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Ask [Adult Swim] Responses

Adult Swim programming dir. Kim Manning posted responses to a bunch of questions fans asked in the recent Ask[as] messageboard thread. Her responses packed in quite a bit of general info, even if she didn't get into specifics. Fans learned:

1) Adult Swim intends to keep anime in its programming mix and is looking to acquire new anime material from ADV, Funimation and others. Manning said AS has a "great" relationship with Funimation and a "strong" relationship with ADV. She said AS is currently negotiating with ADV for an unspecified anime series.

2) Plans for an Adult Swim experiment with subtitled anime have been abandoned.

3) She confirmed expanded weeknight hours for AS, with expansion to 10:30 p.m. on March 27 and to 10 p.m. in June. No word regarding AS' future plans for its struggling Saturday night outings.

4) Those expanded hours will almost certainly be devoted to comedy. Manning said that between now and this fall, 6 current comedy shows will start airing new episodes. She also said Minoriteam will premiere March 19 and new comedy shows are in development from Brandon Small and "the Sealab crew" for launch in llate summer or fall. Plus Manning said "we do have to keep it [anime] late night for now."

5) Adult Swim won't be running any of the Miyazaki/Ghibli movies from January's TCM airings that were deemed unsuitable for Toonami. (Toonami will be running only 4 of the 9 Miyazaki/Ghibli titles TCM showed.)

6) AS does look at the show suggestions from its messageboards in considering future acquisitions. But board suggestions are only one of several inputs they use for show ideas. They also keep tabs on what's hot in Japan and in fansubbing circles, but they won't license shows themselves.

Manning said AS doesn't don't want to get into the whole merchandising and dubbing thing, so they must wait for an interesting title to get licensed by a U.S. distributor. And contrary to popular belief, Manning said AS does get outbid on shows from time to time. Manning said there are "lots [of unlicensed anime shows] that we're after right now," but gave no details. She said she was "super jealous" of Spike TV's acquisition of "Afro Samurai."

7) She said a third season of Big O is highly unlikely due to "middling" ratings and DVD sales, even though writer Chiaki Konaka had an idea for a Season 3 storyline.

Thanks to Herb Kirchhoff for this item.