ITV place spotlight on anime

Paul

Ghost of Animes
Administrator
Manga Ent. UK have let Otaku News know that ITV1's respected documentary series The South Bank Show will air an anime special on Sunday the 19th of February. Following this up, ITV4 are going to air the original Ghost in the Shell film on Saturday 4th March.

Manga UK's press release goes onto explain that Jonathan Ross' recent "Asian Invasion" documentary series that aired through out January and featured several famous anime directors managed to pull in record audience figures for BBC4- over 310,000 people tuned in to see Ross talking to the likes of Mamoru Oshii and Hayao Miyazaki.
 
w00t me thinks!

What's another great piece of news is that a short anime programme was BBC4's highest rated show!!!! So now we have Rapture and BBC4 showing that anime is the highest rated. Now ITV seem to have taken the hint, at last, nice one ITV, they better make this a good one.
*changed msn name...again*
Whats more, now it's on normal tv so people can't complain and say they don't have Sky, and even so, they may have Freeview, so w00t's all round!
I hope this South Bank Show does the job too, i've never seen it, but the site looks impressive, and impressions on it from anyone in here?

:p
 
The South Bank Show will be a proper documentary, I've seen a few of their other productions and they were all respectful and interesting.

Generally, this is more great news. It's really cool that a company as big as ITV wants to jump on anime and while I'd rather they tried to nab a Miyzaki movie, Ghost in the Shell (even by today's standards) is visually stunning.
 
That sounds really good, i will definitely have to watch that if i can remember, something i only remembered to do once for Jonathan Ross's Asian Invasion, darn my rubbish memory.
Still it's good, anime and asian culture sure does seem to be getting a nice bit of coverage recently :)
 
A South Bank Show documentary should present an excellent and balanced view of anime, which will make for nice viewing I think.

It's nice to see anime come into the spotlight on a more positive note rather than the more usual knee-jerk articles found in the gutter press.
 
I'm excited, can't wait!

Though it is an arts show on ITV and so not given the prime timeslots, it's still about the highest profile for anime on terrestrial TV since Akira played on BBC2, apart from the odd anime review by Jonathan Ross on Film 200x.
This can only be a good thing!
 
Wow, an anime documentary on a night that I'm not at work! In all seriousness, it's good to see some more exposure, especially from a well-respected and 'highbrow' series such as the South Bank Show.

Ghost in the Shell is great choice for TV - after all, it's probably the most famous name after Akira so should pull in a decent audience. As Paul said, the visuals are very good for something that's over a decade old and the storyline has quite a lot of intelligence to it, which should be a pleasant surprise to casual viewers.
 
I was reading something in Newtype from Jonathan Clements about this, and if it's the same show, then I think I remember him saying something about Hideaki Anno being in it. Could be wrong though - I was eating porridge while reading.

Obviously this is great for anime, but not so great when I try to wrestle the T.V. away from my father on a Sunday night!
 
It would be good if Anno was interviewed but I hope they don't concentrate on NGE alone if this is the case. Sure, it's his most influential work but Gunbuster is pretty underrated and I'd like to hear more about His and Her Circumstances.
Neon-Noir said:
Obviously this is great for anime, but not so great when I try to wrestle the T.V. away from my father on a Sunday night!
I too shall be entering battle with He Who Holds The Remote that night!
 
Concrete badger said:
It would be good if Anno was interviewed but I hope they don't concentrate on NGE alone if this is the case. Sure, it's his most influential work but Gunbuster is pretty underrated and I'd like to hear more about His and Her Circumstances.
Neon-Noir said:
Obviously this is great for anime, but not so great when I try to wrestle the T.V. away from my father on a Sunday night!
I too shall be entering battle with He Who Holds The Remote that night!
I suspect that, this being from a Manga press release that there will be a heavy Ghost in the Shell slant to the proceedings, especially given that ITV are to be screening that a short while afterwards.
 
I watched The South Bank Show Awards the other day, and not having really watched the show before i hadn't quite realised what type of program it was. But after seeing the class of that which was nominated and won the awards, it makes me really look forward to their coverage of Anime, and enjoy the thought of it being documented on an Arts program
 
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