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View Full Version : The FUNimation Channel. Opinions?


neo-pactio
08-08-2007, 12:19 AM
The day after my family upgraded to Verizon FiOS, I discovered the FUNimation Channel. Thanks to it, I discovered a few interesting titles that I'm considering getting DVDs for.

BUT...

FUNimation, IMO, needs to put more effort into their 24-hour anime channel. The only titles shown are Kiddy Grade, Tenchi Muyo GXP, Spiral, Negima!, Kodocha, Case Closed, His and Her Circumstances, Hare+Guu, Blue Gender, Slayers, Dragon Ball, Galaxy Railways, Fruits Baskets, Pandalian, Baki the Grappler, Revolutionary Girl Utena and a few movies on weekends.

It looks like there's plenty of titles, but on a 24 hour schedule, it gets overbearing. Everyday, I'm finding that there's 3 showings of nearly every anime on the channel. Not only that, but the episodes rarely change. In one week, episode 26 of Fruits Basket played about 3-4 times! The lack of titles wouldn't be so bad if the people brodcasting them would change them out every now and then!

What kinda bothers me also are the the way things are aired. I like the style of FUNi's bumpers and programing ads, but some shows have close to zero ads, like Negima which has none, and Fruits Basket, which is only mentioned once in ad for a block that also includes Kodocha, Pandalian and Case Closed.

And the STUPID COMMERCIALS ARE WORSE! It's nice to see some ads for the newer FUNimation properties like School Rumble and BECK, but old ads like Bio-Broly and Blue Gender: The Warrior are shown probably close to 100 times a week! Plus, there's ads from other promoters that are overrepeated, like GameStop and the He-Man DVD collections. Doesn't FUNi have other sponsors?

What's kind of strange is that almost all the anime shown have their openings and closings edited to make them shorter (except for a few properties that don't actually belong to FUni, like Utena and His and Hers, but Slayers and Hare+Guu also are free of this burden). That I don't like a lot either. If the openings could run fully, that's means that less repetition of commercials. Of course, it's obvious FUNi is cutting down the OPs and EDs to make room for commercials, but I don't think it's really going to help sales, IMO.

Plus, the ad for the FUNimation channel features shows not even on the channel, like Gunslinger Girl and Burst Angel, so why not show them?

So what do you think? Do you get the FUNi channel? Should FUNi overhaul it, get more sponsors, and actually air something else besides the 100th repeat of episode 5 of Kodocha? I think so.

Tokunaga_Shouin
08-08-2007, 12:32 AM
Interesting. I removed myself from the Verizon system after being attached to them since they were known as 'Southwestern Bell' or 'NYNEX'.

Verizon has the Funi channel eh?

I have 'AnimeNetwork'...but there are no commercials within any of the anime series that they show. I wonder how different it is from the 'AnimeNetwork' that Cable provides.

*Ponders*

kit-kat
08-08-2007, 12:56 AM
I actually asked a rep at the Funi booth at Otakon when they will start putting more stuff on the channel. I swear they play Revolutionary Girl Utena at least 5 times a day! Every time I turn it on it's Utena. I guess it wouldn't be too bad if it was the whole show, but the only show the Black Rose season (I think that is what it's called).

The rep at the booth (which was the same guy that did their industry panel) said hopefully soon. They don't have the broadcast rights to a lot of their shows, which they're trying to get atm, since they licensed them before they got the network. It was really busy at the time so I couldn't ask him if they're getting the broadcast rights to their newer licenses, but one would think...

AstroNerdBoy
08-08-2007, 03:06 AM
Verizon has the Funi channel eh?

I have 'AnimeNetwork'...but there are no commercials within any of the anime series that they show. I wonder how different it is from the 'AnimeNetwork' that Cable provides.

*Ponders*

From what I understand, Anime Network is from ADV.

Tokunaga_Shouin
08-08-2007, 08:50 PM
I would assume so...since ADV distributes the shows within that channel.

:)

rooboy
08-10-2007, 12:05 PM
FUNimation, IMO, needs to put more effort into their 24-hour anime channel. The only titles shown are Kiddy Grade, Tenchi Muyo GXP, Spiral, Negima!, Kodocha, Case Closed, His and Her Circumstances, Hare+Guu, Blue Gender, Slayers, Dragon Ball, Galaxy Railways, Fruits Baskets, Pandalian, Baki the Grappler, Revolutionary Girl Utena and a few movies on weekends.

It looks like there's plenty of titles, but on a 24 hour schedule, it gets overbearing. Everyday, I'm finding that there's 3 showings of nearly every anime on the channel. Not only that, but the episodes rarely change. In one week, episode 26 of Fruits Basket played about 3-4 times! The lack of titles wouldn't be so bad if the people brodcasting them would change them out every now and then!

Plus, the ad for the FUNimation channel features shows not even on the channel, like Gunslinger Girl and Burst Angel, so why not show them?Well, I'm not sure about Burst Angel, but Gunslinger Girl was on the Funi channel (before Utena and Guu rolled in), it's being broadcast now by IFC (which is why I'm assuming they stopped showing it on Funi).

Like Kit-kat said, a lot of their shows are being broadcast on other channels, so that's probably why we're not seeing them. Trinity Blood and Fullmetal Alchemist are both on [adult swim]. Basilisk, Samurai 7, and Gunslinger Girl are either all on, or just off of, IFC. Burst Angel was on some channel (can't remember which one right now).

In addition, they started airing Negima before they released DVDs of it, and for three months (or so) we were stuck with the same first ten episodes repeatedly. So I think (hope) they're waiting until they have entire series finished before adding them to the channel. I'm hoping that we'll start seeing stuff from their licensing binge from the last year or so soon though. There's a lot of their newer stuff that isn't being shown anywhere else, and I'd much rather watch Black Cat or something than the third re-watch of Utena. The one I couldn't figure out for the longest time was why they weren't showing Moon Phase, but that airs starting at the end of the month on AZN, so that must be why.

Ironically, kit-kat and I must be turning it on at the same time, because everytime I turn on Funi, it's Utena as well.

Kyon
08-10-2007, 12:24 PM
IFC finished airing both Gunslinger Girl and Basilisk back in June. They haven't re-run them so they'll probably revert back to Funimation soon.

IFC seems to like Samurai 7 as it's been re-run frequently on Saturdays, since they air a lot of live-action samurai stuff. That may not appear on Funi Channel for awhile.