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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/Available_Reason7795 on 2024-07-06 00:12:56+00:00.

4kids Entertainment, one of the most hated children’s entertainment companies in the world in the 90s and 2000s, has always been a talk of the town when it comes to how the boom for anime dropped in the 2000s, how they censor media, how animation and children’s programming declined in quality in recent years, and how why people can’t enjoy dubbed anime. Yet one thing that still puzzles me to this day is why was this company so hated by people back then. What was what was going through people’s minds when they condemned 4kids even after they were gone. Then the answer dawned on me and it was suprising. People hate 4kids so much for the same reason why it was founded in the first place: marketing and licensing products.

Before 4kids was even called 4kids, it was called Leisure Concepts in the 1970s and during that era in the 80s, the company’s main goal was to license and market toys to kids of some of the most famous cartoons of that era: Thundercats, Silverhawks, and GI Joe. That drew in a lot of kids that wanted the toys and products of their favorite shows and with that, Leisure Concepts gained a lot of money in the next few years following. in 1991, Alfred R Kahn of Cabbage Patch fame decided to rename the company from Leisure Concepts to 4kids Entertainment. now renamed as 4kids Entertainment, the company was hot on the trail to make more licensing and merchandising and they next hot hot would be anime, but the question is, which anime do they need? The answer would come in 1998 when they got Pokemon. With the success of Pokemon in the states, 4kids was out making Yugioh a hit in 2001 and it also did well with them.

However as time passed on, this is where the problems start to occur with 4kids. The 2000s was not like the 80s, people weren’t interested in cheap quality programs of the 80s anyome. They want shows that don’t talk down to them and treat them like adults with knowledge and brains with shows like Avatar, TMNT (2003), Invader Zim, and Samurai jack. This creates a problem with 4kids as most of their shows (except Shaman King and TMNT 2003) were all light hearted and had a lot of whacky cartoon edits and dumbed down material. This in turn angered most of the audiences that were not putting up with lighthearted cartoons that 4kids was providing and they hated them for it.

Another problem that would come in later of how people see 4kids was Al Kahn’s dismissal and disregard for the target audience and the medium he was supposed to be licensing and marketing to.This made people believe that 4kids had no respect for the medium and the target audience in the world of children’s programming. Then in 2011-12, 4kids was accused of fraud from the Yugioh franchise by Konami and Tv Tokyo and that made people realized that 4kids was really that horrible at children’s media and licensing products and wasn’t going to let another company to be like them.

So in short, 4kids was hated not because of censorship, but it was created to license and market children’s media and products. The audience in the 2000 have different tastes that the audiences of the 80s and 4kids felt like outdated and out of touch with the changing norms of society’s tastes in media. I can seen that people need to see that there is more to 4kids than what thwy think they know and this is the real reason for their hate. I highly recommend watch the 4kids Flashback podcast, it was very fun to listen to and get new information about 4kids.