Ask John: Why Isn’t Tekkaman Blade Available in America?

Question:
When I was on the internet and looked up Tekkaman Blade, I found 2,371 search results on Lycos, and countless petitions So my question is, if the series has this large of a fan base in America, why isn’t anyone licensing it?

Answer:
A portion of the Tekkaman Blade TV series made it to American television in 1992 as Teknoman, courtesy of Saban. Considering the difficult and delay we’ve seen in getting anime series like Transformers and Sailormoon out on home video from similar major distributors, it’s easy to imagine that a lesser known show like Teknoman would face even more obstacles in getting a home video release. Companies like DiC and Saban retail and distribute on such a massive scale that the relatively small anime market is virtually insignificant to them.

Keep in mind that even if all 2300 search engine hits were actually a single customer who would buy a copy of Tekkaman Blade if it was released on home video, that would only amount to about 1 copy of each tape selling in each Best Buy store in America. That’s at Best Buy alone and doesn’t include any anime retailers like AnimeNation, or mainstream dealers like Blockbuster Video, Suncoast or any other retailer. 2300 search engine hits may seem like a lot, but in reality 2300 is a virtually insignificant number. An anime tape needs to sell in the hundreds of thousands of copies, if not millions of copies, in order to cover the costs of licensing, manufacturing and distributing it in America. Based on the sales of Urban Vision’s Tekkaman Blade 2 OAV series, I think that the American anime companies simply don’t see proof of a large enough market for Tekkaman to make licensing the Tekkaman Blade TV series a profitable venture.

It’s not my point to be negative. In fact, this should merely suggest that anime fans need to be more active in promoting, generating and nurturing increased interest in anime in mainstream American consumers. When big companies realize that they can make a large profit by releasing anime on home video, we’ll see still more anime on home video in America.