Television Generated Blog

Recognize the picture? No? Well that's Yu-Gi-Oh! GX protagonist Jaden Yuki (Yuki Judai in Japanese) as he appears in season 4.

Where did the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise come from you say? Well, it originated in Japan of all places!

Who's it marketed to? Well in Japan, this particular series (as well as the card game it's based off of) is marketed to young adults and teenagers. In United States however, it's usually marketed to children (hence the joke phrase, 'Children's Card Game').

SAY WHAAAAT!?!?

Okay! Let's calm down now! So here's what happened:

1.) It originated in Japan.
2.) American broadcasters got permission to dub it and air it in the English language.
3.) In the process, the American broadcasters edited out all the violent scenes and symbols to make it more suitable for children.

Oh! Ok! Whew...

So Japan has their various anime adult/violent cartoons, America's got Disney, Warner Brothers cartoons (ie. Bugs Bunny), and now in the 21st Century, 4Kids TV.

Now this raises the next question:

When was the last time American broadcasters had an original idea???
Are they just mooching off of ideas made in other countries???

You know, I liked the Yu-Gi-Oh! TV series when I was younger. I still like to play the card game. I compared the English dubbed versions and the original Japanese episodes and I like the Japanese version a lot better.

Now before I continue my rant about television, I would like to say that I really don't like any of the American networks. I AM going to say that I like 'The Simpsons'. Probably the only network I really like is the Discovery Channel. I think Discovery taught a lot more than my last 3 years of high school...

Well, ok! Perhaps the various shows on the Discovery Channel taught me more moral values than what my last 3 years of high school had to offer.

And before you ask, no, I do NOT like 'The Office'.

Now here's what I hate about American networks:

1.) They're not consistent with ANY series. In other words they air a season and take some time off before airing the NEXT season. And sometimes they start a season, take some time off and THEN finish it! And sometimes they don't even finish it! They did that with the English translation of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. They did not air the last episode of season 3 and all of season 4 just so they could get started with the second spin-off Yu-Gi-Oh! 5DS.

Now for those of you who are television-stupid, a spin-off can be new radio programs, television programs or video games or even novels from already existing ones. Spin-offs work with varying degrees of success. Some become very popular and last for a number of seasons, whereas others exceed the popularity of the forbearing show and others are poorly received and have considerably shorter life spans. Prime examples include the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise from it's original series to GX, and currently onto 5DS. Another popular example is the CSI series. The original took place in Las Vegas and then two other spin-offs (New York and Miami) came along.

2.) There are always knock-offs. Now a knock-off as may already know is a cheap imitation that competes with the original idea. Yu-gi-Oh! competes with other animations and cartoons, CSI competes with other things like Bones, NCIS, etc.

Now what I like about Japanese TV shows is that they air new episodes of a series on a weekly basis until the series ends. And they immediately air the next season or spin-off series right after the previous until the series finale. But even then, I think they'll milk it for more than what it's worth...

Do you have anything to say about this?! Well, by now you should know the drill! Save it for the comments section! Thanks for reading!