The other day I discovered this program that showcases anime series and videos in the Tech channel ( a channel I NEVER usually bother with, so I hadn’t noticed before.) They’re airing stuff like SOULTAKER, BETTERMAN, SILENT MOBIUS, GATEKEEPKERS 21 and DUAL. I’ve also heard rumors of BOOGIEPOP PHANTOM and SERIAL EXPERIMENTS LAIN. I’d like to know what you people think of this show- it’s choices of anime, as well as how they’re handling them, assuming you’ve seen it.
It’s on Tech TV and it shows between midnight and 2 am. It’s almost like adult swim only Tech TV doesn’t censor the episodes.
That and there are three sets of commertials during each half hour. Oh, and the dub of Crest of the Stars was absolutly horrible when they had it on, even by my loose dubbing standards. They already showed Lain, which I missed, and Silent Mobius was pretty good, but I haven’t seen much else of anything they showed.
Here’s my opinion on the shows I’ve seen so far in AU:
-SOULTAKER- saw only one or two eps, not enough to judge it properly. (One problem with Tech TV is that they do NOT announce what animes they have on, or when, or how long they are.)
-BETTERMAN: I found it VERY annoying. First, because it was obviously an attempt to cash on the “deep phylosophical meaning + tragedy” combination so sucessful with Evangelion (a series I CANNOT stand, BTW) and second because of the scientific jargon on it; the only reason I bothered watching it was in the faint hope I could UNDERSTAND it by the end… no dice.
-GATEKEEPERS 21: Althought a "dark’ anime with the whiniest characters I’ve seen, I must admit I liked the story’s structure. But the ending was TOTALLY out of synch with the rest- I mean, after making such a point of the tragedy of death, EVERYBODY is back to life in the end??
-DUAL: Kinda hard to swallow, cuz this is obviously a romantic comedy where nothing really bad happens DESPITE there being a war on, but what the heck, it’s about the lightiest show on AU, so I like to watch it.
-CREST OF THE STARS: I’m not even bothering with this one. I know I’m being unfair, because I’m judging it without seeing it (other than about two eps) but I just find the whole “humanity as second bananas to a superior race” concept TOO annoying.
In general, AU is a good source -unedited, too- of anime, especially shows you’re not likely to see anywhere else in American tv because they’re too weird or dark. Now if only they handled them better…
Anime Unleashed
Serial Experiment Lain-so confusing, but if you understand it, way cool
Crest of the Stars-dubs real bad, but pretty interesting if the animators only wrote more!
Silent Mobius-episodes I saw were interesting, but the girls all have bad haircuts
Dual-if you’ve seen Tenchi this has the same flavor. A guy surrounded by bunches of girls who like him and they all fight in robots against the people who want to rule the world.
Betterman-loads of enemies, scientific talk, and freaky bugs. But it’s cut when the geeky boy(who discovers he can pilot a robot) tries to make a girl he new ages ago to like him(I think it works).
Gate Keepers 21- Only a few episodes long, but the ideas are interesting. Certain people born with pwrs of different dimentional gates that could eventualy destroy them, invaders who come in through the pathetic of humanity, and more.
SoulTaker-Animation is always in shadow, certain episodes are all action, others actions plus major hints on why the lead character is an alien. And a “happy” ending. thumbs up
Boogiebop phantom- saw like half the series, but the black and white style just got to me, I need a little color, it makes the anime even better.
And I think that’s all they’ve shown thus far.