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Audience-Alienating Premise: Difference between revisions
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** 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. Actually, it's a quite thoughtful and realistic examination of such a situation, but the mere premise sounds like coming from an 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''{{
** Then the franchise got this trap within themselves when they created the spin-off manga ''[[Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force]]''. Whoever thought that what the fans of a female-starring franchise famous for its [[Yuri Genre|Yuri subtext]] want to read are the adventures of a really uncharismatic male character that is [[The Chosen One]], [[Remember the New Guy?|gets along with the previous cast seamlessly]], nerfs the previous cast, [[Demoted to Extra|demotes to extra the protagonist of the franchise]], and embroils into a heterosexual romance no one really wanted to read about, should be fired. This manga basically alienated all the franchise fans, the combination of uncharismatic lead and the fame of the franchise couldn't attract new readers, and eventually was killed as a result.
* ''[[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]], due to the homophobic sounding premise.
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* ''[[Kiss Players|Transformers Kiss Players]]''. Even before the sensationalist, 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 an omnicidal alien teaching them their killing ways)" didn't feel adequate in a 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! Entertainment]] legendarily mismanaged the franchise), unlike their reputation as ''the'' post-''[[Dragon Ball]]'' shounen 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 became 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]]''.▼
▲[[4Kids! Entertainment]] legendarily mismanaged the franchise), unlike their reputation as ''the'' post-''[[Dragon Ball]]'' shounen 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 became 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 a mix of this and [[What Do You Mean It's for Kids?|the different cultural expectations for children entertainment]]. 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 makes those accessible 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.
* ''[[Oreimo]]'', the quintessential [[Brother-Sister Incest]] franchise. Not helped by the author {{spoiler|actually going there in the novels, unlike the anime that only left it in [[Incest Subtext|subtext]]}}.
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** ''[[Princess Tutu]]'': It's an anime about a duck that transforms herself in a human ballerina that fights enemies with the power of interpretative dance. It's also an extremely meta series about the power of narratives. People who watch it end up loving it, but you have to physically restrain them to make them watch it in the first place.
** ''[[Sugar Sugar Rune]]'', despite its 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 of its original publication, 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!" get 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.
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