Author: bluemist

Animax-Asia

August 1, 2005

It’s been one year since the historic reformat of Animax-Asia, alienating so many Japanese dub lovers all over the Philippines and the rest of Asia. Believe it or not, ever since I have started this crappy rant, nothing very significant from Animax-Asia has ever changed. The same stellar new anime premiers and lineups every month, same excellent programming scheme, but still the same good and crappy dubs with the same lineup of voice actors.

One of the biggest changes was the separation of a unique Philippines-only cable feed from Animax-Asia. Animax-Asia headquarters are situated in Singapore, and being broadcast over some countries in Asia by cable companies. At one point, the network split a feed exclusively for Philippines viewers only. Apparently, a big voice of complaint from the Filipino fans of the Saiyuki series, having seen English dubs of the Saiyuki Reload and Gunlock series which they didn’t like, forced the network to do so. Wow, I guess you can see that in this country people power is one way to get some change. The fans complain, the network answered. The Saiyuki sequels were rebroadcast in their original Japanese language with English subtitles. In addition, the 6-7PM timeslot which used to be an English dub slot was changed to a subtitled slot to accomodate Saiyuki Reload and Gunlock, as well as other new subtitled anime like Witch Hunter Robin and Samurai 7.

That’s kinda good news right? Well, there may be more subtitled timeslots but there is a drought of subtitled anime. So many reruns aired into the few subtitled timeslots. Furthermore, some good anime such as Cowboy Bebop and Gankutsuou (yes Gankutsuou!), which I expected to be broadcast in subtitles, were broadcast in English dub instead.

They need to get their act together now. Anime is getting more and more popular over here. Many popular titles have graced the local scene lately, and I have even spotted anime merchandise in mainstream shops, something that I have not seen before. Most important of all, Animax-Asia will have competition! A Philippine broadcasting company has just released Hero, the very first locally based, predominantly anime cable channel in the country! This is a milestone here, because, well, how many countries have an exclusively anime channel?

While Hero will just have Filipino language dubs (yup, no subs too), it is still competition for Animax-Asia here. Our country is one of their biggest markets of course, judging from the way they even accommodated a separate feed for us, and having another channel eat a bit of their audience pie will be bad news for them (Hero has certainly caught my attention too). Couple that with their already battered reputation because of their English dubs… it’s a shame really. They really have a lineup to die for (some of them are listed at ANN Encyclopedia). If only they could clearly define what animes in their lineup deserved to be shown in subtitles or in English dubs… they would have a better score for me.

By the way, I like their Animax Musix slots. That program shows jpop videos! Their lineup for jpop always seems to be lagging only mere months, and the really mainstream popular stuff are there. The only caveat is that they never finish each video to the end, but nevertheless it’s a nice exposure to jpop.

As usual, their animes are great but some are not projected rightfully because of the English dubs. Cardcaptor Sakura was finally continued in its second and third seasons, but it is still the same dub as I mentioned before. It’s kinda weird that the original Mobile Suit Gundam was shown in dub while the sequels Z and ZZ were shown subbed. The once subbed Texhnolyze was reverted into dubs now. Also, two Digimon animes were shown, and guess what… they used our local English dub! They used the English dub that our own local dubbers made, resulting it into a kinda Engrish-accented dub (while we have high English literacy, some do not speak English fluently [include me in that]). I heard that they will show [Tsukihime->type-moon] in subs, and that’s something for me to eagerly await.

UPDATE: Oof, Tsukihime has some cuts. I’m not impressed (yet again).

Anyway, that’s the story so far. Animax-Asia is still hanging on. Hopefully, some radical change should make me watch the channel regularly again, but I don’t think it will happen very soon.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 1: The end of Animax-Asia? Too sudden!?->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 2: Cardcaptured.->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 3: Trying to Adjust->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 4: Towards the 1st Anniversary->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 5: I gave up on Animax-Asia->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 6: One year since->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 7: Dubbed in Filipino?!?->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 7.5: Initial D Filipino Stage->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 8: More Pain->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 9: Now in blue->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 10: Fake Revival->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 11: Something New->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 12: Red with anger->]