Audience-Alienating Premise: Difference between revisions

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 * ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' actually poses thought-provoking questions about nature vs nurture and unethical science. To anyone walking in, however, it's just a gory series about little girls being tortured. You're lucky if they don't think of you as a sadistic pedophile.
 ** Although tempting, using this series to demonstrate that anime is [[Animation Age Ghetto|not always for children]] is just as likely to backfire as anything else, since people will simply jump to [[All Anime Is Naughty Tentacles|the other extreme]].
-* ''[[Koi Kaze]]'' is about a man in his late 20s and a teenage girl 12 years younger who fall in love. What's the alienating part? ''[[Brother-Sister Incest|They're brother and sister and haven't seen each other in a long time]]''. Also depending on the person, the idea of an adult and a high schooler falling in love can be [[Squick]] material.
+* ''[[Koi Kaze]]'' is about a man in his late 20s and a teenage girl 12 years younger who fall in love. What's the alienating part? ''[[Brother-Sister Incest|They're brother and sister and haven't seen each other in a long time]]''. Also depending on the person, the idea of an adult and a high schooler falling in love can be [[Squick]] material. Actually, it's a quite thoughtful and realistic examination of such a situation, but the mere premise sounds like coming from a incest-themed hentai, and the series lack of any type of fanservice  doesn't even get the  people looking for prurient material a reason for reading.
 * ''[[Lyrical Nanoha]]''. A [[Magical Girl]] series aimed specifically at [[Seinen|young adult males]]. While this unique approach may work in Japan, it's a different matter in the west. Most adult male anime fans in the U.S. would take one good look at [[Fundamentally Female Cast|the cutesy imagery on Nanoha's DVD and run for cover]]. As it stands, the licensors have passed on bringing anymore of ''Nanoha'' to American shores... and it looks like it'll stay that way for the foreseeable future. Maybe if they used [[American Kirby Is Hardcore|a different type of cover]], it'd be more acceptable considering Nanoha is less "[[Magical Girl]] series" and more "Action packed, mecha series disguised as a cute [[Magical Girl]] series".
-* ''[[Maria Holic]]''. The series is about a sadistic double-faced crossdresser who torments and abuses a perverted lesbian teenager at an all girls school. It hasn't fared well with many people, [[Values Dissonance|especially in the U.S. and other countries.]].
+* ''[[Maria Holic]]''. The series is about a sadistic double-faced crossdresser who torments and abuses a perverted lesbian teenager at an all girls school. It hasn't fared well with many people, [[Values Dissonance|especially in the U.S. and other countries]].
 * ''[[Spice and Wolf]]''. It's about medieval economics, and stars a traveling merchant and his love interest who is a 500 year old pagan wolf deity. ''You'' try getting people to watch it. The way they ''did'' try to sell it was emphasizing the initial [[Innocent Fanservice Girl|nakedness]] of said love interest, which had the side effect of making it look (to anime fans) like a [[Magical Girlfriend]] series ala ''[[To LOVE-Ru]]'', which it isn't.
 * ''[[Madoka Magica]]'' exploited this trope by starting off disguised as a mostly normal-looking cutesy [[Magical Girl]] show, causing many people to [[Tastes Like Diabetes|stop watching it in disgust]] before the real, [[Cosmic Horror Story|much darker premise]] took shape. But, of course, [[Late Arrival Spoiler|once everyone learned what the show was actually about]], the trope got played straight, since some of the people who actually ''like'' cutesy magical-girl shows didn't have any interest in watching a brutally deconstructed version.
 * ''[[Suicide Island]]'': The title itself will probably scare away a number of people. The premise goes like this: the Japanese government has lost big chunks of money due to hospitals being crowded with people attempting to commit suicide. In response to this, the government gives these people the choice of trying to live on or die. If these people choose to die, they will then sign papers, they will be rendered unconscious (nicely), and they will wake up to find themselves on the titular Suicide Island. They are declared [[Unperson|UnPersons]] and they can do ''whatever'' they want on the island, as long as they don't try to leave...but there are really no means (and likely not even desire) to leave anyway. The premise itself will probably scare a number of people off, because they might think it's just a story where they get to watch people commit suicide. While some of the characters do, it ends up scaring the other characters into trying to live on and make the best of their situation. The story could be compared to ''[[Lord of the Flies]]'' on some levels. Also, the story examines the minds of these characters, to help the reader understand why they would want to die in the first place. The examination reveals some dark stuff about Japanese culture, like the [[Hikikomori]], pressures of society, [[There Are No Therapists]] (actually, there are in this story, but it doesn't seem to be working), the stigma of shame, and so on. Indeed, the story seems to be a critique of how Japanese society has something fundamentally wrong with it, and is causing people to not really ''live''. It's likely that this story did not sell well in Japan, and it's hard to say how well it would have sold in other countries, since there is no way to sugar-coat this story!
-* ''[[Wandering Son]]'' portrays puberty and LGBT issues - especially transgendered ones - quite seriously. This puts off many people (mostly cis heterosexuals) since it's outside of their comfort zone or they're so used to comedies about the subject.
+* ''[[Wandering Son]]'' portrays puberty and LGBT issues - especially [[Transsexuality|transgender]] ones - quite seriously. This puts off many people (mostly cis heterosexuals) since it's outside of their comfort zone or they're so used to comedies about the subject. And even people wanting to read the story for its transgender themes get turned off by {{Spoiler|the revelation near the end that one of the trans characters actually isn't trans}}.
 * The manga ''[[Lotte no Omocha]]'' is a story about a strapping young man who is tricked by elves into moving to another world, specifically so a 10-year-old succubus can have sex with him for the rest of his life. Trying to talk about it generally goes like this: "It's a story about a man becoming a surrogate father—" "Wait. Isn't that the one with the ten-year-old succubus?" "Yeah, but–" "Ten-year-old. ''Succubus''."
-* ''[[Kodomo no Jikan]]'' is about a pre-pubescent girl who falls in love with her teacher, and acts overtly sexual to get his attention, which you wouldn't expect to do well in the US. It didn't get a chance to — it was canceled when the licensing company learned how bookstores and distributors would react: by canceling orders. Outside of Japan, owning something like this could theoretically get you ''thrown in jail''. The US release was also slated to have the audience-alienating ''title'' of "[[Lolita|Nymphet]]", which was requested by the author since [[Seven Seas]] couldn't use the original [translated] title of "A Child's Time".
+* ''[[Kodomo no Jikan]]'' is about a pre-pubescent girl who falls in love with her teacher, and acts overtly sexual to get his attention, which you wouldn't expect to do well in the US. It didn't get a chance to — it was canceled when the licensing company learned how bookstores and distributors would react: by canceling orders. Outside of Japan, owning something like this could theoretically get you ''thrown in jail''. The US release was also slated to have the audience-alienating ''title'' of "[[Lolita|Nymphet]]", which was requested by the author since [[Seven Seas]] couldn't use the original [translated] title of "A Child's Time". It launched a [[Kickstarter]] campaign that sucessfully got the amount needed to release a printing run of the manga, and then some.
+* Basically the reason it took a decade to get ''[[Dennou Coil]]'' released in America. It's a sci-fi series about transhumanism with cyberpunk themes (with a plot point about [[Augmented Reality]] for luddical purposes that predates ''[[Pokémon]] GO'' and similar games), but the story is starred by preteens and the narrative style is very [[Slice of Life]].
+* Similarly ''[[Heat Guy J]]'' suffered for it. It's looks like a sci-fi action filled cop series, it's actually a quite serious drama.
+* ''[[Mysterious Girlfriend X]]'' is the story of a boy that falls in love with the [[New Transfer Student]] after becoming addict to her saliva. That he fist tasted ''[[Squick|from the pool of drool she left in her desktop]]''. Are you interested already?
+* ''[[Houou Gakuen Misoragumi]]'': the story of a girl who is sent by her mother to an all male boarding school with the hope the girl doesn't become a childless lesbian, an school where the girl is basically treated like trash. The plot expect us to side ''with the mom''. Oh, and the [[Cure Your Gays]] only applies to the heroine, the male [[Ho Yay]] runs aplenty. Forget the fact that the American editorial who attempted to bring this series has to drop it due to protests over its homophobical premise and [[Double Standard]] execution, the fact that they attempted to bring it in the first place is the real surprising thing.
+* ''[[Kiss Players|Transformers Kiss Players]]''. Even before the sensationalistic, gorn-filled way the story was shown, the silliness of "[[Transformers]] get powered by being kissed by teenagers" was making the story pretty tough to sell.
+* While ''[[Assassination Classroom]]'' is actually quite popular and regularly appears in the bestselling Graphic Novels lists, American publishers were squeamish to publish in first place because the premise of "armed students went all out to murder their teacher (who is a omnicidal alien teaching them their killing ways)" didn't feel adequate in an post-Columbine atmosphere.
+* The widespread opinion on why ''[[One Piece]]'' hasn't gotten much acceptation in western markets (including the ones that were not marred by the way 4Kids legendarily mismanaged the franchise) unlike their reputation as THE post-''[[Dragon Ball]]'' shonen phenomenon in Asia: it's a series about [[pirates]] (a genre that itself is very hit and miss in the West) which is drawn with western cartoon-like aesthetics and it's animated with [[Looney Tunes]] physics. Anime fans are, generally, more attracted by series with a more japanese style, tropes and themes, like [[Ninja]]s or [[Samurai]]s. Its acceptation has gotten better once it become broadcast uncensored by Funimation and directed to the same kind of public that enjoys ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' and ''[[The Big O]]'', but it may never get the popularity of ''[[Naruto]]'' or ''[[Bleach]]''.
+* Similarly to the above, ''[[Detective Conan]]/Case Closed'' cannot find a market in America due to the different cultural expectations. It has the same kind of bloody cases of, say, ''[[CSI]]'' or ''[[Law and Order]]'', but it's drawn and narrated in a way that make those accesible and appealing to elementary school kids. Adults don't want their children exposed to such bloodshed; teenage and young adult anime fans will find either the art style or the narrative childish.
+* ''[[Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai]]'', the quintessential [[Brother-Sister Incest]] franchise. Not helped that the author {{spoiler|actually went there in the novels, unlike the anime that only leaved it in [[Incest Subtext|subtext]]}}.
+** The same author went on to create the equally upsetting ''[[Eromanga Sensei]]''. On one side, the incest theme is less squeamish due to the protagonists being [[Not Blood Siblings]]. On the other side, the squick factor remains high due to the protagonists being a 16-year old porn writer and his stepsister the ''12-year old porn artist''. Oh, and the [[Unwanted Harem]] the guy attracts is filled with girls where the oldest is 14 at most.
+* Go ahead, try to explain the plot of ''[[Those Who Hunt Elves]]'' to someone not in the know. "There are these three people [[Trapped in Another World]] who had to disrobe elf chicks to find the fragments of the spell that will return them to their worl— It's not a porno, I swear!" It's actually a good comedy, and it's also very light on the fanservice, but people who heard the phrase "disrobe women" will either dislike the premise or find themselves disappointed with the lack of exposed flesh.
+* ''[[Keijo!!!!!!!!]]'' is actually a pretty entertaining sport series, with decent character development. Problem is that the sport depicted on it involves pretty women in bikinis on water-floating platforms trying to incapacitate each other by only using their breasts and butts.
+* [[Magical Girl]]s series are prone to this:
+** ''[[Princess Tutu]]'': It's an anime about a duck that transforms herself in a human ballerina that fight enemies with the power of interpretative dance. It's also an extremely meta series about the power of narratives. People who watch it ends loving it, but you have to physically restrain then to make them watch it in the first place.
+** ''[[Sugar Sugar Rune]]'', despite their irregular narrative has very interesting points about femininity and gender roles, but it's still about two [[Cute Witch]]es doing a [[Magical Girl Queenliness Test]] that consist on which one of them gets more male followers.
+** ''[[Wedding Peach]]'', due to their [[Wedding and Engagement Tropes|wedding motifs]]. It was successful in Japan due to western-style weddings having an upsurge of popularity at the time, but in the West it was immediately flagged as a ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' ripoff and ignored.
+* Every [[Mon]] series not named ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]''. Granted, ''[[Digimon]]'' and ''Yo-Kai Watch'' eventually found a public, but the screams of "plagiarism!" gets in the ear of every executive trying to bring any new shiny franchise of collectible toys.
+** And even ''Pokémon'' doesn't escape from it: older fans cannot engage with  the [[Status Quo Is God]] aspect of the franchise over Ash never getting to become Champion and [[Not Allowed to Grow Up|never getting to his 11th birthday]],; and the ones that just accepted the former got thrown off their feet by the ''Sun and Moon'' season, which genre shifted to Slice of Life and put Ash in a school setting.
+* Most series with [[Moe]] aestehics, specially the ones who are slice of life affairs. And specially more the ones that are ''not'':
+** ''[[Lucky Star]]'', the quintessential [[otaku]]-oriented widget series. There is no plot (or at least not a visible one); the episodes are the [[Seinfeldian Conversation]]s of a group of high school girls that range from weird things no actual teen would talk about (like how to eat foodstuffs), to breast sizes, yaoi, and kidnapping. All of this, with aestethics that looked like out from Nick Jr.
+** ''[[Popotan]]''. If you want a sex-joke filled comedy starred by cutesy drawn characters, all of them looking underage and half of them actually ''being'' underage, see no further.
+** ''[[School-Live!]]''. It's a gruesome and quite realistic (in the psychological aspect) take on the [[Zombie Apocalypse]]. It's also drawn in a [[Puni Plush]] art style and has a cast of characters that seem out of any of the other series published in the magazine ''Kirara''. It's basically the thing to go to the other manga in this magazine to heal.
+** ''[[Made in Abyss]]'', which went to the "''Madoka Magica'' School of Pulling Punches". Don't get fooled by its art and its saccharine beginning, it soon turns into a gore and body horror-filled mystery.
+* ''[[Oyasumi Punpun]]'', the most depressing slice or life this side of ''[[Grave of the Fireflies]]'' and ''[[AIR]]''. The art dissonance where the titular Punpun (and only him) is drawn as a crude bird caricature doesn't help either.
+* ''[[Love Hina]]'', for anyone who entered in fandom after 2003. To put it simple, due to changing perceptions on abuse, [[Double Standard Abuse (Female on Male)|a bunch of girls constantly hitting and mistreating]] [[The Chew Toy]] male character over and over doesn't read as funny today as it was at the early years of the [[Turn of the Millennium]]. Heck, even back then there were people who didn't found it that funny to begin with, due to the moments when the abuse went beyond [[Comedic Sociopathy]] and into uncomfortable territory.
 == Comic Books ==