What makes the handling Dragon Ball different from other franchises that failed to catch on worldwide?

[Cure Dragon 255]

Sure I know it is its quality and amazing story with likeable characters and so on. But there are many other franchises that have failed to catch on and I want to know what you guys think. I already know its not Ocean and or Funimation, AB Groupe, or even more sacrigeously to a Latin American not Intertrack or Cloverway. But the way they handled it did play a part for better or worse.

I want to discuss how much of the handling of Dragon Ball can be thanked for making a success.

FAKE EDIT: I already know its mostly its quality and blah blah blah that made it a sucess but if I did that the thread the obvious answer would just be that and then it would be over.

[WittyUsername]

Are there any specific franchises you’re referring to?

[Cure Dragon 255]

There are many. There are like hundreds of franchises that are JAW DROPPINGLY huge in Japan and but utterly failed to replicate that sucess elsewhere. I want to focus on what made Dragon Ball different and naming other franchises would lead to many to just say "Those franchises werent any good anyway" or "Dragon Ball's just better". But I will name other franchises if its truly needed for discussion.

[Vegard Aune]

Well the simple answer would just be that Dragon Ball is a very crowd-pleasing kinda series and that Toriyama knew how to hook people, and that this shone through in the adaptations...

But I think there's still a bit of luck involved. Getting it shown on the right channels, at a time when kids are actually going to be at home to see it, (like, if you try to premiere a new high-profile TV show at noon on Wednesdays, you've basically excluded anyone actively attending school... Granted nowadays when everything is on streaming sites this is far less relevant but that wasn't the case in the 90s) advertising it in a way that makes people want to tune in... And while I personally strongly dislike just about everything FUNi did with the dub and think that the show's success in other countries demonstrates that a more faithful dub would likely still have been a hit, I can at least acknowledge that their dub was appealing to kids in the US.

In some respects things might be easier nowadays, what with Netflix and other such services effectively eliminating the need to get a good time slot and making it basically impossible to miss an episode... But in other ways it might be harder for a show to get off the ground nowadays due to there being so much more competition, and it being harder to just discover something new. Like, when watching broadcast TV you're limited to whatever is airing at the moment. On streaming sites it becomes more a matter of actively looking for something and only checking out whatever actively catches your eye. Meaning in some ways it becomes even more important to present your work in a way that immediately draws people in. Which can be hard when basically all you can be sure audiences will see is a single piece of promotional artwork.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

When it comes to the US, for better or for worse Saban played a huge part in helping Dragon Ball Z get good timeslots during the syndication era. No one knew who Funimation were in 1996, so if they had tried to market Dragon Ball themselves they may have had some success, but its doubtful they would have gotten as far. Then of course in 1998 Dragon Ball Z was picked up by a national network (Cartoon Network) and run on their Toonami block, which brought it to even greater heights of success.

Shortly after Dragon Ball Z became a huge success in the US, the UK and Ireland followed in 2000 on Cartoon Network, which was a popular kids channel here during that time, and launched the Toonami block here.

I don't think that genius marketing could bring any show to become a success like Dragon Ball. As you have said the story and the characters need to sell, and be likeable to a huge number of people. Dragon Ball was a prime candidate however because it has a story that's easy to follow, colourful characters, humour, memorable moments, Z in particular is a big spectacle and has all the flashy action a kid could want.

When it comes to other anime series that didn't have anywhere near as much success as Dragon Ball, I would say its a combination of those shows not ticking all the boxes Dragon Ball does, and not having a solid deal in place where they can get adequate exposure. Remember Harmony Gold had Dragon Ball before Funimation, but because they were only able to distribute it to a few local stations in Detroit and Philadelphia, evidently a few lucky people were able to catch the airings and enjoy what they saw but it didn't have the reach to become the national phenomenon it did a few years later.

There have been countries where Dragon Ball wasn't a huge success, and that could be for a number of reasons. In Russia nothing aired until 2011 when 2x2 picked up Dragon Ball Z, although at that time Kai was the hot new show, which could have made the older version less appealing to new viewers, especially if it wasn't marketed well (although I can't speak on that as I'm not Russian). Some Ukranian Reddit users have also commented on Dragon Ball airing around 2010 on a channel called QTV, which was rebranded from KuyTV, which was an adult-oriented channel, so again maybe the series didn't have the promotion it needed, or most people just saw it as an old show and weren't interested. There are also several parts of Africa where the series has aired like Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Senegal with the French dub, although nothing is known about the airings so its possible they might have just been shown on obscure local broadcasters that weren't accessible to enough viewers or went under the radar, well, maybe except Burkina Faso, as kei17 has said Dragon Ball was popular there, so maybe the fandom just isn't very active, at least on websites easily accessible for people in English-speaking countries.

[Tian]

There have been countries where Dragon Ball wasn't a huge success, and that could be for a number of reasons. In Russia nothing aired until 2011 when 2x2 picked up Dragon Ball Z, although at that time Kai was the hot new show, which could have made the older version less appealing to new viewers, especially if it wasn't marketed well (although I can't speak on that as I'm not Russian).

Someone from Russia told me that the main reason why Z failed was because 2x2 is known as a controversial channel.

In the past, the channel faced criticism from Russian society and warnings from the Russian FCC due to the content of some episodes from The Simpsons and South Park and the airing of Happy Tree Friends.

So, not many Russians, at least casual viewers, are interested in watching an "infamous" channel.

It didn't help either that 2x2 gave it a really bad timeslot, which if I recall correctly, it was early morning at weekends.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Someone from Russia told me that the main reason why Z failed was because 2x2 is known as a controversial channel.

In the past, the channel faced criticism from Russian society and warnings from the Russian FCC due to the content of some episodes from The Simpsons and South Park and the airing of Happy Tree Friends.

So, not many Russians, at least casual viewers, are interested in watching an "infamous" channel.

It didn't help either that 2x2 gave it a really bad timeslot, which if I recall correctly, it was early morning at weekends.

Oh wow, that's interesting, and yes early mornings are not ideal timeslots for shows like Dragon Ball. Maybe on weekends, but certainly not weekdays.

Been asking around on Reddit today and it seems a couple of Moroccan fans recall watching Dragon Ball Z on a local channel called 2M, so maybe it was relatively popular there. Only one person mentioned the channel Al Aoula though, so I'm guessing Dragon Ball had less success on that.

Cambodia apparently aired the series on TV9 in the 2010s as well, but we know nothing about those airings or if the dub has survived via recordings, so its possible it didn't do well there.

And of course there's Kosovo, which aired original Dragon Ball between 2002 and 2006 on Kohavision, but most fans seem to recall a few episodes airing, so I'm guessing it didn't last very long and had one or two brief runs (some fans recall Kuririn, so I'm guessing they initially aired episodes 1-13 and further ones at a later point).

I still think its possible there are many more countries out there that aired the series we're just not aware of due to it being short-lived, not well promoted and information on those airings being poorly archived, but I hope one day we will have a clearer picture of all the international broadcasts of Dragon Ball that were both successful and unsuccesful.

[MasenkoHA]

Some series just don't translate well outside of their home country. Like Anpanman.

[MrSatan2099]

Are there any specific franchises you’re referring to?

Kamen Rider comes to mind. Massively popular in Japan, but hasn't really found a mainstream footing here despite a couple of attempts.

I really don't think it's the handling as much as the material itself. Obviously there were a couple of false starts, but even when considering those obviously something kept making people try again. Of course there's something to be said about the idea of lightning in a bottle. Dragon Ball definitely had to catch a lot of lucky breaks to get where it's at in the US.

[MasenkoHA]

Are there any specific franchises you’re referring to?

Kamen Rider comes to mind. Massively popular in Japan, but hasn't really found a mainstream footing here despite a couple of attempts.

Well we know what happened in Kamen Rider's case

https://youtu.be/2UapMPX5iYc

[GhostEmperorX]

Dragon Ball definitely had to catch a lot of lucky breaks to get where it's at in the US.

But if it went the way of Saint Seiya or FotNS, it would have been the preferable outcome.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Saint Seiya was the one franchise I wanted to mention the most. And despite all the censorship DB went through I think DB was luckier. It took 30 years to get a complete uncut Saint Seiya dub. And even now people dont care about it.

[Tian]

And even now people dont care about it.

Can't blame them. The Saint Seiya franchise has already tried to hit the U.S thrice (Yeah, I'm counting that Guardians of the Cosmos pilot) and failed. So it's not surprising that there's not much interest, even when the fourth attempt seemed to be successful.

In fact, Saint Seiya isn't even a very popular property in its home country.

Kurumada should be grateful that the franchise got a huge fanbase in Latin America and France.

[GhostEmperorX]

Saint Seiya was the one franchise I wanted to mention the most. And despite all the censorship DB went through I think DB was luckier. It took 30 years to get a complete uncut Saint Seiya dub. And even now people dont care about it.

But it honestly hasn't lost anything. If people are interested they can check it out, and with no ridiculous baggage (cropped releases, questionable romanizations/approximations, etc) to boot.
The music section especially is consistently impressive though. Seiji Yokoyama's masterpiece soundtrack for the series has a complete, comprehensive set of releases (about 8 CD's or even more, plus that Gold Collection), and it's in full stereo (as opposed to DB score albums like COCC-11547~51 from 1994 or COCX-33564~6 from 2006 where for whatever reason it's partially stereo and partially mono, and a wide swath of the series discography being song collections that have just about nothing to do with Kikuchi's score along with movie soundtracks being largely unreleased aside from Movies 8 and 11).
And the later SS series didn't have any kind of trouble with who they chose for their soundtracks (Sahashi).

Re: Post above mine, Saint Seiya had quite a few clones of its own back when it was a thing (Samurai Troopers, G Gundam, etc) and somehow even still got new series. It may not be that popular but it does have a lot going for it.

[Cure Dragon 255]

And even now people dont care about it.

Can't blame them. The Saint Seiya franchise has already tried to hit the U.S thrice (Yeah, I'm counting that Guardians of the Cosmos pilot) and failed. So it's not surprising that there's not much interest, even when the fourth attempt seemed to be successful.

In fact, Saint Seiya isn't even a very popular property in its home country.

Kurumada should be grateful that the franchise got a huge fanbase in Latin America and France.

This post is towards Tian and Ghostemperor.


Hey way more countries than that love it. Italy for one. But I STILL would have loved for kids in the USA to fall in love with Saint Seiya, Kunzait can write essay upon essay about how overrated mainstream popularity is and how much artistic integrity is what matters most in the end. To which I agree! But he'll never convince me kids loving and embracing a piece of media as their own as "Not worth it."

I am not even saying "Lets just make a horrible dub for the dumb kiddies" because that failed utterly.

[MrSatan2099]

Dragon Ball definitely had to catch a lot of lucky breaks to get where it's at in the US.

But if it went the way of Saint Seiya or FotNS, it would have been the preferable outcome.

Creatively, 100%. But for the sake of comparison, you need some real mainstream popularity and financial success to get 500 tv episodes and over a dozen movies localized. You've got a lot less to deal with for Saint Seiya or Fist of the North Star.

[GhostEmperorX]

But I STILL would have loved for kids in the USA to fall in love with Saint Seiya

Sadly, this was not to be, this being the nation of middle man corporations that, depending on who you're dealing with, will change history-laden terms like "Philosopher's Stone" to generic, on-the-nose terms without all that like "Sorcerer's Stone" (and this is a British book mind you), hire Joe Hisaishi to do a wall-to-wall replacement score over one of his 80's film projects, remove one of Initial D's most defining elements (that's sometimes even more popular than the show itself), etc. And all this in the face of famous filmmakers and other such people being inspired by original, unaltered foreign media (Kurosawa for one being a top name for a lot of Hollywood's top name film directors). There's quite the divide between the people and the corporations that like to cater to the lowest common denominator. And if they had their way they'd still be doing this.

Kunzait can write essay upon essay about how overrated mainstream popularity is and how much artistic integrity is what matters most in the end. To which I agree! But he'll never convince me kids loving and embracing a piece of media as their own as "Not worth it."

I am not even saying "Lets just make a horrible dub for the dumb kiddies" because that failed utterly.

And it (along with quite a few others) got mainstream popularity in places that actually respected the medium and gave it a proper chance.
Come to think of it, I do hope he can drop in again sometime, though I'm not exactly in any position to dialogue.

[Cure Dragon 255]

But I STILL would have loved for kids in the USA to fall in love with Saint Seiya

Sadly, this was not to be, this being the nation of middle man corporations that, depending on who you're dealing with, will change history-laden terms like "Philosopher's Stone" to generic, on-the-nose terms without all that like "Sorcerer's Stone" (and this is a British book mind you), hire Joe Hisaishi to do a wall-to-wall replacement score over one of his 80's film projects, remove one of Initial D's most defining elements (that's sometimes even more popular than the show itself), etc. And all this in the face of famous filmmakers and other such people being inspired by original, unaltered foreign media (Kurosawa for one being a top name for a lot of Hollywood's top name film directors). There's quite the divide between the people and the corporations that like to cater to the lowest common denominator. And if they had their way they'd still be doing this.

Kunzait can write essay upon essay about how overrated mainstream popularity is and how much artistic integrity is what matters most in the end. To which I agree! But he'll never convince me kids loving and embracing a piece of media as their own as "Not worth it."

I am not even saying "Lets just make a horrible dub for the dumb kiddies" because that failed utterly.

And it (along with quite a few others) got mainstream popularity in places that actually respected the medium and gave it a proper chance.
Come to think of it, I do hope he can drop in again sometime, though I'm not exactly in any position to dialogue.

I hate dub music replacement I think its literally the worst but this isnt so bad. Its not like a dub with the original score wasnt made after all.

[GhostEmperorX]

I hate dub music replacement I think its literally the worst but this isnt so bad. Its not like a dub with the original score wasnt made after all.

Indeed, that was really the only good thing about that commission, that it was the original composer (and not some literal who like the case was 99% of the time something like this happens) who they called to do it. That and a soundtrack album release.
But the wall-to-wall mandate (like everywhere else that it's a thing, not to even mention DBZ) means that it fails as a score.

Those compromises were really only possible because of the fact that it was Ghibli on the licensing end though. But it shows you that these US middle man corporations just couldn't (and likely still can't) help themselves when it comes to doing that sort of thing.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Taking Cure Dragon at his request and leaving quality out of it for argument's sake, what has always churned my noggin is how often DBZ's novelty is mentioned by those former US kids (of which I was one). Novel as compared to the episodic sitcoms and toothless episodic action cartoons DBZ would have been aired alongside at the time. That almost suggests there was a waiting audience to be claimed by any franchise fighting anime, that anything could have been what Dragon Ball Z became. Dragon Ball Z just happened to be what came along. That the likes of Power Rangers, later Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh! rode so high from relentless marketing blitzes and that same novel "foreign" vibe, it gives the impression that the specific product never really mattered. It raises other interesting questions of why Asian media of all kinds took different trajectories in different regions but then we would be here all day. Saint Seiya's being so popular in some regions but not others you all have mentioned also gives an air of good timing to it all. That is overly simplistic, of course. Not every Japanese hit has international legs, and Dragon Ball Z had a few factors in its favor to both be considered for international release and thrive there.