@Buuhan1:
That's right, four fuckin' episodes of DN.
I actually caught that last night and was amazed when it kept going. Death Note actually works WAY better in large blocks. The built suspense and drama carries better. Also, its only a what… 37 episode series? And they aired through episode 20 or so last night. They're probably just trying to run through the story once more befoe changing out the January schedule.
Damn they're cheap… What about their rarely aired anime? Blue Gender aired like... once back towards the blocks beginning. They really do seem to hate anime lately. XD
They air the ratings every week. Its obvious why. The comedy stuff regularly gets 700,000-1,500,000, viewers. The anime, even with premieres and back when all those shows were new, tends to top out between 200,000-500,000. (on RARE ocassion hitting as high as 700,000… basically the lowest the comedy stuff gets.)
Part of it is people like shows where they can miss an episode. For all the dedication a fanbase can give to an ongoing show, casual viewers are king. And comedies... are uhm... comedies, most of the anime tends to be drama. (Crayon Shin Chan was actually getting ratings on par with the comedy stuff, I have no idea why they stopped showing it.)
@Kairouseki:
They seriously need to air Berserk. It'll need some edits but I think they can still air it.
As amazing as Berserk is, its a slow, thoughtful quiet show with a lot of philosophy. It would be like Ghost in the Shell all over again. Good for the dedicated, thinking, mature viewers that thrive on it, but not generic and simple enough like Inu Yasha that casual viewers can get into it. Also, it looks old. Not as old as Lupin or Detective Conan did, but… old.
@Buuhan1:
Yeah, their standards have changed. If they can air Blood + they can air Berserk, but I doubt they'll buy a 12 year old series. I haven't been following anime for a long time, but surely there's new ones worth putting on AS.
They actually aired a bump about that once. It'd need a lot of edits. BS&P would rip it to shreds, apparently. Wih all the rape, violence, nudity, homosexuality, gore… ANd seriously, I have NO idea how you could conceivably edit the last two episodes to work on tv at all. And it would have to air at like 2 AM.
As good as Berserk is, there is no way to make it work. Freaking Evangelion couldn't do well in ratings. EVANGELION. Philoshopy-laden shows, even full of action, don't do well there.
Also, they never air Blue Gender for the same reason they never air Reign the Conqueror. People hated the art style and it did terrible in the ratings. And also, Blue Gender was edited to shreds.
(Also, the rights to Blue Gender might have elapsed, its been long enough. I know they lost Outlaw Star, Gundam Wing and Tenchi years ago.)