Late Night Anime - History

History

The earliest late night anime titles include Sennin Buraku (仙人部落?) (1963–1964), Lemon Angel (レモンエンジェル, Remon Enjeru?) (1987), and Super Zugan (スーパーヅガン, Sūpā Zugan?) (1992). All of them were transmitted on Fuji TV. Sennin Buraku was from the longest running manga ever, still published in an adult magazine called Weekly Asahi Geinō. Lemon Angel was an adult anime that is a spin-off of the adult OVA Cream Lemon. Super Zugan was from a manga about mahjong. Those titles received some attention, but remained single experimental programs.

The title considered to be the true pioneer of late night anime is Those Who Hunt Elves (エルフを狩るモノたち, Erufu o Karu Mono Tachi?) (1996) on TV Tokyo. At the time, several late night radio talk shows hosted by various voice actors were popular. As a genre, those programs were called "aniraji", the abbreviation of anime and rajio (radio). TV producers thought that if anime-related radio programs on late night can be popular, then anime TV programs on late night should work too. The result turned out as they wished. Because of this, TV Tokyo continued their late night time slots. In 1997, the time slots were expanded, and they became the basis of the "late night anime" that we now know. At the time, following the immense success of Neon Genesis Evangelion (新世紀エヴァンゲリオン, Shin Seiki Evangerion?), the number of produced anime rapidly increased. Many of those titles came to late night slots. Nippon TV also started their late night anime with Berserk (剣風伝奇ベルセルク, Kenpū Denki Beruseruku?).

In 1998, Fuji TV restarted their late night anime. Also, BS satellite station WOWOW started their block with the complete version of Cowboy Bebop (カウボーイビバップ, Kaubōi Bibappu?), which had been incompletely broadcast in TV Tokyo's evening time slot.

The first UHF late night anime, Legend of Basara (Rejendo obu Basara), started that year as well. However, the true rise of UHF anime came with Comic Party (こみっくパーティー, Komikku Pātī?) (2001). In 2001, BS digital station BS-i began their time slot with Mahoromatic (まほろまてぃっく, Mahoromatikku?), making the cute title one of its killer contents.

In 2002, Fuji TV increased the number of programs that they broadcast. However, they did not value the otherwise filler programs with nearly zero ratings. Schedules of their late night anime became extremely unstable. For instance, when a program was on air at 2:25 A.M., the next week it was on air at 1:55 A.M. The week after, it was not broadcast, and the next week, 2 episodes were shown at 3:05 A.M. An extreme case was the last week of Kanon, for which they broadcast the last 3 episodes in a marathon. Anime fans heavily criticized this attitude, and production companies began to avoid broadcasting on Fuji TV. The number of late night anime on Fuji TV has decreased, and in October 2004, it completely disappeared. However, from April 2005, they started the time block called Noitamina, the block aimed for a young adult female audience, who otherwise would not watch anime. However, non-Noitamina anime, such as Mushishi (蟲師, Mushishi?), still do not get a proper screening.