As many of you know by now Gurren Lagann has begun its first airing in the United States. Every Monday at 11PM EST you can catch two new episodes, airing only on the Sci Fi channel. Sounds great right? An amazing series with an average dub getting air time is always great. Unfortunately Sci Fi, best known for bringing us epic series' such as Battlestar Galactica and countless original movies no one will ever watch, is ruining the experience.
If you've yet to tune in you might be asking how. Let's start by looking at some basic times...
Above is a time breakdown for the 4th episode when it aired last week at 11:30. Notice the three large commercial breaks. Notice the time spent to just display company logos. Notice that they sped up the ending and played commercials during it.
Stupid Fucking Logos - 00:28
Commercial Break 1 - 02:56 (after only 2:44 worth of actual episode content)
Commercial Break 2 - 02:55
Commercial Break 3 - 02:17
Credits - 00:32 (let's face it, another commercial break)
That leaves us with just over nine minutes of commercials. One third of everything that's going on is either trying to make us tune into Sci Fi yet again or that we can save money through Progressive Auto Insurance.
At excessive at nine minutes of commercials is, I could possibly stand it, had they actually placed it between the (now missing) eyecatches. It is here, in the middle of the episode, where producers decided it would be a good time for advertisements. The way Sci Fi does things now breaks are thrown in at all the inappropriate areas. Just as you're starting to get hot blooded and ready for some robot on robot ass kicking it's 79 89 99 YA YA YAH!
Yet, this might be a good thing.
Overseas, Japan was still recovering from Gainax's first impact, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Over a decade after its first release Gainax continues to pump out merchandise, reanimate, and otherwise squeeze Evangelion for everything they muster. So much so that Satoru Iwata frequently calls, asking for advice.
No where worse was the impact felt than here in the States. Fans of the series soon found themselves besieged under the weight of fan boys and girls. those who held the story line and religious tones to the highest of peaks, and those who had yet to see robots do anything, ever.
Gurren Lagann stands to be Gainax's second impact here in the USA, no, the world. Japan has already been inundated by merchandise, manga spin offs, the first GL movie, and more. Soon Gurren Lagann will spill out of anime conventions and onto the streets. People will argue about what the tone of the series was, pretend Kamina was a real person, fuck each other in the ass in an attempt to gattai, emphasize the wrong parts of "Gurren Lagann" in speech, and drive recklessly.
Sci Fi's horrid airing practices might help alleviate this impending doom. Without Cartoon Network to reair everything over and over and over teens must actually stay up late on a Monday night for a hearty dish of commercials when the Daily Show and Colbert Report are just a click away. Kamina's lack luster dub will foil hot blooded interest while poor sound mixing and sped up scenes will prevent anyone from truly enjoying the combat or epic soundtrack.
Unfortunately only time will tell the extent to which fans from day one must suffer. May we one day destroy them like all the stars in the sky.