Toonami Producer on Editing Process 247
Bonker writes "Anime News Network is featuring an interview with Jason Demarco, senior writer and producer for Cartoon Network's 'Toonami' block. Mr. Demarco explains why and how the editing process for several anime shown on Toonami, Midnight Run, and Adult Swim happen, as well as the pressure they're under to produce a product acceptable not only to fans but to parents as well. " Gives an interesting perspective on what CN goes through
to get certain anime on US TV. I've said it before, but I'd still love a Toonami channel that didn't need to edit (or maybe just less). I watch more Toonami then any channel.
Re:why the 18+ (Score:4, Informative)
That means that a show in adult swim is showing in the same time block as primetime, which means they need to keep it to primetime TV standards and that is TV-14. Remember all the trouble MTV got into for not having standards for Beavis and butthead? They aired it in prime time, but had too much swearing and violence and ended up putting the show into the 11 PM eastern time slot. Sticking to the TV-14 standards makes sure the shows are edited down to what you can see in shows like NYPD blues. If they ran the seperate feeds for each coast and aired around the time southpark does they could loosen the standards a little.
Oh and the 18+ is what is known as a 'marketing' gimic. They know there are a lot of anime fans out there. If they can get more of them to watch slightly edited 'adult swim' blocks it makes more animes possible to bring over.
BTW TV-14 does allow brief nudity, so they could for instance have run un-edited tenchi if it had been an adult swim program instead of a toonami block. I also hope they do more of the uncut midnight run. Gundam wing was shown uncut there and that was really awesome of them. I know you have a Tivo so if they do more uncut midnight runs you'll be sure to catch them.
Side by side comparison of Toonami Censoring (Score:5, Informative)
The Cartoon Network has done on one of their shows Outlaw Star.
It's quite interesting the changes that were made. Some are simple digital edits that add clothing for nude characters, removal of blood, to whole scene cuts, and even in one case an episode cut.
Cartoon network has changed a lot of the series they show (DBZ's Mr. Satan to Hercule...even digitally changed on some of the signs the fans hold up). Some are for good reasons, some are probably them being over cautious.
Don't forget the REAL service that cartoon network is serving in exposing people to other forms of animation that they may end up liking. Some of the big anime conventions like Fanime [fanime.com] and Anime Expo [anime-expo.org] have gained a whole new fan base because anime has been shown on Cartoon Channel (and even Fox when it was showing Escaflowne).
Someone earlier slammed Robotech, and some of the earlier anime which was brought to the US by Harmony Gold, but without it, a number of us may have missed out on a whole genre that is quite appealing.
If Cartoon Network is going to censor stuff, let them. If you dont want to see their censored versions, go out and buy some of the multitudes of anime dvd's you can find for sale. And believe me there are many more great series out there that Cartoon Network won't be showing. Not because they don't want to, but there's just so much to choose from.
-Alex
Re:why the 18+ (Score:2, Informative)
Cartoon Network does in fact have 2 feeds, 1 for East and 1 for Pacific. Mountain people get the Pacific feed (putting their showings 1 hour later than pacific) while central gets the east coast feed (making those showings 1 hour earlier.) So, that means... Adult Swim airs from 10pm - 1am (East/Pac), 11pm-2am (Mountain), 9pm-12am (Central). Given that primetime runs until 10pm (I believe), this would put the last hour of AdultSwim in this "less stringent" zone you speak of.
The truth is, the editting has nothing to do with the timeslot regulations, and everything to do with the Cartoon Network policy of not going over TV-14. It doesn't matter when it airs, CN wants any time to be at least "relatively" kid-friendly. The fact that AdultSwim got TV-14 at all is simply an experiment based on Toonami: The Midnight Run's ratings.
Re:why the 18+ (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well you know... (Score:2, Informative)
Just so you know, parents in Japan complained about the violence in Evangelion, and Berserk aired at 2:30 AM on a cable network.
Regardless of the intention of the content, and the time, parents will be irresponsible and let their children watch, and will bitch and whine no matter WHAT they want.
This is why a network with an overall direction towards a more mature audience would have to pick up the slack.
Not that I REALLY care, since they will show it dubbed and I don't particularly like watching dubs (though I won't be hurt if I have to).
Re:Why Evangelion will never be on Toonami... (Score:2, Informative)
ADV has said repeatedly that they will not license TV broadcast rights to any network that will have to edit the show.
Thus why many PBS stations show it (subbed even) in its entirety, HBO could do it, and Sci-Fi maybe late at night.
CN? Never.
Re:Side by side comparison of Toonami Censoring (Score:2, Informative)
(which I always thought it was spelled castors...like in castor oil) was worth the whole episode in my opinion.
I had seen the whole cartoon network run of Outlaw star 2 or 3 times, and after watching that episode it made much more sense. The name, why they were so rare, and why they were able to defeat the pirates' magic.
-Alex
want unedited anime? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Side by side comparison of Toonami Censoring (Score:2, Informative)
Digitally changing signs is standard practice in preparing anime for US consumption, as most signs are in Japanese.