Cartoon Network's 1st Original 'Toonami' Series

Rick Ellis writes "Sunday at the 2005 Tokyo Anime Fair in Japan, Cartoon Network unveiled the highly anticipated new series, IGPX. It's a co-production with Production I.G. and Bandai Entertainment and will be the Cartoon Network's first original 'Toonami' series."

Hope for some new stuff...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to personally see Naruto on Toonami. Nice to see CN is diversifying though. Production IG has been involved with lots of anime intros for video games like Xenogears.

Subbing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Toonami's one of the most popular "programs" on CN right now- what are the odds that we'll start to see things subbed, or at least competently dubbed?

(First?)

Anime Powerpuff Girls

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this explains the Anime version of the Powerpuff Girls [rowdyruff.net] that has been spotted? Maybe CN is trying to get a presence in Japan?

Re:Subbing?

[CoffeeJedi]

fans have been asking CN to use the SAP (second audio program) for the original Japanese soundtrack for a while, but no luck yet

when a network gets the broadcast rights to a dubbed program or movie (anime or foreign film, or anything), do they get the rights to the original soundtrack too?

Re:Feh

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Good mecha is hard to come by (Original Getter robo and the original Gundam come to mind) but poor mecha is easy to come by and little kids love toy robots. So CN just keep saying and getting shows based on poor mecha rather then the good stuff, so all you see is 2D characters throwing in poor one liners and repeating each week. Theres a big difference between what CN shows and what any self respecting mecha fan would watch..

Top Cat

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who thinks Top Cat was the best cartoon show ever made?

Re:Toonami

[CoffeeJedi]

yes we do, because:

A: CN is not a children's network, have you seen [adult swim] that was my first exposure to Cowboy Bebop, i, like many other people, never really knew about anime before that

B: this isn't a poorly dubbed show, this is coproduced in America, so the dialogue will be natively written and performed in both languages

C: they've been "riding this Japanese fad" for over 10 years, how long do fads last?

D: alot of kids watch anime on Cartoon Network because its their only exposure, this affects the next generation of sci-fi fans. alot of people on Slashdot probably have kids who are into Toonami and anime, and would be interested in this

E: because its cool, its news... its for nerds... and if you're an animation fan (like many /.'ers) its stuff that matters

meh

[j0nb0y]

I stopped watching toonami when they stopped showing it on weekdays. The worst part was they replaced it with meguzi or something, which is total crap. Now I hardly watch cartoon network. I used to watch it a lot.

I remember the good old days, when Moltar hosted toonami...

Big O

[LordNimon]

Didn't the Cartoon Network pretty much pay for the 2nd season of Big O?

Re:Toonami

[tuffy]

I'd rather watch high quality dubs than poor quality fansubs. In my experience, fansubs are usually really crappy video quality, while dubs (on the net) are usually ripped from DVD and are much beter quality.

Fansubs typically come out at low quality because they're done on a fast deadline. Many fansub groups crave popularity so they work to get the show subbed and on the torrent as fast as possible. So the quality suffers.

DVDs often have more accurate subtitles and the quality of dubs is good (in general) and continues to improve because the majority of the DVD buying market demands it.

Re:Hope for some new stuff...

[Khaotix]

naruto on toonami is going to make me cry. I think that Anbu should have been contracted to write the official subs for the anime for a Region 1 dvd rls.

Have they completely missed the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Blending the quality and style of anime with Western storytelling, IGPX will be the first instance of a U.S. cable network working directly with a Japanese animation studio to create an original series."

The reason I watch anime is because I like the Japanese storytelling. If I wanted Western storytelling then I would watch one of the normal shows that are on TV! While I do enjoy the anime art style, I certainly am not going to watch a bad show just because of its art.

This is good.

[Patrick Mannion]

[adult swim] already has their own original series, so it's great that Toonami has their own series. I mean Toonami to me is it's own network. I mean a few days ago, the Nielsen ratings started couting [adult swim] as it's own network.

Re:Subbing?

[tuffy]

While I don't doubt they could run to 200+ episodes, they have not done so yet. Many series get killed at fairly arbitrary times

A lot of manga-based shows like Inu-Yasha go off the air because they simply run out of manga to animate and so they end abruptly - occasionally getting finished off in OVAs. Some get made-for-TV endings (Midori no Hibi) and some get made-for-TV filler (Rurouni Kenshin). Since Naruto is due to run out of manga pretty soon, it could go either way.

Re:Subbing?

[Golias]

The music in FLCL is performed by The Pillows, a Japanese garage band of little fame beyond their participation in the show. I'm sure there was no trouble securing the rights to all their materials for the US release. What musical cue are you talking about?

The soundtrack for Azumanga Daioh is mostly assembled by a J-Pop "supergroup" called Oranges and Lemons. Again, the music was produced specificlly for the show, so it's hard to imagine there were many "rights" issues in exporting it.

Any similarity between the two (and I'm very familar with both yet have no idea WTF you are talking about) is probably pure coincidence.

Re:Anime Powerpuff Girls

[Neko-kun]

Mind you there is a rather decent doujinshi. Hasn't been updated in two weeks, but for the quality that is produced, I have no complaints.
http://bleedman.snafu-comics.com/ [snafu-comics.com]

Re:Feh

[mrbooze]

The fact is, no non-prime time animated shows make *all* their money from merchandising deals. It doesn't matter how good the ratings are, they never get enough money from ads to cover production costs. If you're cartoon isn't selling toys, shirts, lunchboxes, etc, it's losing money, period.

That's why Static Shock ended even though it was something like the number one or two highest rated american-produced kids cartoon. They couldn't get a toy company to agree to a merchandising deal, and had to stop production even though the network wanted more shows.

It's a sad fact, and almost certainly the reason most animated shows are crap, especially the American ones.

Production I.G.

[wickedj]

They have some of the best animation studios around. If any of you ever watched Kill Bill, the animated scene with O-ren in it was done by Production I.G [production-ig.com]. Top notch stuff there.

Re:Subbing?

[SamSim]

You wouldn't have to put the subtitles in the closed captions... just overlay them directly on the video being broadcast. Of course, this is a little unfair to the Japanese speakers who don't want to read the subs, just watch the show in their own language...