zeus the zentran Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 I just got finished watching Zeta Gundam.I found it very powerful.Any plans for Double Zeta to come to the U.S.? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kensei Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 Apparently, someone once said that all Gundam will come to the US. It's just a matter of when. I'll believe we'll get an R1 Mobile Suit Gundam soon. That's confirmed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollo Leader Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 I'll believe we'll get an R1 Mobile Suit Gundam soon. That's confirmed. As in ALL 43 episodes, in JAPANESE, with the ORIGINAL opening and closing credits? Where is there confirmation about this??? I also hope that MS Igloo gets a US release. As for ZZ, if it does get released, I'll probably get it, but otherwise I'm not chomping at the bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoptimus Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 I dont know. They really dropped the ball on Gundam in the US. There is literally no marketing or support stateside for it anymore. At one point it was awesome. You could buy MSIA's in the US. Then they didnt do any marketing and most stores dumped em after a year. I would like Victory and Turn-A to come to the US. Please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hikuro Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 Yeah I'll agree, not chomping at the bit, I've got my copies of ZZ even with the mediocre subbing. Along with most of victory and all of TurnA. Even had a project at one point of dubbing the 2 Turn A movies.....but meh that went to hell real quick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollo Leader Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 I dont know. They really dropped the ball on Gundam in the US. There is literally no marketing or support stateside for it anymore. At one point it was awesome. You could buy MSIA's in the US. Then they didnt do any marketing and most stores dumped em after a year. I would like Victory and Turn-A to come to the US. Please. Yeah, Milk, those were the days. I can remember 6 ago years going into Target, Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, and other stores and buying MSIA figures of UC Federation and Zeon Mobile Suits. I'm glad I bought multiples of nearly everything I got. The things that hurt the merchandising end of things was that no one was buying the G Gundam stuff and then they went overboard with the "battle scarred" figures. Initially they were cool and novel, but then they made the mistake of giving the scarred treatment to the G Gundam figures. Those sat on shelves for months. The final killer was when they decided to NOT release the Zeta figures. Even though they couldn't secure a Cartoon Network airing, they should have released the toys anyway. They would have sold because the Zeta designs are cool, but also it would have helped promote the Zeta DVD release. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phyrox Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 I'm more interested in the Zeta movies than ZZ. I like some of the ZZ designs, but I've never heard anything that good about the show itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginrai Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 The issue is actually that the average lifespan for a popular boy's toy line is 3-4 years, and Gundam totally lived that and was successful for a while, but it just died down. It had a decent run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jolly Rogers Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 The issue is actually that the average lifespan for a popular boy's toy line is 3-4 years, and Gundam totally lived that and was successful for a while, but it just died down. It had a decent run. Star Wars and Transformers toys have way outlived 3-4 years... Face it, Bandai US totally f'ked it up in the most craptacular way possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpchi Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 I think its mostly how the later Gundam toys were marketed & distributed that caused its death. The early UC stuff sold pretty well, and I always had hard time finding some specific ones all the time. There were always never enough of the good ones that everybody like. G Gundam would have been ok, if they don't flood the shelves with all the ugly funky ones. But they did, thinking people actually like a Gundam with a bull head or a big skull for its body LOL. Then the battle scarred ones really killed it. If it was a limited one time thing, some collectors will still buy some. But not to an extend that they were out and abundant for months, while all the cool UC stuff disappeared. Though even MSIA in Japan is slowing down, taken over by the HCMPro and other stuff, so I guess its just a matter of time for U.S. not carrying Gundam toys in Target, Walmart & such. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginrai Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 Star Wars and Transformers toys have way outlived 3-4 years... Face it, Bandai US totally f'ked it up in the most craptacular way possible. I said AVERAGE. Star Wars and Transformer are stunning success stories, far better than the average. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginrai Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 I think its mostly how the later Gundam toys were marketed & distributed that caused its death. The early UC stuff sold pretty well, and I always had hard time finding some specific ones all the time. There were always never enough of the good ones that everybody like. I'm not sure I really buy this. 0079 was a dramatic failure, despite how much I love it. I think it hurt the momentum Gundam had going for it quite a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollo Leader Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 I'm not sure I really buy this. 0079 was a dramatic failure, despite how much I love it. I think it hurt the momentum Gundam had going for it quite a lot. You must be talking about First Gundam? When they decided to air it on Cartoon Network, I think the CN and Bandai people knew it wasn't going to be a stellar hit like Wing, but it was neccessary to air it before airing War in the Pocket, Stardust Memory, Char's Counterattack, et al since it set the stage to all those stories. The things that specifically hurt First Gundam, besides being 20+ years old, were 9/11 interrupting the showing of the last 6 or so episodes, but especially the horrendous DVD release which left an episode out, was English only, and after the 3rd DVD they started to use the CN opening and closing credits. But did it it hurt the over all Gundam phenomenom in the US? The figures sold quite well; I rarely saw UC figures ever hang around to become clearance items and they were putting first Gundam toys out on store shelves as late as 2004 (the Arch Enemy RX-78 and Char's Gelgoog). Four First Gundam centered games were released on the PS2, Encounters in Space coming out over 2 years after the CN run of First Gundam and over 2-1/2 years after the first First Gundam figures starting seeing a stateside release. Back to the show itself, the last few episodes were aired at the end of 2001 and eventually part, if not all, the show was reaired on CN during the summer of 2002. Again, IMHO, it was G Gundam that really started slowing down the Gundam train, especially its toys. It also didn't help with the over saturation of the Battle Scarred figures (epecially G Gundam). Zeta not being aired on CN probably didn't help either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-ZeroOne Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 I'm more interested in the Zeta movies than ZZ. I like some of the ZZ designs, but I've never heard anything that good about the show itself. The first 20 - odd episodes of ZZ are a horror show. Theres a number of explanations that have been offered, but basically, Tomino must have been on the happy-happy pills a bit too much at the time. (Tomino should not do happy. Its just not him!). However, things improve considerably past about episode 22 onwards. Granted, a lot of damage has already been done - Bright at one point gives away a battle carrier to a bunch of bratty kids, and in ZZ is also transformed from doubt-ridden but duty-bound commander to the Universal Centurys greatest straight-man - but ZZ just about redeems itself from that point on. Tomino proved that he can have a lighter touch much later in Turn-A, but the first half of ZZ proved that, at the time, he should have stuck to the day job - killing 'em all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lord_breetai Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 Star Wars and Transformers toys have way outlived 3-4 years... Face it, Bandai US totally f'ked it up in the most craptacular way possible. Transformers has also gone through hot and cold periods. It hasn't been solid transformers for years and years. There was the G1 toyline.. then nothing for a few years then the G2 toyline then nothing then the Beast Wars toyline then nothing then RID, Armada, Energon, Cybertron... Also you got to understand a lot of the people buying Star Wars and Transformers are adults with larger disposible incomes, which makes milking more expensive peices like Unicron and Primus possible. Gundam's market would also include a lot of adults but it's a sub-market of a sub-market where Star Wars is as mainstream as Scifi can get. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yellowlightman Posted May 4, 2007 Share Posted May 4, 2007 Face it, Bandai US totally f'ked it up in the most craptacular way possible. Yeah, considering how popular all the series released after Gundam Wing were, it's alllllll Bandai's fault. It wasn't Bandai's fault, there just wasnt enough interest in the older series to maintain such a large retail presence. Sure, they f'ed up the Zeta release but at that point it was pretty much all over anyways. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skippy438 Posted May 4, 2007 Share Posted May 4, 2007 The last Gundam merch I bought in the US were MiB MGs of the Ez-8 and GP-02 from Toys R Us that I spent a grand total of $30 for. That's $30 for both of them, not each. Granted the kits were nowhere near as popular as the figures, but it was grave there at the end. I'd trade my good deal for access to more merch any day of the week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Posted May 4, 2007 Share Posted May 4, 2007 Gundam was hurt by both Bandai & CN. Bandai for choosing to go with 0079 for a TV broadcast, & dub only DVD release (alienating it from the one market of anime fans who actually would shell out for it), and CN for choosing to place it in the afternoon Toonami slot by itself. Had they run it along with re-runs of wing, or if AS existed back then (for a decent evening run) it may have faired a bit better. As much as I didn't like X, it undoubtably should have been the next show broadcast, followed by V & or Turn-A. releasing 0079 at the time dub only was the most boneheaded thing Bandai could have done for the franchise. All things considered, they made it up (to me at least) with the 0079 movies release, but the fact that we still haven't gotten the new remaster of the series over here, hakens back to that mistake earlier this decade. Worse yet, instead of showing SEED in a weekday afternoon slot, which in the heavily edited form it hit tv, it would have been suited for, they stuck it in a weekly late saturday night slot, where no one in their right mind would watch it. Thus boning any attempt at reviving the franchise on TV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwinges Posted May 4, 2007 Share Posted May 4, 2007 For those looking to complete their gundam library most are available subtitled through the usual bittorrent sites. Turn A Turn A movies 1&2 Victory Gundam ZZ Gundam X I'm betting it'll be a while before we see ZZ. From what I heard, sales weren't as high as they expected for Zeta. You can get the Zeta discs cheap if your willing to look. Makes me regret buying the boxset when it came out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisG Posted May 4, 2007 Share Posted May 4, 2007 (edited) I agree with Keith completely. To say that MSG and all the subsequent Gundam shows released here were "popular" is a bit of an overstatement. Things started going immediately downhill for Gundam in America when Sunrise insisted on MSG following Wing. As much as I love MSG, it was absolutely the wrong show to follow an audience just introduced to Gundam via Wing. Like Keith, I agree that X should've been the follow up to Wing. It was clear for a long time how Gundam was on the decline. G Gundam was meant to be the recovery from MSG, but it still didn't do as well as Wing. Then for a year we got nothing on TV except for SD Gundam Force, which certainly didn't do anything to help the franchise. By the time SEED rolled around to America in May 2004, the writing was on the wall. They only produced a limited amount of MSiA, most of which were very hard to find. Toss in CN's horrible scheduling and promotion, and that was the death knell for Gundam. I think the fact that DESTINY being the newest series and not airing in America is pretty telling. Lots of people want to blame Bandai, and I can agree with that. Sunrise is certainly to blame for believing that they can jam Gundam down people's throats here and have the franchise operate in the same way as it does in Japan. That was a tragic mistake, because Gundam doesn't have a nearly 30 year history here. When it comes to toys, there was certainly over saturation, particularly with G Gundam. A flood of mediocre and worse Gundam games didn't help on that front either. But I also think there's enough blame to go around to CN. Anyone watching Wing in 2000 can remember how CN massively promoted the show with lots of slick trailers and advertising. But no Gundam show after that ever received that level of promotion, and most of the time advertising started just before its broadcast rather than months in advance to build up anticipation and momentum. Edited May 4, 2007 by ChrisG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollo Leader Posted May 4, 2007 Share Posted May 4, 2007 My first question back at the beginning did not get answered: has it been confirmed that the full uncut, in Japanese, First Gundam will see a US release in the future? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Area88 Posted May 4, 2007 Share Posted May 4, 2007 Has it been confirmed that the full uncut, in Japanese, First Gundam will see a US release in the future? No it has not, other members are just making an assumption based on the previous statements Bandai made in the past and the fact that the show has finally seen a complete dvd release in Japan. Apart from Gundam Seed, the rest of the franchise seems to be on hiatus since we havn't seen anymore classic Gundam released in quite a few years now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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