Re: [TechTV] Re: Anime on cable question

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "Rob Maxwell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

>"James Marshall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

>> I've been following their Anime Unleashed program
>> since I found out that I got TechTV.

>Lucky, you, having just discovered TechTV.

Well, see, we had a stupid dual line cable system where most of the stations
were on one cable line and some of them on a second line.  Very dumb system.
And most of the stuff that was on the secondary line I never watched.  But
I think TechTV was on that line.  So I didn't know we had it until they
moved everything onto a single cable line and I checked the new channel
line up.  So I've been watching AU since spring, I guess.  I forget when I
first saw it.  But it been roughly 6 months, so I think you misinterpreted
that a little bit.  I wasn't watching from day one like you, but I also
didn't *just* find out about it.

>Alas, they eventually ran out of new stuff, played what they had to death,

I don't know about that.  Things have been repeated, sure, but any more
than CN's shows?  I don't think I'd say they've played their stuff to
death.  It may *seem* like that because they don't have tons of series to
choose from, but each show's only had a few runs.  It's not like they've
played them dozens of times already.

>then pushed the main late
>night hour back to midnight, cancelled the afternoon repeats, and then shoved
>it back to 1 a.m. and cancelled the same night encore re-airings.

Well, yeah, but you do know all these changes were due to bad ratings, right?
The afternoon time slot wasn't doing well enough so it got dropped.  The
midnight slot moved to 1am for the same reason; OTOH, this move also put
it up against the second half of CN's AS which was repeats -- they had been
premeiring new episodes in the 12m-1a block and AU moving out of that
block wasn't necessarily a horrible move.  Same with the Friday night block.
Though that was the best slot, no competition from CN's "Fridays", it wasn't
doing well enough to stay; it's been shifted to late Sunday / early Monday
and 1.5 hours instead of 2 hours.

>So, in short, it has been sort of an "anime
>wonderland" for you and a "ghost town of repeats" for us.

Not exactly.  I've been through plenty of repeats and haven't watched them
because of that.  I taped them all already and don't have time to watch lots
of repeats right now.

>Even their weekly Friday late night chat has been really suffering from the
>constant stream of repeats, up until recently.

I haven't been to a lot of the chats lately, too busy and without AU playing
I don't have a good reminder to go to the chats.

>Oh, what the heck, here's a review of TechTV's Anime Unleashed series:

I taped almost all of these when TechTV aired them, BTW.

>Crest of the Stars - Loved it and have watched selected episodes 4 or 5 times

I liked it, but not enough to want to buy it so my tape will do for now.
I think I'm enjoying Banner of the Stars more since Jinto and Lafiel have
already been established by Crest and they can do more with them in Banner.

>Lain - Interesting 90s classic. Seen once, not really re-watchable.

I bought this on DVD a while back and haven't seen it yet.  I've skipped
the AU airings figuring I'll watch the DVDs when I want to, but haven't
found the time and placement for it yet (e.g., I didn't want to watch it
immediately after Evangelion which I saw months ago or Boogiepop Phantom
which I saw on AU fairly recently).

>Betterman - Decent mecha series. Caught a few repeat episodes. (Loved the
>Lizard Girl.)

Not bad.  I think there was a bit of the horror genre in there, too.

>Silent Mobius - Disappointing series that bored me and I quit on it half way
>through.

Not bad.  Another one that was nice to watch, but I probably wouldn't buy
now that I've seen it.  My tapes will suffice.

>Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure - My favorite series. Have watched nearly
>every re-airing.

Yeah, I really enjoyed this.  I liked it enough to buy the DVDs.

>Gatekeepers 21 - Not quite up to the standards of the original "Gatekeepers",
>which I'd love to see, again.

It was OK, but I felt like I was missing a bit since I never saw the
original Gatekeepers.  It would be nice if TechTV could get the original,
show it, then GK21 again.  It might be better to see the original before
the sequel.

>"Boogiepop Phantom" and "Soul Taker" - Hated both and gave up after the first
>episode.

Your choice, but frankly I don't think you gave them a fair chance if you
quit after one episode.  I'm not saying you wouldn't still hate them if you
watched more, but I'd personally find it hard to judge an entire series after
only watching like 8% of it.  I've adopted the idea I read somewhere that
a fair chance is the first DVD's worth of episodes because this is what the
company has to hook you with if you're buying DVDs one at a time.  You buy
the first, watch it, then decide if you want the rest.  So I'd say you need
to watch the first DVD's worth of episodes, usually 3-5, in order to give
a series a fair chance.  Buy anyway, watching more is almost necessary with
BP because of its rather fractured structure -- this was very much a puzzle,
where you're trying to piece together a story told out of chronological order
and from varying viewpoints; a real thinking anime (similar to Lain, I think,
but I haven't seen Lain yet).  I bought it so that I'd have the audio
commentaries which would hopefully help me make more sense of the series.
I like both anime that makes me think and anime where I can basically turn
off my brain and just watch and enjoy.  They serve different purposes and
give me different types of enjoyment.  Soul Taker wasn't bad either, but it's
another one that while I'd watch it on TV (and maybe my tape) because it's
essentially free, I probably wouldn't buy it.

>Banner of the Stars 1 - I'm enjoying this, of course.

Me, too.  More so than Crest, I think.  I particularly like the interactions
of Jinto with both Lafiel and Ekuryua.

>Geneshaft - I'm looking forward to its arrival this Friday night/Saturday
>morning.

I'll be taping it and watching it.  Hopefully it will be good.

>Did I miss any?

I think that's it, except for the Armitage movie they showed.  I think it
was Armitage III: Polymatrix, but I can't remember.  They haven't showed
it very much.

-- 
      .      .        .       .         -- James Marshall     (CAS)   .   .
 ,.  -- )-- ,   , . -- )-- ,            [EMAIL PROTECTED]   .,  .
          '             '       http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall
"Equations are living things."                                      .