Question: Anime's popularity

[drharo]

I have to disagree there. Pokemon, Cardcaptors, Duel Masters, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc are built on merchandising. They're about as commercial as you can get.

Hate to bump a rather old thread, but...

the recent Gundam shows (SEED, the Z Gundam "remakes) too have been cash-ins on toys, models, CDs, and other related merchandise..

Commercialsim in anime is becoming more prevelant but hasn't become the norm... yet.

[DrFrag]

Welcome drharo!

There used to be a hosted cartoon show in Australia called Cheez TV. Most of it was anime, and someone wrote in and complained about it. One of the presenters responded that they show a lot of anime because the station gets paid a lot of money for it.

I always thought TV stations paid for the shows (and used advertising to cover their costs). But if they were getting paid to show anime, then the anime distributors must be using the anime as an advertising tool in order to sell merchandise.

I know a lot of anime doesn't get shown outside of Japan. I can rent DVDs of Midori Days, Samurai Champloo, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, etc. I'm glad these have become available, but none of them get shown on commercial television. (three cheers for SBS who show stuff like this!)