I am going to have to half agree on this subject. i have been faithfully watching adultswim since i the first airing, although i really havent been online to join in on the discussions i do have some devoted opinions on AS. i beleve that when AS first started there wasnt a real defined genre yes anime was played alot but i like to think that the viewer was more apted to almost create his or her own idea of how the shows and what i find more important than the list of shows played, the almost zeitgeist or sentient way the program is directed at the viewer feels to them.
What i mean by this is a bit dificult to really describe so I'll focus on how i percive it. i find that it is very evident in their bumps their old bumps used to be very creative and almost envoke a sort of ambient and strange feel this can also be observed in the orginal format for as i like to call it "Anime Day" with the background noise and the computerized voice. (just a side note i enjoy both anime and comedy)alot of the bumps also had its own show to which it followed. the bumps now dont seem to be as creative i mean they are but not in the way they used to be, they seem to run the same ones quite a bit and i think they have lost alot of that ambient feel they used to have. just go to youtube and type in adult swim bumps and you will find alot of the type of bumps i am talking about i.e. Crane Head, Don't even Try, Medical Arts Chat, The Dawn is Your Enemy, and so many more, when those bumps aired it almost gave a connotation or personifaction to the night itself thats the AS i feel in love with.
Now i also love (most) of there orginal programing i like drinky crow, some squids, moral oral, all of that. iam not a big fan of their live action and i dont like tim and eric or tom goes to the mayor but thats ok. I miss that ambient feel that AS used to give off, i do beleve that As is evolving i would love to someday see them get their own channel like Boom, and maybe thay could bring back that ambient feel, i think if they could get back the rights to alot of the shows they could almost do it now they have alot of orginal programing to fill the void.
About their anime everyone on this thread seems to think that it would be hard for them to find anime that would bring in the rateings of Bleach now i dont keep up on the numbers but i would assume that Cowboy bebop and Inuyasa were their two highest rated animes since they are really the only orginal ones they have kept but i may be wrong. Although i am not a big fan of Bleach i dont think it would be that hard for them to get the numbers. when As was just starting out especially on anime day they used to play full length anime movies i think it would really help them if they went back to that i cant speak for every otaku but i think they would enjoy seeing princess mononoke or other classics on AS which would also show a younger generation some great films. i also think they could easily get better anime on the block for a couple of reasons, most of the people who watch anime day also watch other animes, they are big into it (i used to be not so much now AS kind of got me started on them for like 5 years) and CN and AS are relitivly big in Japan they could introduce the otaku in america to rare and seldom seen anime.
In recorse to the AS dosnt care about its viewer i have mixed feelings, i do beleve that back when AS was starting out it gave more thought in what the viewer thought but now i see more of a torn AS were it would love to bring back that welcome invite me into your home vibe but for some reason or other it just cant and so its trying to come up with something new, although i would like AS to stop calling out people in their bumps who are just trying to give constructive critizim.
The only other thing that i have problems wiith is the repeat, especially with cartoon west now, it used to be one big long broadcast now like 1 oclock comes and they just repeat the same cartoons over again i wish they wouldnt do this and use that air time for other shows.
I have put alot of heart and soul into this reply because this is how i truly feel about AS i have just begun to scratch the serface of how i feel its quite tedious to type all this out and i do hope that you read it all because AS is a part of us all we all have fond memories of the programing but in summary i do agree that the beginning years where great and that now there is a kind of limbo but i disagree that they have **noel** on my head and pissed in my eye, i think AS is evolving and iam hoping for the good but only time will tell.