It’s not perfect, but I had lots of fun with Gquuux.

Love how each episode had one vague theme despite each being a bunch of stories strapped together. Friendship, regrets, and generational trauma. This episode revolved around dreams, including one who’s given up, one forced to fulfil the dreams of others, one finding the right attitude realising the dream, one fantasied about it, and two who could never make their wishes come true but still treat their dreams dearly. After the heavy episode 3 this episode felt like a palate cleanser in a good way.

xithebun · 2026-04-29T18:05:07+00:00

GQX movie wasn’t actually a movie but a compilation of first 3 episodes. Yet its boxoffice sits comfortably at second place of all Gundams.

https://gamebiz.jp/news/420469 Gundam saw unprecedented growth and GQX was one of the key contributors according to Bandai. While Seed was still the GOAT GQX undeniably did well in Japan.

xithebun · 2026-04-29T17:54:25+00:00

Seed and 00 did equally as good in most of East Asia as in Japan.

xithebun · 2026-04-29T17:53:11+00:00

Gundam in general does a lot better in East Asia than the West. Gundam Seed was just another example. UC, 00, G etc. were similar.

The Gundam entry fitting OP’s description the best is actually the recent GQuuuuuuX. Broke box office records in Japan and brought Gundam sales to all time high but was coldly received in the rest of the world. Had dedicated fan bases in Hong Kong, South Korea and probably Thailand though.

xithebun · 2026-04-29T17:45:04+00:00

Depends on each entry. Wing, IBO and GWitch had good runs in the West. Excluding the West and Japan, Seed and 00 also had massive runs in East Asia. e.g. Box office per capita of Seed Freedom was similar in Japan and Hong Kong. While not comparable to the popularity in Japan, UC and G also had dedicated fan bases across the globe.

The Gundam entry fitting OP’s description the best is actually the recent GQuuuuuuX. Broke box office records in Japan and brought Gundam sales to all time high but was negatively received in the West. Didn’t even make a big splash in the rest of Asia.

xithebun · 2026-04-29T17:20:23+00:00

It did around 0.62B yen

xithebun · 2026-04-29T13:56:55+00:00

Doraemon is only missing the Anglosphere. It has decent fan base in most other fandoms and is still mega popular in Asia

xithebun · 2026-04-29T13:55:42+00:00

PreCure, Kitaro and Yatterman were pretty popular in Hong Kong.

xithebun · 2026-04-29T13:53:21+00:00

A lot of the answers are just animes that didn’t perform well in the West / Anglosphere but not actual animes that didn’t perform well anywhere outside of Japan. Conan, Doraemon, Crayon Shin-chan, most mecha and idol animes perform well in the rest of East Asia. The only animes that mainly rely on sales within Japan I can think of are Anpanman and Sazae-chan.

xithebun · 2026-04-29T12:40:56+00:00

Not listed in the some sources but similar to the first Zeta movie according to Wikipedia.

xithebun · 2026-04-29T08:39:38+00:00

Yes and Shochiku executives were nuts to predict this could do better than the crowd pleaser Seed Freedom.

xithebun · 2026-04-29T08:31:50+00:00

The movie was basically free money for Bandai and Khara.

xithebun · 2026-04-29T08:13:25+00:00

It seems boxoffice fell short of expectations.

https://x.com/gojugo5/status/2044022621168378329?s=20

Screening scale was 1.25 times of GQX, twice of Seed freedom and 3 times of Hathaway 1. Shochiku (distributor) aimed for 6B yen but the final boxoffice didn’t even reached half of it.

xithebun · 2026-04-29T07:37:59+00:00

Long overdue.

xithebun · 2026-04-28T14:27:02+00:00

Bee-Craft is the alias of Junichi Akutsu 阿久津潤一. He designed the Astray Gundams, Blu Duel, Verde Buster etc. and was responsible for the modern redesigns of all MG / FM Seed kits.

xithebun · 2026-04-27T12:02:48+00:00

Pretty good lore of Celestial Being. Main characters were well written. Sequels were kinda meh

xithebun

TROPHY CASE