^No way bro. Gurren Lagann should definetely be on Toonami. It truly is the face of Toonami. Action, comedy, death, and hype to the umpteenth power. Its run on Sci-fi was pretty average, but its through sci-fi that I even discovered the series, in "2009"... here's what it
could look like.
I've watched all of
Gurren Lagann and yes, it would have been the perfect series for Toonami...back in 2009. But it's 2012 now.
Gurren Lagann has had a television run, all it's episodes are on dvd, and it's on Netflix and Hulu. Airing the series on Toonami now is pointless because everyone who loves it has already seen it and everybody who hasn't seen it won't have to wait a week to see it again. It doesn't have nostalgic value for the demographic that will be watching the new Toonami, who will be anime loving teens and young adults as well as the people who grew up with Toonami ten years ago, and would tune in for the nostalgia alone. So it's a more risky acquisition because it has a greater chance than newer stuff that people won't tune in to watch it since they can see it elsewhere legally without having to wait a week. I'd rather [adult swim] pick up a new, not yet released in the U.S. anime than an anime that has been out a while.
Cartoon X,
I don't have a problem with shonen series --- heck I identify with them better in many cases then other anime. But too much shonen is --- too much.
I've explained my views on this many times in this thread. I can't find a good passage in this thread to refer you to quick but I'll link you my post on the official Toonami forums:
http://boards.adultswim.com/t5/Toon...nami-lineup/m-p/64396385/highlight/true#M3211
The quick, down and dirty TL/DR version is this:
- I feel Shonen series would be best served by giving them the DBZ Kai treatment or the Sailormoon Movie treatment. Beyond other things, it makes weekly installments have more progression (and easier to watch with only being weekly installments) and provides a good reason to pitch DVDs (to see the full series).
- Shonen series deserve a weekday place to air if one can be maneuvered. Weekdays 12-1 seems ideal to me, but I'm forced to concede its too much of a cash cow for Family Guy. 1-2 might be plausible as well.
- Another running thought has been to give Boomerang a Toonami slot. This would require a paradyme shift towards Cartoon Network using Boomerang more like Nick uses Nick Toons or Disney uses DXD. Its hit or miss if this would happen.
- Now knowing that Bleach has officially ended --- in my book --- there might not be a pressing need to do anything new with Bleach. Unless "Toonami" feels compelled to go grab Naruto Ship or Onepiece (or another shonen). Running through Bleach with one hour premiers would be fine provided we aren't adding more of shonens to the block. A potentially better tactic for long running animes can be worked on in the mean time.
Ok, that's really not TL/DR, but it summaries my views without too much trouble.
I perfectly understand this. I know a lot of shonen series are very long and a lot of time to finish. I also know that diversity is always a welcome in any schedule. But I gave
Dragonball Z and
YuYu Hakusho both an hour in that schedule just because both were nostalgic and classic Toonami series that had a lot of episodes, and I was limiting myself to inserting only five acquisitions, three newer series and two older but "nostalgic" series. The newer stuff I chose weren't stuff I wanted, necessarily, but I figured were the most likely for [adult swim] to pick up based on what I could determine from their recent trends in acquring anime, and what I though they'd be most interested in. As for the older stuff, I put
Dragonball Z on because that's really one of the few older franchises that would get really good ratings, and
YuYu Hakusho just because if they were going to get
Dragonball Z from Funimation again, they might as well get another Toonami classic that Funimation has, and I picked
YuYu Hakusho randomly. I agree that too much of the same type of shonen is bad, but those were just example choices I thought they would most likely get. It's not what I want them to get, I don't want any older stuff they have to acquire from elsewhere on the block! I'd rather have a diverse schedule with multiple genre types and at least half filled with all new content that can't be seen on any other platform like Hulu or Netflix. That schedule was just a hypotetical if they did decide to get older shows for Toonami and start the block at 9pm. That's not what I expect to happen. What I expect to happen is that we'll basically get [adult swim] action rebranded as Toonami and maybe two or three new anime a year if we are lucky. And I doubt they'll give Toonami weekdays or start it at 9pm, at least initially.
As for the four points you made in your post, I agree with all of them, although like I've said before I don't really want much older stuff on a new Toonami. But I'd love it if they gave Toonami 12-1 or even 1-2 on weekdays. But comedy shows (let's be honest here, the FOX shows) get too high ratings to justify putting on stuff like
Bleach, whose premiere episodes can't match up to even really old reruns of
Family Guy, so it's unlikely if they'll ever do it. Also, a Boomerang Toonami would be fantastic, but it doesn't make financial sense to put an acquisition on a channel that has no ad revenue to justify the purchase or even ratings that matter, so count out anything from
Outlaw Star to
Tiger & Bunny being put on there if they make one.
First off, I find that when people speak of shonen, they often use it as a distinction more specifically to the epic long fighting anime's like DBZ, bleach, one piece and so forth. I mention this because people don't often lump series like Full Metal alchemist along with those series despite it also being a shonen because they have a VERY different appeal. One thing your schedule has is about 4 hours worth of the former type of shonen, the big epic fighting types, which in turn feels very limiting since it leaves less room for the other types of shonen which are more varied and have a different appeal... with so much of the epic fighting type shonen, you are really limiting the variety. There is so much potential variety you can have, but it feels like you are giving almost half of the entire block to a single genre.
I understand this, but the schedule I made isn't what I want or what I think is best for the block, It's simply what I though was most likely to happen with the assumptions [adult swim] would acquire three newer series, and two older series. In respect to the older series, I chose
Dragonball Z because it's track record gives the most assurance out of any of the older Toonami series of ratings sucess in reruns, and
YuYu Hakusho as a random Funimation property. My placement of
YuYu Hakusho is interchangeable with any other older Toonami series, although I gave it an hour specifically because I knew it's length and because I figured [adult swim] wouldn't want to keep it for more than a year. Ideally, there would be a lot of variety on the schedule. And Ideally, most of that would be new, never before seen in the United States, shows. But in the given conditions I limited myslef to, and a realist outlook, that schedule was the most likely possibility I could envision IF those conditions existed.
And then there's seinen which WOULD be very popular amongst the new toonami's target audience. The OLD toonami was a afternoon/evening block aimed at young teen. the new toonami however would be on late saturday night, where's it target demographic is adults and older teens; as such it would more resemble toonami's midnight run, which took itself much more seriously and had series that were targeted towards an older audience... This is where Seinen comes in. I mean you really don't think that a series like Black Lagoon would appeal to teen and adult action seekers? Hell one of the most well known is ghost in the shell and that's one of the series that adult swim refuses to ever let go of, thus showing it to be one of its most successful...
Senin shows would be popular, no doubt. I don't know many new (NOT seen before in the U.S. on any legal outlet) ones that they could air when (if) Toonami returns. I know plenty of shonen though, so I guess that's why that schedule seemed so shonen friendly. Sorry about that!
Again, i think shows like DBZ and Yu yu Hakushou would be terrible. With their terrible pacing the plot would barely get a chance to move anywhere. I mean really, the april fools day epsidoe of DBZ happened to be nothing but 30 minutes of Gohan and Cell blasting eachother with a single attack. The pacing for these series is so hurrendous that they are practically unwatchable when forced to nothing more than a single week viewing; the main purpose of the Kai treatment was to FIX those pacing issues... maybe on a daily block they might get somewhere, but not so much a weekly block. Furtharmore, the target demographic is those that have likely seen this series when they were kids when they watched many of the episodes mutliple times because it took forever for toonami to move on to the next arc. Frankly i can't help but think that many, like myself, will wind up just skipping it reairings... I mean really, in some cases it could take MONTHS to finish a fight; a fight that much of the target audience has already seen.
Again, I don't even want [adult swim] to reacquire old Toonami shows at all. The schedule I made assumed that they did, and regardless of how bad it would be to have the series air weekly,
Dragonball Z was the most likley one I figured they'd pick up. And
YuYu Hakusho was just a random Funimation property I figured they would choose for convenience sakes. As for the fact people have seen them before,
Dragonball Z does killer in reruns and
YuYu Hakusho or any other nostalgic Toonami shows would do fine for a few weeks until people start taking it for granted. A shorter series would work better for sure, I just chose
YuYu Hakusho at random because I figured that if [adult swim] bothered to pick up a classic series, why not pick up one that would at least last a year without repeating until they have the budget to get another.
And its odd you would make half a post about series with no future when that's EXACTLY what yuyu hakusho is at this point... its been over since the 90's and hasn't even come out with a new video game in years. Its done.
Exactly, I don't think it belongs on the block at all. But assuming they wanted to appeal to people's nostalgia for the "old" Toonami, I chose it at random as an accompaniment to the obvious and most likely choice,
Dragonball Z. I wouldn't want either on Toonami when (if) it returns, but it's placement in that schedule I created was just an example of what could happen if [adult swim] started Toonami at 9pm, acquired three new shows, and acquired three old shows, with no encore slots. I've said it before, but I want Toonami to focus on new properties when (if) it returns, and stuff that's been out before for years and [adult swim] would have to pick up is not ideal in my notion of a good return schedule.
I really think you're wrong about Yu Yu's pacing, personally I think its the best paced shonen I've ever seen. Most fights don't drag on that long and they aren't like in other series where its like an episode of just powering up or staring at each other. Theres usually always something going on in Yu Yu Hakusho.
I totally agree that
YuYu Hakusho has great pacing 100%. Ideally, I wouldn't want it on Toonami again, but if [adult swim] tries to appeal to people's nostalgia when (if) they bring back Toonami, I would be okay with having
Yu Yu Hakusho be a series they would reair.
As for the encore slots, look at the ratings again. The Bleach encore got 419k, beating 7 other shows on the block.
The
Bleach encore only beat reruns of overplayed or already rerun shows. 419k is very good for an encore, but I'd rather have the schedule incorporate as many different shows as possible, and encores take away slots that could be used to rerun other good shows.
) want to see.
