Brought to You by the People that Invaded the US!

   Okay, so I have something that has been bothering me for a few years now. Can you guess what it is? Probably not. Not even if you could read mind through text, not even then. The thing that has me a bit upset is this whole anime studio thing. This whole thing where they advertise a certain show and say right under the show's name “Brought to you by the studio that made Black Lagoon!” or something along those lines. That is so misleading.

    Let's say I like Naruto, okay? And there is this new show coming out. It looks like some sort of romance-y, school comedy, and I won't like that type of show because I like action shows. BUT, right under this cliché anime's title is “Brought to you by the studio that made NARUTO!!!” I get all pumped up and excited because I then assume that the two shows have something awesome in common. After a painful month of waiting for this new show, I watch it. Now guess what I see: a romance-y, school comedy that has nothing similar to Naruto in it besides the fact that both shows are Japanese.

    I went sort of far with explaining it twice, but I got my point across. Educated fans of anime, or really anything else, will know to ignore such ads not only because they see them all the time, but also because such things are prevalent in the entire entertainment industry. Take the movie Hostel for example, I believe the ad for that said “Produced by Quentin Tarantino.” At the time I was a very inexperienced fan and believed this Euro hotel movie would have the famous Tarantino flare in it. Boy was I wrong. Little did I know as a young girl that producing has very little to nothing to do with directing.

    Don't get me wrong. I am not stupid. I understand entirely that things like this are the basics of marketing, but it still rubs be the wrong way when I see it simply because the things they advertise with the show, movie, etc. rarely have anything to do with the said show, movie, etc. However, I can't say I would do anything different especially in a declining anime market.