Japanese TV works differently (to point out one difference: in Japan you pay the network to air your anime). In case of shows like Naruto/Bleach/etc. the popularity is already guaranteed since they're adaptations of very popular manga, so the networks know that they can expect relatively good ratings, there's no need for testing the waters. As for the crew, actually there is rotation, that's why there are so many episode directors, script writers, storyboard creators, animation supervisors, etc.

And "good" is such a relative word. "Enjoyable" would be a better keyword, and it seems that the majority of the Japanese audience still finds fillers enjoyable enough to keep the shows on air. (If the ratings would plummet with every filler the shows would be placed in different time slots or even taken off the air altogether. Yet Bleach, for example, held its previous, Golden Time slot for years, and was only placed in a different (worse) slot because the Golden Time was occupied by Disney's "Stitch!" that Bleach can't compete with in terms of ratings.)