Anime in Kingdom of the Netherlands: An Alternate Star Trek.

Let's see. Saunders, Pravda, Kuromorimine, St. Gloriana, Orange, Chi-Ha-Tan, Waffle and Maginot would defenitly be shown (even if not all get as much screentime as the main Schools or get most of their background explained in the novelisation.) Koala or Maple would be delegated to the Saunders OVA to act as competition to the Americans and the rest would probably only be shown in a montage or minor roles during the Movie.

“Concerned Parents Wage War on Dutch Cartoon.”

The New York Times description of Idolgate.


Anime had never been unknown in the United States, instead it was viewed as something foreign, and thus excotic. The problem of breaking into the market lied more in that the medium was viewed as a niche market and that networks were only willing to buy British dubs. While cheap and acting as a sort of quality control, this practice only allowed a fraction of the amount of anime produced into the country. Just how much the US market was lagging behind that of Europe became apparent with the rise of the Internet. Suddenly it was possible for everybody to watch whatever anime they wanted, even if it was in a different language.

But what really solidified anime as a household name was the news story that would later be known as Idolgate, when numerous media watchdogs demanded that newly released anime Love Live! should be banned for containing lesbian characters.

Instead of complying with the demand, dubbing studio Funimation claimed that Dutch customs were simply more liberal than American ones and that nothing was wrong,

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) media watchdog PTA was not fooled and threatened to drag Funimation to court, all the while publicly warning everybody from watching such an amoral series. As everybody with any knowledge of crowd psychology could have told them, this had the exact opposite effect.

Instead of heeding the warning, tens of millions of people across the country watched the anime online, tempted both by the promise of hot lesbian girls and just to see what all the fuss was about. Within one month, owner of Funimation, Sunrise Studios bragged that all fourteen episodes were some of the most watched videos on their site and publicly thanked the PTA for the free advertising, before promising that the second season would be “even more intimate”.

In the end PTA simply gave up on trying to get Love Live! banned, likely realising the futility of their quest. Though they did get the last laugh as it was not the twelve episode animes European studios typically produced that would go on to dominate the US market, but action packed, long runners typically made in the DEI. TV Java has never let their rivals forget that Harry Potter (a joint British-Dutch production) and Bleach (made by a German studio) were the only shows able to get the same amount of popularity as the most famous series made in Batavia. 

What European animes lacked in popularity for their products, they sought to make up for in involvement with their communities. Being in heavy competition with their rivals meant they were always on the lookout for new talent, and studios usually didn’t care much if that talent happened to be a foreigner. Most famous was self-taught web animator Monty Oum, who was hired by Breakthrough Studios after they found some of his videos on Youtube. After being given a crash course in Dutch, he was flown directly to Utrecht to work on the studio's latest project, the action-heavy series Hellsing. He was later promoted and given free reins to direct his own series, though he quit halfway into the second season of RWBY due to creative differences between him and the editor.

Few fans would even come close to Monty Oum’s success, though that did not stop them from emulating other facets of Dutch culture. By 2005 using words like “sukkel” (fool) or “sgattig” (a misspelling of schattig, meaning cute) was rapidly becoming the norm across the Internet, to the amusement and annoyance of native speakers. Language expert Jan Stroop is often quoted as having said that “everyone who speaks Dutch but doesn’t know the difference between de and het should be hit with De Dikke van Dalen until they get it right.”

By the time 2008 rolled around though, people would get more important thing to worry about than proper spelling. That year the greatest recession in memory hit the world and while the Netherlands and Germany were able to recover relatively quickly, South Europe was not so lucky.

Like most industries, the anime industry was hit hard by the recession with studios closing frequently. Desperate for work, animators moved in droves to Northern Europe in search of employment, flooding any job market with shear surplus and forcing the studios to close their doors to potential applicants.

Yet this was but one of the industry's problem. As Bas Kappert pointed out, “the studios are full of animators who don’t want to look at other people and writers who only want to write about their favourite series. There is almost no imagination left, only repetition.”

Wim van Loo was more direct in his assessment, stating that “we no longer write characters, we write archetypes.”

While this news did not create panic among fans, they were be more interested in the fact that leading experts predicted that the industry soon was going to run out of content to adapt. After this tipping point, quickly dubbed “peak anime” by image boards, studios were only going to produce less and less as they struggled to find new material to use as inspiration.

They got a taste of what was to come during 2015’s “the summer of remakes”, when seemingly every anime except for the Swedish The Perfect Insider was a remake of some kind.

Some optimists have suggested that this will cause studios to revert to create original content like the days of old, others have pointed to visual novels, an industry still in its infancy, as a source of inspiration. But only time will tell how the future of anime is going to look.

Fixed. What do you want me to Write about next?

That is going to be difficult because I have never watched any Gundam, but I'll try.

Mobile Suit Gundam: If it did not create the super robot genre, then it at least is one of its most famous influences. First released in 1989, a mere month after its creator’s death, it would go on to become one of the most popular series that year, earning a second season and a spin-of. Despite its fame, other studios were reluctant to buy the copyrights of the franchise, afraid that they would be unable to earn back the high price asked. In the end the issue would solve itself when Spitsuur Studios remaining library became public property at the orders of the Ministry of Culture. Since then the Gundam franchise has become famous for many of the tropes it pioneered, being very popular in Germany and having more studios involved then one can shake a stick at.

Any other animes you would like to know about?