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Hey, Answerman! - Hen-Time

Answerman wrote:

...the marketability to legally sell or distribute hentai - was basically decimated by piracy in general.

I get the impression that your intent was to convey to us the terrible, hellish blow that piracy dealt to hentai distribution but, if so, the language used in that quote doesn't jibe with the intent as "decimate" means, literally, to kill off 10%. Ten percent doesn't sound like the grievous wound that the surrounding language implies it, seemingly, to be.

A Toonami podcast stated they were told that there were virtually no chance of Sentai shows being placed on the block. For whatever reason, we don't know. ADV back in it's day licensed a lot of shows out to TV, but only a few ended up on Adult Swim or Toonami. Most of their shows went to Showtime and G4/TechTV.

I don't really think it's an unwillingness of Sentai to put their shows on TV, as they've recently licensed content out to Neon Alley. They also allegedly pitched shows to Toonami and Adult Swim. I think it's more that the two aren't able to come to mutually agreeable terms. That could change in the future. Even the podcast that reported this said "never say never."

Scalfin wrote:

PurpleWarrior13 wrote: Also, they show action shows because it fits in with their demographic, and is what gets ratings. That's why I sent in the question: it doesn't, at all, and that makes no sense to me from a business perspective. Any other night, you get bawdy humor aimed at college age stoners. On Saturdays, you get shonen. Any other night, midnight means Robot Chicken or Superjail (Sundays), but Saturday night it's Bleach. That bears no demographic or feel resemblance to the rest of Adult Swim, and it just makes no sense to me. My whole list was made up of semi-to-fully strange or bawdy comedies aimed close to Adult Swim's age range. They aren't all great, but they're what I'd be putting on Toonami to maintain the Adult Swim brand identity and increase crossover appeal with the normal audience. I suppose the best answer is that they tried it with Shin-Chan and found that, rather than attracting both, it attracted neither.

The whole idea for Saturdays was to mix it up and air action series. It's always been like that for Adult Swim aside from series like Milk-chan or Shinchan. Not sure where you've been for the past ten years. Anime isn't as viable as it used to be, and shonen series are the most widely popular in the US and the most easily marketable in terms of broad appeal. Plus Japanese comedy just falls flat with American viewers, and there's no crossover appeal to their regular weekday audience. The audience for Superjail, King of the Hill, or Family Guy isn't going to tune in for Is This a Zombie?. Gotta remember both cultural differences and demographics.

I'm sure there are still people under the impression that the Aniplex poll from a few months ago was an official ordeal and are angered that SAO got the ticket instead of Madoka. However do you really think that Madoka would be shown when your primary demo are males 18-30 and in the United States no less? Toonami is an action block, always has been, always will be.

dragonrider_cody wrote:

. I don't really think it's an unwillingness of Sentai to put their shows on TV, as they've recently licensed content out to Neon Alley. They also allegedly pitched shows to Toonami and Adult Swim. I think it's more that the two aren't able to come to mutually agreeable terms. That could change in the future. Even the podcast that reported this said "never say never."

That's unfortunate. Hopefully that does change at some point because there's a hell of a lot in sentai's back catalog I'd actually be interested in staying up to watch rather than funi's which these days just never looks too good. I also wish they'd jump on Tiger and Bunny, I'd stay up for that too. I know everyone keeps making a point that funi isn't running the gamut on toonami's block, but imo most of the new stuff they add to the block is all funi so it makes it seem like they're totally in bed together. Bleach, FMA:B, and even technically Naruto were around before the blocks rebranding and since the rebranding a good amount of the new shows besides the CN originals are all funi shows. It would be nice to see a little more diversity.

The audience for Superjail, King of the Hill, or Family Guy isn't going to tune in for Is This a Zombie?. Gotta remember both cultural differences and demographics.

Echo_City wrote:

I get the impression that your intent was to convey to us the terrible, hellish blow that piracy dealt to hentai distribution but, if so, the language used in that quote doesn't jibe with the intent as "decimate" means, literally, to kill off 10%. Ten percent doesn't sound like the grievous wound that the surrounding language implies it, seemingly, to be.

If we're going to be pedantic, then it's worth pointing out that "kill 10%" is the archaic definition of "decimate." It hasn't literally meant that for some time.

The 2 primary definition of decimate in the dictionary is exactly how Brian used it, and "kill 10%" is listed only as a secondary, historical definition:

"decimate |ˈdesəˌmāt|
verb [ trans. ] (often be decimated)
1 kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of : the project would decimate the fragile wetland wilderness | the American chestnut, a species decimated by blight.
• drastically reduce the strength or effectiveness of (something) : plant viruses that can decimate yields.
2 historical kill one in every ten of (a group of soldiers or others) as a punishment for the whole group."

Given an input frame rate of 20, if you set decimate to 2, you’ll get an output frame rate of 10

Sine the column opened up with a question on "hentai" I'll share an article by Mark McLelland I recently found. Good information on the differences between the English and Japanese usages of the term.

A Short History of 'Hentai '
http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue12/mclelland.html

One of the things I find cool about language is the way the meanings of words can dramatically shift when they move between cultures.

Good luck, everyone! Now you can stop bugging me!

Also, they show action shows because it fits in with their demographic, and is what gets ratings.

PurpleWarrior13 wrote:

Also, they show action shows because it fits in with their demographic, and is what gets ratings.

That there was proof when viewership of moribito went south even though its a very good series.


Also i was kinda shocked that one of the guys that got Big O 2 up and running called code geass terrible.


Honestly i thought it was a good series and fit into AS demographic viewers. the problem was the stupid timeslots which hurt the series. not to mentioned that it got sabotaged statewise cause of the rampant illegal streaming and fansubs.

though what AS and Viz should be doing is trying to get Naruto Shippuden out of the hands of Disney who is literately holding the series hostage. otherwise it would have been shown on AS when toonami made its comback.

Quote:

Even in Japan, production of Hentai anime has virtually ground to a halt.

I say absolutely not, you're completely wrong. There's typically 8-12 new hentai OVAs every single month of the year. Unless you believe this number is somehow a failure and below where it should be? I'd say it's pretty good and provides some variety, but ground to a halt is the last wording I would choose. I know, you don't pay attention to hentai and don't know better, but some of us do.