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Recently I've grown interested in the topic of anime in the west pre-Toonami! I discovered two things: 1- The Sci-fi channel actually beat Cartoon Network by a few years! They started a saturday anime block in 1993 (?), and they aired some cult classics, like Ninja Scroll. 2- In 1995. Cartoon Network aired it's first set of anime, this was a few years before toonami. Even more crazy is the anime they aired! Robot Carnival, Vampire Hunter D, and Twilight Of The Cockroaches. All anime which is definitely NOT appropriate for children. I even found some recordings of this on youtube. I found Cartoon Network's promos for the 3 anime I mentioned earlier, and I also found just full on recordings of the movies aired on Sci-fi, complete with the commercials in between. There's something about the fact that they're talking about anime in a world where most people outside of Japan didn't even know what that was, on top of the grainy VHS quality, that makes this really aesthetic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDFlcltqwgs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOW1vc_9e_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwDQdJaKa0E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEGzjlPk7sM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIfu-FsxG00

I remember reading about Kyatto Ninden Teyandee and how it was adapted into Samurai Pizza Cats in 1996, a year before Toonami started. Also look up Carl Macek if you haven't, back in the 80s and 90s he adapted a bunch of different series for the west. And by adapted I mean the final result was often far different from the original, so much that it spawned the term "Macekre".

I'd love to see what Mike Lazzo would run if he didn't have worry about viewership. I bet he has fairly good taste but plays whats popular to keep the lights on.

Just found this Evangelion AIDS PSA from the 90s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVL8GhpjIAA

I don't remember what was on TV in the 90s but there was a student society here that showed an anime film once a week in a lecture theatre, all fansubs of movies that weren't released in North America yet and therefore that had no official English versions. If you wanted to watch something that had an official release in this region there were scant few titles to rent at the video store; Akira or some episodes of Robotech, not much else. Everything was poorly dubbed by American "voice actors" and the stores here didn't carry movies that were subtitled, as far as I remember.

>>17481 I've heard Toonami is still doing surprisingly well. It's doing well enough that they've helped fund some anime, such as season 2 of FLCL.

>>17484 I found a blog showcasing an anime con in the EIGHTIES! (pic related). They didn't even have fandubs so they just had a translator sit next to the TV and explain what was going on.

In Latin America, anime was pretty popular a full decade before it reached the US. More interesting than that is that Italy had a pretty big anime presence. Urusei Yatsura became a huge hit in Italy in the 90s! Here's the Italian opening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1NHWbaTDP0 Even more interesting is that the full opening for it is currently an ongoing internet mystery, you can learn about that here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imjmd-Rdldw

this poster from an anime con from 1991

I'm pretty sure SyFy back when it was Sci-Fi had a block where they called anime Japanimation. I think it was on Wednesdays late at night. G4 which at the time was TechTV had a late night anime block as well which is where I first saw SEL.

Anime has been airing in Europe since the 70s. Maya the Bee from 1975 proved to be incredibly popular on both sides of the iron curtain and soon other series followed - purely Japanese productions but also early 80s French-Japanese co-productions like The Mysterious Cities of Gold and Ulysses 31.

>>17510 I've heard its especially popular in Italy to the extent there's a fair number of smaller releases that have only have a an Italian and Japanese dub.

>>17511 Maya was popular everywhere but it reached mainstream level of popularity in countries like Poland and then Czechoslovakia and East Germany. It was so popular that most of Polish and Czech population can sing the opening theme: https://youtu.be/hG0MPPeytp4 As to Italy - anime was so successful in Italy in late 70s and early 80s that there are academic papers written about the so called Italian anime boom: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264089012_The_Italian_anime_boom_The_outstanding_success_of_Japanese_animation_in_Italy_1978-1984/link/5721737208ae0926eb45c185/download >‘Why Japanese animation and Italy?’ is the first question some readers might raise. Italy is the Western country where the highest number of Japanese animated films and television series, anime, have been released (Marazzi, Pappalettera, Trevisan 2006); and where the highest number of Japanese comics, manga, have been published (Castellazzi et al. 1999; Zaccagnino, Contrari 2007).2 From 1963 to 2012, anime series released in the United States amounted to about 275;3 most of them were either aired on cable channels active only in specific states, or sold as VHS/DVDS for a niche market. In Italy, from 1976 to 2006, about 690 Japanese animated series and special films were released on television.

>>17479 i remember they used to air tenchi muyo and evangelion on pbs too fun times

>>17496 Is this related? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRR027lJ1-s

>>17496 >G4 which at the time was TechTV had a late night anime block Wow, never knew that! I'm guessing it's this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAainevKsv0

>>17528 Doesn't look too familiar. I don't recall there being a host. Only a flashy logo for the promos. I must have came across it a different year. >>17572 The logo looks familiar. I think this was in late 90s into the early 2000s they did this.

>>17528 Yes, Apollo Smile hosted anime week on sci-fi back in 1998. It was the first time I saw anything from Urusei Yatsura and fell in love with the whole series because of their airing of the second movie Beautiful Dreamer. >The introduction of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS3mD8hqpvA