"Toonami" News & Discussion Thread

[G1Ravage]

Have we ever had a new series announcement where they said, "We have this show, but we're not sure when we're going to air it yet"? That's very odd. And they also didn't know where in the show they would start airing from. In my mind, this hints at a few things.

First, that Toonami must have licensed everything FUNimation currently has access to. If they had only licensed a certain block of episodes, or went season by season, where to start airing from wouldn't be a question.

Second, why the ambiguity over when it would premiere? My hypothesis is that Toonami is well aware of the divisive fan base opinion over whether to start from the beginning or not. They must also know that, airing once a week, it would take nearly three years to get to "newer" material. Although nothing has been publicly hinted at by Toonami themselves, there have been numerous movements on Twitter to trend "Expand Toonami". Even FUNimation joined in last week. Hmmm. Wonder why? My guess is that the Toonami crew believes there's a chance Toonami could expand later this year. If they were able to secure a weeknight Toonami block, say from Midnight to 2:00 AM, we could potentially get five nights of One Piece a week, thus moving things along nicely. Perhaps they're saving One Piece until that time.

 

[Cartoon X]

They must also know that, airing once a week, it would take nearly three years to get to "newer" material. Although nothing has been publicly hinted at by Toonami themselves, there have been numerous movements on Twitter to trend "Expand Toonami". Even FUNimation joined in last week. Hmmm. Wonder why? My guess is that the Toonami crew believes there's a chance Toonami could expand later this year. If they were able to secure a weeknight Toonami block, say from Midnight to 2:00 AM, we could potentially get five nights of One Piece a week, thus moving things along nicely. Perhaps they're saving One Piece until that time.

They've already said on the Toonami tumblr that they don't see it as a necessity to get to the "newest" material quickly, and they don't see the longth of the series as an issue. I think if anything FUNimation might want Toonami to air the newest One Piece episodes in order to better promote the dvd's of the series. Regardless, I do think they are waiting on One Piece for a good reason, and I definately think expansion is that reason. While weeknight Toonami is definately not going to happen anytime soon, the 11pm hour on Saturdays looks like a possibility, as the Bleach and Naruto combo has begun outperforming Black Dynamite and The Boondocks airing before it, and Soul Eater is doing fantastic for a new series at 1am right off the bat. They probably want to wait on One Piece just so that the premiering series on the block won't be pushed too late into the night, limiting the rotation of new shows into the block and it's variety. I think, come summer, we might just see a seven hour Toonami on saturdays.

 

[Pepperidge]

I wonder if they'd be willing sandwich One Piece between Bleach and Naruto in that scenario

Actually, I think that would be the best strategy by far, 11pm expansion or not.

Still think that season 4 is the best starting place. The circumstances with starting Naruto from episode 1 are a bit different, and it's a strategy that will probably pay off in the long run. One Piece is a show that keeps getting cut short on US TV, and having to wait four years to get to previously unaired content would be maddening for a lot of viewers. Maybe not the majority, but maybe enough for it to make a difference. There's just something that seems so hopeless about starting from episode one yet again, especially if it flops and gets pulled.

 

[EnigmaticWarrior]

Toonami Promo! Looks like the Toonami crew was able to cook up something after all for Eva 1.11...

[video=youtube;0E2IiiwpoX4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E2IiiwpoX4[/video]

 

[MDawg]

And it aired on TV during American Dad a little earlier. Glad to see them have some on-air promotion after all for it.

 

[vegeta95748]

Awesome promo. I love it! And even better, it's nearly two minutes. I wonder if we might see a 2 minute promo every once and a while here on out.

 

[Light Lucario]

That is a pretty nice promo. I'm glad to see that they were able to create one before the movie airs tomorrow.

 

[Sketch]

I wonder if a mostly non-narrated promo is how they'll do all movie promos now or if this is just a special circumstance. Pretty epic.

Getting back to One Piece discussion. Daikun as much as I hope for an 11PM expansion it isn't a sure thing. So if they don't have an expansion you can imagine people would get frustrated that One Piece is taking up an hour either running 1:30-2:30 or pushing Soul Eater to 2AM so it can have the entire 1AM hour. A lot of people would rather see a short show within the first 2.5 hours of the block.

And I don't think I need to say why things are different between Toonami then and Toonami now. If One Piece is something they have to pay for every airing of then they may not be able to run 2 episodes a week for budgetary reasons but even more so than that I expect they wont give any show an hour before it proves it has the audience to hold for an hour. If they give it an hour and it loses a lot of its' lead or the show that follows it manages to beat it (lets say it's Soul Eater in this scenario) then One Piece looks pretty bad to all parties involved.

If there is expansion then an hour of One Piece may be the plan after all. But even if there is an expansion this year we can't assume One Piece will be granted an hour block from day 1.

 

[HG Revolution]

I wonder if a mostly non-narrated promo is how they'll do all movie promos now or if this is just a special circumstance. Pretty epic.

This was probably the only way they could do this promo so last-minute but it works wonderfully.

 

[G1Ravage]

It's 11:51 AM Sunday morning, and Toonami is still trending on Twitter.

 

[WoahJake]

Maybe they should boost toonami to 11 since it trended til 11

 

[BrianLeague]

So this aired on Adult Swim tonight:
[video=youtube;qmdQfy6HGfs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmdQfy6HGfs[/video]

 

[Dan's Revenge]

I saw a Bleach promo before 11pm Family Guy tonight, which I thought was cool. Nice of them though to shout out OP and the online comic.

 

[Light Lucario]

That was pretty cool to make a promo for One Piece and the online comic. I almost thought that they were going to reveal what month One Piece will air right before it just said soon. It's nice to see that they're putting more Toonami promos during the week.

 

[G1Ravage]

Hmmm...they used the Japanese logo (in black and white), and says it's coming "soon".

*bounces off walls*

 

[Nobodyman]

In the words of Professor Farnsworth; Good news everyone!

One Piece Possibly Starting in April | Toonami Alliance

 

[Divinenega]

So if it's starting April that must mean it's not replacing Tenchi Muyo GXP and we might still get something else in May as well, though I guess that means their probably cutting down on Inuyasha or Bebop's hour long slots.

 

[GingaDaiuchuu]

In the words of Professor Farnsworth; Good news everyone!

One Piece To Start In April | Toonami Alliance

That title is misleading though, since, as it says in the article, they haven't actually decided yet; they're just looking at April. I was very excited to hear that, though, since it's much better than I had expected.

 

[Light Lucario]

That's great news. I wasn't expecting One Piece to come to the block in April, despite the promo they aired the other day saying that it would come soon. I was thinking it would be more around May for some reason. I wouldn't mind if they cut down on one of their hour long repeats of Inuyasha or Bebop just so that One Piece can get in. I like the idea of putting it in-between Bleach and Naruto. That should hopefully help with getting more people to watch it.

 

[Ishtar]

I'm also glad that they're seriously considering NOT starting One Piece all the way back at episode 1. While my choice is to still start with Season 4, I would understand starting with Season 3 if they chose that. Season 3 never got to fully air thanks to CN's out of nowhere decision to pull the show off the air.