Hello again!

Well, continuing the listing I began yesterday; today I should be able to get the rest of the week down.  Monday seems to be a real big anime day, the rest of the week is quieter (that, or I just missed most of the shows...)

Also, many thanks to the (ahem, many) people who responded re. Detective Konan.  Seriously, though, at least now I know what's going on (well, as much as I can considering I catch one word out of a hundred.)  I suspected that he'd been an adult at one time....

Tuesday:
Jibaku-kun: Twelve-world story (I think I got that right...)
6:30, Channel 19
Very odd show, this.  The main characters draw their power from these little living orange-ball things with little arms, legs, and really big mouths - they look like something off of an old heavy metal poster.  Average animation, some cool looking characters and design... but coupled with some absolutely goofy art, stupid looking giant animals and races.  Opening songs good, the ending animation's a riot (three ball-things headbang away, until one falls over from exhaustion.)

Pokemon, 7:00, Channel 19
In English, yet!  Well, not quite - a nice feature of Japanese broadcasting is that some programs are bilingual: if your tv is equiped with a bilingual button, one press and you switch languages.  Obviously, this only works with programs that -have- an English track to them, like many import movies (caught Seven just a few nights ago...)  Wish this somehow magically worked for -every- show, but not gonna complain.

Anyway, I think this is a new time slot for Pokemon, since I never noticed it before, and tonight they played the first episode.  (Where, I wonder, did they get 'Ash' from Satoshi?)  Interestingly enough, I don't think they dubbed Pikachu's voice...

I think this is also an attempt at making English education interesting, since the show ended with a quick lesson: showing 'Ash' tossing his ball, in Japanese, then replaying in English ('I choose you!')  Well, guess I'll soon be out of a job... heh.

Wednsday
Space Station One, 6:00, Channel 19
May have the name wrong on this one.  Seems interesting, from the little I understood.  Big station in orbit around earth, I gather... although the episode I saw had the station falling to pieces and everone ejecting, so...  Some nice design work, though.

Beast Wars, 6:30, Channel 19
Yup, Beasties, or whatnot, and they seem quite far along in the series, too. But it's only in Japanese!  Argh!  First time I've seen them not keep the English track.  One interesting change: the completely redid the opening (and did a much better job of it,) and changed the music.  While the funky pseudo-rock of the NA version was okay, now they've got the typical cheesy J-pop rock going, and its even better; the guy sings 'Soul Burning!' at some point.  Great stuff.

Thursday
Friday
Hmm, strangely enough, I don't seem to have anything for those two days.  Must've missed it.  I'll keep an eye open this week.

Saturday
Yu-gi-oh, 10:00 am, Channel 33
May have the wrong name here, too.  There's surprisingly few anime on tv on Saturday - actually, it's not surprising at all, considering most kids are at school three weekends out of five.
This one's kinda interesting, though for a slightly younger age group.  Little girl with big spikey yellow hair (her hair has an odd red silhouette) wears an obviously mystical pendant.  When evil rears its ugly head she transforms (err, into an indentical looking older version of herself) with a deeper voice, and confronts it.  However, with obvious marketing tie-ins, all the fighting revolves around games - tables and chairs have a habit of appearing.
Show seems quite popular, and really doesn't seem that bad.

Funky Cat Show, early saturday
Couldn't catch the name.  Funny, though, with goofy-styled but smooth animation.  Very, very new, just started a few weeks ago.  Mad scientist builds the ultimate fighting cat robot, which promptly turns on him and runs off.  Cat hides in a UFO-catcher machine, pulls on a stuffed toy's skin, lives with the cute old senile couple.  When the scientist comes looking (often with some new toy, or his army of lesser-grade cybernetic cat robots,) the cat-with-an-attitude problem goes medieval on their ass and tears them apart with his hand agtling cannon.  Funny stuff, and great opening song (kinda rapid-rappy.)

Zoids, 5:30, Channel 29
Weren't Zoids an assembly toy a few years back?  I'd suspect this of being brought over from the States, but the style is certainly anime - although with a CG element.  Good guys and bad guys duke it out in giant animal and dinosaur-based mecha.  Mecha design's really quite cool, but is all done in CG.  Not bad, though, one of the better usages I've seen.

Card Captor Sakura, 6:30, Channel 39
I probably don't need to say too much about this one, I think it's already started to be carried over - at least in fansubs.  Definitely one of the better animes on television, at least in terms of quality of production.  STory seems okay, although I obviously didn't get much of that.  Great stuff if you're into well-done but repetitive attack-sequences (a la Sailor Moon.) Judging from the character ages, though, I'd again assume it's aimed at a younger audience, and probably girls, too, since only one of the central characters is a guy.

Sunday
?, 7:00, Channel 31
The only comment I had written down for this one was: "shit art, goofy."  Obviously not every anime is all that good...

GTO, 7:30, Channel 31
Great Teacher Onizuka.  Very, very popular, it's a manga, anime, it's been a tv drama, and is now a Japanese movie.  Obviously quite popular, and aimed at an older audience.  From the single episode I've seen ('Lesson Eleven') I'd say it's probably the best of the current crop available on the channels I get.  If somebody doesn't carry it over, then there's just something wrong...

The opening credits are easily the best I've seen, nicely animated (some rotoscoping), very funky artwork, great music (song by 'l'Arc-en-Ciel,' which, while I know means 'Rainbow,' is also the name of one of the hottest rock bands over here.  It'd be like using an... I dunno, a Korn song or something for a cartoon back home.)

Seems to be the story of radical high-school teacher Onizuka, and his non-standardized methods of helping his students out.  He's actually a well-fleshed out character, arrogant and obnoxious as hell, a pain in the ass to many students - but there when its important.  Seems to have something in for the vice-principal, too; guess kocho-sensei lets him get away with it.

Keep an out out for it.
***
Well, those are the shows I've picked up on so far.  I'll keep an eye open for more.  Final note: looking at the hours (ie. prime time,) you'd think it'd be an indication that anime is held in higher regard here than animation is back home.  TO a certain extent that's true (I certainly used to believe so,) but that's a really small part of it.  The target audience still remains the teen/school-crowd... and few kids make it home before six o'clock.  With club practice starting at 4, and running to 5:30-6:00, and often cram-school after that... Most students get home -late-.
***
Later!
Oh, and as usual, another update of my page, though a small one this time.  I got one comment that the 'Japan' link may not have been working.  SHould be now, I just tested it - and added a new journal entry to boot!  Minor update to Choices: Decision, too. (Hey, I've had a lot of free time at work, it's midterm time!)

-Mike Noakes
noakes_m@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Subway/9701

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