Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

heloo all its me Hugo,


I was just wondering about all the cartoons, how come usagi doesnt have one? Because when I was younger (7 or so) they had Tintin the explorer (a comic). But it wasnt as huge as Usagi, i mean sure short flicks of him. Longest role in TMNT. I know lots of people have asked this question but a good flick starring Usagi yojimbo like a movie would be good .

Tintin not huge? Maybe it's not huge in the US or Canada, but if having periodical reissues of the albums sold along with the newspapers (and being bought in record numbers), having quite a bunch of dedicated books about its history and even having a few museum expositions is not being huge, then I don't really know what's being huge around here . Seriously, Tintin is one of the most famous and popular cultural icons, at least in my area.

I believe everybody around here would love to see a UY cartoon, but things are more complicated than that. It's been discussed a few times before. There are things involved like copyrights, quality of the series (how much control does the creator have over the final result), and commercial success, which usually comes in toy revenues. As far as I know (not much), if a series doesn't have the possibility to bring back some sort of income in merchandising, it doesn't have many chances of being produced at all (which actually sounds quite logical).

Making a cartoon is quite expensive, and in order to make some money the series must appeal to as much people as possible. I think UY would be a good candidate, but first most people would have to get rid of some prejudices like the use of funny animals or the lack of violence or action sometimes ("You mean Usagi sometimes doesn't fight? Then what's the point? Isn't it an action series?"). Also, since Usagi kills people in the comics, it'd be pretty hard to target the cartoon to children, which would mean the content would have to be toned down, and some of the most interesting stories would have to be dropped in favour of the more "extreme" storylines in which Usagi would fight against lots of bad guys, I'm afraid. Unless the cartoon was targeted to adults and featured somewhere like Adult Swim on Cartoon Network, but I think that's even harder.

I'm convinced the show could be done in Japan, but making it for he US/Canada or Europe is way harder.

As for TinTin not being huge in Canada?

I was recently in Montreal (Downtown) and passed by several huge Signs with TinTin's face plastered all over them on the street. I dont know what it said as it was in French lol

It probably said: "I'm Tintin, I'm huge all over the world, except English speaking north america" hehe

But seriously though TinTin was BIG in all the book and comic shops I visited from the books to collectibles to Tshirts and dvds of the old cartoon. So he did appear to be widely known!

Back to the the topic at hand, I completely agree with Ziritrion the
"real" Usagi would be difficult to do for a straight Saturday morning kiddie cartoon show. Simply due to the nature of Feudal Japan and some of the stories that are represented from that time period.

As well, as has already been said, if it was targeted at an older audience on something like the Cartoon Network during the older audience time slot, it could be effectively done in my opinion.

I guess the 1st option might be to do a direct to video DVD as a pilot, to see what interest was there. I'm sure everyone on this forum would pick up a copy!

What story or stories would be good for a 60-90 min pilot show??

Cheers!

starseed wrote:What story or stories would be good for a 60-90 min pilot show??

Maria von Trapp wrote:Let's start at the beginning, which is a very good place to start

A pilot involving Usagi's history (as per talking to Gen) in the first Fantagraphics comics would probably be as good a place to begin. It would explain why he's a ronin, what his origins are and that he does have a few "friends" in the world to trust on.

Next question though... what sort of drawing style? Manga would be ideal but this is a TV show not a film. Perhaps. Drawing costs and the such in TV animation always is way less than a dedicated one-off production.

well in my place tintin isnt really popular. Id even donate some money for usagis cause.

but hehe, tintins voice was cool, it was the profesers that botherd me

I used to watch Tintin when i ws younger, its still around.

I heard rumors that the guy who invented Tintin really hated his creation near the end because everyone loved it and kept demanded more or it.

i was like 5 back when i watched it.....