90's Sci-Fi Channel Saturday Anime

The roughly mid-90's and earlier (generally pre-Toonami, pre-anime boom) era of anime & manga fandom: early cons, clubs, tape trading, Nth Generation VHS fansubs, old magazines & fanzines, fandubs, ancient merchandise, rec.arts.anime, and more!
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mbanu
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Re: 90's Sci-Fi Channel Saturday Anime

Post by mbanu »

I think it would also be interesting to figure out when these films first aired on the Sci-Fi Channel, since many of them started airing before the Saturday Anime block as part of their Animation Marathon and Anime Festival specials.
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mbanu
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Re: 90's Sci-Fi Channel Saturday Anime

Post by mbanu »

June 19th, 1993 for Robot Carnival, Lensman, and Vampire Hunter D, it looks like:
Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime
Subject: ANIME on SciFi Channel (Sat 19th)
Date: 14 Jun 1993 13:56:45 -0500

I belive its the 19th, anyhow, next saturday and repeating on
Sunday, the Sci=Fi Channel is showing 3 Streamline pictures:

Robot Carnival
Lensman
Vampire Hunter D

I guess this has probably been mentioned, but I thought I'd
post it anyways. Also, does anyone know if Vampire Hunter D
will be edited? Or will they play it like the original? Too
bad I've already seen these flicks, was hoping they were going
to show Fist of the Northstar. Oh well, maybe next time!


-TR (try...@oksun1.okanagan.bc.ca)
(https://groups.google.com/forum/message ... OeNV66H_4J)

It looks like there weren't any anime movies on the Sci-Fi channel before March of 1993, at least according to Usenet:
Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime
Subject: Sci-Fi Channel and anime
Date: 3 Mar 93 02:28:30 GMT

I recently looked at a copy of the Sci-Fi channel magazine
and it mentions at the reader comments section
about the possibility of showing Japanese animation.

Evidently it's a commonly asked request and they
are thinking of showing "Akira",
"Robot Carneval" and "Lensman," among their
foreign film titles. If so, cool! It may be
Streamline, but it's a foot in the door. Wonder
if they can be convinced on showing subtitled stuff.
That is if subtitling companies are amiable to dealing
with them...one can hope!! UY or Orange Road on the Sciffy
channel?? One can always hope (hope hope). Hope hope. :)
Nother problem is that I don;t think the channel is available
in many areas...*sigh* more obstacles to be overcome.

mi...@cave.tcp.com
Servant of the One True Princess.
-----
"Give me some sugar, baby."
(https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searc ... xcfNMnOZ4J)

Also interesting to note that most of the replies to the possibility are butthurt anime fans against the idea -- a truly ancient fan tradition. (^_^)
mbanu: What's between Old School and New School?
runesaint: Hmmm. "Middle School", perhaps?
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mbanu
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Re: 90's Sci-Fi Channel Saturday Anime

Post by mbanu »

Maybe that's not quite fair for this particular thread. (^_^;) I suppose I was just surprised browsing Usenet for schedules how negative certain vocal folks seemed about the whole thing... the drama would be ruined by cuts, the dubs wouldn't be faithful to the Japanese original, and if the choice was exposing people to anime in a doctored form vs not at all, it was better to choose not at all. (^_^) I wonder what encouraged that perspective? I know that Miyazaki was bitter about the Warriors of the Wind internationalization; were folks championing the "no cuts, no dubs, or no anime" perspective in support of that?

Maybe interesting, the intro from the TV premiere of the three films, as part of the "Sci-Fi Channel Global Showcase": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_oSPLrn8p0
mbanu: What's between Old School and New School?
runesaint: Hmmm. "Middle School", perhaps?
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llj
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Re: 90's Sci-Fi Channel Saturday Anime

Post by llj »

I think we still see that kind of behaviour today in various forms. As long as a hobby is "underground", a fan maintains a certain level of 'ownership' over it. Airing these anime would have been a step for the hobby towards mainstreaming it, thus losing its hidden niche status.
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Drew_Sutton
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Re: 90's Sci-Fi Channel Saturday Anime

Post by Drew_Sutton »

llj wrote:I think we still see that kind of behaviour today in various forms. As long as a hobby is "underground", a fan maintains a certain level of 'ownership' over it. Airing these anime would have been a step for the hobby towards mainstreaming it, thus losing its hidden niche status.
Agree with this. Even if you were like me and got involved in anime fandom mostly through mainstream exposure, you were quickly trying to move deeply undercover to get to "the real deal" or "the good stuff". I think that mentality, as far as anime goes, was driven by how it was localized in North America with various cuts/edits, rewrites and the like. Also like llj said, it's prevalent in a lot of other hobbies - I tend to see it among a lot of music fandoms, in addition to the meticulous categorization.

Though, thanks for digging up all of those listings of what aired on Saturday Anime - nice to see my memory isn't so bad when I say that they broadcast the same dozen or so things and practically all of it was from the CPM catalog! :lol:
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