Now that Adult Swim has relegated anime to Saturday nights only, I no longer have any reason to watch AS on any other night. I like Family Guy and some of the other comedies, but by the 2nd or 3rd showing of even the funniest Family Guy, I’m finished with it. Comedy simply does not hold up under repeat viewings with me. However, great drama almost always bears repeating. Anime series like Cowboy Bebop, Fullmetal Alchemist, and even Inuyasha (still one of my favorites) are a pleasure to view again because of the varied, complex characters and engaging story lines. There’s almost always something new to be uncovered and with 26 to 50 episodes or more, you won’t be seeing any particular episode over again any time soon, even if they show them every night.
Sadly, according to Adult Swim, anime just doesn’t bring in the ratings of a Family Guy. Well duh! Anime, for all of its popularity, is not mainstream! The television ratings systems are still dominated by the Nielsen system of family TV journaling, mainstream families! The very definition of popular is whatever is popular with mainstream families. Niches like sci-fi and anime will never get the big ratings. The only exceptions are when they are sufficiently not like their niches, like Battlestar Galactica for example. Battlestar Galactica is sci-fi, but at its center is a well crafted human drama that mainstream families can understand despite the occasional space battle.
I’ll still watch Adult Swim anime on Saturdays, but I’ll be doing something else the rest of the week. Not that they’ll miss me of course. I’m decidedly not in the mainstream.