There are very few places on television in the U.S. where Japanese
animation is shown on a regular basis. One of these few places is the
Sci-fi channel.
The Sci-fi channel typically shows a piece of Anime every Saturday at 9am Eastern. They also seem to be in the habit of showing a entire week of Anime in the summer sometime. Whatever show is being shown usually runs about 2 hours, and is usually a movie or a block of episodes from a series. Further, the shows always seemed to be dubbed versions and it is obvious that some sort of editing is being done. Typically, the Sci-fi channel does not show any nudity and limits the amount of adult language and situations. Recently the Sci-fi channel has adopted the new television rating system. I also believe they have started to clip more from the various anime then before they adopted this rating system.
Even with this editing and effort to make everything have a PG rating, it is probably better then no Anime at all. Of course, because of this they will probably never show a really good series like Neon Genesis Evangelion, El-Hazard, Kimagure Orange Road or Macross Plus or a good movie like The Wings of Honneamise or The Dagger of Kamui.
Starting September 30, 1996 until December 27, 1996 they began to show the Anime series Ronin Warriors at 7:30am Eastern on weekdays. This is a long series, with something like 39 episodes in all and I believe was originally shown in the late '80. My take on this series can be found here. This series ran is now gone again.
What follows are brief reviews or comparisons of the Anime that I have managed to acquire from the Sci-fi channel.
This is the same dubbed version which is
available in the video story. It had been edited to remove all nudity
and some of the extreme violence was toned down.
This is the Armitage III movie. It is basically a dub created
from the original series which is
available in the video stores. The makers of the movie and/or the
Sci-Fi channel removed a couple of sub-plots and added some footage.
Most of the main plot lines were left alone. In general, however, I
think the original series was better.
This first appeared in the Sci-Fi channels Anime '97 theme week.
This appears to be a dubbed version of Casshan: Robot Hunter Perfect Collection. I've seen it in the video store, but do not own a copy of the series or the perfect collection.
The story line is very similar to 8Man
After, Vampire Hunter D and Babel II. In short, the robots have taken
over the earth, and the son of the creator of the robot leader, Black
King, has become a hybrid robot/human [i.e. a cyborg] in order to
defeat the Black King.
Edited to remove large chunks of adult language and mature themes,
this is more or less the same dubbed
version that is available in the video stores.
This appears to be the dubbed version with editing to remove most of the scenes concerning the "secret weapon" used by the puma sisters against the Tank Police.
Basically, the dubbed version is in two parts [in the video store,
these are sold on two tapes] , with two acts per part. It is clear,
in any case, that the original subtitled
version was much better. This must be considered more of an
adaptation then a direct port, as it were.
Basically this is the same dubbed version
of 8Man After - Perfect Collection with all the nudity and some
of the most violent gore removed.
No obvious editing. Basically, mankind started out on a 5th planet which no longer exists, and when he had destroyed that world moved on to the 4th planet, Mars, which he also begins to destroy.
Ultra-thick environmental message which goes way way
overboard.
This appears to be the first episode in the first Gall Force story.
In short, there are two very different races fighting in the galaxy.
One appears to be made up entirely of females, the other are very alien
looking aliens. In order to try and make peace the leader of the two
sides hatch a plot to create a new neutral race, one which was a
combination of the current two. Things get more complicated from
there.
Originally shown as part of the Sci-Fi channels Anime '97 theme week.
In short, because mankind has messed the Earth up, a bunch of aliens
land. This particular alien dries up the oceans and leaves very
little green things anyplace, except in the "groves" around the aliens
"ship". The aliens also have a secret plan, hidden even to those
humans who worship them. In particular, they want to turn the Earth
green again, including turning all the remaining humans into plants.
This is, in general, considered to be an evil thing by the remaining
humans.
This appears to be the same dubbed
version that I bought in the video store. They removed some
violence, nudity and letcherness. They also recombined the 6 episodes
such that 3 episodes were shown at a time instead of the 2 at a time
as the tape. In doing this, they removed the starting and endings of
those episodes in the "middle". IRIA first appeared in the
Sci-Fi channels Anime '97 theme week.
This appears to be the same
dubbed version that I bought at the video store with little or no
editing.
Seen it in the video store, but do not own a copy. There did not seem to be a lot of editing, if any.
Basically, this is a typical kid hero story, similar, in style, to They were 11 or Toward the Terra.
The crew of the space ship [very literally] have stumbled upon what is
perhaps the greatest secret in the entire solar system. To be
specific, Odin was a real place on a far off star which went nova
around 20,000 years ago. Some of the persons who survived ended up on
earth, in our far past, and told their story to the beings they met,
that is they told their story to humans.
Major insanity.........
A chunk of space stuff falls on a city on earth.... 16 years pass....
Enter ----> Ako, hyper person and friend to the very very strange Cko. Consider also, Bko, a rival for Cko's friendship. Bko will spare nothing to "steal" Cko away from Ako, including mecha, power armor and her gang [with one member who looks a whole lot like one of the characters from the Anime movie Fist of the Northstar].
Also... a race of females who look a lot like men, just to make things interesting.
I believe that these are the OAVs Project Ako v.s. Battles 1 and 2.
In an alternative universe, Ako and Bko are friends or partners on a rather dismal planet. Ako beats up huge beasties [we are talking about Ako beating up something which is about 100 times her size] and Bko would appear to arrange sale of said beastie.
Cko is the daughter of a rich businessman, and is kidnaped by some evil persons who wish to try and bring about the end of the universe. She literally drops in on Ako......
Later, Ako and Bko attempt to rescue Cko from the kidnapers.
This appears to be the dubbed version of the first three episodes [i.e. the first tape] of the Record of Lodoss War series.
This version seemed to be a pretty good translation of the original subtitled version with minor
editing to remove some of the violence.
Robot Carnival is a collection of seven short films about robots. The basic plots are as follows:
The "toy" maker is now old, and the ghostly shape of his pretty young creation visits him. He regrets not being strong enough to be her knight in white.
The last day of the "toy" maker arrives, his last "toy" sits on the table next to him, a clock work angel. The ghostly shape of a young girl comes to greet the very old "toy" maker. They walk off together, hand in hand, and then disappear.
This is a film by Yasuomi Umetsu.
Some of these short films are simply excellent....
Perhaps with slight editing, this appears to be an adaptation of the subtitled version also available in the video stores.
It is very obvious that this is not a literal translation, if you have
seen the subtitled version. This is a
slightly lighter version with more parody.
This is the dubbed version of the subtitled version also available
in the video stores. By an large it is a fairly decent dub. The
Sci-fi channel's version has some editing in it.
With only minor editing to remove some nudity, this is basically the
same dubbed version that is available in
the video store.
This appears to be a pretty good dubbed version of the subtitled original that I got at the video store. There was no obvious editing, except for the standard Sci-fi channel edits.
eturn to main Anime page.
oto the recent changes page.
isit the "pixselector" main index.
ip over to my home page.