Adult Swim has announced their on-air schedule for the next two months via their official website, & it comes with the unfortunate news that they're drastically cutting down on their anime. Not on the time in which their anime airs, as that'll remain the same. No, this time AS is cutting back on the number of anime series that will be airing on their Saturday night block.

We already knew that when Moribito comes to an end on December 19 that it would be leaving the schedule again instead of showing repeats. That still remains true, although Code Geass will no longer be replacing it. Now in addition to Moribito, there's no more Code Geass on Adult Swim's schedule either.

But wait, because it gets worse. Death Note & Blood+ are also leaving the schedule as well- seemingly for good. Blood+ only just started re-airing after a long time off the air, & it's now being pulled again after 14 episodes beginning next Saturday. At least Death Note will be getting a proper sendoff. AS will be showing mini-marathons of Death Note on 12/19, 12/26, 1/2, & 1/9. They're doing this so that they can properly finish Death Note's current run, making sure that every episode airs for one last time.

Adult Swim's new anime schedule on Saturday nights, starting January 16, now consists of an hour of Bleach, an hour of FullMetal Alchemist, an hour of Cowboy Bebop, an hour of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, an episode of Big O Season 2, & an hour of InuYasha. Yup, their entire anime block now consists of just six shows. All of those are reruns too, by the way. But don't worry, given Bleach's current status we'll probably start getting new episodes again around July.

So why are we losing Death Note, Blood+, Code Geass, & Moribito (& likely FLCL & Shin-Chan as well, even though those two haven't aired in awhile)? This is only speculation on my part, but I'm guessing Adult Swim's broadcast rights to those series expire in the new year, & AS simply didn't want to pay to renew them. That's what happened to many of their older titles like Samurai Champloo & Eureka Seven. Heck, they haven't even aired a single season 1 episode of Big O in about a year, likely because they no longer have the rights to it (they helped create season 2, so they'll likely have the rights to that forever). Their marathoning of Death Note in its final weeks only further manages to prove my theory.

It's hard to believe that they're permanently giving up on Geass & Death Note, but neither of those two huge titles managed to meet expectations on the network. I guess we should just be grateful that Adult Swim isn't cutting back on anime's airtime as well. Enjoy them while you can, because you likely wont be seeing them on American TV ever again.

Source: http://www.adultswim.com/schedule/onair.html

Just in time for the holidays, Adult Swim has rolled out a really cool unique idea for their online shop. Visitors now have the option of making their own custom AS DVDs, which can hold numerous episodes from a variety of different series. For $20, each disc can hold up to 110 minutes of shows. That's enough to hold 4 half-hour episodes, or 9 "15 minute" episodes (which the majority of Adult Swim's shows are). You can design the DVD menu, the cover image, & even the disc art.

Currently there are about 100 episodes to choose from, with thousands more (& more series as options) available by year's end. Of course, none of the series available right now are anime, & I doubt any of the other upcoming titles will be either, but you never know. This is probably just for Adult Swim original series, but it's still a pretty awesome concept. Check it out & start building here:

http://adultswimshop.com/cat/Build-Your-Custom-DVD.html

Adult Swim is shaking up their Saturday night schedule yet again beginning tonight. Don't worry, you're still getting the same amount of anime screentime. Despite that though, this is a pretty sucky change-up. For starters, AS's repeats of Star Wars: the Clone Wars (which just began its second season last night on Cartoon Network's regular lineup), which was considered an honorary member of the anime block, is gone. It has instead been replaced by a second episode of the Boondocks. After that we still have an hour of new Bleach episodes, which is good. But then we get to the bad again, as the new episodes of Moribito no longer follow & have instead been moved to a later (ie worse) timeslot. Now an hour of FullMetal Alchemist follow Bleach, & only after do we get new Moribito. At least we're still getting Moribito, I guess you can say. Oh, & because we're now getting a second episode of FMA, Code Geass is temporarily gone as well. The rest of the lineup remains the same.

Onto some good news though, I guess Adult Swim's airing of the first Bleach movie was a success, because they've now scheduled the much more recent second movie, the DiamondDust Rebellion, to air on December 5. A re-airing of the first movie will follow that same night, as well as the week before on November 28.

Onto the bad news once again though, as it currently looks like new episodes of Bleach are scheduled to end on November 21. Only one new episode (rather than two) is scheduled for that night, & after the two-week break for the Bleach movies, no new episodes are scheduled. Personally I'd rather have one new episode a week rather than a period of two new episodes a week, followed by a period of no new episodes. It's possible this will change though. Oh, & after the final episode of Moribito airs on December 19, the series will then be removed from the schedule yet again. After that on the 26th, Code Geass will return to take its place.

Source: http://www.adultswim.com/schedule/onair.html

With all the excitement of the first Bleach movie airing on Adult Swim last night, some other interesting news was overlooked last night. At 4:00am (Eastern/Pacific), Blood+ finally saw it's triumphant return to Adult Swim. The series finished its 50 episode run last year on AS, but was then pulled off the schedule with no encore showings. The series was initially scheduled for a rebroadcast in June, but this was changed a short while later.

The first episode aired last night in what was Cowboy Bebop's timeslot until now. Episodes will then air every Saturday night (Sunday morning) at the extremely late time of 4am. Sony will be releasing the second half of the series in a DVD boxset next month, over a year & a half since they released the first half boxset back in early 2008.

Source: http://www.adultswim.com/schedule/onair.html

Over the weekend, Adult Swim aired a promo for Bleach (seen above). At the end of it, they advertise for the first Bleach Movie, Memories of Nobody will be making its American television debut on September 5. For awhile now, Adult Swim's online schedule has listed "movie" for that day from midnight to 2am (Eastern/Pacific), but never got more specific than that.

It's a bit unusual considering the timing of all this. All of Viz's Naruto movies aired on Cartoon Network before they were released on DVD. "Memories of Nobody" has been on DVD for close to a year. Adult Swim had previously stated on-air that they were not interested in airing anime movies anymore. & considering their poor treatment of anime in the past, it wasn't surprising that they weren't interested in showing the Bleach movie. But recently Bleach's ratings have done pretty well, & as a result Adult Swim has been giving anime a little more respect by giving them better timeslots & actually airing promotional commercials. So their decision to air it now probably has to do with giving Bleach (& anime in general) another chance.

First Adult Swim confirmed that Moribito would indeed be returning to their lineup. Well now their latest schedule update does indeed indicate that the series will finally be going past episode 10, meaning that we'll be getting new episodes at last. Moribito began rebroadcasting last weekend from the beginning, & according to AS's new schedule, the brand new episode 11 will be airing on August 22. Of course considering how often Adult Swim changes things up, this is far from sketched in stone. Still though, things are looking good.

Also revealed in their new schedule, it seems that Adult Swim has changed their mind about ceasing two back-to-back episodes of Bleach. The series was originally scheduled to go back to only one new episode a week beginning July 11, but now the full hour of new Bleach continues into the unforeseeable future, going into at least September. Very good news to hear indeed.

Source: http://www.adultswim.com/schedule/onair.html

Just as the nice fellows from Media Blasters informed me at ACen earlier this month, Adult Swim now confirms that "Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit" will be returning to their lineup beginning June 13 at 1:30am (Eastern/Pacific), beginning with episode one. Unfortunately their online schedule only goes up to the beginning of August, leaving us a little shy of finding out if AS will truly be making it past episode 10 this time around. So good news for Moribito, but bad news for Blood+, which was originally scheduled to take over that timeslot from Code Geass. Poor Blood+, getting so close to finally getting a re-airing, & then having the rug pulled out from under it.

Also of note is that the back-to-back new episodes of Bleach will be put to a rest after July 4. Adult Swim will still be showing a full hour of Bleach every Saturday night at 12:30, but from July 11 on only the second episode will actually be new. Not sure why they're putting a stop to it so soon. Back-to-back new episodes of Naruto lasted nearly a full year on Toonami, & the Bleach dub is still quite behind the Japanese version of the anime. But after about 2 months of a full hour of new Bleach, at least we're now a little closer to catching up.

Source: http://www.adultswim.com/schedule/onair.html

A quick update on stuff I've found out on the first day of Anime Central today, before I catch some sleep.

I asked some Media Blasters people at their booth what was going on with Moribito & Adult Swim. According to them, Moribito will indeed be coming back to AS & will be showing the entire series this time around, rather than just the first 10 eps AS originally aired over & over again. It'll be back on TV this summer. (July 25 I think is the date they gave me. Wish I had wrote it down.)

During the opening ceremonies when ADV head Matt Greenfield was introduced, someone in the crowd shouted a question about if we'll ever see the long-promised live-action Neon Genesis Evangelion movie. "Soon, & I'm not kidding" was Mr. Greenfield's response. He clarified a bit later that evening during an Evangelion panel, saying the closer he gets to sealing the deal the less he can say anything about it. & the fact that he can't say anything at all anymore should be a clear sign to us how close the deal really is. He seemed pretty confident.

There was also a marriage proposal during Anime Hell. Pretty cool. Finally, God Len from Japanator is also attending ACen, & he took some pics of the new fashion show we got going on this year. Check out his gallery here:

http://www.japanator.com/elephant/post.phtml?pk=9877

After a long few weeks, new episodes of Code Geass R2 finally returned to Adult Swim this past weekend. From now until the series finishes, AS will be showing two new back-to-back episodes of R2 every Saturday night. In addition to the 2 new eps of Bleach, that means for awhile we get two straight hours of brand new anime every Saturday. Enjoy it while it lasts.

But once Code Geass finishes its new episode run, the second half hour at 2am (Eastern/Pacific) will be replaced by repeats of Blood+ starting June 13. This is actually quite surprising, since I'm sure most of us thought we'd never see Blood+ on Adult Swim again. After it finished its initial run, AS quickly yanked the program off its schedule with no sign of a second airing happening. But now a year later it's back. Maybe the upcoming live-action movie has something to do with it? Still no sign of Moribito, sadly.

In non-anime but still awesome news, Adult Swim has announced that they have acquired the rights to air the original British version of the Office. This seems to be the latest addition of their recent habit of airing live-action British comedies, which has previously included Dark Place, Look Around You, & most recently the Mighty Boosh. No airdate has been announced yet, but I expect the Office to replace Mighty Boosh once AS finishes airing all the episodes. So somewhere around mid-August sounds about right.

Sources: http://www.adultswim.com/schedule/onair.html
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3ide2664960311f864d98e913793c23bc2

That vid above is the last bit of Code Geass plot development you'll see for a good while. You'll have to wait at least two months to see what happens next in the dub. Once again, Adult Swim has retooled their Saturday night schedule. Usually this means bad news for anime, but this time it's actually a combination of good & bad. The change, quick as usual, begins this Saturday.

Starting with the good, AS will be increasing the Action portion of the night by one hour, meaning the comedy portion at the beginning will be cut down from three hours to two. The Blaxploitation hour of the PJs & Boondocks is now gone. Starting at midnight (Eastern/Pacific time), a non-anime show will be kicking off the Action lineup- repeats of Star Wars: the Clone Wars. An unexpected but pleasant & welcome surprise to be sure. I know I (& pretty much everyone else) was a little rough on the Clone Wars movie when it first came out, & I still feel that the thing never belonged on the big screen. But as a television series, it's actually become pretty enjoyable. Especially after the first few, the series really got rolling. Maybe AS will even show the "uncut" version (after the first few eps, Cartoon Network had to remove the word "hell" from all episodes due to parental complaints).

After that, Adult Swim will now be airing a full hour of Bleach. For the first few weeks for whatever reason, the first ep will be a repeat from the previous week, followed by a new episode at 1am. But starting April 18, AS will be showing two back-back new episodes! It's about time too, I must say. Viz & CN have been working their butts off for a long time now trying to get Naruto closer to the Japanese releases. With Bleach now over 100 episodes & more than two years behind the Japanese anime, it's about time that series plays a little catchup of its own. & considering how Shonen Jump likes to stay ahead of their anime counterparts, perhaps Bleach will be seeing its own manga blitz sometime soon as well.

Now onto the bad. New episodes of Code Geass R2 are once again being put on hold. & this time for a lot longer. Code Geass will also be extended to an hour beginning at 1:30, & the series will be starting from the beginning of R2 & carry on from there. Now if you do your math, then two reruns a week means we'll be caught up again in 8 weeks. Adult Swim's schedule does go up to that point (& no further), & lists last week's episode 15 (what they're labeling Code Geass 40) repeating on May 2 at 1:30, followed by the not-yet-seen episode 16 (aka 41) at 2am. Now while that ep is on the schedule, AS is not listing it as new. This can either mean a) a mistake on their part not to list it as new, or b) they're not confident that new episodes will resume at that point. I've expressed before how impressed I was with the speed of which Bandai was dubbing R2. As it turns out, it was indeed too quick for them to keep up with.

More Geass of course means somethings got to give. Unfortunately, that means Shin-Chan has once again been removed from AS's schedule. Perhaps this time for good. Meanwhile, Moribito is still dead. I had hoped that its removal from the schedule was only temporary, & that it would return to AS eventually. But it's been awhile now, & this new schedule shakeup would've been the perfect opportunity to return it to TV. Now I've given up hope on it. It's inability to never make it past episode 10 never made much sense. Being a Geneon rescue license, they should have finished dubbing the series a long time ago, despite Media Blaster's very slow release of it on DVD.

Finally, a new series will be premiering on (really late) Saturday nights beginning April 18. Titled "Rising Son," it'll air from 5am-5:15, replacing the first half-hour of InuYasha that AS has at that time now, along with the Brak Show at from 5:15-5:30. Adult Swim's being pretty coy about what this series is. Clearly it's not anime but rather AS's typical 15 minute fair. But as to why it's only on so late on Saturdays & why it's called "Rising Son" (like Japan's nickname Rising Sun) is unknown. Could it be AS's second attempt to make fun of anime, after Perfect Hair Forever? Guess we'll have to wait & see.

Source: http://www.adultswim.com/schedule/onair.html

As I'm sure was noticed yesterday, Adult Swim updated their anime schedule by removing Moribito- Guardian of the Spirit from their lineup. AS had just finished re-airing the first 10 episodes once again, & just when we thought we'd finally be getting new episodes again after over two months, they pull the title all together. The rest of the anime lineup moves up half an hour earlier, with new Code Geass R2 taking Moribito's old time & an extra episode of InuYasha making up the time difference at the end.

It's easy to assume that this change is due to low ratings, but the fact that the series stopped after 10 eps once again makes me think. At first I thought when Adult Swim decided to reshow the first 10 eps all over again was because the series had moved out of its old crappy time slot. But the fact that the magic number is once again 10 makes me think something else is going on here. Some kind of legal rights regarding the rest of the series perhaps?

There is a bright spot to Adult Swim's updated schedule though. It has confirmed that new episodes of Bleach will continue after episode 104. AS pulled Bleach from their lineup for a little while after episode 52 aired, & then came back a few months later. I thought there was a decent possibility that they'd do that again after ep 104, but it looks like we don't have to worry about that anymore. We are over a hundred episodes behind Japan, after all.

Source: http://www.adultswim.com/schedule/onair.html

Adult Swim loves putting up these Top 10 video lists on their website, but very rarely do they have anything to do with anime. The only other time it did was the 10 most intense moments in Death Note list. But now we finally have another, the Top 10 Most Ridiculous Sex Moments in Code Geass. Adult Swim's commentary on the clips is pretty funny stuff, so I'll just be quoting them verbatim from here on out. It's just a shame that AS has to blur out the nudity.

Recipe for Geass: take military occupation, genocide, fighting robots, and frequently nude high school girls with the bodies of 25 year old super models giggling about a first kiss like they were in 5th grade. Mix in some bewildering interactions and unidentifiable emotions and bake in Japan. It's kind of like watching the history channel narrated by your ten year old nephew after a blow to the head.

10. Filler Moments:

Putting this moment in context might help explain a few things, but there's really no suitable explanation for what's going on with Coach Villetta's bathing suit about 17 seconds from the end.

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Remember how impressed I was at the speed of which Bandai was dubbing Code Geass R2? After all, the series only started this past Spring in Japan & only ended there 2 months ago. Well apparently it was all too fast, as it seems that Bandai needs more time to work on the next batch of eps before submitting them to Adult Swim. This is even including the extra week off Code Geass R2 got when it first started, since AS aired the first ep two weeks in a row due to a last minute scheduling change.

The result is that new eps will be taking a three week break, with the AS staff asking fans what their favorite episodes are to fill the void. It seems like the final three episodes of the first season are the lucky winners, but we'll have to tune in tonight to know for sure.

& speaking of anime schedule changes, remember how Adult Swim is gaining an extra hour in the new year? You may think that means that anime might get more airtime, but you'd be wrong. In fact, it's getting even less. For even though we've been saying for awhile now that anime doesn't exist on AS outside of Saturdays anymore, that wasn't technically true. After all, we still had InuYasha on at 5:30 in the morning. At least it was something. But starting in the new year, we wont even have that anymore. Now we really are only left with Saturdays, & not even all of Saturday.

Source: http://boards.adultswim.com/adultswim/board/message?board.id=codegeass&message.id=86309

Beginning in January of 2009, Adult Swim will be expanding its lineup to start one hour earlier. But if you think this news might translate to more anime, I wouldn't count on it. FOX's long-running animated series "King of the Hill" will be joining the AS lineup & take over the new 10pm hour. "Hill" becomes yet another canceled FOX series that Adult Swim picks up the rerun rights to, joining Family Guy & Futurama in this category.

The Mike Judge series is currently in its 13th & perhaps final season, as FOX recently decided to cancel it after such a long run. ABC is in talks about taking over the show & keeping it going with new episodes, however. So we might get new eps on ABC & reruns on Adult Swim. But even if the new eps don't pan out, we can still look forward to an hour of "King of the Hill" at 10pm every weeknight starting next year.

Press Release: http://news.toonzone.net/article.php?ID=26986

After trying out their new & "improved" comedy filled Saturdays, Adult Swim has finally realized that their Saturday night ratings will suck no matter what they put on (save for "Family Guy" I suppose, but they've never done that). Bleach episodes, the only new anime on at a reasonable time, frequently still topped the ratings on Saturday night. Reruns of FullMetal Alchemist, the only other anime to be on at a reasonable time, also frequently was high on the list, occasionally losing only to Robot Chicken & ATHF. Seeing that their non-anime Saturdays wasn't working, it's time once again for a schedule shakeup.

AS still wont let go of their comedies completely, determined that at putting some high profile titles at the beginning of the block will help boost the night's ratings overall. The night begins with 2-hours of the original comedies, filled with reruns of Robot Chicken, ATHF, & the Boondocks. Then the anime starts off at 1am. Yeah it's late, but it's 5 full hours of anime. & best of all, Code Geass R2 & Moribito aren't on at 5am anymore! The bad news is that Moribito is starting over from episode 1 for some reason after only 10 episodes. Hopefully once they re-air the first 10 they'll move on to the rest of the series.

Also notable is the televised returns of Death Note & Shin-Chan. Death Note will be starting over from the beginning, but Shin will continue from right where it left off, with final 5 season 2 episodes airing on TV for the first time. But despite all the late night anime goodness, FMA is gone form the lineup. Again. The complete new schedule below (all times Eastern/Pacific):

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