Well, anime finally got a shot in prime time… kind of. Magical Witch Punie-chan was featured on E! Entertainment’s The Soup recently, under the “What The Kids Are Watching” header. The footage (official feed) is below:
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcsoxi1f6fM’]
It’s a great clip of the hilarious show. Media Blasters (who licensed the show) gets some free publicity, and a lot of people get to laugh at the clip. Sounds great, right? It would be, if they used a clip from the licensed show. One look at the subs screams “this is a fansub” (how many R1 companies sub in Comic Sans?). Furthermore, Media Blasters confirmed that though the image of the box-art was right, the footage certainly wasn’t.
It really looks like a case of “one step forward, two steps back” since, well, anime gets some decent exposure through clips like this. Still, for E! to sidestep an official licensor? It just seems to undermine any attempts at formality or respect for copyright. Though, really, part of me expects the group that did sub this clip to arise and proclaim loud and proud about how “legitimate” they are now. I hope not, but I know how anime fans’ minds tend to work.
May as well make the best of a bad situation: if you liked the clip, and you want to see the right people get what they deserve, do yourself a favor and order the DVD – the whole OVA is freaking hilarious.
