Anime Boredom - Anime on US Televsion anime/manga article

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Anime on US Televsion

Let's face it. At one point in our lives, we remember watching an anime on television, no matter how old or young you are. I see television as a medium of history that affects American culture as a whole. After all, thanks to television, almost everyone knows what Speed Racer or Pokemon is.

Contrary to what others may assume, Speed Racer was not the first anime on US television. It stretches farther back than that. Anime first hit the US airwaves in the early 60's. Ironically, the first anime series in the US was also the first anime series in Japan. The legendary Astro Boy series. Thanks to Fred Ladd, Tetsujin 28 came to NBC under the title Gigantor. NBC later branched out to more of Tezuka's work by aquiring Kimba The White Lion.

The 60's really wasn't a time for anime to saturate America. It would not be until late 70's when more edgy anime started rolling in like Mach 5, Gatchaman and Space Battleship Yamato, which most of us know as Speed Racer, Battle of the Planets and Starblazers. Each of these were produced in English by different companies. Mach 5 was handled by Fred Ladd and he did a great job in producing a catchy theme song and dubbing a large ammount of episodes in a short parody of time. However, Gatchaman and Yamato were handled by the long forgotten companies Sandy Frank and Voyager (although the company still produces DVD and VHS copies of Starblazers).

The 80's started off nicely with a week block of animation called Force Five established in 1980. This television campaign contained some of the most notable anime titles from the 70's including Getter Robo and Grandizer. The 80's didn't become a breeding ground for anime in the US, however, until Harmony Gold released Robotech. Robotech was the first of it's kind to take three seperate anime series that have nothing in common and link them all together. Carl Macek could be called the Fred Ladd of the 80's for pulling off such a feat in just 4 months.

Now we move onto the 90's which is the time I saw my first anime. The oddly titled Samurai Pizza Cats. Although I didn't recognize it at the time, Samurai Pizza Cats had almost no edits and it seemed like the dub cast had a fun time with the show since there were a lot of over-the-tops jokes and bits added in. DiC noticed the success of Harmony Gold and decided to follow in their foot-steps by aquiring two anime titles for US release. I'm talking of course about Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon, which did affect American culture, but was cancelled pretty early after about 60 episodes each. The newly established Cartoon Network, however, was more willing to take risks by aquiring anime titles to premeire on an afternoon block of action animation called Toonami.

Thus, Toonami's success lead to Adult Swim and anime began striking a core in many American viewers. However, made-for-children anime titles were still leaking into the American public like PokeMon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Megaman NT, Medabots, Beyblade and Cardcaptors. Although these shows don't really help the image of anime in America, they still provide a good source of anime for those without cable.

Anime on American television sure has changed a lot since the early 60's and with the coming of new anime blocks like Adult Swim, Anime Unleashed and even ADV's Anime Network, who knows what the future will hold.