Curated playlist

Media franchises

Assassin's CreedAssassin's Creed began as a Prince of Persia sequel with the prince cut out.
James BondJames Bond got his name from a field guide to Caribbean birds. Ian Fleming wanted the dullest name he could find.
Toy Story (franchise)Toy Story 2 was originally planned to go straight to video. Impressive early footage changed Disney's mind.
Media franchiseThe Matrix Reloaded and a video game were made together and released the same day. That is media franchising at work.
PokémonPokémon Red and Green came in two versions so players would trade. Each version held Pokémon that the other did not.
GarfieldAs of 2013, the comic strip Garfield ran in roughly 2,580 newspapers and journals. That reach earned it a Guinness World Record as the world's most widely syndicated comic strip. American cartoonist Jim Davis created it, and it grew into a…
GundamJapan's Agriculture Ministry once reprimanded an employee for editing Gundam pages at work.
Silent HillSilent Hill got its name from translating a Japanese prefecture's name. The title was not crafted for marketing.
DevilmanDevilman was a dark manga born from a TV studio's request for something softer.
Re:ZeroSubaru Natsuki is walking home from a convenience store when he is suddenly transported to another world. That moment opens Re:Zero, a Japanese light novel series written by Tappei Nagatsuki. It is also known, less commonly, as Re: Life in…
Hello KittyHello Kitty first appeared in March 1975, printed on a vinyl coin purse sold in Japan. The picture shows a white cat sitting between a bottle of milk and a goldfish bowl. She wears a red bow, and she has no visible mouth. From that modest…
KonoSubaSnow kept the KonoSuba author from a Tokyo meeting about his own anime. He heard the news by phone in January 2015.
Neon Genesis Evangelion (franchise)Neon Genesis Evangelion had a manga running eight months before its anime aired.
TransformersTransformers had earned more than ¥2 trillion, about $25 billion, by 2011. That figure places a line of shape-shifting toy robots among the highest-grossing media franchises of all time. The property is produced by the American company…
The Beatles AnthologyIn November 1995, one Beatles album sold 450,000 copies in a single day. It set a record for single-day album sales.
ZorroZorro first rode into print in 1919, and the novel that introduced him eventually sold more than 50 million copies. That figure places The Curse of Capistrano among the best-selling books of all time. Its author, the American pulp writer…
StargateStargate is a military science fiction franchise that began when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Carolco released a film of that name on the 28th of October 1994. Today the franchise belongs to Amazon MGM Studios. As of January 2020, its main…
Granblue FantasyA live-streamed 700,000 yen spending spree forced Granblue Fantasy to apologize.
My Hero AcademiaMy Hero Academia is a Japanese manga series by Kōhei Horikoshi, and its hero starts with nothing. Izuku Midoriya is a boy born without a Quirk, one of the superpowers that have become ordinary in his world. He dreams of becoming a…
Sword Art OnlineSword Art Online opens with 10,000 players logging into a virtual reality game for the first time on the 6th of November, only to discover that they cannot log out. The year is 2022, and each player wears a helmet called the NerveGear,…