By The Eva Monkey on Tuesday, July 12th, 2005
You may have heard the announcement at Anime Expo recently. But Evangelion is once again slated to air on Cartoon Network. What exactly does this mean? Its hard to say at this point. It is unclear to what degree the show will be censored, however it has been slated to run on Adult Swim, which is generally aimed at an older audience. We will have to wait to see exactly how much is cut. Some may remember when ADV teamed up with Cartoon Network for “Giant Robot Week” back in early 2003. ADV was looking to promote The Anime Network, and Cartoon Network was happy to accomodate them. The end result was the first two episodes trimmed down considerably due to numerous edits, and a lot of cut footage. If you would like an idea of how much editing was done, check the edit lists at Anime News Network.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/columns/edit-list.php?id=122 – Episode 1 – Angel Attack
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/columns/edit-list.php?id=123 – Episode 2 – The Beast
For the time being, I’m going to reserve judgement as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. It is safe to assume that the show will air in dubbed format, most likely from the Platinum release. Even aired on Adult Swim, it is still likely to receive some editing.
I have recently been one to assert that people should see works in a form as close to the original as possible. When talking about anime, we’re talking uncut, uncensored, and with the original Japanese audio. What will air on Cartoon Network is liable to violate all three of my mandates, but, I must remain optomistic. I got into anime back in high school through movies aired on The Sci-Fi Network, and have since gone on to revisit many of the movies in their original formats. And, lets not forget that what I saw on TV got me hooked. So I’m certain that there will be a number of people who will get into Eva from Cartoon Network, and someday they may grow into mature fans of Evangelion. For the time being, we just have to encourage them to walk the right paths, and look into Evangelion in a purer form.