1980s
In the early 1980s, CBN Cable aired an English dub of the Christian-themed anime series Superbook and The Flying House.
In the 1970s and 1980s many production companies such as DiC Entertainment, Nelvana, Hasbro, Warner Bros. Animation and Walt Disney Television Animation outsourced Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese studios to help animate many original animated series for network syndication such as Transformers, Inspector Gadget, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Muppet Babies, DuckTales and Care Bears. TMS Entertainment (known for Lupin III and Detective Conan) would animate the popular animated series Tiny Toon Adventures and Rainbow Brite.
In the mid-1980s super robot and space opera anime was very popular, series such as Voltron, Transformers and Robotech were successful in ratings and also commercial successes through selling merchandise.
There was an early attempt by Harmony Gold to air a dub of Dragon Ball in the late 1980s but was unsuccessful.
In 1988, the anime film Akira was released theatrically in the U.S. by Streamline Pictures. Though it was a commercial failure, it gained a cult following.
- Superbook
- The Flying House
- Voltron (combined adaptation of Go Lion and Dairugger XV)
- Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years (combined adaptation of Captain Harlock and Queen Millennia)
- Noozles
- Maple Town
- Robotech (combined adaptation of Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada)
- Dragon Ball
- Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs (adaptation of Bismarck)
- Mazinger Z/Tranzor Z
- Macron 1 (combined adaptation of GoShogun and Akū Dai Sakusen Srungle)
Read more about this topic: List Of Anime In The United States