Forum - View topicNEWS: Adult Swim Shifts Bleach, Geass, Moribito Timeslots
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Hon'ya-chan
 Posts: 973 |
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Explain to me the "Charm" of two morons basically putting out Public-Access scripts, animation that even a 2 yr old could produce (and with better production values), and a show that is borderline offensive, if Rednecks actually managed to organize into something akin to the NAACP or the JACL and protested as such. |
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FMPhoenixHawk
 Posts: 66 Location: Formerly MI, now IN. |
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Financial charm, I think. Think about it. I pay Joe Jackbutt $50 for his script, then spend a few thousand animating it. I make back 20 times my investment in one half hour. I'd call that charming. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4575 |
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Not only financial charm, but also the charm in seeing how much can often be done with so little to work with. Take the granddaddy of all [as] series, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, which consisted of almost nothing but re-used animation from a terrible 70s superhero series; Sealab 2021 was right in the same vein. Both series took already-existing cels and crafted with them something completely different from the original. Or take the case of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, which showed that a minuscule budget and Flash animation could manage to craft some of the most surrealistically hilarious humor on television at the time. I see 12. Oz. Mouse singled out for some of the most vitriolic comments, yet I'll bet those that do so have never watched enough of the series to get a grasp on what it actually is; underneath that paper-drawn animation and stoner humor, there's a brilliantly-realized conspiracy drama going on. And taking it to the very extreme, I'm no fan of Tim & Eric myself, yet after talking to those who do enjoy the show, I feel like I at least have a bit of a grasp on what they were trying to go for; it's more of a dig at low-budget public-access television and an attempt at anti-humor than anything else.
Part of my personal problem with the response to this whole situation is the fact that I actually like several of the shows that those whose opinions I otherwise agree with have been severely disparaging. Hell, I'd go so far as to say that I flat-out love one or two of them. It's hard to "take up arms" with a group that's intent on lynching material that you find to have great worth in its own right. Even if I'm angry as hell at the direction that [as] has taken, that doesn't mean I'm going to easily stomach overwhelming criticism of what I personally enjoy. (Also, if there's anyone on the face of this planet who's seriously personally offended by the content of Squidbillies, methinks they had better re-evaluate the current state of their life.  )
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Isambard
Posts: 7 |
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I have to say, despite the logical reasons for why this schedule change was enacted, I am still somewhat bitter over the way Moribito was handled. Never mind that I can't understand why Cartoon Network acquired it in the first place since its about as poor a fit for Adult Swim's demographic as you could find. When you have a programming block that specializes in crude humor and with a show like Bleach being representative of the rest of what gets aired, a program where several episodes involve the cast spending the winter living in a cave isn't a good fit no matter how you look at it. Years ago when Adult Swim was airing the likes of Paranoia Agent and funding a second season of Big O it would have made more sense for them to take a risk, but times have certainly changed. And what do they do with Moribito once they have it? They premiere it at 1:30 AM on Sunday's, they refuse to advertise it or even mention it on their website, they do everything short of not actually airing it to sabotage it and when it does fail what is their recourse? To air it at an even more ungodly hour and replace its original 1:30 block with reruns of Squidbillies and 12 Oz. Mouse. And sadly Moribito could have succeeded, perhaps even garnered a broader audience, if it had received a proper venue. Its a well-crafted program on all fronts that tells its narrative with grace and maturity, focusing on a heroine of a breed not often seen in anime or elsewhere, and its all wasted on Adult Swim.
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Nobuyuki
Posts: 536 |
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Hi there!
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14761 |
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Basically, anime is like the ethnic minority in a society - it has to be much better (not just as good) than its peers in order to get noticed.
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LuckySeven
 Posts: 585 Location: Georgia, USA |
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I don't know about all that. I'm no hardcore otaku, nor am I a n00b, but there are a few anime that I think superior even to live action TV shows and movies, but they'll never get the notice they deserve. At least not now. As much as I still enjoy anime. The perception of it in the USA to the general public has relegated it to nerd culture akin to Star Wars or Star Trek fandom. I honestly don't expect it to get mentioned in anything other than a negative or condescending manner in pop culture. |
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Isambard
Posts: 7 |
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A case of too little too late. To have any effect that should have been posted weeks before the show premiered rather than as a mere afterthought weeks later. |
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enurtsol
Posts: 14761 |
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Sorry I wasn't too clear. I meant, its peers on Adult Swim. In other words, its ratings must be significantly higher than that of a domestic show that could replace it. |
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Top Gun
Posts: 4575 |
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That's not how the show pages on the [as] website work (or have worked, seeing as how they've recently gone through a major revamp, and I'm aiding in the process on one or two of them). They're meant not as advertising before a show airs but as a source of information/resource for people watching it. (Even so, Moribito's page was up fairly quickly after the show started its premiere run.) For what it's worth, the people at Williams Street in charge of the [as] website are a completely different group than those who work on the broadcasts, and the former has traditionally been far more proactive toward promoting their anime properties than the latter. For instance, Moribito received a prominent announcement in the forums a few weeks prior to its premiere, and its own subforum went active a good week or two beforehand. Anime series are also frequently promoted on the splash screens one sees when first entering the site (though I don't think Moribito has received one yet) and in the premiere listings on the front page. Hell, the mods on the forums even instituted custom ranks before Code Geass's premiere related to the series, and Death Note received one of the "Top 10 Moments" listings dedicated to it; both series also have copious clips in the Video streaming section. As much disdain as I have for the broadcast side of [as] at the moment, I've generally held a good deal of respect for their website crew. |
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enurtsol
Posts: 14761 |
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I hear it's shifting yet again.
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rebecca1/2
 Posts: 25 Location: USA |
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I signed on here just to post in this thread.
Fact is, I stopped caring what Adult Swim did a long time ago, because they stopped caring about what I wanted, long before that. I've posted many times over there - people go out on weekends. If I have the choice between maybe seeing some anime girl's cartoon boobs, and maybe getting flashed in person by some drunk girl at the club? Frankly I'd rather enjoy the real thing, even if it's totally meaningless and I never talk to the person. Consequently I barely remember the last few episodes of Morbito and Code Geass due to still being plastered myself. If anything they did me a favor moving them later, I may actually be able to enjoy them without taping them to watch sometime later in the week. Although that does give me the advantage of skipping the commercials. Anime must be doing well enough over on Sci-Fi to get brand new fresh programming to run there, mixed in with Manga Entertainment shows/films that are 15 years old and have been run to death on Encore already. But let's see, you're AS, you spend years insulting your anime fans in bumps and posts, sudden schedule changes, bad episode edits, skipping entire episodes of shows for no apparent reason, dropping shows in mid-run... now your target audience is young, often in school, and doesn't always have a lot of disposable income. So you're surprised when those same fans say to hell with you and download the stuff they want to see instead of watching it on your channel? Then you run it only one night a week, a night when many people choose to socialize, and wonder why the ratings aren't good enough. Yeah.. keep on smoking the funny little cigarettes, guys. They're doing wonders for whatever brains you started out with. Since they cut anime to one night, I've been watching 2 hours over there at a max. Now I'm down to one hour. I fully expect when Geass and Morbito are done, they'll be replaced by more crap, and I won't watch anything at all. The sad thing is I kind of like Robot Chicken and The Venture Brothers... but I won't watch them because I hate the network. And I tend to agree it probably boils down to money. This is the same network that cancelled "Stroker & Hoop" because it was too expensive to produce another season (they said). And that wasn't exactly top budget stuff in the first place. The problem is that you're not going to generate the ratngs that let you charge confiscatory rates for advertising by underpromoting shows and abusing the few fans that do find them. So like I said they can do whatever they want. Worst case, they take all the anime off. Then I have no reason to turn the channel on. That kinda defeats their purpose in existing, so I guess they only hurt themselves. Meanwhile I have Sci-Fi at least into early 2009 and TAN VOD at least as long as ADV remains in business. Plus IFC seems to get a new show or two each year. I'll be watching those - |
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Hon'ya-chan
Posts: 973 |
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This is how i feel about the situation. |
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FMPhoenixHawk
Posts: 66 Location: Formerly MI, now IN. |
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Nice of them to tell us the change... Oh, wait, I usually don't watch that late on weekdays because there are other things on I like to watch. (I do like Lucy, it's a great show, as is Venture Brothers, but I've seen every ep of Family Guy enough that I don't care.)
As for the post above about not giving series a chance, I did watch the first 5 episodes of 12 oz Mouse. I was not impressed by the storyline or the art. I dislike Squidbillies because the humor is not funny to me. It wasn't funny to my sister (Who loves Redneck-style humor) when she watched it. It seems most of their new custom shows are not entertaining to me. I did, however, love SeaLab 2021 and Harvey Birdman. If I had money, I would buy those sets. |
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MagusGuardian
 Posts: 589 |
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