First of all, regarding the response to Moribito being on Adult Swim, I saw both the interview and the article of Jennifer Davidson's passing and.... I can't believe I didn't even know about that until now. It sounds so sad and messed up and not just because of the result of the treatment that Moribito got later on. But that she was only so young and her illness came out fo nowhere... I feel bad for never having known about this. It's such a shame. But, I don't want to dwell too much on that though. So with that being said...
Fist of the North Star just might be a bit too much violence despite what Superjail, Metalocalypse and Robot Chicken show. That's the impression I get from Adult Swim.
Well not only that, but Fist of the North Star is
ridiculously old. I was just listening to an episode of the
AnnCast titled "Overcooked" which the guest of that episode was Justin Cook who I believe is a producer for Funimation dubs which from what I can understand involves overseeing how to approach a dub for a show, who to hire as line producers for dubs in which the line producers seem to decide what voice director and script writers to pick, consulting with people running TV networks they offer a show to, etc.. Among the things he talked about in the episode, he also talked about the Shin Chan dub being on Adult Swim at one point and the SGT. Frog dub which did not end up being on TV at all. Regarding Shin Chan, he said the struggle for Shin Chan was how it both came with some not-so-easy translatable gags and puns and I think pop cultural references from the early-mid 90s. So it was a dated show with dated pop humor that according to Justin Cook, was handled by different companies in the past 15 years before, flopped each time before they acquired it and when they acquired it, the audience that wanted a simple, uncut, closely-adapted script for the show wasn't big enough to support a really long-running show. So they came up with a really punched up script that departed from much of the story as a business strategy and seemed to work enough to get it on Adult Swim of all places.
With SGT. Frog, that show was also old (not as old as Shin Chan since it premiered in 2004 in Japan, but still), it seemed to have been pitched and handled several different times before, and it was hard to see if the fanbase was big enough to help provide good ratings for the show on a network. Justin and his writing team for the show then thought of punching up the dub, but not as much as with Shin Chan. Now what does this have to do with Fist of the North Star? Like I said, it's
really old. Older than even Shin Chan. It
might've possibly even been pitched to a network at some point before and the fanbase is probably not at all big for any of the DVD releases. I would assume that the majority of fans of that show stem from the same crowd that listens to the Anime World Order Podcast as well as Daryl Surat himself who have either got DVD/laser disc collections or something of that show or have downloaded it, watched it in Japanese and are satisfied with that and wouldn't care to watch it on Adult Swim.
So with all of that being mentioned, I think the problem with Fist of the North Star is far more than just a matter of it being overly violent. And having listened to that episode of the ANNCast earlier today, it kind of makes me realize how few shows can be accepted on Adult Swim, even shows like Darker than Black and Eden of the East may not be as promising if Funimation isn't sure whether those shows can offer decent ratings for Adult Swim as well as decent DVD sales. I mean for an anime show to be pitched successfully to a network, it would have to be new or feel new to the network, promise at least decent ratings which means anime fans would need to watch a show dubbed and there are unfortunately an overwhelmingly large and vocal amount of sub-only fans. Not to mention the content would either have to fairly well fit the nature of a channel I think or the show itself or the
theme of a show would need to be based on something that has promised good ratings before. And if that last requirement is true, it may explain why not just FMA Brotherhood ended up on Adult Swim, but also Kekkaishi since it's from Viz Media who also offered Inuyasha which both shows have a traditional Japanese, supernatural element to them. And Inuyasha seemed to have done good enough on Adult Swim to still be hanging on to the channel by a thread and have gotten
seasonal promos and a
movie marathon night.
I know this is about what would be a good fit for an Adult Swim Toonami programming block, but it seems to be that the real problem is figuring out what show could meet requirements for what Adult Swim wants. That seems to make a very thin margin for what anime shows can really work and if I had to think about it, something like Tiger and Bunny could work if Viz Media even cares to make that push. They definitely care to have a dub for it and release, but I'm not sure about TV exposure. I
want to say Last Exile: Fam of the Silver Wing if Funimation plans to dub it and release it on DVD/Blu-ray since the first series was technically on G4TechTV at the time Anime Unleashed was still around. But the audience for that show as it aired from Japan and was simulcasted by Funimation didn't like it as much as the original series. I don't know if the Lupin the 3rd TV series that was on Adult Swim years back had good ratings. But if it did, than maybe The Woman Called Fujiko Mine could work if Funimation dubs it. Then again, if it did end up on Adult Swim, it might get censored somehow and anime fans left and right could for all I know rant non-stop no matter
how the censorship could be played out and then a bunch of people might not watch it.
Her name was Jennifer Davidson, and yes, TZ interviewed her, ironically shortly before she passed.
