If you where a japanese exec you wouldn't think that way... The difference between west and japan are apparent even how they run their businesses. A commercial is a commercial... in the end ratings or no, it does it job.
The Super Mario World TV series was essentially a commercial as well, a commercial for the game of the same name. And it certainly did its job in, you know, actually selling the games. Didn't stop it from being cancelled. Not to mention Love Hina already met the same fate there, literally being unfinished by a significant degree, despite essentially promoting the manga (if it was successful, it would be as long running as Dragon Ball/Z/Super).
Satoshi and Pikachu are both ingraned in japanese otaku culture, they're a recognizable brand. A lot of shows still air to this day that have worse ratings than pokemon, anime that don't even break 2.5 yet still run to this day.
So? Mario also is ingrained in Japanese otaku culture, or heck, any gaming culture for that matter even during the early 1990s, not to mention today. Even that popularity for Mario didn't save Super Mario World from cancellation due to bad ratings. And the Mario franchise itself was not even CLOSE to negatively affected with that series cancellation. And Pok?mon, for the record, is also ingrained into Western culture as well, being referenced in The Simpsons of all places, and even having one of its movie ending themes being referenced by one of our politicians during a campaign.
They don't care about ratings or box office numbers... they care about that commercial enticing people to buy the game... the TCG... and the tons of collectibles that they sell.
Yeah, and according to Bandai's List, the biggest toy distributor in Japan, the merchandising sales for Pok?mon are actually decreasing, which would logically necessitate a cancellation even if we use the Japanese aspect [since, if it sells poorly, ie, decrease in sales, it fails in its purpose. Economics 101.]. And the entire point of those movies since Jirachi Wishmaker was to essentially get people to get the mythical Pok?mon, and if they underperform in the box office, that means they sold far less mythical Pok?mon than expected, which essentially means they failed in their advertisings in addition to the box office since they're literally one and the same in this situation. Let's put it another way: Suppose you were going to make the latest addition to the DC or Marvel line of movies, and as usual, you distribute a comic book with a ticket to act as contextualization for what's happening on-screen, as well as to essentially sell more merchandise for the film. After the movie comes and goes, the movie is discovered to have underperformed at the box office, performed far less than even the previous bomb you had which was a significant while back. Are you going to claim that the movie was successful in even merchandising? No! You'd claim it to be an absolute failure. It's the exact same principle here.
Look at it this way weedle... Kuroko no Basuket has an anthology movie that's basically a cut to peices ver of the anime. They took 30 episodes and cut it to a run time of 1 hr and 30 mins no new content added in, just literally the show's episodes spliced together... In the west there would be an outcry for that sort of practice... But in japan that's celebrated. Do you see the issue here? applying western Ideals and values to japanese is wrong, expecting a different culture to act the same as yours is complicated. And in the end you're only going to be disappointed.
Actually, I'm not sure most Westerners would be up in arms against it. The Gargoyles movie and Kim Possible's "So the Drama" did something similar (splice the first five episodes of the series as well as three episodes into a feature-length movie, respectively, without any new content), and no one complained about that. Heck, Pok?mon DP when airing that special on Cartoon Network before the official premiere of the series outside Japan essentially made a movie by splicing the first three episodes with no new content and, if anything, actually cut content from the individual episodes (like Paul's actual first appearance, for example).
Why do you think that the japanese don't even bat an eye at the pachinko machines that konami makes? its different... heck they use fictional characters to market stuff all the time. Naked Snake once sold a car and junk food.
Yeah, I'm aware of that bit, and to a lesser degree, I'm aware that Naked Snake sold junk food (I assume you're either meaning the Calorie Mate from Snake Eater or the Doritos/Pepsi NEX/Mountain Dew collaboration for Peace Walker). Don't recall him ever promoting a car, though.
If pokemon where made in the west tho... yep the show will definitely be canceled. But the shows going to be complete trash especially if it started in the early 90's. The show's protagonist would be a teenager with a stupid voice, with an awful catch phrase, with a dark story, set in a vaguely futuristic world that is also dark... oh and they'd make an original characters (Probably a token Nerd who acts like a dumb idiot and Hot girl who obviously got the hots for him for no reason at all) to be his companions... They're going to stop the nefarious plot of the evil corporation team rocket.
Actually, not all Western TV shows are like what you described, especially regarding video game adaptations. I know the Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World wasn't anything like that, nor was SATAM (well, okay, Robotropolis may qualify to a certain degree, but not the other bits). Besides, Pok?mon started in the late 1990s, even in Japan, let alone America. And if I were one of those Western writers making the show, I'd make sure it's pretty close to what we got back in Kanto (probably the only real difference is toning down the Japanese elements to a certain degree [in other words, Samurai can be kept since most people are familiar with them, but stuff like the Summer Festival will probably be cut due to the average joe being unfamiliar with those concepts], and probably contextualizing any cultural references to be something we Westerners would actually recognize).
Still I agree the show would be canceled if a westerner is calling the shots.
Yeah, and I'm pretty sure they would have cancelled it all the same regardless of whether it was Japanese or Westerner, especially when Japan's cancelled shows that performed horribly in terms of ratings before even if they DID sell well, like with Kirby Right Back at Ya, Sonic X, and Love Hina.