Toonamiguy321

That’s 2008 tier thinking man, block doesn’t even have an identity at that point, it just exists to exist, being filled with things that AS owns that don’t belong on it. We absolutely should have 3 hours, I’d argue maybe even 4 with how big AS is getting. But if AS won’t shell out the money to make that happen, it’s kind of a pointless dream. And we also have to consider, even if we had the money, is Demarco going to spend it wisely? Or blow 6 months worth of budget on one show? When the block is offering nothing else, another Bebop run or Primal S2 again is just a slap in the face.

I had rock bottom expectations for this, so I’m actually surprised Demarco was able to so significantly disappoint me regardless. The entire show was basically nothing, no substance, no reason to care about any of the characters. It’s yet another Things happen!: The animation. And why was Amuro even here? He did absolutely nothing but be yet another “remember thing?” set piece. And on that topic, actually groaned at that final stretch that ripped off like 3 iconic scenes from the original shot for shot in like 20 seconds. Music direction often felt random, again only relying on tracks from the original, but not using them in fitting scenes. And while they did listen to the Progressive criticism of the music being too quiet, in Grunge the music is often so damn loud it’s distracting from the dialog. 0/10. The strongest positive aspect I can give it is the fact that it was only 3 episodes, because I couldn’t have sat through another 3 weeks of this crap.

They are very desperate to make the block not appear dead when 2, possibly 3, originals are premiering on it. Sure, they could just cram it full of reruns, but that makes things look even worse as new or lapsed eyes tune in to see what the originals are doing. Im fine with it as it is, we are cruising through Naruto and OP is slightly less tedious at this speed. I just don’t get it from their POV. They obviously have nothing, and while there won’t be an OP shortage for a long time, there is a Naruto one. It just seems to me if they can actually get shows, they would want to trim down and start lowering people’s expectations. Naruto has to stop its double up sooner rather than later, MHA is wrapping up in November, and Shoegaze will be leaving a void up front in just 3 weeks. Id like for the block to stay 3 hours, but doing so means actually acquiring some shows which doesn’t seem viable anymore.

I am surprised they aren’t taking this opportunity to cut an hour. It just makes sense at this point, double Naruto is a temporary solution that every week they use, gets them one week closer to a new major issue. Could be something like this 12 - FLCL 12:30 - OP 1 - Naruto 1:30 - MHA Then when MHA ends, they bump Naruto down a slot and let OP have 2 slots. Then they would only have one slot they need to worry about. If they ever have an original or something that needs to start ASAP, they can always cut OP down to 1 episode until the other slot frees up. I don’t mind blowing through Naruto faster, but looking at it from their perspective where all they care about is having stuff on the schedule for as long as possible, it doesn’t make much sense why they are trying to hang onto 3 hours when it’s pretty obvious they can’t handle that much time anymore. Perhaps they did not want a schedule cut associated with FLCL as it aired, so they are just doing this till DST where they can sneak in another stealth cut amid the time change confusion like they did last year. Though even in that case, the blame for the cut would still point to FLCL.

There’s a balance between working with the tools you have as best you can, and just making yourself look like a delusional, out of touch fool. He could have been reasonable and went out there and said Toonami is playing around with the FLCL franchise and seeing if they can get anything to stick. That message still ignores the fan requests to STOP making these sequels, but it’s still kinda humble. But no, instead he went out and said they are on the level of Star Wars and Marvel, and tomorrow will wonder why he continues to be a laughingstock. Back when Prog and Alt had been out for a few months, he did admit the reception was about 50/50 which I think was accurate. That’s not a great score, so seeing him admit that made it seem like he did understand his position, but the way he has been handling Grunge reception shows he is just ignoring all bad reviews and claiming everyone loves it because he only read the good reviews.

The Two Piece combo with two sides of Naruto continues even further in 10/8. I don’t think we will get any left field reveals like with did for FLCL again. Whatever they chose to do with Uzumaki (if it’s even airing it’s certainly not a sure thing), I think they are gonna have us wait till November on DST night to start a new acquired show, if they even have one at all. It seems like they are content to have FLCL as the sole headliner, and since a marathon is like 99% guaranteed, they won’t start a show on the 21st. Iirc they did this last year as well with Made in Abyss S2. Im gonna do you all a big favor, I have been avoiding Akudama Drive for years because Demarco once said he was interested in it. I’m going to watch it next week, so that should guarantee it getting announced for the block right after I finish it. No thanks are necessary.

By my extensive calaculation, these FLCL sequels have generated $46.7 dollars. Which is a very similar number in some regards.

Imagine the level of audacity you need to compare FLCL to Star Wars and Marvel. “Why yes, our anime we could only afford 3 cheap CGI episodes for is on the same level as these franchises that people pour billions of dollars into to have made! We are on the same level!” Unless the point he was making is that they are the same in that they keep making sequels no one wants, but something tells me Demarco’s ego is too big for that kind of self reflection. Come the fuck on Zaslav, I know you are looking for the million dollar cuts to save money, but can you PLEASE kill the Toonami original budget so this garbage stops?

I have come to accept it, but it still irritates the hell out of me. It’s frustrating to see them have options to make a block that doesn’t suck and just not take them. This past couple of years that were disastrous didn’t have to be this way if they didn’t obsessively chase AAA shonen they were never gonna be able to land. I suppose they felt they needed to market to the audience they cultivated over the years. People who wanted MA tier shows gave up a long time ago when Demarco was dead set on loading up on every preteen oriented shonen on the market. Even now, how would an MA show look next to OP and Naruto? Major tonal whiplash, that’s for sure. On the topic of Grunge, the Facebook page is now referring to it as the final episode

True, but Toonami has no other sources for official news. It’s Facebook or nothing

The CR originals and HCC all did pretty bad but Grunge has shockingly done passable so far. It’s kind of unfair with how short it is to call it a winner if Saturdays episode does well, but it certainly hasn’t been the bomb we expected. Perhaps not having a proper premier lead most of 2023 has encouraged people to tune in even if the show is doodoo. Now, good enough to justify making originals? I don’t think so. And on the topic of spending their budget wisely, dropping the dreams of making originals and instead focusing their budget on acquired content again is how they do that. You mean the first 1 episode, right? Episode 1 looked like they were building up to something good and it was off the rails by 2. At that point it felt like the cast just warped between barely connected set pieces in search of some treasure that had a name people would recognize. I’d rank Fena as the worst written anime I have ever sat through, and I have watched utter garbage like TPN S2, Magical Warfare, and Hand Shakers.

Strangely not shared to the Facebook page though, which has been oddly quiet for 4 straight days.

Hopefully they utilize this to break up the KotH spam a little. Definitely a good move on AS part to hammer out a deal to keep this, and maybe even expand how many episodes of it they can air per week.

Demarco wants to be the guy that “makes anime” so any original premise has to be a pitch from Japan. And considering all the slop that comes out each season, it’s hard to NOT find a studio in Japan to make your project. The few who can’t would probably rather wait over allowing western influence to taint their project. We did get a total original with Fena, and we all know how that worked out. You need someone who is absolutely desperate to rely on western help, and someone that desperate probably has a disaster of a pitch. It’s probably a brand thing for Demarco too. He isn’t just making any old anime, he is make FLCL, a beloved classic. Since he is deaf to criticism, the overwhelmingly negative response to these has no effect on him.

I guess I’m just skeptical about how willing they actually are to air subbed content. Demarco wants it, but does scheduling? At least on Halloween they blow through it all in one sitting. I suppose we find out in the next 2 days because a 7th start time either has to be officially announced on Facebook or we will see a lack of it on TV Passport.

The FLCL news put everyone’s predictions straight into the trash. Here is what I am thinking now starting from where we are in the dark 10/7 - Shoegaze 2, 2x OP, 2x Naruto, MHA 10/14 - Shoegaze 3, 2x OP, 2x Naruto, MHA 10/21 - some kind of stall schedule, 3x of both shonen? 4x OP? Idk 10/28 - Uzumaki sub premier 12-2, HCC 2-4 11/4 - maybe a new acquired show finally? DST happens after Toonami ends so they have no need to deal with the extra time No idea when the Uzumaki dub would tag in, probably just whenever it’s convenient. I was iffy on the full sub run on Halloween but now learning FLCL is shorter than expected I’m more confident.

Quite simple, they can’t. Imagine you hold the rights to a Japanese property, do you want Netflix and their wads and wads of cash to adapt your project, or do you want some low rent operation like AS to make it? On top of lack of funds, the guy they will put in charge of the anime is on record saying certain aspects of anime are problematic and need to be changed. That’s why FLCL works so good for them. Production IG is happy to take a shit on the original, so they don’t care if Demarco can only afford $100 for the budget and changes things that hurt his feefees

The merger changes took effect in April 2022 and we saw them immediately. They had 3/4 of that year to adapt to the new system and get 2023 back on track and instead 2023 has been the worst year so far. I could forgive them if the first few months of the year sucked and they got going after that, but that’s not the case. They have been dangling the prospect of a new show in front of our faces since April with nothing to show going into October. We are already at the point where Demarco has just given up and is content to coast on OP and Naruto and the occasional sequel season they can luck their way into.

I don’t think space was ever a factor. I mean, at one point we were pausing the well stocked block for a full MONTH to run movies. What killed movie month was the cost, they couldn’t afford to get new movies every year and no one wanted to see a loop of the same ones every year. Iirc Demarco said at one point the price for one movie was equivalent to one 12 episode series, so if that still holds true it’s not shocker why they took a no movie stance early in the blocks life. We ended up getting AoT because they had a foot in the door for the rights. I know they wanted to air DotDS and the Dr Stone OVA but they didn’t have that path forward to secure them for a reasonable cost so they didn’t get them.

2023 was their make or break year. 2024 will just be zombie mode. They have already shown us this year what they are capable of, I don’t see any evidence to suggest we will see any changes in 2024 to their acquisition power.

Or, instead of making two half assed projects, why not just put the budget into one that at least had a small chance of being good? Even though Shoegaze is 2d, I still can’t see any path forward where it can make an impact with only 3 episodes.

Fair enough, im not casting blame for them being 3 episodes. I’m casting blame that the fact that they were 3 episodes is only being revealed at the end of episode 2 of 3 of Grunge. We know Demarco combs Twitter every day to correct “misinfo” about his darling pet projects, and discussion of these being 6 episodes has probably come from hundreds of separate people across all of 2023 either in talks of the show itself or just schedule speculation. So why did Demarco never state these were only 3 episodes? At the very least, that should have been stated at the last con panel.

I have no idea how they will create any kind of meaningful conclusion for this in one episode. We spent a good chunk of this episode rewatching scenes from episode 1. I don’t feel like anything meaningful has even been set up yet.

Dawn of the Deep Soul is a movie. The AoT two part finale is an extended episode. And because of that likely fell under their 2014 contract entitling them to dub premier every season of AoT. Had these two part been one and a proper movie, we probably would not have seen it air

On one hand, im glad that we only have to suffer for half the time. On the other, why the hell are we just finding out about this now? The fact that these are only a paltry 3 episodes each is info that was very clearly hidden as long as possible to mitigate outrage at how little we get for how long we waited and how many acquisitions we sacrificed for these.