TV Asahi wasn’t winning the numbers war (nor the cleanly-kept-records war) with some of the other, bigger networks, but it did put on some interesting programming. Interesting here is the lack of new anime on weekdays; I count only 5 new series on the network in this time period (out of 38) that weren’t aired between 17:00 Friday and 12:00 on Sunday.

General boilerplate stuff:

If you’re curious about the details, you can find the data I’ve gathered on this spreadsheet. Note on the format: the master list has just the networks, timeslots, and years of airing. Other sheets contain the shows aired in a given year and those aired on non-Japanese TV, with relevant links for the numerous series for which the Japanese wikipedia page didn’t provide sufficient information on the timeslot.

For each broadcaster, I’ll be asking two questions. First, which, if any slots did they have dedicated to anime in general? To qualify as an anime slot for the purposes of this exercise, a timeslot has to have aired premieres of at least 3 TV anime from 1994 to 2000. This excludes, for example, the Fuji TV Sunday 18:30 slot, which has been running Sazae-san for a really long time. I’m more interested in timeslots that would have been available to new shows during this period.

Second, which, if any shows did that broadcaster air after midnight? I want to give as complete a view as possible on the stance different companies took in regards to airing anime late at night. Since I’ve been poring over the data, I already have a decent idea of what the answer is going to be, but it’s neat to look at how different broadcasters’ stances were during this period.

Show title [month of first episode airing]

Sunday 8:30

Tongari no Boushi no Mamoru (from Saturday 19:30) [10-1984]
Hai Step Jun [03-1985]
Maple Town Monogatari [01-1986]
Shin Maple Town Monogatari [01-1987]
Bikkuriman [10-1987]
Shin Bikkuriman [04-1989]
Magical Taruto-kun [09-1990]
Super Bikkuriman [05-1992]
GS Mikami [04-1993]
Marmalade Boy [03-1994]
Gokinjo Monogatari [09-1995]
Hana Yori Dango [09-1996]
Yume no Crayon Oukoku [09-1997]
Ojamajo Doremi Series [02-1999]
Ashita no Nadia [02-2003]
Pretty Cure Series [02-2004]

Friday 17:00

Mobile Suit Victory Gundam [04-1993]
Mobile Fighter G Gundam [04-1994]
Mobile Suit Gundam Wing [04-1995]
After War Gundam X [04-1996]

(After War Gundam X switched slots to Saturday 6:00 in October of 1996 and was replaced by an unnamed golf program.)

Saturday 17:00

Yuusha Excaliber (from Saturday 17:30) [10-1990]
Taiyou no Yuusha Fighbird [02-1991]
Densetsu no Yuusha Da Garn [02-1992]
Yuusha Tokkyu Might Gaine [01-1993]
Yuusha Keisatsu J-Decker [02-1994]
Ougon Yuusha Goldran [02-1995]
Yuusha Shirei Dagwon [02-1996]
Yuusha Ou Gaogaigar [02-1997]
Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden [02-1998]

(Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden switched slots to Sunday 7:00 in April of 1998, and was replaced by Tokusou TV!)

Saturday 18:30

Cutie Honey F (from Saturday 19:00) [10-1997]
Anime Shukan DX! (block of shows) [02-1998]
____Heli-Tako Puu-chan
____Fushigi Mahou Fun Fun Pharmacy
____Kocchi Muite! Miiko
Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne [02-1999]
Mushrambo [02-2000]

(Mushrambo ended in October of 2000 and was replaced by the variety program Net Paradise.)

Saturday 19:00

Yume no Hoshi no Button Nose [10-1985]
Hikari no Densetsu [05-1986]
Saint Seiya [10-1986]
Akuma-kun [04-1989]
Mouretsu Atarou (TV 1990) [04-1990]
Goldfish Warning [01-1991]
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon [03-1992]
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon R [03-1993]
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S [03-1994]
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon SuperS [03-1994]
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Sailor Stars [03-1995]
Cutey Honey F [02-1997]

(Cutie Honey F switched slots to Saturday 18:30 in October 1997, and was replaced by the game show Quiz! Wataru Seken wa Kane Bakari!?)

Saturday 19:30

Uchuusen Saggitarius (from Friday 19:30, final episode only) [10-1987]
80 Nichikan Sekai Isshu [10-1987]
Ikinari Dagon [04-1988]
Tekken Chinmi [07-1988]
Obocchama-kun [01-1989]
Nangoku Shonen Papuwa-kun [10-1992]
Slam Dunk [10-1993]
Jigoku Sensei Nube [04-1996]
Ninpen Manmaru [07-1997]

(Ninpen Manmaru switched slots to Saturday 18:00 in October 1997, and was replaced by the game show Quiz! Wataru Seken wa Kane Bakari!?)

Saturday 23:54

Gregory Horror Show Season 1 [10-1999]
Gregory Horror Show Season 2 [04-2000]
Gregory Horror Show Season 3 [10-2000]
Gregory Horror Show Season 4 [04-2001]

___

Late Night Programs:

Shinkai Densetsu Meremanoid (Wednesday 25:10, 1997)
Trouble Chocolate (Friday 26:00, 1999)
Sci-Fi Harry (Friday 26:09, 1999)
Shoubushi Densetsu Tetsuya (Friday 26:39, 2000)

___

Comments:

-The people who labelled a lot of the TV Asahi slots uses the equivalent labels for “half past” a certain time quite a bit, plus they did a funky thing with counting shows that started at 18:28 as successors to shows starting at 18:00, which gave me no end of grief. I had to go back to the sheet and correct a few times that were off by about half an hour. Thankfully, I had secondary sources and no real deadline here.

-Meremanoid was wicked hard to pin down. The first late-night anime on TV Asahi had a very ephemeral presence on the web (though I can confirm that working, watchable torrents and VHS tapes do exist). I ultimately got the broadcast time by waybacking a fansite. Hard to beat that for joy at the moment of discovery.

-TV Asahi has very distinct young girls (Sunday 8:30) and young boys (Saturday 17:00) target slots, both of which have continued to exist in some form up to the present. The Saturday 17:00 Yuusha slot became the Sunday 7:00 slot (nothing but anime since Bakugaiden tagged in, notably containing Crush Gear, Dinosaur King, Kaiketsu Zorori, and Battle Spirits). Unlike the boy-oriented slots, Sunday 8:30 wasn’t always after female viewers – the switch from GS Mikami to Marmalade Boy just seems to have stuck.

-I like the Slam Dunk->Nube and the Goldfish Warning->Sailor Moon transitions the best. Probably calculated demographically, but fairly different from their predecessors.