Toonamiguy321

Thursday night and no news of any kind. Certainly not reassuring, that’s for sure.

Ol Lazzo sure got a better attitude with a show growing some lore when Rick and Morty started pulling down the numbers though. Ever since Toonami started doing originals I have desperately wanted them to pick up and finish Deadman Wonderland. Not sure what would be easier though, doing some retcons from the last few episodes since it went way off track from the manga, or just starting over.

I think anyone who wanted to watch Doomstar did so already. So that average over 2 hours doesn’t really surprise me. Unlike regular Metal episode, I don’t think the film has much rewatchability. As far as the block goes, there’s nothing much to complain about. Ninja Kamui is holding strong and everything else is following its lead. Especially Naruto this week for some reason, were people jacked to see the last filler episode ever? Lets just hope Demarco has something good to replace Lycoris so this momentum keeps up.

If they double anything, it will be One Piece. People can still (rightfully) complain we didn’t get a new show, but nobody can say we lost a premier. My hope is them yet to announce anything means they are at least trying to get something. Reruns or double ups don’t call for an announcement delay. Not a bad theory, especially if the episodes are structured in a way that the final two are better appreciated back to back. That would also explain delaying the reveal since they want this weeks episode promoted for most of the week on its own. But, doing so means much more work for the following week, and more room for disappointment if that major schedule shift sucks.

It’s still strange to me that in September, Demarco was 100% confident it would air in 2023. And then it didn’t come and there never was a follow up. I wonder if Demarco was trying to manifest it, or if he has been getting misinfo from the studio and it was way further off than they were telling him.

This year for sure. They can’t lie to us 4 years in a row, right?

I feel the same way. Both of these shows rested in the back of my mind in the “never will be finished” pile, so it’s like a little weight I didn’t know was there feels like it’s lifted. For me, there is also kind of a feeling of disappointment. Yes, we got to cap off these stories, but they also felt extremely rushed. Especially for Metal, where the pacing for so long was band antics -> war room explanation -> “no, we will watch and wait”. It took years to get little plot threads moving, then resolved them all in a single special. I get it, it was finish now or never finish (looking at you Ballmastrz), but it leaves you feeling there should have been more. Wasn’t the issue with Metal that there was some kind of personal beef between Small and Lazzo? I thought things like the fax machine gag was Lazzo being petty, both to the fans and Small.

If things were going smoothly, we should have heard by today. I assumed that them not taking the DBZ marathon as a chance to slow down Lycoris meant they had something locked in but maybe I was wrong. I don’t believe 3am is meant to be a permanent thing. It was there to test drive subs and will likely be quietly removed when it no longer serves that purpose. Now, if they want to run Uzumaki subs, they might toss IGPX in that slot just to keep the 3am slot till fall. Then after Uzumaki, sweep it away in the DST confusion as they did a few years ago.

So does anyone at all care about this show? I feel like I don’t see discussion for it anywhere. It’s just good enough where I’ll tune in for the premier but I feel like the absolute lack of interest I see anywhere means this is probably the last season it gets.

For having to play with March Madness, the block did pretty solid this month, especially compared with February where it was starting out in the 160k territory. When is the last time we saw something crack 200k?

I liked it, it blew the past 3 years right out of the water. Unfortunately, we probably are never going to see a prank longer than an hour again, but if they actually put effort into that hour it feels good. Was nice to have one with no sponsor and no R&M. Wasn’t surprised about the premier date for S2, that’s a week after Royal Crackers wraps up. Did they do anything for Checkered Past? I haven’t seen anything so I assume no.

Apparently the sphere ad is fake, but it’s doing its job regardless.

New update to the schedule. Perhaps the “new” Smiling Friends episodes aren’t actually S2 and are utilizing the old episodes with some type of edit or something. It does seem that there will be something small that happens during the commercial breaks as the schedule gets offset during the 12:30 episode and does not correct until 3am. Perhaps some type of 5-7 minute Smiling Friends short?

If they do a Checkered prank then they will do that between 5-7pm on April 1. There should have been zero doubts that the midnight prank was going to somehow tie to the actual AS content somehow.

Or that’s what they want you to think at least. Or maybe they are being honest and are doing a full season dump like they did for S1.

You can try. I’d be impressed if anyone calls it right because we have nothing to go on. No sequels, no obvious seasonal choices, it truly could be anything. Or this good run could be coming to its end and we just go back to double OP. We have a lot of western obligations as well, could pop up on as a teaser on April Fools for all we know. Id say since Aniplex hasn’t spilled the beans yet it probably isn’t coming from their catalog.

10 a year doesn’t even sound realistic unless most of them are HCC tier mini series with 4 or less episodes. 10 a year would be 3 per anime season, with one season having 4. Wouldn’t surprise me if the suits signing off on this have zero idea what goes into an anime. It’s not like the western slop they are used to churning out. I don’t even think Crunchyroll was putting out 10 a year when they were big on originals. And most of it was cheaply made and as generic as they come.

I just feel like if this is a successful experiment for Netflix, they have the wallet power to incentivize CR to not allow them to be devalued on cable. Not make them Netflix exclusive, just make sure no smelly cable networks ever have these shows in their price range. Really, having them off the table entirely would probably be a good thing since we know now Demarco never stops chasing a show unless the door is firmly shut. Get him to stop dreaming about what he can’t have and start focusing more on what he can.

Never put too much stock in ANN reviews. Never put too much stock in MAL either, but MAL also has it at an 8.3 right now which is pretty solid by their standards. This is the same MAL that gave Grunge a 4.6, so they definitely did not hold AS originals in high regard.

Well, that probably dashes the last tiny bit of hope that Toonami can ever land Spy X Family or JJK.

They seem to be (rightfully) skittish about any really old content that isn’t already associated with AS or Toonami. I have to wonder if they would have even gotten Paranoia Agent if not for Covid leaving them with various schedule gaps. Id imagine the reason BBB never made the cut is because it just came at the wrong time. Looks like the dub started mid 2015, so maybe they were more focused on cutting a deal with Sentai who had their first intro on the block a few months later. Really, that’s the answer for quite a few missed shows over the years. Just wasn’t room. And when there was room, it was yesterdays news. And the only reason the current block is more flexible is because CR won’t part with any of the hot shonen.

Not that distant online schedules ever tell us much, but nothing seems out of the ordinary for AS that night. Hard to say if Checkered Past is doing anything. They are not curating prank themed episodes, so either they are doing nothing or if that’s a sign they have a grander plan.

Now that there has been a send off from TOM, it will be interesting to see if this little boost sticks or if that crowd dissipates. I also wonder if the Ninja Kamui sub was able to sneak onto the rerun chart this week since it was 90 minutes earlier than normal.

Add periodic fart sounds over the end of broadcast screen and you have a real winner here.

When the block came back in 2012, Panty and Stocking and Madoka seemed like 2 shows that should have been in their immediate sights. But no we had to waste money on Naruto reruns. And on the matter of long runners, not that I wanted it, but Fairy Tail seemed like it would have been an obvious pick for them, especially knowing their love for 3 digit episode count shows. Had they gotten it in 2012, they would have been very close to premiering it in 2015-2016.