Depending on the franchise, the fanbase growth are different.
For example, Akira was already circulating in western circles before the start of corporate dubs. The Akira fansubs circulated in underground fan groups, which is what caught the attention of corporations that decided to bring it over.
Of course, anime has been imported into the US since as early as the 60's (and lots of US animation outsourced their art to Japanese animation studios, like a huge chunk of WB afternoon cartoons and the majority of Disney Afternoon stuff). But a lot of shoujo (sans Sailor Moon), seinen, and even more niche shounen material mostly starts off as fansub/scanlations. When the fanbase gets big enough, corporate jumps on the title and brings it over officially. The anime/manga industry leans pretty heavily on fansub/scanlations to check for which titles will go hot in the States before bringing the material over.
As for something like Pokemon, that's because of Nintendo's marketing, which doesn't really have to do with the fan driven import. Videogame marketing is a different kettle of fish and not really representative of the majority of the anime/manga import process.
Going back to MDZS, it doesn't seem that the franchise has any overseas marketing in the early adaptations (aka: no official English publication of the novel or English subs/dub for the cartoon). The TV show grew out of the previous two fandoms, and it seems like at that point MDZS grew big in the West, so they made an effort to capitalize on the existing fanbase. So yeah, there's multiple vectors of introduction for MDZS, but the initial foothold was the result of fans translating the original material.
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Depending on the franchise, the fanbase growth are different.
For example, Akira was already circulating in western circles before the start of corporate dubs. The Akira fansubs circulated in underground fan groups, which is what caught the attention of corporations that decided to bring it over.
Of course, anime has been imported into the US since as early as the 60's (and lots of US animation outsourced their art to Japanese animation studios, like a huge chunk of WB afternoon cartoons and the majority of Disney Afternoon stuff). But a lot of shoujo (sans Sailor Moon), seinen, and even more niche shounen material mostly starts off as fansub/scanlations. When the fanbase gets big enough, corporate jumps on the title and brings it over officially. The anime/manga industry leans pretty heavily on fansub/scanlations to check for which titles will go hot in the States before bringing the material over.
As for something like Pokemon, that's because of Nintendo's marketing, which doesn't really have to do with the fan driven import. Videogame marketing is a different kettle of fish and not really representative of the majority of the anime/manga import process.
Going back to MDZS, it doesn't seem that the franchise has any overseas marketing in the early adaptations (aka: no official English publication of the novel or English subs/dub for the cartoon). The TV show grew out of the previous two fandoms, and it seems like at that point MDZS grew big in the West, so they made an effort to capitalize on the existing fanbase. So yeah, there's multiple vectors of introduction for MDZS, but the initial foothold was the result of fans translating the original material.