Inside Universal Forums

Welcome to the Inside Universal Forums! Register a free account today to become a member. Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members and unlock our forums features!

  • Signing up for a Premium Membership is a donation to help Inside Universal maintain costs and offers an ad-free experience on the forum. Learn more about it here.
One, the fact that they’re growing (objectively true!) does not mean they are big enough to justify a semipermanent or permanent feature in American parks beyond what is already present.

Two, and I’m speaking as someone who works in the industry, the trades work with entertainment companies to build narratives all the time. You’re not going to get completely unfiltered, objective reporting from Hollywood Reporter, Variety, or Deadline.

Even in that regard as someone who also worked in entertainment (Korean not western) isn't it better to get ahead of trends so you can capitalize on their growing popularity later rather than regretting not have it. I mean there is actual a classic example in Island of Adventure....when Marvel Superhero Island came out Marvel was a box office flop outside of Spiderman which came out after the land opened. DC was what was really really really hot which Marvel was still niche. Then look where it is now and look how ahead Universal was.

Objective truth is animation is trending upwards in general, objective truth number two is japanese based animation is on the forefront of that, it makes way more business sense to me to get ahead of trends rather than wait then something blow up.
 
Even in that regard as someone who also worked in entertainment (Korean not western) isn't it better to get ahead of trends so you can capitalize on their growing popularity later rather than regretting not have it. I mean there is actual a classic example in Island of Adventure....when Marvel Superhero Island came out Marvel was a box office flop outside of Spiderman which came out after the land opened. DC was what was really really really hot which Marvel was still niche. Then look where it is now and look how ahead Universal was.

Objective truth is animation is trending upwards in general, objective truth number two is japanese based animation is on the forefront of that, it makes way more business sense to me to get ahead of trends rather than wait then something blow up.
Even if Marvel was relatively niche compared to DC at the time, the lands two headliner attractions were still based of Spider-Man and Hulk, two well known characters that transcend the Marvel name. Go up to someone walking around in the parks and ask them to name one Anime character. Maybe 1 in 30 would know one if you got very lucky.
 
Again, Universal traffics in specific IPs. They don’t traffic in specific genres or mediums.

Anime is not an IP.

Is it possible an anime will show up at the US parks at some point in the future (not counting Sanrio or Pokémon)? Sure. It’s possible. But that anime would have to be successful despite being an anime (see Sanrio and Pokémon). The fact that it’s anime would have nothing to do with it.
 
You would probably also get similar results if you asked people the names of the main protagonists of the Jurassic World franchise.
You could at least get the actor’s names like Chris Pratt and Jeff Goldblum out of a lot of people. And Jurassic Park/World is just one movie series. Anime is it’s own genre made up of many movies and shows and I still don’t think most people could name a character.
 
Even in that regard as someone who also worked in entertainment (Korean not western) isn't it better to get ahead of trends so you can capitalize on their growing popularity later rather than regretting not have it. I mean there is actual a classic example in Island of Adventure....when Marvel Superhero Island came out Marvel was a box office flop outside of Spiderman which came out after the land opened. DC was what was really really really hot which Marvel was still niche. Then look where it is now and look how ahead Universal was.

Objective truth is animation is trending upwards in general, objective truth number two is japanese based animation is on the forefront of that, it makes way more business sense to me to get ahead of trends rather than wait then something blow up.

This comment really feels like you're defending anime as if we're invalidating the medium when that's not the case. We're just saying as it stands now, it ain't happening.

And let's not forgot, the original plan WAS DC until they couldn't get a deal done and went with Marvel - which besides the ease of negotiations, it came cheap. But let's not pretend Spider-Man, X-Men (which had a very popular cartoon at the time) and Hulk were unknowns. We're also talking close to 30 years ago when times were verrry different.

You would probably also get similar results if you asked people the names of the main protagonists of the Jurassic World franchise.

But they would know the T-Rex, Blue, Raptors, dinos, etc - which is the main selling point.


Let's just take a look at the facts:

1. As I said before... In Japan, where anime is king, Universal Studios has a seasonal experience for close to 6 months where they alternate different anime IPs.

2. How is it currently represented stateside? They have Hello Kitty in 2 stores. The one in Hollywood fares better which we can attribute to the higher Asian demo. The one in Orlando may be getting the ax. What about elsewhere? They have one small kiosk in CityWalk and have some representation in MIB Store, which has become a Pop Culture spot now. If it was moving merch, it would be located in more prominent locations.

3. Let's use that Netflix number of 100 million across the year (which let's be real... was a pandemic year, so there's going to be that asterisk as people were more open to watching things outside their norm). If we divide that number by the 12 mos - that's 8.3 million monthly. If we applied that to Box Office tickets, and use general fuzzy math, with the average price of a movie ticket being $9 - that's a 75 million BO take... for all of anime. Not one specific property.

Admittedly, it's hard to really compare as equals for obvious reasons - but that at least paints a decent picture to understand a little bit better.

4. Most importantly, there are no breadcrumbs about any future plans include any anime IP as a property.

That doesn't mean anime isn't on the rise. That doesn't mean anime sucks. That doesn't mean people don't enjoy it. That doesn't mean there are viable anime IPs that could make for awesome rides.

It just means it's not in the cards any time for the forseeable future.
 
I remember when Apple made the AirPort wifi base stations. They kept them around for years, then Apple got super busy with the iPhone and iPad, and the AirPort wifi stuff was dropped. Apple figured its attention was better spent on its high-profit centers and not wifi base stations.

Feels like that with anime and USF.
 
I think I mentioned this in another thread, but I'm less interested in anime coming to the parks than I am in seeing USJ-style limited experiences based on smaller I.Ps, such as the temporary escape rooms, subtle restaurant rethemes, 4D movies, and merch shops that shuffle into the park annually.
 
Even in that regard as someone who also worked in entertainment (Korean not western) isn't it better to get ahead of trends so you can capitalize on their growing popularity later rather than regretting not have it. I mean there is actual a classic example in Island of Adventure....when Marvel Superhero Island came out Marvel was a box office flop outside of Spiderman which came out after the land opened. DC was what was really really really hot which Marvel was still niche. Then look where it is now and look how ahead Universal was.

Objective truth is animation is trending upwards in general, objective truth number two is japanese based animation is on the forefront of that, it makes way more business sense to me to get ahead of trends rather than wait then something blow up.

Universal is currently building a minion ride, a classic monster land, a Harry Potter Land, A Mario Land, and a HTTYD land.

I think it's safe to say they disagree about getting ahead of the trends.
 
I could be wrong, but didn’t Universal announce/hint that a Cool Japan type event would replace the Harry Potter celebration? Before the pandemic. Maybe it was just a rumor.
If they do this it would be a massive success for them. Anime is big business in the US.
 
I could be wrong, but didn’t Universal announce/hint that a Cool Japan type event would replace the Harry Potter celebration? Before the pandemic. Maybe it was just a rumor.
If they do this it would be a massive success for them. Anime is big business in the US.

Where did they announce or hint at this? Respectfully, have you read the rest of the thread?
 
Where did they announce or hint at this? Respectfully, have you read the rest of the thread?
I actually thought I read it back in 2019 on one of the threads here. But as I said it may have just been a rumor.
Yes I did read the thread before posting.
 
Top