Baxinger
I always got a kick out of these credits and I love the theme song. Many Giant Robot animes seemed interchangeable to me. They were designed to sell toys. But I have to admit I loved the credit sequences and the music was often pretty good. Tomorrow I’ll throw something more retro at you.
“… To sell toys.”
That’s the WHOLE point, Hud!
People have this strange idea that anime is this pure art form and isn’t designed to sell toys like Transformers, GI Joe, and He-Man obviously were, but that’s pure baloney.
If anything, toy sales have kept Gundam and Macross going for over twenty years now.
IF the Gundam model kits and toys HADN’T sold after the original Gundam TV series FAILED miserably in Japanese TV ratings, there would have been no sequel series and follow-on OVAs and Gundam movies, either.
Macross was a hit from the get-go but there’s no question that franchise was kept going because of the merchandise tie-in sales, too. The VF-1 Valkyrie design would have been rejected IF Shoji Kawamori (Macross co-creator and designer of the signature mecha of the show, the VF-1 Valkyrie) hadn’t been able to demonstrate with a simple paper model that it was possible to mass-produce a VF-1 toy that WOULD transform just like the animated version. So yes, anime are produced based on the projected ability to sell toys and other merchandise just like animated series in the US, too.
To the credit of the Macross creators, they generally keep the sequel series on a low turn-out rate and the franchise hasn’t suffered the staleness and subsequent revampings that Gundam has to such mixed receptions although there’s no question Gundam is still the bigger of the two franchises.
Posted by on 12/24 at 07:11 PMGeorgeC,
This is quite common in tokusatsu, also. Except in the case of both tokusatsu and anime TV, the whole toy-selling thing became more apparent since the late 70s, when the toy companies really started to take over. They got *really* pushy by then. Before that, if a show sold toys, then the toys were built AROUND the show! Not vice-versa (which is pretty much the case today).
Posted by John Cassidy on 12/24 at 08:31 PM
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