Ask John: How Popular Was Battle Athletes in Japan?

Question:
Is/was Battle Athletes pretty popular in Japan? I ask this because I’ve seen a ton of references/homages/cameos to Akari from the show, and in recent news about the Tokyo Anime Center’s “Life-size Figure party,” Akari is one of the figures present. I’m real curious about this not only because Battle Athletes, I assume, didn’t do so well in the US, but also because the show has a slight-lesbian tone to it which, I figure, wouldn’t appeal as much to the audience. I’m curious if it is or was popular enough in Japan that it warrants the various cameos, homages, ect. and Akari be popular enough to get a life-size figure that I’ve seen.

Answer:
My recollection of Battle Athletes was that the franchise was constructed as a “manufactured hit” similar to Bandai and Namco’s .Hack franchise. From its inception, Pioneer and AIC intended to heavily promote and produce Battle Athletes as not just an anime OVA series, but rather as a multimedia franchise. Battle Athletes did get two anime adaptations, two Playstation games, a Saturn game, and a number of novels and manga. It’s also possible that the existing life sized Akari figure is a several-year-old hold-over from the series’ original promotional blitz. However, the degree to which the series was genuinely popular among Japanese fans, and the degree to which the series was popular because Pioneer and AIC adamantly supported it is uncertain.

I’ve never heard of any objections to the subdued lesbian theme present in the anime, and I doubt the theme was a significant concern for Japanese viewers at the time. For reference, the Battle Athletes television series aired in 1997, the same year that the Shoujo Kakumei Utena television series aired. The Utena series was easily as successful, if not more successful than Battle Athletes, and also featured an implied lesbian theme as much, or more overtly than Battle Athletes did. So, at the least, the inclusion of a “yuri” theme couldn’t have been harmful to the popularity of the Battle Athletes franchise.