In a surprising move, ABS-CBN’s cable entertainment channel Jeepney TV has announced in a television advertisement on Friday that they will revive the HERO Zone anime block.
HERO, the media conglomerate’s digital portal for anime & pop-culture, has also made an announcement on their Facebook page.
The popular Motorsports anime Initial D will be the new time block’s first offering, which is set to premiere on March 11, airing Every Sunday mornings at 10:00am.
High school student Takumi Fujiwara works as a gas station attendant during the day and a delivery boy for his father’s tofu shop during late nights. Little does he know that his precise driving skills and his father’s modified Toyota Sprinter AE86 Trueno make him the best amateur road racer on Mt. Akina’s highway. Because of this, racing groups from all over the Gunma prefecture issue challenges to Takumi to see if he really has what it takes to be a road legend. (Synopsis from Anime News Network)
Initial D is the first anime adaptation of the sports manga series written and illustrated by Shuichi Shigeno, which was published in Kodansha’s Young Magazine from 1995-2013 and has a total of 48 volumes.
The first series was directed by Shin Misawa, who eventually directed titles like Capeta and Gingitsune, while Koji Kaneda handled series composition. Ninja Hattori-kun animation director Noboru Furuse adapted Shingeno’s original character designs, which was produced by Studio Comet and Studio Gallop.
The anime’s First Filipino-dubbed version was aired on Qtv Channel 11, the defunct secondary terrestrial channel of media giant GMA Network, from September 2009 to January 2010.
Filipino-language anime channel HEROtv aired a new Filipino-dubbed version of the series in November 2010.
This will be the first time that ABS-CBN will air a Japanese anime show on its cable channels since the anime channel HEROtv was shut down last February 1, which was then revamped as a “digital portal” by ABS-CBN Lifestyle division a couple of days later.
“HERO Zone” was the name of the anime block of the terrestrial channel that ran from 2006-2007, which featured titles like The Law of Ueki and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. The anime block was relaunched as “Team Animazing”, and ran from 2010 until 2016.
