primetech wrote:Fred Patten said it best himself: The original Robotech was a sci-fi cult phenomenon more than an anime success. And now the lines are drawn even more strongly. Robotech caters to its original fans, most of whom were never interested in anime to begin with.
That's kind of a "duh" statement (I'm not saying it's a stupid thing to say, just very obvious). Of course most fans of Robotech when it was originally released here weren't anime fans. The term "anime" wasn't even in our lexicon at the time.
For the vast majority of American households, Robotech was only the fourth anime they had even an opportunity to see following Speed Racer, Star Blazers, and some form of Gatchaman (Battle of the Planets and/or G-Force).
Other anime had made it across as well, but they were all limited to different area markets.
It’s kind of like saying Star Trek doesn’t count as sci-fi since most of the original fans of the fist Star Trek show weren’t sci-fi fans to begin with.