Franchises I like but others seem to not care about

[Markness]

There are some franchises I really like but others tend to either not care or even know about them.

Godzilla - I liked the Godzilla movies as a kid, was peer pressured not to like them for a brief period, and cycled back into them when I stopped caring what people thought I should or shouldn’t like. I am not quite sure why Godzilla isn’t well liked in my area. I’ve met fans but we seem to be in the extreme minority. People I know will watch the Jurassic Park movies over and over again but won’t give a single Godzilla film a chance.

Gamera - Outside from two people I used to know, I am probably the only person in my area who knows who Gamera is. He’s one of the few kaiju whose managed to achieve popularity in his own right outside of Godzilla’s shadow but similar to Godzilla’s situation in the culture I live in, people just don’t seem to care all that much about him.

Gundam - When it comes to franchises with “robots” (Technically, mecha are not robots), Transformers comes first in the mainstream mind. With me, however, it is Gundam. The mechanical designs are more appealing to my tastes and I like the plots for most of the shows in the franchise. I have met other fans but it doesn’t get the same attention as Transformers does.

Macross - Another mecha franchise like Gundam. It’s original show was Americanized into Robotech and that has a nostalgic following in my area. This one I can understand why most around me don’t know about it is because rights issues and other legal headaches have kept the majority of the franchise in Japan.

There’s probably more but my head is tired right now.

 

[BrokenBoy]

I'm watching Macross!

 

[AGXStarseed]

There are some franchises I really like but others tend to either not care or even know about them.

Godzilla - I liked the Godzilla movies as a kid, was peer pressured not to like them for a brief period, and cycled back into them when I stopped caring what people thought I should or shouldn’t like. I am not quite sure why Godzilla isn’t well liked in my area. I’ve met fans but we seem to be in the extreme minority. People I know will watch the Jurassic Park movies over and over again but won’t give a single Godzilla film a chance.

Gamera - Outside from two people I used to know, I am probably the only person in my area who knows who Gamera is. He’s one of the few kaiju whose managed to achieve popularity in his own right outside of Godzilla’s shadow but similar to Godzilla’s situation in the culture I live in, people just don’t seem to care all that much about him.

Yeah, I think the biggest issues regarding Godzilla and Gamera's popularity are as follows:

- Firstly, they're both "foreign" properties, which can (not always) have a hard time gaining a following in the West outside of fringe groups; especially when you consider the clash of cultures. This is to the point where some anime I've watched in the past have had to have explanations within their subtitles to explain certain things that happen in Japan but which might otherwise metaphorically 'fly by' a Western viewer - like how a protagonist in an anime (in an attempt to not look suspicious if they're snooping around) will ask when confronted "Do you know where Yamaguchi-san's house is?", with the subtitle explaining that Yamaguchi is a common name in Japan and almost every neighborhood in Japan will have someone with that name living in it.

- Secondly, most people's frame of reference for these two monsters were their movies from the 60's and 70's, which were pretty campy - especially as 2 Godzilla movies and 5 Gamera movies were mocked on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (MST3K).
Throw in the fact that the special effects generally consist of two guys in rubber monster suits smashing their way through model sets with cheap-looking animation to show off any energy attacks and a lot of people get put off right away. Heck, I once showed some people footage of Godzilla: Final Wars (which came out in 2004) and they refused to believe it came out in 2004 because they claimed the effects looked terrible.

If you get past that to find people still willing to give it a chance, you've then got the issue of whether the film is dubbed or subbed - both of which carry pros and cons as when it's subtitled you have to read your way through the movie, but if it's dubbed then it can be hard to take the movie seriously, especially some of the older films that had some 'interesting' choices regarding actors doing the dubbing.

- Finally, monster movies generally aren't high-quality entertainment that's there to challenge the mind or make you think; they're popcorn entertainment to be enjoyed with your brain at low power as you watch the giant monsters, giant machines and giant aliens punch and shoot each other while the usually boring/underdeveloped human characters move the plot along so it makes some kind of sense.
Even some of the best monster movies - such as the original Godzilla movie from 1954 (which portrayed Godzilla's rampage through Tokyo and its aftermath as if Japan had been hit by a third nuclear bomb - right down to having scenes in a hospital with people dying of radiation poisoning while this "prayer" is played over the television) or even the 90's Gamera Trilogy (which are often regarded by many as possibly the greatest monster movies ever made) - ultimately have a hard time trying to escape this issue. It ultimately isn't helped when the trailer to promote the entire film set uses the campy music from the movies that people mocked:

Those are three reasons why I think Godzilla and Gamera have a hard time finding a mainstream audience.

 

[Metalhead]

I am a huge fan of the Golgo 13 franchise, which is about a womanizing super assassin.

 

[Wolfsage]

Saw the early Gundam. Was surprised at how truthful it depicted war.

 

[Au Naturel]

I'm a big Mothra fan!

The only Gundam I have seen is Gundam Wing, 15+ years ago when I was watching it with my son on Adult Swim. I really enjoyed it.

 

[Eclipse14]

I LOVE Gundam. Mainly the UC. I haven't seen much non-UC Gundam except for After War Gundam X. Char is my favourite character. Sieg Zeon!

I also love Godzilla, seen most of the movies, though skipped most of the Showa era ones because when I was younger I couldn't get into the older films. Haven't been into Godzilla for a long time but still love it. Godzilla 2000 was my favourite. Always wanted to watch Gamera but haven't gotten around to it.

As for Macross, also want to watch, but also haven't gotten around to. Mecha is my favourite genre of anime. My favourite anime of all time is Zeta Gundam.