UK TV channel VICELAND announces daily anime programming from 17th July

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Paul

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The UK TV channel VICELAND (Sky Channel 153, Now TV) has announced that it will begin airing the following anime series (from Anime Limited) from 17th July every day at midnight: Cowboy Bebop, Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul Root A, Samurai Champloo & Eureka Seven. These will be English dubbed broadcasts. Read the full press release from VICELAND UK below.



VICELAND UK DEBUTS LATE-NIGHT ANIME SHOWS

“Cowboy Bebop”, “Tokyo Ghoul”, “Tokyo Ghoul Root A”, “Samurai Champloo” and “Eureka Seven” amongst first Anime titles to debut on VICELAND UK

London, June 20, 2017: VICELAND, the youth-focused TV network from VICE Media, has announced a string of critically acclaimed anime acquisitions for its UK channel, in partnership with leading distributor Anime Ltd.

The added titles mark the genre’s return to linear television, with animations to TX from 17th July at midnight in a regular daily slot on VICELAND UK.

Amongst the anime titles are ‘Tokyo Ghoul’, based on the cult manga series by Sui Ishida, along with season follow-up ‘Tokyo Ghoul Root A’ and acclaimed 50 episode series, ‘Eureka Seven’.

And, ahead of Tomorrow Studio’s recently announced live-action re-boot, VICELAND UK has also picked up rights to the award-winning series, ‘Cowboy Bebop’, along with action adventure title ‘Samurai Champloo’ from the same directors.

All four series will be shown on VICELAND in a dubbed format.

About The New Shows:

COWBOY BEBOP
The crew of the Bebop is once again ready to clean up space by bringing bad guys to justice and trying to make some cash while doing it!
Join the always-cool Spike Spiegal, investigative genius Jet Black, the alluring Faye Valentine, the amazing (but weird) Ed and the super-smart Welsh Corgi named Ein as they try to make a buck in the year 2071. How do they do it? They’re bounty hunters!

TOKYO GHOUL
In modern day Tokyo, society lives in fear of Ghouls: mysterious creatures that look exactly like humans — yet hunger insatiably for their flesh. None of this matters to Ken Kaneki, a bookish and ordinary young man, until a dark and violent encounter turns him into the first ever Ghoul-human half-breed. Trapped between two worlds, Ken must survive the violent conflicts of warring Ghoul factions, while attempting to learn more about Ghoul society, his newfound powers, and the fine line between man and monster.

Based on the manga series by Sui Ishida and produced by Studio Pierrot (BLEACH, YU YU HAKUSHO) TOKYO GHOUL is directed by Shuhei Morita, who received an Oscar-nomination at the 86th Academy Awards for his short film, Possessions.

TOKYO GHOUL ROOT A
The twisted horror hit is back, and the ghouls haven’t lost their taste for blood.

After weeks of torture at the hands of Aogiri Tree, Kaneki emerges a changed ghoul. No longer the meek young man who struggled with his hunger, Kaneki goes through a ravenous feeding frenzy, even devouring other ghouls to collect their power.

He then joins the very organization that attempted to break him, Aogiri Tree, and the ghoul faction quickly becomes embroiled in a war between other ghoul groups and the CCG. Along with Amon, Mado’s daughter Akira, hoping to avenge her father’s untimely death, spearheads the anti-ghoul attacks. As the war between humans and ghouls intensifies, one question remains: what makes a monster?

SAMURAI CHAMPLO
Where Hip-Hop meets Anime – from the directors of Cowboy Bebop, Animatrix and Kill Bill animation.

Mugen is a buck wild warrior–violent, thoughtless and womanizing. Jin is a vagrant ronin–mysterious, traditional, and strong. These two fiercely independent warriors couldn’t be more different from one another, yet their paths cross when Fuu, a ditzy female, saves them from being executed. Fuu convinces the two young men to help her find a mysterious samurai.

EUREKA SEVEN
Relive the classic era of anime with the studio that brought you Escaflowne, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Wolf’s Rain.

Renton is a teenager trapped working as a mechanic in a backwater town. He dreams of joining up with a daredevil group of pilots known as Gekkostate and following in his father’s heroic footsteps. When a mysterious beauty named Eureka shows up asking for a tune-up, Renton soon finds himself drawn into a high-flying mecha dogfight that makes him a target of the military. When the dust settles on the spectacular battle, Renton is invited to join Gekkostate, but he soon discovers that even a dream come true has a dark side.
​

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I feel like I should 'Like' this because it will mean (I hope) that more (Sky) viewers get the chance to watch good anime! But from a purely selfish point-of-view, I'm feeling somewhat miffed because... we don't subscribe to Sky! #missingout
 
Always nice to hear about anime on UK TV again, particularly something of a caliber of Cowboy Bebop... I mean, I doubt I'll be watching myself, I've seen and own all these series on Blu-Ray, or seen a few episodes of them and didn't really like them, but still... Hopefully this leads to more, and more importantly, that this catches the eye of some new viewer who then becomes a fan (though this seems less likely given how kids and teens tend to watch streaming services and such for TV nowadays...)
 
I like that it's a consistent programming block & is probably influenced by the way Adult Swim created an audience for anime over in the US.

Series like Bebop & Champloo are great points of entry for people interested in seeing what anime is capable of. I really hope it finds an audience. This is the first real attempt at showing anime series on UK TV since AnimeCentral so it will be interesting to see how far we've come in the years since.

Some newer anime would be welcome though (looks in the vague direction of Attack on Titan).
 
This is nice for exposure but Anime on TV in 2017 isn't very exciting really. So many easy alternatives for people to watch Anime outside of physical media already.

Saying that I do love it when Ghibli is on Film4 or Syfy has something like Summer Wars.

If Anime Ltd can get some more unique and interesting stuff on Viceland every now and then I think that'd be really cool. Like some of Anime Ltd's Films etc
 
Paul said:
I like that it's a consistent programming block & is probably influenced by the way Adult Swim created an audience for anime over in the US.
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Adult Swim has been pulling much lower numbers for its anime later, so I do question how well Viceland is going to work here in a much smaller market.

We don't have Sky, so I won't be tuning in, but I hope it goes well for Anime Limited overall and pulls in some new anime fans. :)
 
I think the impression is Toonami does fair for itself, it just doesn't attract EVERY further education pothead that the rest of AS' sometimes utterly insane lineup does.

The real issue for Anime on UK TV though is momentum seems to die down within a season so AL should really look to keep the thing pumping. Bebop is an exception (It was on near permanent rotation on AS until only recently) but if Ghoul and E7 simply repeat are SERIOUSLY in trouble.

That all said if AL could get something going with Manga to get Sailor Moon and DB/Z running so Toei don't have that excuse to hide under and Funi/whoever could get those streaming that would just be swell.
 
Demelza said:
Adult Swim has been pulling much lower numbers for its anime later, so I do question how well Viceland is going to work here in a much smaller market.

We don't have Sky, so I won't be tuning in, but I hope it goes well for Anime Limited overall and pulls in some new anime fans. :)
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The launch of Viceland seemed to be heavily skewed towards promoting Sky's Now TV service. (Sky co-owns the channel with Vice.) So I wonder whether this is actually just a, presumably cheap, way of bulking out content for that audience. Ratings, as such, may not even matter.

My personal concern is whether Viceland is really the right place. As I've been joking about, perhaps excessively, on Discord, Viceland's shows tend to either be about drugs (Bong Apetit, Weediquette and Hamilton's Pharamacopeia being actual shows one can watch on Viceland) or documentaries with an element of cultural imperialism to them. Yes, there's some good stuff on the network, but I don't know that these are the people we want representing anime.
 
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While I'm uncertain whether this is the right channel for it given the programming of this channel seems tailored towards a completely different group of people and as Buzz201 said, I don't know if these are exactly the people we want representing Anime but I still can't help feel very much excited about Anime returning to the small screen.

Given the news makes it out there, it might garner a big enough viewership not to suffer the same fate as previous channels to air Anime. I've met a good amount of people in the past that have often never heard of the channels that had an Anime block because it just wasn't very well reported on or poorly advertised.
Despite owning these titles already, I'll definitely watch or at the very least tune in given the time slot is reasonable as I would love to see more series air if it goes over well, and perhaps some more recently released titles or titles I've yet to see.
 
Figured I'd chime in here to contribute my 20p as it's me who brokered this deal:

Sarah said:
I feel like I should 'Like' this because it will mean (I hope) that more (Sky) viewers get the chance to watch good anime! But from a purely selfish point-of-view, I'm feeling somewhat miffed because... we don't subscribe to Sky! #missingout
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You're not missing out though - the majority of shows are either available elsewhere on DVD and even SVOD for anime fans (Netflix, I'm looking at you) or very likely will be.

Cold Cobra said:
Always nice to hear about anime on UK TV again, particularly something of a caliber of Cowboy Bebop... I mean, I doubt I'll be watching myself, I've seen and own all these series on Blu-Ray, or seen a few episodes of them and didn't really like them, but still... Hopefully this leads to more, and more importantly, that this catches the eye of some new viewer who then becomes a fan (though this seems less likely given how kids and teens tend to watch streaming services and such for TV nowadays...)
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This pretty much hits it on the head with what makes the Viceland block such a nice breath of air. The target market is not especially existing anime fans (I would love it if folks tuned in and there'll of course be a marketing angle towards your fine selves too) but the goal especially on TV is less to cater to an existing market of anime fans but to new audiences. If you take a look beyond their original programming to their channel guide - you're going to see before this anime block takes it's seat it is following on from both Archer and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Both of which I certainly enjoy watching and if I watched no real anime, there is every chance with Cowboy Bebop and it's ilk on after that I may keep watching.

Paul said:
Series like Bebop & Champloo are great points of entry for people interested in seeing what anime is capable of. I really hope it finds an audience. This is the first real attempt at showing anime series on UK TV since AnimeCentral so it will be interesting to see how far we've come in the years since.

Some newer anime would be welcome though (looks in the vague direction of Attack on Titan).
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It totally is - AnimeCentral's biggest challenge was advertising - a whole channel for anime proved almost impossible to sell to the advertisers (which is how you amortise the cost primarily) but a block, especially when linked in by a related demographic of viewers can be a win. Honestly even in the USA the anime-only linear programming has withered over time whereas blocks like Toonami flourish far more.

Re newer anime - would love to see that too eventually! Who knows what time will yield - will rely on results from the first run of course :).

ConanThe3rd said:
The real issue for Anime on UK TV though is momentum seems to die down within a season so AL should really look to keep the thing pumping. Bebop is an exception (It was on near permanent rotation on AS until only recently) but if Ghoul and E7 simply repeat are SERIOUSLY in trouble.
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Let's see how stuff goes first with the first wave, then we can figure stuff out after that :)! But fresh content is always needed - see Toonami for example on that frontier and it's refresh rate :).

Buzz201 said:
The launch of Viceland seemed to be heavily skewed towards promoting Sky's Now TV service. (Sky co-owns the channel with Vice.) So I wonder whether this is actually just a, presumably cheap, way of bulking out content for that audience. Ratings, as such, may not even matter.

My personal concern is whether Viceland is really the right place. As I've been joking about, perhaps excessively, on Discord, Viceland's shows tend to either be about drugs (Bong Apetit, Weediquette and Hamilton's Pharamacopeia being actual shows one can watch on Viceland) or documentaries with an element of cultural imperialism to them. Yes, there's some good stuff on the network, but I don't know that these are the people we want representing anime.
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It was neither cheap as a way of bulking out content or audience - it was a proper commercial deal (aka it wasn't done just to cover costs, we made money from it at a reasonable price in the TV space) :).

Re not wanting people to represent anime - firstly that's a pretty sweeping statement and a rude thing to say. You could equally say that you wouldn't like some parts of the existing anime community to be representing anime as well, doesn't stop them enjoying the medium as well though.

It also shows a lack of understanding of what is screening most nights (understandable given their site focus on originals they make) but if you look here: Viceland UK - Listings you will see each night before the anime block mostly is Archer and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - are you telling me the people that watch that are not representative of anime? As I watch both of those but not the drug-related shows and I think I'm not the worst person to represent anime...

Food for thought!

Best,

Andrew
 
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anime_andrew said:
You're not missing out though - the majority of shows are either available elsewhere on DVD and even SVOD for anime fans (Netflix, I'm looking at you) or very likely will be.
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True - but I was just indulging in a moment of nostalgia for the days when most of the first anime shows I saw in the UK (although my real 'firsts' were on French TV thanks to Club Dorothee!) were through Toonami/CNX. It was such a treat to turn on the TV and discover Cowboy Bebop, Tenchi Muyo, The Big O and Outlaw Star etc. live. I'd love to have that option again.

(Although we're spoiled for choice now, there's still something rather special about knowing a series is being broadcast 'at that moment'. Even if it's late at night.)
 
I forget who tried it first but it turned into AS with what I'd call the pothead animation shows, and the latest shows being repeats of bebop and GitS then adult swim went online so hard they lost the anime. The only thing that calls itself adult swim in the UK now is Fox's animation block that starts with family guy and American dad.

This is the same thing as AS anime block. Not many people watch the channel and it's on in the dead of night. No broadcaster in the UK has shown that they know how to handle anime. Might as well create fans by creating something inspired and get one of the big boys to show it at a reasonable time, anime in the US has had success with that
 
I'm always happy to see anime getting some air time... even if in this case it's only sky subscribers who will benefit from it. As usual though, when a channel does put it's neck out to dedicate a block of screen time to anime, it's been relegated to late night viewing once again. It's like it's unclean or something! At least these days people have the benefit of Live Recording. Back when I was watching the Science Fiction Channel, I had to physically stay up to watch anime. It was either that or set the unpredictable time recording facilities on a my VHS Player! Hah! ...oh crap, just made myself feel old... TT_TT

Having lived threw so many changes in limitations of access in viewing anime in my time, it's good to see channels still trying to put it out there, but this just solidifies my relief in knowing how many platforms now allow easy access to this, our communal love of Japanese Animation! Now at 33 years young I can enjoy anime wherever I am, when ever I want. I mean I was watching anime on my mobile in my lunch break!! Love it! Hah!
 
I'm no youngster but I don't watch TV anymore. There was a period of 2 years (pre netflix) when I simply couldn't afford a license, I really didn't miss TV as much as I thought I would and their harassment of me was disgusting and pathetic. Now with the presence of Crunchyroll and Netflix I have even less reason for a license and their impotent threats continue to cement my decision.


Even so any exposure is good for getting new members, it's just a shame it's such an unsociable time, though that's pretty much the time the original Sci-fi channel got me into anime.
 
I doubt the big boys are that interested in having things pushed at them. Might be worth fans writing to them though, to demonstrate demand...? When I was a kid I used to write in to television channels reasonably frequently. I remember wittering to the Sci-Fi channel about how awesome anime was. They sent me a biro and wrote back.

R
 
For what it's worth, according to the BBC's justification for killing BBC Three, most young people were watching late at night around that time anyway, so "hiding" the content away there might actually do it some favours. Andrew has also said they will be available on catch-up, so they should be available on demand too. As it is on a mainstream channel, there is a strong chance they will get promotion and won't be hidden in the anime section of Sky's On Demand service (if it even has one :p)

I will say I think they're being perhaps optimistic with regards to the crossover between the anime fanbase and the Archer/It's Always Sunny fanbases. Of the people I know in real life who watch Archer and It's Always Sunny, I can't see them going for anime. I doubt they've been introduced to it, so maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see happening.

Actually, come to think of it, my housemate recently watched It's Always Sunny but couldn't even handle Bananya when I showed it to her once...

That and it's also directly clashing with Family Guy and American Dad! on ITV2 most nights, which have the advantage of familiarity and also being overt comedies, which I'm not sure I'd class any of the Viceland line-up as. I hope it does well though.
 
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anime_andrew said:
Oh yes, Bananya - that notorious crossover anime with (ostensibly) normal people...

AP
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I tried Attack on Titan, but she outright refused because all her friends kept going on about it and she was tired of hearing about it. (Also, Danganronpa was ruled out for that reason too, but I wouldn't show that to a non-fan anyway) I wasn't even really trying to sell her Bananya or anime in general at the time, I mentioned that it existed and she wanted to watch it. You can only work with who you are given.
 
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