"Toonami" News & Discussion Thread

[SpecialColorfull]

People are being too pointlessly bleak again. We just had one of the biggest hits for the network. Rooster Fighter was huge and people loved it. And it actually exported really well, being a huge success in Latin America too. I think good things are coming and we just need to wait.

 

[wonderfly]

From the front page of AnimeSuperhero.com:

"Toonami Schedule Update (June 27th): IGPX Races Back to Replace Dan Da Dan"​

"Toonami has released their latest schedule update via the official Toonami Facebook page. With Dan Da Dan wrapping up on the 20th, a returning classic show will be replacing DDD: Toonami’s first original anime, IGPX."

Read the full article here.

 

[Conttactt]

People are being too pointlessly bleak again. We just had one of the biggest hits for the network. Rooster Fighter was huge and people loved it. And it actually exported really well, being a huge success in Latin America too. I think good things are coming and we just need to wait.

Where exactly are you seeing this? Outside of Toonami communities, there is basically zero discussion about RF at all. Even in anime communities, it was not on anyone’s spring radar. Among those who watched it, the most notable praise it’s gotten is it was NOT god awful terrible garbage like the Toonami originals are.

We shouldn’t need to wait. The schedule should be stocked with SOMETHING year round. There are plenty of cheap options they could be looking at.

Anyway, in pretty surprising news, the online schedule indicates there will NOT be a marathon for July 4. I know I had been an advocate for it, but given the state of the schedule for the foreseeable future, I really don’t care if I miss a week of anything that is currently airing.

 

[Yojimbo]

Them not marathoning Dan Da Dan season 2 was a surprise but season 2 has been a bit out of the norm. We got the premiere early in December then season 2 started months later this year and now no marathon. Go figure.

 

[PicardMan]

The thing is that Crunchyroll has long surpassed Toonami as the home for anime. Witch Hat Atelier, the latest seasons of Re:Zero and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, and the final season of Dr. Stone (the latter a show yanked away from Toonami), have all kicked Rooster Fighter's butt in terms of online buzz. With the exception of Bleach (probably because Bleach is huge), being on Hulu tends to be the kiss of death for an anime to receive any notice. Toonami is way behind streaming on Tokyo Revengers and Blue Lock. Cable anime seems like an antiquated novelty in the streaming era. Under 200K people watch Toonami in a nation with over 300 million citizens, meaning that about .07% of Americans watch Toonami, making it really niche. It appears that Toonami is able to survive as a niche novelty, but it's not the powerhouse it was twenty years ago or even ten years ago.

 

[Daikun]

Bleach is getting a new manga arc.

 

[Yojimbo]

Bleach is getting a new manga arc.

That's cool. Consulting on TWBW's anime probably got the juices flowing again and seems his health was improved enough he wants to continue.

 

[Conttactt]

The thing is that Crunchyroll has long surpassed Toonami as the home for anime. Witch Hat Atelier, the latest seasons of Re:Zero and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, and the final season of Dr. Stone (the latter a show yanked away from Toonami), have all kicked Rooster Fighter's butt in terms of online buzz. With the exception of Bleach (probably because Bleach is huge), being on Hulu tends to be the kiss of death for an anime to receive any notice. Toonami is way behind streaming on Tokyo Revengers and Blue Lock. Cable anime seems like an antiquated novelty in the streaming era. Under 200K people watch Toonami in a nation with over 300 million citizens, meaning that about .07% of Americans watch Toonami, making it really niche. It appears that Toonami is able to survive as a niche novelty, but it's not the powerhouse it was twenty years ago or even ten years ago.

I have said it before, but we are long past the point of Toonami operating like it’s a powerhouse of anything. Its only goal should be attempting to be enjoyable, rather than trying to chase trends and fads it can’t possibly keep up with. Just air good shows people can enjoy and an audience will follow.

Bleach is getting a new manga arc.

I’m really surprised to see Sakamoto Days already on its way out after seeing a big success on Netflix. It even has a season 2 dropping in January.

I’m also surprised to not only see Bleach back in Jump, but Kubo willing to go back. Yes, he was sick and that was affecting things, but Jump also gave him a firm “wrap it up” deadline. It was a polite cancellation for the series, and with how rushed it was it felt like it. Now Jump has holes to fill and no new big dogs to fill them, and you can tell they are nervous.

The Hell arc is already moving in the novel, so I assume this will flesh out some details a little bit better.

Now we have to wonder, does this mean the upcoming anime season will NOT be the last one?

 

[Yojimbo]

Now we have to wonder, does this mean the upcoming anime season will NOT be the last one?

They did Burn the Witch was adapted within 2 years, I'm sure they'll be chomping at the bit to adapt more Bleach manga.

 

[Kooplecrap Me]

What a lazy change.
BE is getting double slots.

 

[Conttactt]

What a lazy change.
BE is getting double slots.

So I did the math, and they are doing this to make sure all of S1 can air before it expires in November. It started its run the first week of November 2024, so with a 2 year contract is set to expire this November. At one episode a week, even without counting marathons, it would come up short 6 episodes.

I’d assume once they safely get S1 in the rear view, it will pace back down to one episode and they will put Lazarus in the other slot.

Now we wait till August to see if Blue Lock and Tokyo Revengers proceeds to their next season.

 

[Space Cadet]

I posted it in the CN forum but Collider did an interview with Michael Ouweleen at Annecy and he did talk about Toonami for a bit, here's those parts from the interview:

I'm a big fan of My Adventures with Superman. Will it get a Season 4?

OUWELEEN: We don't know yet. Season 3 is doing great. This started before Peter [Safran] and James [Gunn] came in, so we need to hear from them about it. It cohered with what they were doing. It was already in the works, and they looked at it, and they were like, “This is fine. Keep going.” But we're letting them kind of drive DC. It's their job now, right? So, we'll see.

The series creator did great. It's doing well. Whenever it premieres on streaming, it pops a little bit. It's doing great, and people are really happy with it. I see good things about it. I'm glad we found a home for it. How we saw our role in that, because that was during a time of flux, we jumped in and said, “Let us put this in front of an Adult Swim, Toonami audience. We think that's the best home for it.” So, mission accomplished on that one.

WIth anime continuing to grow globally, how important is Toonami and original anime-style programming to Adult Swim’s future?

OUWELEEN: It is. The people working on Toonami linear are the Toonami people from 1997. It's Gill Austin, Kim Manning, and Jason DeMarco, and that's it. So Kim will acquire things for linear and talk to Gill and Jason about it. Gill and Jason made IGPX (Immortal Grand Prix). I think that was the first Toonami original. I think I was their boss when they did it. So they've been working. That's it! It’s those three humans.


Then, for Adult Swim originals, it's still Jason thinking of things and having relationships with people, and Gill, even though officially he's not supposed to, is working on those series. We try to do one or two interesting things a year. We have Ninja Kamui, two more seasons of that coming out; Lazarus did really well, but that was kind of standalone — [Shinichirō] Watanabe's like, “That's all I got,” — and we've got some other things in development that I think people will be very surprised about in anime. It’s a little too early, but Jason and I are conspiring a little bit.

But you realize it's an important part.

OUWELEEN: 100% we realize it's an important part. We're trying to keep Toonami linear interesting when the acquisitions game is weird and fraught right now, and we can't compete monetarily with streamers. But we're doing our best to keep Toonami linear interesting, and then, originals-wise, we're doing the things that are custom and bespoke that other streamers aren't going to do. They’re slightly riskier, more auteur. So, we're still doing that.


Toonami is also this interesting home for things like My Adventures with Superman. I think we tried Unicorn [Warriors Eternal] there, and we'll put SuperMutant Magic Academy there because Gill, one of the founding members of Toonami, is like, “I want that for Toonami.” It’s like, “Okay, we'll put it there.” We'll put it elsewhere, but you know. So yeah, Toonami is allowing us to try different things.

Link to the full interview: Cartoon Network Boss Thinks Netflix’s Binge Model Is a Big Mistake

 

[PicardMan]

Okay, so what we get from this is that Kim Manning is Adult Swim's anime showrunner again? Kinda surprised we aren't getting more dialogue heavy drama anime if she's really in charge again. Then again, she aired shonen too in her era like Inuyasha and Bleach.

Also, we are getting more originals, for better or worse.

 

[Conttactt]

I posted it in the CN forum but Collider did an interview with Michael Ouweleen at Annecy and he did talk about Toonami for a bit, here's those parts from the interview:

Well, that settles the question on whether or not Super Mutant Magic Academy is Toonami bound.

They say they can’t compete with streamers for acquisitions, but I can almost guarantee the reason for that is they are only looking at hyper popular shows everyone wants. There are around 50 anime released every season, there is no way they can’t find some bargains in there.

Not sure why they are still pretending that Superman didn’t already have an S4 announced. If people like it and it’s doing well as they say, they shouldn’t need to play this game.

Disappointed to see they are still wasting money on originals. How many failures do they need before they realize they don’t have what it takes to make anime?

And Manning is picking the shows? That explains how duds like Blue Lock and Revengers got on, she always had some of the worst picks for ASA.

Okay, so what we get from this is that Kim Manning is Adult Swim's anime showrunner again? Kinda surprised we aren't getting more dialogue heavy drama anime if she's really in charge again. Then again, she aired shonen too in her era like Inuyasha and Bleach.

We are though. Blue Lock is almost all inner monologues, and Tokyo Revengers quickly devolves into teen gang drama and politics with the occasional stillframe brawl in between. Both are very ASA era coded.

The lack of anything fresh or obscure also makes sense that it’s still Manning in charge of finding stuff, if it wasn’t popular at some point, she isn’t gonna find it.

I’d bet good money they still waste time each year trying to make a deal for JJK.

 

[SpecialColorfull]

We will probably get Dragon Ball Super Beerus and the Moro arc. Toei REALLY LOVES its tv deals.

 

[J'onn J'onzz]

Tokyo Revengers is kind of like Durarara, which I had thought of as the last Manning era show before Toonami returned. Behind the scenes it’s probably not quite as clear cut as we assumed, but of course we have had radio silence from Toonami on social media for years other than the FB. Kim Manning must have picked .hack//sign and Rurouni Kenshin for Toonami back in early 2003. I think her picks tend to be more mature while Demarco seems to be a fan of Shonen staples like One Piece and Dragon Ball. Even if Sean Akins is gone, you need someone to counterbalance Demarco. Also I think it’s weird they say Gil is working on the Toonami originals even though he isn’t supposed to. I suppose this is one of the unpaid aspects of working at Toonami that the staff used to often complain about on the Toonami tumblr.

 

[PicardMan]

Still pondering if they should have went with Tokyo Revengers or Wind Breaker for delinquent anime. Wind Breaker has way better animation and fight scenes, but the plot is far less interesting than the time travel mystery aspect of Tokyo Revengers. Wind Breaker can go like 5 episodes without a single punch thrown. Both have perceived boys love subtext, for whoever's into that, but Wind Breaker's subtext seems even thicker than Tokyo Revengers.

Since Tokyo Revengers and Wind Breaker were both shonen, I was under the impression Gil Austen was still Toonami showrunner as last time Demarco regularly engaged with fans he said Gil was showrunner and Gil seemed to run Toonami almost identical to Demarco. I can picture all three of them picking Blue Lock and Tokyo Revengers as all three are into major shonen titles. There are some shows that Manning would touch but not Demarco, such as Durarara (considering that Nu Toonami never aired Durarara season 2) or Wolf's Rain. We haven't gotten a non shonen title that just screams Kim Manning pick yet.

 

[J'onn J'onzz]

Still pondering if they should have went with Tokyo Revengers or Wind Breaker for delinquent anime. Wind Breaker has way better animation and fight scenes, but the plot is far less interesting than the time travel mystery aspect of Tokyo Revengers. Wind Breaker can go like 5 episodes without a single punch thrown. Both have perceived boys love subtext, for whoever's into that, but Wind Breaker's subtext seems even thicker than Tokyo Revengers.

Since Tokyo Revengers and Wind Breaker were both shonen, I was under the impression Gil Austen was still Toonami showrunner as last time Demarco regularly engaged with fans he said Gil was showrunner and Gil seemed to run Toonami almost identical to Demarco. I can picture all three of them picking Blue Lock and Tokyo Revengers as all three are into major shonen titles. There are some shows that Manning would touch but not Demarco, such as Durarara (considering that Nu Toonami never aired Durarara season 2) or Wolf's Rain. We haven't gotten a non shonen title that just screams Kim Manning pick yet.

Maybe Kim Manning is responsible for the deal with Kodansha or Crunchyroll… it may have been a personal disagreement in negotiating styles between how Demarco and Gil operated. However they got Blue Lock and Tokyo Revengers, I remember being shocked because they hadn’t gotten any new CR series in years.

Wind Breaker I think we may still get since it’s an Aniplex title. Maybe once Blue Exorcist season one reruns again, we might get Wind Breaker.

 

[Conttactt]

Tokyo Revengers is kind of like Durarara, which I had thought of as the last Manning era show before Toonami returned. Behind the scenes it’s probably not quite as clear cut as we assumed, but of course we have had radio silence from Toonami on social media for years other than the FB. Kim Manning must have picked .hack//sign and Rurouni Kenshin for Toonami back in early 2003. I think her picks tend to be more mature while Demarco seems to be a fan of Shonen staples like One Piece and Dragon Ball. Even if Sean Akins is gone, you need someone to counterbalance Demarco. Also I think it’s weird they say Gil is working on the Toonami originals even though he isn’t supposed to. I suppose this is one of the unpaid aspects of working at Toonami that the staff used to often complain about on the Toonami tumblr.

We need a middle grounder. Demarco is way too shonen obsessed, to the point of getting shows like Boruto and One Piece that are blatantly for children, just because it’s shonen. On the flip side, Manning will go for more mature oriented shows, but often ends up landing on things that are incredibly boring.

I think Dan Da Dan makes for a good recent example of that happy middle. It’s shonen, but not the kind of shonen CN could air. But it’s also fun and engaging and doesn’t make your eyes gloss over at 1am.

Still pondering if they should have went with Tokyo Revengers or Wind Breaker for delinquent anime. Wind Breaker has way better animation and fight scenes, but the plot is far less interesting than the time travel mystery aspect of Tokyo Revengers. Wind Breaker can go like 5 episodes without a single punch thrown. Both have perceived boys love subtext, for whoever's into that, but Wind Breaker's subtext seems even thicker than Tokyo Revengers.

If nothing else, at least Wind Breaker would have been a shorter commitment. That would have been a better test run to see if the audience even likes this genre. Revengers time travel and mystery aspect gets really grating once you notice how much of it hinges on Takemitchi being borderline brain damaged. So many parts of the plot only work because he has the memory, and occasionally intelligence, of a goldfish.

I will never understand why they felt a double dose of BL coded shows was the right choice for Toonami. That has Manning’s fingerprints on it.

Maybe Kim Manning is responsible for the deal with Kodansha or Crunchyroll… it may have been a personal disagreement in negotiating styles between how Demarco and Gil operated. However they got Blue Lock and Tokyo Revengers, I remember being shocked because they hadn’t gotten any new CR series in years.

Neither Blue Lock or Revengers is a Crunchyroll title, at least not in the way former mainstays like MHA and Dr Stone are. You will notice there is no Crunchyroll tag at the end of either show. We are still on full lockout from them unless it’s a Toei title. Our last one was MHA S6, way back in 2022.

The jury is still out on whether or not they have a means to secure other Kodansha properties. Not getting a show to replace DDD does not make that look good.

We know from past events that Demarco does not know how to act in a professional setting, so I don’t think it’s too far fetched to assume his mouth was the cause for Crunchyroll turning away from Toonami. And with as many years have passed since this first happened, I doubt it ever gets resolved.

Wind Breaker I think we may still get since it’s an Aniplex title. Maybe once Blue Exorcist season one reruns again, we might get Wind Breaker.

Wouldn’t BE’s final season make more sense if we are buying from Aniplex? Assuming they even pull the rerun early, because if they want a second run out of the other seasons, their deadline will be creeping up as well.

 

[PicardMan]

On the topic of Super Mutant Magic Academy, it's weird because Toonami only airs comedy cartoons when they are anime (Pop Team Epic) or anime parodies (Ballmasterz, Gemetsu Machu Picchu).