"Any card—so long as it exists—has a power that is needed."

zombiekaiba:

So today I went “oh yeah, my university library/online database access is gonna be cut off soon. I’d better hurry up and research any last important topics I wanna know about”

…..and then I spent an hour doing very important 4Kids History Research

a summary:

• It’s the 80s. Reagan-era deregulation has hit TV broadcasting, and most of the laws that used to limit the amount of kid-targeted advertising stations could air have been whooshed away.
• Enter My Little Pony, Transformers, Care Bears, etc. And enter the company that will be 4Kids: Leisure Concepts Inc. 
• Leisure Concepts is a “licensing company,” which evidently means “glorified toy marketer.” Their big claims to fame include: pitching Thundercats to Rankin Bass (and getting Thundercats toys into Burger King), and helping a mall outlet store set up its Budweiser Dog Mascot merch displays
• Now it’s 1995, and the CEO of Leisure Concepts is openly, proudly talking about getting the company “vertically integrated” ajghalkhsg
• Vertical integration was a form of Old Hollywood monopoly where companies like Warner Bros/MGM/Paramount owned the production (movie studios), exhibition (movie theaters), and distribution (advertising) of their movies. It was outlawed in the 50s for being Very Blatantly A Monopoly
• But with all the Reaganism going on, I guess LC is confident they can get away with it lmao. They already have distribution/advertising, obviously, so they start working to assemble a production division. They’re thinking about calling it 4Kids Productions
• At this point, Leisure Concepts has no intention of getting into the anime business. The first show they produce through their 4Kids arm is……a live-action Wrestlemania-style martial arts show???
• Meanwhile, in 1997, a 4Kids employee takes a business trip to Japan for a toy convention, stumbles across the first few episodes of the Pokemon anime while he’s there, and goes “Dude. We could sell so many toys of this shit”
• Leisure Concepts has apparently worked with Nintendo before (selling “Super Mario Bros. Christmas lights and ornaments” and “Game Boy shampoo” zkjgksgk), so they’re able to make a deal for the US licensing rights to Pokemon.
• They still have zero intention of getting into anime dubbing. The deal they’re offering to the Pokemon Company is “We’ll find an American TV network for you to air your 20 minute toy ad (ahem) show on, set you up with some nice US toy companies, and take a percentage of the profits.”
• But none of the networks they try selling Pokemon to wants the Weird Japanese Animal Collecting Show. LC can’t accept that answer–they’re convinced, no matter what they naysayers think, that this is the toy-selling opportunity of the century
• Finally, LC throws up their hands and goes “Fine! We have our own [brand-new, tiny] production company [that we’ve never used for anything besides making a bizarre campy martial arts show] now! If you idiots won’t take the show, we’ll dub it ourselves!”
• And somehow, they manage it? They pull together enough translators/actors/etc to Dub This Damn Toy Ad practically overnight?? And apparently they get around the issue of not having a TV network by offering the first few episodes to stations for free???
• Anyway, the next thing anyone knows, MSNBC is running segments on Pokemania, Pokemon is on the cover of Time Magazine, and every children’s anime producer in Japan is suddenly flinging their shows at the feet of 4Kids (which has literally never breathed in the anime business’s direction before this). 
• And that’s how 4Kids faceplanted into becoming the world’s most (in)famous dubbing company when they Just Wanted To Sell Toys