Ask John: Why Hasn’t Disk Wars Avengers Reached America?

Question:
Why do you think the Avengers anime hasn’t been licensed for American viewers yet? Is it too tied into that card game? Is it that Disney and Marvel won’t allow anyone else but them to distribute the series outside of Japan? Or are they simply afraid its quirky art style will hurt the image of the franchise and refuse to release it outside of Japan? Or are Disney and Marvel just waiting for it to reach a certain number of episodes before bringing it over here?

Answer:
Having only watched the first episode of the current Disk Wars Avengers TV series out of 9 episodes that have aired so far, I have a limited knowledge of the show. However, I still think I can possibly address why the show hasn’t been brought to America yet. Similar to Disney & Madhouse’s multiple Stitch anime television series and Toei’s Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z that were based on American cartoons yet have remained Japanese exclusives, I suspect that Disk Wars Avengers was specifically designed for the Japanese market and likely will remain a Japanese exclusive. The Avengers franchise is certainly a massive global hit. That success is precisely why Marvel and Toei have created the Japanese Disk Wars Avengers TV series. But American fans of Marvel Superhero comics and mainstream American audiences familiar with director Joss Whedon’s blockbuster 2012 Avengers feature film are used to The Avengers characters being self-determined heroes. The “Pokemon-style” concept of Disk Wars Avengers is that the hero characters Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, and Wasp are trapped in “DISKs” (Digital Identity Securement Kits) and are only able to manifest in their full, normal forms for brief periods thanks to their human children partners. In effect, placing the onus of the show on the average Japanese children that formally partner with the superheroes instead of making the heroes themselves the stars of the show skews the tone of the show farther toward Japanese anime sensibilities than American expectations.

Young Japanese boys may marvel at the thought of assisting and even controlling powerful American superheroes, but that very reversal of power dynamic is likely to undermine the appeal of the show to American viewers. American viewers want and expect to see The Avengers starring in a television series titled “Disk Wars Avengers.” Americans want to see larger-than-life superheroes being super heroic, not trapped in pocket dimensions and only occasionally released by the decisions of children. In effect, the core concept of the anime series contradicts the American perception of the identity of Marvel superheroes. Disk Wars Avengers clearly works in Japan. But the show would only make sense to American viewers if it was presented as a drastically alternate depiction of what we’re used to from major superheroes. While the show could possibly be distributed in America with heavy promotional emphasis explaining that it’s an entirely different perspective on The Avengers than the one advanced by American comics, video games, and the Marvel Universe feature films, a far easier and less confusing option is simply to keep the Japanese show in Japan.