History ScrewedByTheNetwork / Anime

* Fox Kids tried to sell the dub of ''Anime/VisionOfEscaflowne'' ([[OutOfOrder skipping the first episode]]) [[AnimationAgeGhetto as a kids show]], rolling it out alongside the likes of ''[[Anime/DigimonAdventure Digimon]]'' and ''WesternAnimation/BeastMachines'' without realizing it delved into [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids some fairly mature stuff]] in the latter half of the show. They quickly shelved it after about 10 episodes and tried to forget about it. {{Creator/YTV}} in Canada, which began its run of the series shortly after Fox did, quickly learned from Fox's mistake and aired the entire series in prime time with appropriate content warning bumpers attached to it.

** 4KidsTV also screwed ''Anime/KirbyRightBackAtYa'' and ''Manga/ShamanKing'' by airing them at the same time that Kids WB ran ''Pokemon'' and ''Yu-Gi-Oh!''. These were 4Kids' biggest cash cows and the company knew they couldn't compete with them, so they sacrificed ''Kirby'' and ''Shaman King'' to the competing timeslots, knowing they would be killed in the ratings. They also initially skipped two episodes of ''Kirby'' (which, thankfully, weren't plot relevant); One of said episodes was likely skipped because they didn't want to show the title character getting [[DemonicPossession possessed by a demon frog]] and attacking the residents of Dream Land. The other one was pre-empted by sports and may have specifically been sacrificed (4Kids having not particularly cared about episode order) due to, once again, the episode's plot being questionable, since it was the episode where Escargoon's shell breaks, leading to a whole mess of NakedPeopleAreFunny jokes and King Dedede wondering what snails look like under their shells.

** The kicker? Fans managed find out the reason most of the songs were missing: TV 4 were worried people wouldn't understand the Japanese words. 49, 54 and 68 didn't get dubbed because the songs couldn't be removed. What makes this extra stupid is that the one time the song was left alone, in episode 21, the overwhelming reaction was "Awesome song! Where can I buy it?"\\

* The ''Anime/{{Tamagotchi}}'' anime had this treatment on [=GO!=], thanks to their [[AdoredByTheNetwork network pet]] ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}''. They also kept pushing the schedule around and showing the same 26 episodes for a whopping 4 years. The fact that the dub they aired is typically a HongKongDub (with the exception of one episode) doesn't help.

** In fact, as pointed out above with Creator/{{YTV}}'s treatment of ''[[Anime/DigimonXrosWars Digimon Fusion]]'', Canada has NOT treated ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' very well in recent years. This could be due to the franchise as a whole not being as popular in North America as it used to be, as well as [[Anime/DigimonAdventureTri recent]] [[VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuth attempts]] to target the PeripheryDemographic who grew up watching ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' who, as again noted above, Canadian networks seemingly want nothing to do with.

* In the United States, ''Franchise/LoveLive'''s two seasons were seen on Mnet America, a ''very'' obscure South Korean music channel. [[Creator/NipponIchi NIS America]]'s English dub premiered on Friday, February 5th, 2016 at 6PM. Overtime, the show has been aired on Saturdays at 4PM, Sundays at 10 PM, and finally, weekdays at 11AM. Even the show's content rating was constantly in flux, going from TV-G to TV-PG and back again.

* ''Anime/SailorMoon'' was screwed over in U.S. syndication when the episodes were shown in early morning dead timeslots on weekdays only[[note]]mostly 8:00 am, which is when most kids are either arriving at school or leaving the house to get to school[[/note]], though, depending on what local station aired the show, viewers could see this show as early as 4:00 in the morning [[note]](when most kids would be asleep)[[/note]] or as late as 2:30 in the afternoon [[note]](which is when kids are either waiting to get out of school or on their way home)[[/note]]. After 65 episodes (ending on the ''Sailor Moon R'' episode "Sibling Rivalry"[[note]]or, if you're familiar with the Japanese titles, "Cold-Hearted Rubeus! The Four Sisters of Sorrow"[[/note]]), the show was canceled. When Creator/{{Toonami}} (back when it was a daytime [[UsefulNotes/BlockProgramming block]] on Creator/CartoonNetwork with anime series that were moderately-to-heavily edited for content) picked up the show two years after its cancellation from syndication, it got a better timeslot (3:30pm at first, then 4:00pm, which is when a lot of kids would already be home from school[[note]]unless they had extracurricular activities, detention, or a long ride home[[/note]]) and aired all the episodes beyond the first 65 (read: the episodes seen in ''Sailor Moon S'' and ''Sailor Moon Super S'', along with the movies) under a new dubbing studio [[note]](though most fans have cited Cloverway's dub as being worse than [=DiC=]'s[[/note]].\\
\\
Until 2014, the final season was never licensed to be dubbed because of legal issues surrounding the franchise, the details of which are still speculated. This may change now that Creator/VizMedia got its hands on that season, along with the rest of the series. Instead of television, they've streamed ''Sailor Stars'' online and eventually released it on DVD.
** Sailor Moon was similarly screwed over in syndication in the UK, where Fox Kids were either unaware, or didn't care, that the episodes had a continuous plot. The show had two graveyard slots, showing during the very early morning before kids were up, and in the early afternoon when their target audience was still in school, and the episodes aired in order spread across the two slots - so fans had to watch twice a day to keep up. This problem was bypassed with time as the show was repeated to death, due to the network only owning two seasons. At the end of the second season, a clip show summing up the past two seasons and advertising the arrival of season 3 was left in despite the network not having the rights to season 3. Fan frustration at this killed Sailor Moon's already low ratings and the mini-site on the Fox Kids website encouraging discussion of the show was flooded with nothing but complaints.
* There is tell of an urban legend that ''Naruto'''s [[{{Macekre}} mangled corpse]] was found in a graveyard slot in the United Kingdom. No one attended the funeral because its parents would rather have dinner parties in ''Series/CoronationStreet'' and [[Series/EastEnders Albert Square]]. Turns out, it was just a Shadow Clone. The real ''Naruto'' managed to escaped to a safe haven in the ''Creator/{{Toonami}}'' block where it can air uncut.

* ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'' and ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth'' were both screwed by Creator/FoxKids. Creator/{{Toonami}} was interested in both shows, but Fox Kids picked up both so that Toonami could never obtain them. What does Fox Kids do? ''They didn't do anything with them!'' Fox Kids basically sat on the broadcast rights to the shows until their rights expired and Toonami was no longer interested. ''Slayers'' has since been broadcast on the defunct International Channel, Colours TV, and the [[Creator/{{Funimation}} Funimation Channel]]. ''Rayearth'', on the other hand, was only broadcast in the San Francisco Bay Area by the local Creator/{{PBS}} station.

* ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'' got very little exposure in the U.S. due to Disney dumping it to UPN's ''[[Creator/OneSaturdayMorning Disney's One Too]]'' block, with [[InvisibleAdvertising practically nothing to promote it with]] as it was paired with ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfTarzan'' to conclude the block. Most people who found out that the series existed in the first place did so by catching the reruns on [[Creator/{{Freeform}} ABC Family]] and later Creator/{{Jetix}}[=/=]Toon Disney. Granted, this was the first ''Digimon'' series to air after Fox/Saban sold the license to Disney as part of their deal that saw Disney acquire the former channel, and Disney did everything they could in their power to disavow the franchise's existence, dubbing all future ''Digimon'' entries out of a contractual obligation before they were given the opportunity to drop the license.

Until now, the final season was never licensed to be dubbed due legal issues surrounding the franchise(Basically the original creator of the Manga refused to grant any more licenses for any future dubs or home video releases of Sailor Moon outside of Japan). This may change now that Creator/VizMedia got its hands on that season, along with the rest of the series. Instead of television, they've streamed ''Sailor Stars'' online and will eventually release it on DVD.

** 4KidsTV also screwed ''Anime/KirbyRightBackAtYa'' and ''Manga/ShamanKing'' by airing them at the same time that Kids WB ran ''Pokemon'' and ''Yu-Gi-Oh!''. These were 4Kids' biggest cash cows and the company knew they couldn't compete with them, so they sacrificed ''Kirby'' and ''Shaman King'' to the competing timeslots, knowing they would be killed in the ratings. They also initially skipped two episodes of ''Kirby'' (which, thankfully, weren't plot relevant); One of said episodes was likely skipped because they didn't want to show the title character getting [[DemonicPossession possessed by a demon frog]] and attacking the residents of Dream Land.

Until now, the final season was never licensed to be dubbed due to the creator fearing that many countries-- America, specifically -- wouldn't take kindly to the fact that the Sailor Stars are men who transform into women (not to mention the copious nudity in the last few episodes, even though, in Japan, nudity is a symbol of purity and doesn't have any sexual connotations to it). This may change now that Creator/VizMedia got its hands on that season, along with the rest of the series. Instead of television, they've streamed ''Sailor Stars'' online and will eventually release it on DVD.

* Channel One (then known as ORT) is responsible for the biggest wave of Pokémania Russia had ever witnessed. The success was cut short when MoralGuardians interfered with crazy stories, shaming the government channel for brainwashing their kids. It was taken off the air, effectively killing the franchise in Russia forever. None of the subsequent attempts to relaunch broadcast on cable and OTA networks ever gained the same amount of success as ORT's first run attempt. The series is currently airing on 2x2, which promotes itself as an ''adults-only'' network. This definitely takes away a big part of potential fandom, leaving only established grown-up fans who, for the most part, remember the ORT's original run - and they never wanted or cared about new episodes in the first place. Virtually all discussion on channel-affiliated social media pages on Pokemon is about asking the network to either show ORT's old episodes or bring back the original voice actors.

** In the United States, the show was [[AdoredByTheNetwork beloved]] by Creator/DisneyXD at first. But the first two games that serve as the basis of the series ended up underperforming stateside, with ''Yo-kai Watch 2'' performing even worse than the original (when it was beaten by Nintendo's ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon''). Not to mention the highest rated episode in the US only managed to pick up 500,000 viewers. It has since gotten this treatment in terms of marketing and promotions being minimal to zero in comparison to more popular first-party programming like ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'' and any animated series based on ''Franchise/StarWars'' or the {{Creator/Marvel}} Universe. The show was dropped in 2019 after three seasons and was replaced with ''Anime/InazumaElevenAres'' in its weekend and weekday time slots alongside ''Anime/BeybladeBurstTurbo'' and ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}''.

* ''Anime/KemonoFriends'' is an example of this [[LaserGuidedKarma that ended up being costly to the network in question]]. Completely out of the blue Kadokawa, one member of the group of companies that owns the rights of Kemono Friends franchise, fired Director Tatsuki and Studio Yaoyorozu, following this up with easily disproven claims that Tatsuki had "pirated" Kemono Friends to make commercials without permission and that Yaoyorozu had already resigned weeks beforehand. They then had the voice actresses apologize... to Kadokawa, for inconveniencing the corporation. Given that [[SleeperHit the anime was a hit]] primarily because of Director Tatsuki (who rewrote the entire script, redid all the 3D CGI models in his spare time for free, and did so after Kadokawa had written the entire series off as a loss and thus gave them no budget) fans were [[{{Understatement}} somewhat less than pleased]]. After several hundred million tweets and Nico-Nico posts complaining, a rather significant letter writing campaign, as well as several huge names in the anime industry (including Kadokawa's parent company's CEO and the CEO of the largest TV network in Japan) speaking out about it publicly, Kadokawa's CEO made a public apology and has returned to the negotiating table with Yaoyorozu. In the end, [[https://twitter.com/fukuhara_ystd/status/945943082431758336 Yaoyorozu and Tatsuki will not return for the second season]], leading to fans declaring not watching the coming season.

* When ''Series/DigimonAdventure02'' aired in the Netherlands, the Dutch Fox Kids had the rather strange policy of refusing to air episodes featuring snow or Christmas outside the respective season. The probable reason is because the network executives thought their target audience would be [[ViewersAreMorons completely befuddled]] seeing snow on tv, despite it not being winter. Unfortunately, many important episodes, including the finale, take place during Christmas or snowy weather. This means the Dutch audience was unable to see how the series ended during its original run.

* CITV has been somewhat awful at showing action cartoons without losing control of its bowels (''WesternAnimation/{{ReBoot}}'' was infamously cancelled in mid-series for being "too violent"). ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' is the only action cartoon they didn't up and out cancel before the strand "Evolved" into its channel incarnation. ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura'' got to the second half of the Sakura Card arc before being yanked and ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' only got three episodes of ''[[Anime/DigimonTamers Tamers]]'' out of the gate before it suffered the same fate. Cardcaptors, at the very least, got to finish its run as filler for UsefulNotes/FormulaOne races and on GMTV.

** in the United States, the show was [[AdoredByTheNetwork beloved]] by Creator/DisneyXD at first. But the first two games that serve as the basis of the series ended up underperforming stateside, with Yo-kai Watch 2 performing even worse than the original (when it was beaten by Nintendo's ''{{VideoGame/Pokemon Sun and Moon}}''). Not to mention the highest rated episode in the US only managed to pick up 500,000 viewers. It has since gotten this treatment in terms of marketing and promotions being minimal to zero in comparison to more popular first-party programming like ''{{WesternAnimation/DuckTales}}'' and any animated series based on ''StarWars'' or the {{Marvel}} Universe. The show was dropped in 2019 after three seasons and was replaced with ''Anime/InazumaElevenAres'' in its weekend and weekday time slots.

** in the United States, the show was [[AdoredByTheNetwork beloved]] by Creator/DisneyXD at first. But the first two games that serve as the basis of the series ended up underperforming stateside, with Yo-kai Watch 2 performing even worse than the original (when it was beaten by Nintendo's ''{{VideoGame/Pokemon Sun and Moon}}''). Not to mention the highest rated episode in the US only managed to pick up 500,000 viewers. It has since gotten this treatment in terms of marketing and promotions being minimal to zero in comparison to more popular first-party programming like ''{{WesternAnimation/DuckTales}}'' and any animated series based on ''StarWars'' or the {{Marvel}} Universe.[[/note]] The show was dropped in 2019 after three seasons and was replaced with ''Anime/InazumaElevenAres'' in its weekend and weekday time slots.

** in the United States, the show was [[AdoredByTheNetwork beloved]] by Creator/DisneyXD at first. But the first two games that serve as the basis of the series ended up underperforming stateside, with Yo-kai Watch 2 performing even worse than the original (when it was beaten by Nintendo's ''{{VideoGame/Pokemon Sun and Moon}}''). Not to mention the highest rated episode in the US only managed to pick up 500,000 viewers. It has since gotten this treatment in terms of marketing and promotions being minimal to zero in comparison to more popular first-party programming like ''{{WesternAnimation/DuckTales}}'' and any animated series based on ''StarWars'' or the {{Marvel}} Universe.

* {{Creator/Aniplex}} was originally going to release ''Manga/DGrayMan Hallow'' on Blu-ray and DVD in Japan starting in September 2016. Unfortunately, issues with the production quality caused the release to be delayed indefinitely at the beginning of that month. By March 2017, Aniplex cancelled the release.

* ''Anime/KemonoFriends'' is an example of this [[LaserGuidedKarma that ended up being costly to the network in question]]. Completely out of the blue Kadokawa, one member of the group of companies that owns the rights of Kemono Friends franchise, fired Director Tatsuki and Studio Yaoyorozu, following this up with easily disproven claims that Tatsuki had "pirated" Kemono Friends to make commercials without permission and that Yaoyorozu had already resigned weeks beforehand. They then had the voice actresses apologize... to Kadokawa, for inconveniencing the corporation. Given that the anime was a hit primarily because of Director Tatsuki (who rewrote the entire script, redid all the 3D CGI models in his spare time for free, and did so after Kadokawa had written the entire series off as a loss and thus gave them no budget) fans were [[{{Understatement}} somewhat less than pleased]]. After several hundred million tweets and Nico-Nico posts complaining, a rather significant letter writing campaign, as well as several huge names in the anime industry (including Kadokawa's parent company's CEO and the CEO of the largest TV network in Japan) speaking out about it publicly, Kadokawa's CEO made a public apology and has returned to the negotiating table with Yaoyorozu. In the end, [[https://twitter.com/fukuhara_ystd/status/945943082431758336 Yaoyorozu and Tatsuki will not return for the second season]], leading to fans declaring not watching the coming season.

* ''Anime/KemonoFriends'' is an example of this that ended up being costly to the network in question. Completely out of the blue Kadokawa, one member of the group of companies that owns the rights of Kemono Friends franchise, fired Director Tatsuki and Studio Yaoyorozu, following this up with easily disproven claims that Tatsuki had "pirated" Kemono Friends to make commercials without permission and that Yaoyorozu had already resigned weeks beforehand. They then had the voice actresses apologize... to Kadokawa, for inconveniencing the corporation. Given that the anime was a hit primarily because of Director Tatsuki (who rewrote the entire script, redid all the 3D CGI models in his spare time for free, and did so after Kadokawa had written the entire series off as a loss and thus gave them no budget) fans were somewhat less than pleased. After several hundred million tweets and Nico-Nico posts complaining, a rather significant letter writing campaign, as well as several huge names in the anime industry (including Kadokawa's parent company's CEO and the CEO of the largest TV network in Japan) speaking out about it publicly, Kadokawa's CEO made a public apology and has returned to the negotiating table with Yaoyorozu. In the end, [[https://twitter.com/fukuhara_ystd/status/945943082431758336 Yaoyorozu and Tatsuki will not return for the second season]], leading to fans declaring not watching the coming season.

* ''Anime/SailorMoon'' was screwed over in U.S. syndication when the episodes were shown in early morning dead timeslots on weekdays only[[note]]mostly 8:00 am, which is when most kids are either arriving at school or leaving the house to get to school[[/note]], though, depending on what local station aired the show, viewers could see this show as early as 4:00 in the morning [[note]](when most kids would be asleep)[[/note]] or as late as 2:30 in the afternoon [[note]](which is when kids are either waiting to get out of school or on their way home)[[/note]]. After 65 episodes (ending on the ''Sailor Moon R'' episode "Sibling Rivalry"[[note]]or, if you're familiar with the Japanese titles, "Cold-Hearted Rubeus! The Four Sisters of Sorrow"[[/note]]), the show was canceled. When Creator/{{Toonami}} (back when it was a daytime block on Creator/CartoonNetwork with anime series that were moderately-to-heavily edited for content) picked up the show two years after its cancellation from syndication, it got a better timeslot (3:30pm at first, then 4:00pm, which is when a lot of kids would already be home from school[[note]]unless they had extracurricular activities, detention, or a long ride home[[/note]]) and aired all the episodes beyond the first 65 (read: the episodes seen in ''Sailor Moon S'' and ''Sailor Moon Super S'', along with the movies) under a new dubbing studio [[note]](though most fans have cited Cloverway's dub as being worse than [=DiC=]'s[[/note]].\\

* The VideoGame/{{Tamagotchi}} anime had this treatment on [=GO!=], thanks to their [[AdoredByTheNetwork network pet]] ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}''. They also kept pushing the schedule around and showing the same 26 episodes for a whopping 4 years. The fact that the dub they aired is typically a HongKongDub (with the exception of one episode) doesn't help.
** The dub of [=YumeKira=] Dream takes it UpToEleven by replacing the theme song and insert songs and splitting the episodes in three-minute parts.

* The VideoGame/{{Tamagotchi}} anime had this treatment on [=GO!=], thanks to their [[AdoredByTheNetwork network pet]] ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}''. They also kept pushing the schedule around and showing the same 26 episodes for a whopping 4 years.

* The VideoGame/{{Tamagotchi}} anime had this treatment on [=GO!=], thanks to their [[AdoredByTheNetwork network pet]] ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}''. They also kept pushing the schedule around and only dubbed 26 episodes.

* {{Creator/Aniplex}} was originally going to release ''Manga/DGrayMan Hallow'' on Blu-ray and DVD in Japan starting in September 2016. Unfortunately, issues with the production quality caused the release to be delayed indefinitely at the beginning of that momth. By March 2017, Aniplex cancelled the release.

** To add shows that were supposed to air were Hell Girl's second season, ''Anime/GalleryFake'', ''Monkey Typhoon'', ''[[VisualNovel/PhantomOfInferno Requiem for the Phantom]]'', and ''Anime/DancougarNova''.

** To add shows that were supposed to air were Hell Girl's second season, Anime/GalleryFake, ''Monkey Typhoon'', ''[[VisualNovel/PhantomOfInferno Requiem for the Phantom]]'', and ''Anime/DancougarNova''.

* Fox Kids tried to sell the dub of ''Anime/VisionOfEscaflowne'' ([[OutOfOrder skipping the first episode]]) [[AnimationAgeGhetto as a kids show]], rolling it out alongside the likes of ''[[Anime/DigimonAdventure Digimon]]'' and ''WesternAnimation/BeastMachines'' without realizing it delved into [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids some fairly mature stuff]] in the latter half of the show. They quickly shelved it after about 10 episodes and tried to forget about it. {{YTV}} in Canada, which began its run of the series shortly after Fox did, quickly learned from Fox's mistake and aired the entire series in prime time with appropriate content warning bumpers attached to it.

** in the United States, the show was [[AdoredByTheNetwork beloved]] by Creator/DisneyXD at first, but the first two games that serve as the basis of the series ended up underperforming stateside, with Yo-kai Watch 2 performing even worse than the original (when it was beaten by Nintendo's ''{{VideoGame/Pokemon Sun and Moon}}''), it has since gotten this treatment in terms of marketing and promotions being minimal to zero in comparison to more popular first-party programming like ''{{WesternAnimation/DuckTales}}'' and any animated series based on ''StarWars'' or the {{Marvel}} Universe.

** In fact, as pointed out above with Creator/{{YTV}}'s treatment of ''[[DigimonXrosWars Digimon Fusion]]'', Canada has NOT treated ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' very well in recent years. This could be due to the franchise as a whole not being as popular in North America as it used to be, as well as [[Anime/DigimonAdventureTri recent]] [[VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuth attempts]] to target the PeripheryDemographic who grew up watching ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' who, as again noted above, Canadian networks seemingly want nothing to do with.