>>95682443I wonder how different deals with networks work in Japan. Talking specifically about kids and early teen shows and not stuff made for aduls. Adult anime are mostly shoved in dead timeslots and rely solely on merch and disc sales, so pandering to specific niches is where the money's at. But the channels do want kid-friendly animation to air in mornings and afternoons, and the big sponsors for these timeslots do want to sell toys, games and candy. Yet it's not common to see channels limiting the creative control over the shows as much as it is here. Making things more child-friendly and going to 3D for marketability is one thing, but I really don't get what western channels have against serialized shows, and why "being able to show episodes out of order" is important at all. Why would anyone even want to air shit out of order?
These and other attempts at limiting creative and storytelling freedom are what always bother me with /co/ stuff, as much as I love them. In Japan it just seem they don't really care about controlling what the content is (as long as it isn't very innapropriate, but no one is retarded enough to try crossing that line on purpose when your show airs 10AM, the producers make sure of that because it's bad to business), just what numbers it returns to them. As a result we get a lot of kid-firendly but varied shows, with more broad demographic appeal than your standard western cartoon.
Is it a difference in the contracts not allowing networks to butt in as much, is it just a cultural difference of how child tv should or shouldn't be, is it a big marketing problem (as toylines for western kids shows are nowhere as expansive and well coordinated with the show's release schedule as with kids anime, and there aren't as much food product tie-ins anymore compared to Japan and to America in decades prior) what's the big difference here? I know I'm asking the obvious to many people but I never gave these things much thought until recently.