Kazamatsuri
GO FOR THE GOAL!
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2006
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Remember the uproar that took place back in November when CartoonNetwork abruptly chose to switch time slots for new episodes of Pokemon from 9:00 AM Saturday mornings to the much less convenient time of 7:00 AM for apparently no good reason at all, thus resulting in a significant loss of viewers for the show? Well, it seems that if you do enough digging, you can usually find a perfectly logical reason for what seems like a completely illogical decision. I the case of Pokemon's time slot, I think I just found it.
While it was CartoonNetwork's decision to air Pokemon at its current time, it was ultimately TPCI's (The Pokemon Company International) laziness in handling their opens that lead to CN making that decision. I mean, it takes very little effort to create an opening that is at or around 30 seconds long, and it shows, particularly with this last one. So apparently with such a small portion dedicated to the show itself in its 30 minute time slot, CN felt obliged to move Pokemon to a time when their are more slots for ad time, due to higher demand, because of lower cost.
Now some have argued that if the Pokemon Dub were to have longer openings, it would require the producers to cut time away from the episode itself, but I assure you that is not the case. It is true that American television requires more ad time than Japanese television, which is why we cannot expect the Dub to have all the great features present in the Japanese version. But when you look at the big picture, there really isn't a credible argument against TPCI taking the time and effort into making Seasonal Openings with a longer duration.
If you onto the Pokemon section of CartoonNetwork website, you will find that the episode they are currently streaming of Pokemon DP: Sinnoh League Victors only has a duration of 21:20. By contrast, the others shows on CN's Saturday morning last at least a minute longer. They have the following durations.
Ben 10: Ultimate Alien - 22:22
Generator Rex - 22:55
Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5 - 22:22
Bakugan: Gundalian Invaders - 22:21
In fact, the only other show to have a duration of less than 22 minutes is Yu-Gi-Oh: 5d's, which like Pokemon, airs before 8:00 AM on Saturday mornings.
The episode itself (including the Title Screen) has a duration of 20:05. So as the 5th generation of Pokemon, the Black & White Saga, and Season 14 approach us, I highly recommend that TPCI and DuArt do the following:
1. Take the time and effort into creating a 60 second opening, or perhaps even a 70 second opening. This would enable them to maintain all of the high quality visuals present in the original Japanese Openings, without having to cut out anything important, or significantly speed up the clips.
2. Maintain the in-between episode eyecatches. 12 seconds may not seem like much, but keeping the eyecatches would be beneficial to the series in terms of handling the music (another issue I am passionate about), as quite often in the Japanese version, the in-series music extends itself into the first eyecatch sequence.
3. Do one of the following. Create a separate 60 second closing theme, which would enable viewers time to actually read the credits, and would again indicate effort by the Dubbers, or finally include the next episode previews.
This may be wishful thinking on my part, but I believe that if TPCI/DuArt took my above recommendations, it would convince to reinstate Pokemon to a more convenient time slot, thus resulting in a higher viewership, which in turn would create a greater market for the games associated with the Anime.
While it was CartoonNetwork's decision to air Pokemon at its current time, it was ultimately TPCI's (The Pokemon Company International) laziness in handling their opens that lead to CN making that decision. I mean, it takes very little effort to create an opening that is at or around 30 seconds long, and it shows, particularly with this last one. So apparently with such a small portion dedicated to the show itself in its 30 minute time slot, CN felt obliged to move Pokemon to a time when their are more slots for ad time, due to higher demand, because of lower cost.
Now some have argued that if the Pokemon Dub were to have longer openings, it would require the producers to cut time away from the episode itself, but I assure you that is not the case. It is true that American television requires more ad time than Japanese television, which is why we cannot expect the Dub to have all the great features present in the Japanese version. But when you look at the big picture, there really isn't a credible argument against TPCI taking the time and effort into making Seasonal Openings with a longer duration.
If you onto the Pokemon section of CartoonNetwork website, you will find that the episode they are currently streaming of Pokemon DP: Sinnoh League Victors only has a duration of 21:20. By contrast, the others shows on CN's Saturday morning last at least a minute longer. They have the following durations.
Ben 10: Ultimate Alien - 22:22
Generator Rex - 22:55
Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5 - 22:22
Bakugan: Gundalian Invaders - 22:21
In fact, the only other show to have a duration of less than 22 minutes is Yu-Gi-Oh: 5d's, which like Pokemon, airs before 8:00 AM on Saturday mornings.
The episode itself (including the Title Screen) has a duration of 20:05. So as the 5th generation of Pokemon, the Black & White Saga, and Season 14 approach us, I highly recommend that TPCI and DuArt do the following:
1. Take the time and effort into creating a 60 second opening, or perhaps even a 70 second opening. This would enable them to maintain all of the high quality visuals present in the original Japanese Openings, without having to cut out anything important, or significantly speed up the clips.
2. Maintain the in-between episode eyecatches. 12 seconds may not seem like much, but keeping the eyecatches would be beneficial to the series in terms of handling the music (another issue I am passionate about), as quite often in the Japanese version, the in-series music extends itself into the first eyecatch sequence.
3. Do one of the following. Create a separate 60 second closing theme, which would enable viewers time to actually read the credits, and would again indicate effort by the Dubbers, or finally include the next episode previews.
This may be wishful thinking on my part, but I believe that if TPCI/DuArt took my above recommendations, it would convince to reinstate Pokemon to a more convenient time slot, thus resulting in a higher viewership, which in turn would create a greater market for the games associated with the Anime.
