Is it true the US was the only place where GT was a success?

[TVfan721]

In the old Mark Menza interview, it's claimed that someone at Funimation said the US was one of the only places in the world where DBGT was successful and it was due to the changes made. Any truth to this? How successful was DBGT in the US?

[DBZAOTA482]

GT was popular internationally though it's still seen as the ugly stepchild of the trilogy, and it's actually more popular stateside than vanilla DB. It's only in Japan, it's homeland, where it was a dud.

[Ringworm128]

It's "success" was probably just viewers carrying over from Z. "ZOMG, new Dragonball!"

[JulieYBM]

It managed to last for a year and a half, so that's already a heck of a lot longer than most series. Mind you, it was delayed for sports quite often, so clearly it wasn't that big a deal for Fuji TV. When it was finally released on DVD in Japan is did quite well, also.

It's hard to say Dragon Ball GT was a success in the US because its tenure in the spotlight added up to not much of anything. If Dragon Ball GT had really been a 'success' in the US would the franchise have basically gone nowhere for the few years between it and the Orange Bricks? Hell, as much touted success as Dragon Ball Z had even that wasn't enough for someone to say "Oh, shit, we need to start creating new series, specials or films A-fuckin'-SAP!" Hell, the first new Dragon Ball storyline didn't happen until Shueisha themselves paid for it in 2008.

So, yeah. Results (or lack thereof) speak for themselves.

[Lord Beerus]

Well GT was never that hot to begin with in the US. I mean while it's still a one Funimation best selling on DVD, it's nowhere near as popular as DBZ.

[Herms]

The trouble with threads like this is that it can be hard to pin down exactly what "successful" or "popular" means, and trying to measure and compare success or popularity in different countries and in different times is extra tricky. And it's easy to pontificate explanations for why something is more or less popular without bringing in actual facts.

Anyway, I don't know about the Mark Menza interview mentioned in the original post, but there is this 2010 interview with Raging Blast 2 producer Ryo Mito, where he talks about GT's popularity in Japan vs North America and Europe:

Speaking of the different regions, what do you believe the Japanese fans want compared to the North America fans?
GT is popular with fans overseas. In Japan, it’s not as popular. With Japanese fans they like to relive the Dragon Ball story since its such a long and iconic story. What if scenarios and GT are popular for fans in US and Europe, I think that’s what they want to see.

I think you’re right about GT! A lot of my readers asked about the GT series. When do you think we’ll see a the GT characters in a HD game?
If the fans are that interested in it, it’s possible.

What about an all Dragon Ball GT game?
Just a GT game might be difficult due to the popularity in Japan. If the fans are really that interested in GT and it looks that way to the developers and producers, sure anything is possible.

So that's the closest thing to a statement from the horse's mouth I can think of. Of course, even he really doesn't explain how he knows GT is more popular in the US than Japan. He's a professional whose job depends on giving customers what they want, so I'd like to think he knows what he's talking about and isn't just pulling stuff out his ass, but it'd be nice to have something like "latest poll shows X% of US fans say they enjoy GT, while only Y% of Japanese fans do". But nobody ever seems to have that kind of data.

As far as solid facts go, the big thing I always try to mention when this topic pops up is how GT's ratings got steadily lower when it aired in Japan. The highest rated episode is episode 2 at 19.7%, while the lowest in 21 at 9.6%, and the average episode rating per story arc declined from 15.1% for the dragon ball hunt to 13.6% for the Evil Dragons. Compare this with DB's overall average episode rating of 21.2%, and Z's 20.1%. Perhaps more telling is that the DB episode with the lowest rating, episode 110, clocked in at 13.7%, while Z's lowest (episode 273) was 12.1%. So not only were GT's average ratings in Japan lower than for DB and DBZ, but it hit ratings lows considerably below what the other two series ever reached. I'd be interested to see how these ratings compared to those DB/Z/GT got when they aired in other countries.

Of course, there's a few big bits of counter-evidence to the standard claim that GT isn't very popular in Japan. The first is that while its ratings during its initial run weren't so hot, it's since done better on home release in Japan than DB and DBZ. Possibly because it has no cheaper manga counterpart for people to buy instead like DB and DBZ, and possibly because by the time it finally got a home release in Japan (2005!) nostalgia had kicked in.

The other big thing is how prominently DB Heroes features GT elements, to the point where it often seems to be a GT-centric game. Heroes has been going on for ages and ages now, Ultimate Mission kept selling well seemingly forever, and it's even got its own manga to go along with it. It seems to be doing pretty well for itself, at least by DB game standards, and considering that so far it hasn't been released outside Japan. So I have to wonder about Ryo Mito's statement from 2010 that Japanese fans aren't interested in seeing GT stuff in their video games. Maybe things have changed since 2010.

[JulieYBM]

No comic to buy or not, nobody just drops $500-ish on a TV series they wouldn't want to see characters from in a video game. I think Mito was just talking our of his tuchus on this one.

[MarcFBR]

No comic to buy or not, nobody just drops $500-ish on a TV series they wouldn't want to see characters from in a video game. I think Mito was just talking our of his tuchus on this one.

You're a fan, you should know better than that (it also doesn't take into account that with the way the boxes were setup, many people may have only been able to get the GT or movies box and that was it, since they were significantly cheaper than the others as I recall. Sometimes having something is better than having nothing.)

Plenty of fans spend money on things for minimal differences or because it has a mild connection to something they like.

I own Robotech more times than I can count, and it's not even in my top 20. I'm just so generally amused and bemused at the minor differences releases to release that I've bought a ton of them.

The fact you can't imagine doing it yourself doesn't mean it doesn't happen (not to mention ignores the fact that most anime media releases in Japan tend to only be bought by a subset of hardcore fans ANYWAYS, so you'd never hit numbers high enough to deem how popular it actually is overall by DVD sales nearly a decade after it aired.)

[sangofe]

Probably not, but I don't think GT was a sucess in France. It could also be due to the fact that they changed most of the french VA's for france...

[dbboxkaifan]

GT was popular internationally though it's still seen as the ugly stepchild of the trilogy, and it's actually more popular stateside than vanilla DB. It's only in Japan, it's homeland, where it was a dud.

Indeed it was.

FUNimation even tried to pump it up and make it "cool" with that Hip-Hop opening plus the mediocre Menza score which didn't really work out well for them, oh and they butchered the first 16 episodes which then went to be referred as "The Lost Episodes".

Dragon Ball GT's one of my favourite parts of the DB Universe due to the original soundtrack, character designs, comedy and literally being "Dragon Ball in Space".

[Rozay]

Dragon Ball GT was a big hit in Brazil. Also, I love it, even if I have some gripes with it. I like all the main villains from it, especially Super 17. In case you're wondering, Cell is my least favourite main villain. Always found him to be rather boring.

[Tatakae!!Ramenman]

I think the decision to skip the first 16 episodes definitely helped them. Those episodes gave the series a slow start.

[sangofe]

GT was popular internationally though it's still seen as the ugly stepchild of the trilogy, and it's actually more popular stateside than vanilla DB. It's only in Japan, it's homeland, where it was a dud.

Indeed it was.

FUNimation even tried to pump it up and make it "cool" with that Hip-Hop opening plus the mediocre Menza score which didn't really work out well for them, oh and they butchered the first 16 episodes which then went to be referred as "The Lost Episodes".

Dragon Ball GT's one of my favourite parts of the DB Universe due to the original soundtrack, character designs, comedy and literally being "Dragon Ball in Space".

Wait, what? That's what saved GT's popularity in the US...