Welcome to the Fantasy Zone
This Zone is dedicated to the lesser known elements of anime hosted by the cast of Victory Script.
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This week I had to replace my overworked 8 year old tv with my first smart TV, over in the UK, we are offered a number of channels for free, the contents of said channels especially the animation section are unusual and I would like to share them with you.
He-Man and She-Ra
Perhaps most jarring are 24 hour streams of He-Man and She-Ra, both the original 80s series, no remakes; I've not watched either for decades and it's just as corny now as it was back then, one note on She-Ra and something I heavily criticised the remake for is the design.
Apart from She-Ra's facial expressions rarely changing, her original design is beautiful, then the remake comes along and it is hideous, if not for the remake's story being brilliant, She-Ra's remake would be terrible. He-Man's remakes will need their own entry to describe that disaster.
Voltron
At least Voltron has all three series on hand, classic, CG and modern remake, I'll definitely have to invest some time as this series needs commitment.
Yu-Gi-Oh and Beyblade
So far the only dedicated anime channel has two anime, all seasons of Yu-Gi-Oh and I assume all series of Beyblade but only G-Revolution has played, a rewatch of season 1 Yu-Gi-Oh was rough, particularly as I'm stuck with 4Kids dubbing while Beyblade is playing it's best season but it is the season with Daichi who I despise.
Mr Bean
A slight look at some British animation, Mr Bean's cartoon is based on the live action comedy of the same name, it lacks the comedy timing that only a live action could bring and there is more dialogue than necessary for what is a mostly silent protagonist.
Dennis the Menace
No this isn't the blonde boy troublemaker who is the bane of Mr Wilson's existence, but a boy in a red and black jersey and shorts with spikey black hair and a spikey black haired dog to match, no one knows who came first as both debuted in comics the same year.
Apart from UK Dennis having a much more dodgy history, the character is largely unchanged since his inception, a testament to his staying power as the Beano UK comic is last UK comic book still in publication.
Alvin and the Chipmunks
The CG remake takes much from the crazy popular 90s version making it one of the most faithful modern remakes of all time but modern music really doesn't do this remake justice however.
Rekkit Rabbit
The latest show from Totally Spies creator Marathon, features everything you expect from one of their shows, unintentional fetish fuel. The actual cartoon is about a magicians rabbit who causes mischief for his new owner after being saved from a magician, throw in actual magic and you have plenty of fun.
Miraculous Ladybug and Cat Noir
One show I'm glad gets played frequently is France's best cartoon since Code Lyoko and Oban Star Racers. Miraculous has lore that surpasses most modern anime, even on the level of it's shojo counterparts, it does better than them. A full review coming soon.
That's a number of highlights from the strange world of British TV, it's free at least.
Post Pokemania in the late 90s, every company was lining up to grab what could potentially be the next big thing, the new millennium was setting up to be dominated by the new wave of anime set to hit western shores; for TV networks it was like a market day with Toonami and Fox Kids leading the way along with WB who was supporting 4Kids, but as someone who is from the UK and alot channels like Fox Kids and Cartoon Network were on cable, we had to make do with five terrestrial television channels and this is where it gets interesting.
UK TV Machinations
I suppose a brief history is in order, the most prominent channels are 1 and 2 both owned by the BBC, it's ad free but costs money to run as a separate tax thing called a TV licence, as far as I know, UK is the only country that does this; BBC were never in to the idea of anime, their only dabble at the time was an attempt at dubbing Urusei Yatsura for a special report on anime as a new genre and they may have had Monster Rancher but it's unconfirmed, so were left with channels 3-5.
Channel 3 or ITV Independent Television was our main free channel and they latched on to the anime craze early by acquiring Pokemon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Sailor Moon.
Channel 4 was actually the first to showcase anime as accounts from friends and my older sister suggests they showcased the much maligned Grindhouse scene which briefly became a news piece for concerned parents, channel 4 would later buy the rights to Studio Ghibli's film library.
That just leaves Channel 5, the newcomer who was building a solid library with their kids section known as Milkshake, this was pre-Peppa Pig in 2002 so they weren't taken seriously, since ITV had all the best stuff and Ghibli was in Channel 4's hands, they were left with just Beyblade and the we have Yu-Gi-Oh at home Duel Masters, but they also licensed an anime from 2000 which too this day, is it's only known English speaking western TV release making it probably the only UK exclusive anime to date, this anime is Strange Dawn.
What on Earth is Strange Dawn?
The story revolves around two school girls named Yuko and Eri who get summoned by a princess to save a world dominated by little semi-humans, basically taking regular people and seeing how they react to a world of SD characters or Super Deformed the proper term for chibis.
The anime itself to pardon the pun is strange, it's hard not to feel put off when you compare the two girls to the semi-humans, my memories of the series are vague but I remember Yuko being insufferable throughout and the final episode being a "what just happened" moment, after that it never aired again, the only taste America got of Strange Dawn was an incomplete home release through Urban Vision which no longer exists so for collectors, those DVDs will be worth a fortune, the only known existence of an English dub is the English opening theme dumped on Youtube, so the dub at least for now is lost media.
It always baffled me for years why Channel 5 picked this anime over everything else at the time, a quick look at the releases in that period, they could've had titles so much better quality than Strange Dawn.
They could've had Zoids over this but I doubt we would get a story like this again as better licensing means we basically get whatever America gets.
I will attempt to review it after watching the subtitled version so look out for that.
End
