"Toonami" News & Discussion Thread

[firecrouch]

Airing two episodes a week would be the only way starting from the beginning could have worked.

I don't see how it would work any differently than airing just one episode a week from the beginning, you still have one time of the week to watch new "One Piece" except you get two episodes instead of one.

 

[Gorbash]

I don't see how it would work any differently than airing just one episode a week from the beginning, you still have one time of the week to watch new "One Piece" except you get two episodes instead of one.

You're getting your weekly information faster, making the experience of being years behind a show a little less daunting
----

Also, let me correct something; Jason wishes he could do something like 2 episodes a week, but can't. He didn't say that was in planning.

Also, in response to OP ratings. Jason said these things need to be judged over long periods of time before a show is deemed a failure. In most cases viewership must be really low and gradually going down.

In the case of Op Jason was happy with last week's ratings, and was expecting ratings like these for the first week.

 

[firecrouch]

You're getting your weekly information faster, making the experience of being years behind a show a little less daunting.

It goes by faster, so what? People are still going to tune in to watch because they like it. The whole idea of being daunted by hundreds of episodes over the course of a few years doesn't represent the majority of people who watch T.V, on a weekly basis.

 

[Gorbash]

It goes by faster, so what? People are still going to tune in to watch because they like it. The whole idea of being daunted by hundreds of episodes over the course of a few years doesn't represent the majority of people who watch T.V, on a weekly basis.

This situation is different. The episodes are there already available on DVD, online, Netflix, Hulu, etc. even if that doesn't affect every viewer, it affects enough for them to turn to other venues just to catch up.

 

[firecrouch]

This situation is different. The episodes are there already available on DVD, online, Netflix, Hulu, etc. even if that doesn't affect every viewer, it affects enough for them to turn to other venues just to catch up.

Doesn't mean they will, it's just another venue. I know I watch Hulu and sometimes T.V. and I don't watch Netflix. Everyone's different. If exclusivity were really that much of an issue than "Naruto" and "Soul Eater" wouldn't be doing nearly as well as they have on Toonami so far.

Also just because a show as already online/on DVD and you're playing those same episodes on T.V. once a week doesn't mean people won't rewatch it. I mean "Family Guy" has been rerun to death and it still gets great ratings despite being readily available elsewhere. And I know that's just one example of a different show but I'm just saying you can have your cake and eat it too.

 

[Yash]

The length of OP has become somewhat of a meme that can make it daunting for new viewers to jump in. If Toonami had started from episode 1, it would take five years to catch up even to where Funi's DVD release is, and that's assuming they stop releasing new episodes period. That says nothing of how far behind the Japanese airings that would put them as well. Running the show twice a week would help mitigate that.

Of course, running the show five times a week would help it even more. DBZ wouldn't have been as successful as it was if it aired once a week.

Not saying starting at episode 1 would have been worse or better, just that I can see the logic behind starting later.

 

[Light Lucario]

I don't see how it would work any differently than airing just one episode a week from the beginning, you still have one time of the week to watch new "One Piece" except you get two episodes instead of one.

There would be more episodes every week to attract more people and it would cut the time to get to the episodes that haven't aired on TV in the U.S. before in half. Airing one episode a week of a series that has absolutely no end at sight with being hundreds of episodes behind the Japanese version from the start just wouldn't really work as well in my opinion. At least these episodes are brand new and are only available on DVD as far as I know, making it more likely for people to watch the Toonami airings than if they started from the beginning.

The length of OP has become somewhat of a meme that can make it daunting for new viewers to jump in. If Toonami had started from episode 1, it would take five years to catch up even to where Funi's DVD release is, and that's assuming they stop releasing new episodes period. That says nothing of how far behind the Japanese airings that would put them as well. Running the show twice a week would help mitigate that.

Of course, running the show five times a week would help it even more. DBZ wouldn't have been as successful as it was if it aired once a week.

Not saying starting at episode 1 would have been worse or better, just that I can see the logic behind starting later.

Yeah, when most new viewers see that a show is hundreds of episodes long, that can make it daunting for them to jump in. Starting at episode one would have contributed to that, even though it would have helped to potentially get more new viewers. Showing One Piece five days a week like they did back in the day would have been perfect. It would have made the process of starting from the beginning much more manageable and it wouldn't have taken so long to get where they're currently airing.

 

[firecrouch]

Yeah, when most new viewers see that a show is hundreds of episodes long, that can make it daunting for them to jump in. Starting at episode one would have contributed to that, even though it would have helped to potentially get more new viewers. Showing One Piece five days a week like they did back in the day would have been perfect.

Bingo, that's my whole reason why I think starting at the beginning is better. The amount of time it would take to satisfy the patience of fans is inconsequential to people just being able to enjoy the show without worrying about having no context to the story.

 

[Hypeathon]

Bingo, that's my whole reason why I think starting at the beginning is better. The amount of time it would take to satisfy the patience of fans is inconsequential to people just being able to enjoy the show without worrying about having no context to the story.

As much as I would've ideally wanted Toonami to start One Piece at episode 1 to create a past time experience for new, younger viewers to grow up with the show. I don't think starting at the Davy Back fight at this point is that much worse in comparison.

I mean, what helps me get an idea of the general reaction to this decision being made is talking to my girlfriend and her niece about the show when they haven't seen anything prior to what's airing right now. So far, their response has been positive and even really like Chopper (I mean what's not to love about the guy?) and they don't seem to be too bothered with not being fully aware with what they're watching so far. Plus, as much as I'm concerned about Water 7, there will be a filler arc before it where due to a certain circumstance, we wind up sort of reintroducing each member the Strawhats and where they came from when they were all first introduced in the main story. Honestly, as much as filler arcs in anime are not generally well received, this is probably the one exception where a filler arc is...... dare I say it, conveniently-essential.

Again, while I don't find it as ideal as starting on a clean slate from episode 1 to give a past time experience for new viewers, starting from episode 207 with the upcoming filler arc I mentioned may not be a bad idea in comparison. Besides there's not a whole lot that can be done about it since we've already started from 207 a couple of weeks ago anyway and it could've been worse. At least this way, people who started watching One Piece for the first time from episode 207 will only have 206 episodes to catch-up. Yeah, it's a lot of episodes, but it's still a finite number as oppose to say, anyone wanting to rather catch up to the Japanese version where we're nearly at 600 episodes now.

 

[Light Lucario]

Bingo, that's my whole reason why I think starting at the beginning is better. The amount of time it would take to satisfy the patience of fans is inconsequential to people just being able to enjoy the show without worrying about having no context to the story.

I can understand that, but when it would take five years just to catch up to where Funimation is right now, I don't think it would be necessarily better overall. It's not even a matter of not being patient in my opinion, but just daunting to new and old fans to see that they wouldn't get to new episodes for the U.S. for so many years. It could be more helpful to bring in new viewers, but One Piece isn't really complicated. People unfamiliar with it might be confused at first, but it's a pretty straight forward show where they don't necessarily need to see all of the episodes to follow along. It certainly helps, especially with the main cast's backstories, but I don't think that they absolutely need to watch over two hundred episodes to understand what's going on now. I only saw the Funimation episodes that aired on Toonami a few years ago and the first season uncut DVDs and I can follow along with the episodes currently airing just fine. Plus, since there's apparently an arc that showcases each crew members' past, this could be a bit of a compromise where people get more recent episodes and new viewers get to see more about the characters' past without having to watch over two hundred episodes.

 

[firecrouch]

I can understand that, but when it would take five years just to catch up to where Funimation is right now, I don't think it would be necessarily better overall. It's not even a matter of not being patient in my opinion, but just daunting to new and old fans to see that they wouldn't get to new episodes for the U.S. for so many years.

It would really take five years? I thought it would be around 3 or 4, but whatever. Regardless, when you're talking about fans being daunted you're indeed talking about something that leads to impatience. Maybe I'm just in the minority here, but this whole idea of wanting to be up-to-speed with hundreds of episodes as quickly as possible is something I've mostly observed in the online anime fan community. It's a non-issue that's become an issue. Especially if you're a new fan who's never watched "One Piece" or only caught at least some of it during the 4Kids run, whether or not you start from the beginning it'll all be new to you, so what does it matter if these episodes are really new or not? Besides season 4 is technically not new since these episodes have been out for about a year I think before showing up on Toonami.

I can understand not wanting to be stuck with one new episode a week, but not because you'd be so behind. Rather, the experience of going that slow can be a slog that can impede your enjoyment. So even if you're getting newer episodes once a week, that experience of going once a week can still be a problem. Being behind hundreds of episodes is really another issue.

And it's an issue I don't really get. There's no real good reason to need to be so up-to-date, no one's holding a gun to your head telling you you have to watch this many episodes in this amount of time. It makes it sound like watching anime is work. Why does it matter? I know in my case I didn't get into "Naruto" until last year and I'm still really behind. But I don't care, because I'm enjoying the series regardless and I'm fine going at my own pace as long as I enjoy it. That's not to say it's not good to speed through it, if that's what you feel good with go ahead. But trying not to be behind is something I think is looking too much at the big picture and not enough at the show itself. But maybe I'm in the minority, perhaps someone could explain the other side of the issue

It could be more helpful to bring in new viewers, but One Piece isn't really complicated. People unfamiliar with it might be confused at first, but it's a pretty straight forward show where they don't necessarily need to see all of the episodes to follow along. It certainly helps, especially with the main cast's backstories, but I don't think that they absolutely need to watch over two hundred episodes to understand what's going on now. I only saw the Funimation episodes that aired on Toonami a few years ago and the first season uncut DVDs and I can follow along with the episodes currently airing just fine. Plus, since there's apparently an arc that showcases each crew members' past, this could be a bit of a compromise where people get more recent episodes and new viewers get to see more about the characters' past without having to watch over two hundred episodes.

I mean yes you can jump into almost any point of any on-going series, but when you're initially being exposed to a property itself, that hasn't been on T.V. for years, doesn't it just make more sense to build a foundation from a clean slate? That's how I feel, and even if Davy Back Fight is working, which I'm thankful for, if episode 1 is more effective than it's worth it.

As far as that particular arc goes, it doesn't go into much detail and doesn't happen until much later on, so I personally don't see it as a compromise.

 

[Ishtar]

Are we really having the debate over whether One Piece should have started back at episode 1 or not again? It's not just fans being impatient. It's Toonami not wanting to take the commitment of starting all the way back at episode 1 of a 600+ episode series at a once a week pace. Toonami felt it was worth the gamble to jump immediately into material that hasn't aired on American TV. DeMarco basically talks about this on the latest One Piece podcast.

 

[The Man in Black]

Well I'm currently pretty annoyed because Hulu no longer has a bunch of the dubbed episode of One Piece up and I had only managed to watch up to episode 30. And I just went a bought a Hulu Plus subscription. -_-

 

[Light Lucario]

Are we really having the debate over whether One Piece should have started back at episode 1 or not again? It's not just fans being impatient. It's Toonami not wanting to take the commitment of starting all the way back at episode 1 of a 600+ episode series at a once a week pace. Toonami felt it was worth the gamble to jump immediately into material that hasn't aired on American TV. DeMarco basically talks about this on the latest One Piece podcast.

I can't blame them for not wanting to take that commitment. Sure, it could have helped to bring in new viewers, but at the price of being even further behind and taking years to get to new to American TV episodes. At least with Naruto, there is an end in sight for the series, so going for a weekly airing isn't anywhere as problematic. One Piece has hundreds of episodes with absolutely no end in sight. Either choice would have been a risk in my opinion and I still think that they made a good decision in the end.

 

[ChildHood90s]

Well I'm currently pretty annoyed because Hulu no longer has a bunch of the dubbed episode of One Piece up and I had only managed to watch up to episode 30. And I just went a bought a Hulu Plus subscription. -_-

Wait... really? I'm still seeing all of the dubbed episodes. *checks hulu*

Oh crap, you're right. 14-53, 106-120 (a major bite out of the Alabasta Arc), 145-166 (after the beginning ep of Skypiea), 186 and 189-199 (they left in the two episode backstory of "Noland the Liar"). That really sucks. I noticed an expiration date on these videos (last saturday), but when saturday came and went, I figured Hulu decided to keep the episodes longer. Guess not. :<

 

[firecrouch]

I can't blame them for not wanting to take that commitment. Sure, it could have helped to bring in new viewers, but at the price of being even further behind and taking years to get to new to American TV episodes. At least with Naruto, there is an end in sight for the series, so going for a weekly airing isn't anywhere as problematic. One Piece has hundreds of episodes with absolutely no end in sight. Either choice would have been a risk in my opinion and I still think that they made a good decision in the end.

Helping bring in new viewers is more important than being further ahead because the whole reason having anime on T.V. is important is because it provides more exposure. Otherwise there's no point. Also what difference does it make if there's an end in sight or not? With "Naruto" you're still going to have to wait a long time till the end, and if you want to take it a step further even longer when you include "Naruto Shippuden".

Wait... really? I'm still seeing all of the dubbed episodes. *checks hulu*

Oh crap, you're right. 14-53, 106-120 (a major bite out of the Alabasta Arc), 145-166 (after the beginning ep of Skypiea), 186 and 189-199 (they left in the two episode backstory of "Noland the Liar"). That really sucks. I noticed an expiration date on these videos (last saturday), but when saturday came and went, I figured Hulu decided to keep the episodes longer. Guess not. :<

Yeah it's a bummer, I mean the whole point of putting all that material up on Hulu is to compensate for not having those earlier episodes on T.V. while Toonami plays season 4. I mean I would expect them to rotate them out at certain points but a few weeks is really not enough time to catch up on all those episodes for most people. Still, those episodes will be back up eventually and "One Piece" will be on Netflix in the near future.

 

[Light Lucario]

Helping bring in new viewers is more important than being further ahead because the whole reason having anime on T.V. is important is because it provides more exposure. Otherwise there's no point. Also what difference does it make if there's an end in sight or not? With "Naruto" you're still going to have to wait a long time till the end, and if you want to take it a step further even longer when you include "Naruto Shippuden".

They could do both, so I really don't see the problem. One Piece isn't complicated enough to where not seeing two hundred episodes will make it impossible to bring in new viewers. It would have helped in that regard, but I don't think that it makes it pointless. It still provides exposure and the other episodes are available through various legal means if people want to watch them, even though Hulu taking down some episodes for now is kind of disappointing in that regard. There's also a huge difference between a show like Naruto and One Piece. While it will still take awhile for them to air all of Naruto, even if they skip the filler arc, that still has an ending in sight. Shippuden would be considered a different series completely. One Piece has nearly six hundred episodes and is still going strong. Starting from the beginning would mean that they wouldn't get to the new to American TV episodes for over four years. I was mistaken when I said five before. It would take roughly another eight years to get to where the Japanese version is currently. This isn't a matter of fans being impatient, or at least, that isn't the only reason behind it. That's still more of a commitment for the Toonami crew to air a series that long on a weekly pace than it was with something like Naruto.

 

[The Man in Black]

"One Piece" will be on Netflix in the near future.

Is this confirmed?

 

[Dragonpiece]

I'll make the One Piece talkback thread for tomorrow night, sorry I forgot last week.

 

[firecrouch]

Is this confirmed?

The Unofficial One Piece Podcast – Episode 270, “Four More Years” (Part One)

Listen to the interview