Animax May be Coming to the UK!!

They have been doing this for at least a year-and-a-half with no firm results for the UK. One of the biggest problems is the lack of availability across the various platforms. They have registered with OFCOM in the UK but that was for a broadcast antenna in the UK beaming out to mainland Europe. There has been lots of talk of alternative distribution methods, such as online streaming and similar but no firm details have come out thus far.
 
I would pay if it was in Japanese (subbed or otherwise). Not for English or German.

I'm not exactly the mainstream market, however :(

R
 
Wouldn't an anime block on a big channel would suffice? It IS Sony... they could afford an investment and if it fails, then it won't burn a hole through their pocket
 
I imagine that would be the best choice out of the 2. It is generally seen that AN:UK did well, it was just the parent company that was losing money and had to pull back on its side projects.
 
I don't see the point of anime getting a channel. Most of of the UK fanbase would've discovered anime via the internet and fansubs, meaning most already simply download shows when they want to watch them. There's also the small issue of a large percentage of anime fans preferring to watch anime in Japanese. It's an effort that's doomed to fail; a waste of time.

The way to reach out to anime fans in this day and age is by allowing people to watch episodes on sites like Youtube. The internet, where most discovered anime, and not television channels is the way to go.
 
The post you're linking to is dated August 18th 2007. Old news.
Animax will likely never launch in the UK because there simply aren't enough people willing to pay for a subscription Anime channel, and we have too small a fanbase to make a free to air channel viable.

It ain't gonna happen.
 
More to the point, any company who touches an anime that even borders on being "good" will lose thier **** and fling all thier common sence out the window and bury said show in godknowswhat timeslots and never actauly advertising them.

I repeat, Anime on TV is dead.

Enjoy your Robotboy, Citizen.
 
In reality the problem with Sony is not so much they can't find one channel in the UK. They are looking for three. AniMax is just one of them I believe the other two are like a general entertainment channel like Sky 1, and a movie channel.
 
Aion said:
I don't see the point of anime getting a channel. Most of of the UK fanbase would've discovered anime via the internet and fansubs, meaning most already simply download shows when they want to watch them. There's also the small issue of a large percentage of anime fans preferring to watch anime in Japanese. It's an effort that's doomed to fail; a waste of time.

The way to reach out to anime fans in this day and age is by allowing people to watch episodes on sites like Youtube. The internet, where most discovered anime, and not television channels is the way to go.
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There are several wrong points in this whole statement:

Point 1 is that anime on TV is not there for the anime fanbase but for public consumption.

Point 2 is that the vast majority of people watching anime would rather watch it with a dub in their own language. It is a highly vocal minority that prefers the original Japanese, which makes it seem more prolific than it actually is.

Point 3 is based around what you (and others) have observed on internet forums. Not surprisingly those people active in such forums are also quite active on the net, hence giving a large skew of the perception of how they got into anime in the first instance. Without any objective poll (one which would necessarily not be conducted online) to analyse things any such claims are mere happenstance and supposition.
 
Gawyn said:
Point 1 is that anime on TV is not there for the anime fanbase but for public consumption.
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But surely Animax is targetted at the anime fanbase, not the general public.

I couldn't see someone who's never taken an interest in anime before suddenly decide to pay extra money for a channel full of it. =/

Stuff like Naruto on Jetix, Yu-Gi-Oh slotted in on Sky 1 or Nickelodeon, whatever else...yeah, fair enough. But Animax...not really.
 
Gawyn said:
Point 1 is that anime on TV is not there for the anime fanbase but for public consumption.
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Only an idiot would pay to watch anime on TV without experiencing it in the past. Why throw away money on something you know nothing about?

If we were talking about a free channel that aired unedited anime then yes, you could say that, but even then I find it hard to imagine someone who knows nothing about anime watching what they'd assume to be no more than mere cartoons. It might attract some youngsters who don't think of it as wrong to watch a cartoon that isn't called The Simpsons (or another popular American show adults are allowed to watch without feeling childish) but few else would bother.

Point 2 is that the vast majority of people watching anime would rather watch it with a dub in their own language. It is a highly vocal minority that prefers the original Japanese, which makes it seem more prolific than it actually is.
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Have you got the statistics to back yourself up or are you simply assuming the majority of UK anime fans prefer to watch anime with (usually) poor-average voice acting?

I think Manga Ent. being forced to look at their dubtitling and starting to put proper subtitles on their DVDs due to the number of complaints received shows that a lot of UK anime fans who buy anime prefer to watch anime in Japanese.

Point 3 is based around what you (and others) have observed on internet forums. Not surprisingly those people active in such forums are also quite active on the net, hence giving a large skew of the perception of how they got into anime in the first instance. Without any objective poll (one which would necessarily not be conducted online) to analyse things any such claims are mere happenstance and supposition.
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Everything you've said to counter my assumptions has been no more factual. You're bizarrely assuming an anime channel you'd pay for would be aimed at non-anime fans, you're assuming most anime fans were happy with Mangle's releases, you're assuming most people purchased DVDs before experiencing anime as a result of fansubs.

It's fine if your opinions differ from mine; I have no issue with that. But, if you're going to try to claim I'm wrong and only support your words with your own opinions, you aren't going to get anywhere. Facts and statistics are needed to prove assumptions wrong.
 
Aion said:
The internet, where most discovered anime, and not television channels is the way to go.
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The vast majority of older fans will remember the days of anime being shown on Scifi and further back in the mid 90's seeing it on channel 4 and BBC2. Even ITV showed Laputa back in the late 80's. Those were the days!

Don't assume everyone got into anime by leeching fansubs. Anime has been around a lot longer than broadband. And you could even get fansubs on VHS if you knew where to look.
 
I didn't say everyone, I said 'most'. It's pretty damn obvious anime has grown a huge amount in popularity due to the internet and fansubbers allowing people to download and watch anime far faster than older fans who would've had to get lucky by seeing it on TV (anime on UK TV is rare even now), buying it on VHS or getting somebody to fansub anime on a VHS tape and send it to you in the post.
 
I know personally I got into through the dubs of Digimon and Pokémon and Cardcaptors and Yu-Gi-Oh! that were shown on UK TV back in the day. From there, I watched more like Escaflowne, Big O, Rave Master and then slowly delved into the anime communities on the net.
 
Aion said:
It's pretty damn obvious anime has grown a huge amount in popularity due to the internet and fansubbers allowing people to download and watch anime far faster
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Got any figures to back that statement up? ;) Sorry, couldn't help it :)

Just because the internet now has places where people can gather and talk about anime doesn't necessarily mean there are lots more fans now than there were 15 years ago.

On the subject of figures, there have been several sub/dub polls on the AC forums over the last year and the results were pretty much 50/50. The exception being if there was a 'they should show both' option as this would get the majority of votes.

And when AC accidentally showed a subbed version of .hack in the early slot the forum was bombarded with 'I don't want subs!' posts. About as vocal as the 'I don't want dubs' posts.
 
As far as figures for dubs being more popular, I think sales speak volumes on the matter. My understanding was that the US release of Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, which was without a dub sold poorly, whilst Manga's release of the same with a dub sold several thousand units more than the US. This in a country with a much smaller population than the US and a much smaller anime market as a subsequence.

As far as digisubs prompting anime fans I just do not see how or why anyone who was not already interested would actually come to look for it. The internet is just about the worst place to discover something new. The internet is a vast resource and in my experience you have to be somewhat aware of what you are looking for before you start looking for it. The chances of people suddenly deciding to search for Japanese animation or anime or manga is practically zero. The most likely way they started is they watched the likes of Pokemon or the Animatrix or Afro Samurai on TV (some random choices and far from exhaustive) and looked into more from there. The reason for this is that TV is somewhat more constrained than the internet. You may find yourself flicking through channels to see what's on and suddenly stop at something that looks a little interesting. The other most common method would be word of mouth, having been told by a friend or shown a title by a friend. Almost certainly the first port of call would not have been someone searching for fansubs.
 
As nice as a channel or block would be, I doubt it could work at the moment. The latest issue of Neo has something by their "Insider" on the subject as well.

King Jimmeh said:
I know personally I got into through the dubs of Digimon and Pokémon and Cardcaptors and Yu-Gi-Oh! that were shown on UK TV back in the day.
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Same here. Didn't have Sky then and still haven't got it now. I'm not the kind of person that has a huge amount of fansubs (actually I'm only following 2 shows that way).
 
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