Television

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Reminder: Naruto Shippuden Begins on Disney XD Wednesday Night [Update]

October 27, 2009 in Anime, Television by Tom Langston (calaggie) | No comments

Naruto Shippuden on Disney XD Website
Earlier tonight, I wondered when Naruto Shippuden would premiere on Disney XD since I remembered the deal that was announced last month. So I checked a ToonZone listing for the channel and whaddaya know, it’s tomorrow night, October 28! (ANN already mentioned this date last week so it’s not exactly “new” news.) Some of the times in ToonZone’s listings were screwy so I used the channel’s on-site Zap2it listings to get the times below, which should be US Eastern & Pacific.

[Update: Checked listings on my digital cable box this afternoon and the following times were initially Eastern US time, meaning 8:30pm would translate to 5:30pm Pacific. I added the corresponding Pacific times in my area. REMEMBER to check your local listings!]

The first four episodes will debut in a block from 8:30-10:30pm ET/5:30-7:30 PT and it appears that same 4-episode block will be replayed on Friday Oct. 30th from 10pm-12am ET/7-9pm PT and also Saturday late-night/Sunday Nov. 1st from 12am to 2am ET/9-11pm PT.

Episode 1 (“Homecoming”) will repeat a few times over the next seven days: Wednesday late-night/”Thursday” Oct. 29th at 1:30am ET/10:30pm PT, Thursday night at 10pm ET/7pm PT, and Sunday late-night/”Monday” Nov. 2nd at 12:30am ET/9:30pm PT. I might record some of the late-night repeats just to see which ads/informercials play during the breaks.

New single-episode premieres will commence next week, starting with episode 5 (“The Kazekage Stands Tall”) on Wednesday, Nov. 4th at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT with same night re-airings at 1:30am ET/10:30pm PT.

As far as I know, dubbed episodes are already available on iTunes and on dual-language DVD – the first 2 “uncut” single volumes are now out and those are on a monthly release schedule from Viz Media.

Personally, I stopped caring enough to watch Naruto on my own a while ago, partly when my university anime club stopped showing it four years ago. I think the last thing I saw was either drunk Rock Lee fighting that bone guy Kimimaro or the “help Idate” race mission where there’s fighting on ships.

Lacking the resolve to catch up properly, I am willing to just jump back in with Shippuden, likely through Hulu. I will probably have many “who the hell is that?” moments like when I watched the first episode of Inuyasha The Final Act, despite having only really seen 20-30 episodes of the initial anime adaptation. I had *no* clue who Hakudoshi or Goryomaru were until I looked them up but the action kept me mildly entertained.

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Monster To Start Airing on Syfy October 12th

August 16, 2009 in Anime, News, Television by Tom Langston (calaggie) | 2 comments


This afternoon, someone I follow on Twitter retweeted a link to a Mania/AOD thread where someone posted seeing Monster on Syfy’s October schedule. The series will start airing during the channel’s Ani-Monday block on October 12th at 11pm with two-episode-a-week pace. The timing makes sense since Viz announced at their Comic-Con panel that the first box set would come out in December.

This news makes one of my 2009 predictions come true: the one about a “new” anime debuting on American cable TV. Technically, it could make its American premiere on the Funimation Channel as part of a deal with Viz announced in April. It may have already done so – I haven’t checked the VOD/PPV listings in a while. But since not everyone gets that channel and Syfy is part of many basic cable/satellite packages, many including myself would consider October to be its “true” US premiere.

By the way, the 17th volume of Naoki Urasawa’s manga will come out on October 21st and its 18th & final installment on December 16th.

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Code Geass Dub To Hit Adult Swim A Week After NYCC Debut

March 10, 2008 in Anime, Television by Tom Langston (calaggie) | No comments

geass_adultswim.jpg
The latest TV schedule posted on the Adult Swim website reveals that Code Geass will premiere on the late-night block April 27th at 1:30am. That happens to be a week after the dub’s debut at New York Comic Con (April 18-20); the English version of Lucky Star will also be screened sometime during the convention.

Announced last December, the localization cast for Geass features many “stars” including Johnny Yong Bosch (Renton, Eureka Seven; Ichigo, Bleach) as Lelouch, Kate Higgins (Talho, Eureka 7; Sakura, Naruto) as C.C., and Yuri Lowenthal (Sasuke, Naruto; Alviss, MÄR) as Suzaku along with some lesser-known voices like Karen Stressman (Soifon, Bleach) as Kallen and Rebecca Forstadt (Rika Furude, Higurashi; Suiseiseki, Rozen Maiden) as Nunnally. Having a lot of talent does not guarantee a great dub, however. The morning after the episode airs, I’ll probably download it from Cartoon Palace and write some impressions but until then, I will attempt to catch up on the first season before the second season premieres in Japan next month. Ah, spring break is only two long weeks away…

There still hasn’t been a date announced for the DVDs but I think the first volume will be released some time in early summer, June/July – leaving the possibility for a promotion timed just before Anime Expo as was done with Haruhi – but that’s just some speculation on my part.

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Storm Hawks: Flying Motorcycles and Power Crystals

July 3, 2007 in Television by Tom Langston (calaggie) | 12 comments

The fleet deploys for battle

About a week and half ago, I got an e-mail from a PR firm about a cartoon series called Storm Hawks, which airs on Cartoon Network Monday nights at 7pm (eastern/pacific). The production company, Nerd Corps, asked them to “get in touch with high-caliber, well-written anime bloggers” like me. I don’t consider myself an A-rank blogger but whatever, I said I’d do it so now after watching the first seven episodes, I’m typing this short review up. (Other PR firms/departments of other companies, my contact info is on my About page.)

The main story is Aerrow and his scrappy crew, the Storm Hawks, are fighting to defend the Atmos from the evil Cyclonis. The Storm Hawks is one of many groups of Sky Knights that are charged with the duty of defending their particular region. This group of teenagers flies in their airship, the Condor, from Terra to Terra and fight in the sky and on the ground with their motorcycles equipped with collapsible wings. There are many different types of crystals that can power up swords, cloak objects, and be used in storm-creating devices among other things. Read the rest of this entry »

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Sci-Fi Ani-Monday Impressions

June 21, 2007 in Anime, Photos, Television by Tom Langston (calaggie) | 1 comment

I really liked Macross Plus and I’m wondering how Sharon Apple sounds when she “sings” since she’s an AI with a computer generated voice. The character interaction within conversations seemed natural and there was always something interesting whether it was the test piloting action, Isamu hitting on Lucy and later Myung, or Myung dealing with her past and talking with Guld. Definitely going to be watching for the next three weeks. Also, the planet Eden looks a lot like Earth, doesn’t it?

Scott was right when he criticized the commercial breaks and the interstitials. Ad breaks happened less frequently during Macross Plus than it did during Tokko but they are still a little too close together. The interstitial jokes were kind of funny but the high-pitched girl’s voice was annoying.

Like any other Sci-Fi Channel show, the credits were squished down for about 30 seconds to allow for a promo to take up most of the screen before expanding back to full size. Besides that, I thought it was a pretty good programming block (they kept Tokko widescreen!) and it’s nice to have another option for watching dramatic anime on basic cable besides Adult Swim.

P.S. The Twilight Zone episode that aired after the block was one I hadn’t seen before and pretty interesting so if you’re still up at 1am and don’t want to watch Inuyasha (they’re still running reruns of that?!?), you can fall asleep to old-school scifi. Then again, I guess you don’t have that problem if you record the block on your PVR!

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