Toonamiguy321

If either of those are correct, Toonami needs to be making an announcement like, right now on the matter. It would be moronic for them to wait till two weeks before now that CR has their cards on the table.

We don’t need word, writing is on the wall. The only reason those two blocks exist is because KotH and Bob’s had to do the heavy lifting staring at 7pm. Now Peter is here to help. At the very least, Rewind is cooked since it costs money.

Oh no no no, we aren’t doing this again. Fool me once with Uzumaki, shame on you. Promos and teasers always wheel out the best shots to lure people in. If that is what they consider teaser worthy, I shudder to think of what kind of PowerPoint the rest of the film is.

If they had more than 50 episodes, they wouldn’t need to tweek the schedule like they are to include reruns of previous weeks episodes. Remember, this isn’t Kai’s first attempt at a rerun, they got burned on it back in 2019, so I wouldn’t put it past them to take the safe, experimental route and only grab roughly half the episodes for this trial period. I don’t believe they bought Kai for Saturday. The plan for Rewind was likely established early in the year, if not late 2023. Putting Kai on Saturday was just a lazy attempt at double dipping on a license because it’s DBZ. I don’t think Naruto was a first round draft pick for this block, but the problems they have with Crunchyroll and excessive costs of other more time appropriate options meant Naruto was the only choice. The most often suggested I see are YYH or some Gundam, both of which are off limits. I don’t think they could have picked a worse time for Naruto though. The same year Shippuden is about to leave and people are just about to breathe a sigh of relief that Naruto is off cable for the first time in 10+ years, and then they mess that up in the final stretch. Naruto fatigue is real, even if these episodes haven’t aired in a decade. I think that’s all gonna depend on their year end meetings where they discuss what worked and what didn’t. The key issue discussed is did Sailor Moon and the other shows do significantly better than the free Checkered Past shows it replaced. If not, what’s the point? For those of us who understand the nature of Toonami viewers, we knew this block was doomed from the start. These people beg for these shows, but forget they are so long and most of the episodes kind of suck without the optimistic eyes of a child watching them. So interest quickly fades away. Reruns never ever ever ever work.

I don’t think it will be that dire, I’m just saying the common belief that this automatically ends on January 3rd is misplaced. One or two things will happen, either by February they get the schedule fixed, or by then they officially pull the plug. Cause the block will have irreparable damage from a month of Kai, it ain’t gonna survive two or more months of that. If my math is right, by the end of the year, Kai ends square on episode 50, the same amount of episode they buy One Piece at. So there’s a chance that January swaps over to pure Naruto if they aren’t renewing anything for Rewind.

I believe the wording of the Facebook post is worth noting. Nowhere does it say this is a marathon, that it’s temporary, that it’s only for December, etc. It says they are all in on DBZ Kai. That means this schedule is the permanent one until they decide to change it. Last schedule update was in July, so this could possibly be the lineup for 4+ months for all we know. I know the optimists think this will change with the budget reset, but Saturday needs new shows too once that happens and I expect them to prioritize that over Rewind.

What an awful first example for people to see. The first 15 seconds of this “animation” is a blatant stillframe with the mouth animated and nothing else. That might be ok for some throwaway TV anime, but something you expect people to cough up for to see in theaters shouldn’t look like this.

I remember the same expectation for Suicide Squad Isekai. If the show is a hit, there is no sense dirtying it with a cable run when it can live among their long list of Max exclusives. Even if it did air, it sure as hell wouldn’t be in January. Plus, when has DC ever been an ally to Toonami in the modern day? They farmed off a couple movie marathons at inconvenient times to promote their own content, that’s it.

How niche is this channel? I have the bog standard cable package and I don’t think that’s in my lineup. Fate is a pretty popular franchise, so if this channel is accessible, I could see exceeding Chiller purely on show status. ItaZ is funny, and was an internet darling in its season, but doesn’t really have a huge following who would have raced to Chiller to watch it. Fate does. I could see them just rolling with an hour of Fate if the block is in a trial period. That resolves the extended episodes without any shuffles needed and keeps the story at a more brisk pace which should increase the chance of success.

“Here’s a new thing we aren’t gonna air!” One last humiliation ritual for the block before the new year.

Chiller’s block was a leadership and identity issue. They wanted some of that delicious anime money but didn’t know a thing about those damn Chinese cartoons that the kids love these days. A horror themed channel led their debut anime block with…a comedy harem show. Why? I assume because the word “zombie” was the only English one in its title. The other three shows didn’t even matter at this point, but they were garbage. Could the Chiller block have worked? Maybe longer than 3 weeks with better leadership. The channel was very niche and died entirely a few years later so I don’t think it was in the best place anyway. But an 89% loss of viewership going into week two is irredeemable regardless of how big or small your channel is. So looking at a potential new anime block, what is its identity? Do they have one or are they just gonna throw darts at the popular franchise board? I guess we will see, but the bar is pretty low from Chiller’s attempt. Personally, I welcome a competing anime block. For way too long Demarco has been content to just coast because he never had to worry about Toonami being compared to anything else.

Welp, I guess we never considered cable in other countries. Oh well. I doubt Toonami has any real interest in the show so I wouldn’t expect to see it. With that, I’m moving my chips back to February for Lazarus.

Now that we have a little more info to work with, here is my early 2025 prediction for the block. 12 - MHA S7 or Daima 12:30 - Mashle (continuing straight into S2) 1 - Fate (10 years old thus not top billing) 1:30 - One Piece 2 - Blue Exorcist (if they get S2, possibly replacing Mashle) 2:30 - DBZ Kai 3 - whatever rerun I don’t give a shit I know they have said that Lazarus is getting its finishing touches, but just because a show is finished doesn’t mean it has to go straight on air. Given it’s probably the only full size original that will be ready for 2025, I could see them saving it for the summer stretch. That of course entirely rides on them either having MHA or Daima. They could cram it in, just knock everything down a slot, but they tend to be more strategic with their resources these days.

It’s an Aniplex dub, which usually bodes well for us. And this was a Fate panel, not an Aniplex one, so they may have been more mindful of not spilling the beans the way Aniplex did last year with Lycoris.

I don’t see the word “Toonami” anywhere in this post, but where else would it go?

Based on OP ratings, which we haven’t even got in the past few weeks because of BE, OP is barely clearing 100k. That means DBZ is surely in the 5 digit realm. Could that be more than Rewind? If so, that would explain Rewind phasing out. But I have a very hard time believing Kai on Rewind is under 5 digits. Doing the best out of the 3 is a good praise in a vacuum, but how well is that actually? Is it worth the expense for the license? I highly doubt it. They rely on it out of necessity, because the other two don’t pull their weight nearly as well. Naruto does not need a long running replacement on Saturday when we don’t even know how much longer they can keep things going. They should be laser focused on shows they can actually complete. As far as Kai goes, we don’t know they have 98 episodes. Seeing how they are adjusting the Rewind run to go backwards slightly, it does not seem that they have that many episodes. There is no such thing as a “proven track record” when it comes to Toonami. Once a show becomes a rerun, its draw potential plummets. It doesn’t matter how long ago it aired, it’s done. We are seeing this right now with Blue Exorcist. 10 years since the last run? Doesn’t matter, people are still bailing after Mashle ends and not coming back for OP. If you want to rewatch a show, especially a long run, you stick with the highlight reels and leave the rest behind. There are two potential viewers from Rewind 1. Rewind exclusive viewers who won’t even consider the show after it moves from 5pm to 2:30a on a different day. 2. Rewind/Saturday viewers who will stick around regardless of what airs, but will be more motivated on Saturday’s with premiers. It’s an absolute waste of money to buy even more rerun licenses for 2:30. One Piece can be the new 2 or 2:30 forever show and the other 4-5 slots should be premier content. The only reruns the block should have are tail end owned shows or seasons they still have some run time on.

This is about the time of the year where talks about next years budget allotment comes in. It would not surprise me at all if there has been a meeting to discuss what the money spent on Rewind (and taken away from Saturday) has achieved. Aside from being a novelty people talked about for a few weeks, it’s otherwise been a whole lot of nothing. Big expensive, basically zero return. You could even argue a negative return because of what Saturday had to sacrifice for it. I could see the final consensus being burn off what’s left of Rewind, and refocus on getting Saturday back on track. If people didn’t watch these shows in the often begged for after school time slot just like the good ol days, they ain’t gonna watch them at 2am either. No more money should be going out on reruns until the block is back to 5 premiers. We started 2024 with 5 premiers, and are ending it on a pitiful 3. Cancel that expensive Kai contract and get something new. As for Daima, it may not be announced now, but now it’s got 5+ weeks to get announced for somewhere that isn’t Toonami. DB fans will get increasingly irritable at the lack of news, and I can’t imagine it goes all the way to 2025 without a release. I’m keeping my money on MHA for January. As you said, and I have also mentioned in the past, with how far behind it is, there is little harm sweating one more month of wait. Better to have a clean transition in January then cram it on now just to put it on break in a few weeks.

Your hopes are ignored, Kai confirmed for another 2 hour stretch on 12/13. I think it’s safe to say it’s a month of Rewind Kai. That said, the episode for 12/6 have changed. What was 4 premier episodes is now 4 reruns. Meanwhile, 12/13 is showing 4 premiers still. So either 12/6 changed in error (unlikely) or 12/13 will also be revised to 4 reruns. They may as well leave Rewind in 2024 cause it ain’t gonna survive a month of reruns

It’s not a rerunathon though, that’s 4 new episodes. The Facebook post also makes no mention of that being for only one week. We will know tonight when the schedule populates.

Well, no real surprises here. I knew they wouldn’t leave IFG hanging, and the double Kai makes sense given it’s significant pace increase on Rewind and their strange refusal to remove it from Saturday or just return the block to 6 slots. Knowing their mannerisms I knew nothing new would start this late in the year. Logically, MHA S7 drops as our new lead show the first week of January. Who knows what the future for Daima is, hopefully not Toonami.

Ok but we are kinda at the halfway point of the show. If it’s gonna do that, it doesn’t have much time to. I’ll admit, so far its ratings have been decent so it might actually earn an S2 if those hold, but when you get 10 episodes you need to work around 10 episodes. This is one of the big complaints I see that I actually don’t share. It’s one of the few cartoon elements the show is embracing, rather than sticking to “realistic” anime style designs. I don’t care that the 8 year old is jacked like he was fed pure protein at birth, it’s supposed to be a cartoon. My one design complaint is there seems to be some inconsistency with Andy. Early promo art made her look like a grade schooler, where in the show I guess she is an adult? I’m still not 100% sure. She had a job so I assume yes, but the show hasn’t really been clear on the matter. It makes it hard to decide if this show is a kid living their dream or an adult breaking free of the drudgery of adulthood.

Given people’s very limited bubble of information when it comes to anime, I just think it would be funny to trick the uninformed into watching the show. Remember how absolutely unhinged people got over a little off screen goblin action in Goblin Slayer? A lot of anime fans have never left the safety bubble of entry level slop. I don’t mind the tropes, when they are in their original homes or borrowed in a creative way. This show is supposed to be about wrestling, yet it’s 95% DBZ fights that end with a wrestling finisher. Creator obviously wanted to churn out another western anime clone but that wouldn’t fly at the pitch meeting so he tacked on the wrestling aspect. It’s like how the Aqua Teens were detectives to get the pitch approved.

Oh ho ho yes, now this is where the entertainment happens. Western creator is immediately busted for their copy and paste work from anime (because it’s always the same anime they copy from so people can immediately sniff out the scenes) and immediately goes to social media to damage control. And of course, they never get it. The issue isn’t liking anime, it’s that YOUR show, distinctly not anime, is just a compilation of iconic anime scenes and tropes and has no identity of its own. They aren’t roasting anime, they are roasting the staff.

I will caution that there is something wrong with Spoiler TV in recent weeks. The ratings they show is ONLY the 18-49 share, not the full numbers. OP didn’t chart so it may still be that low, but it also could be 70-80k 18-49 with enough in other demos to break 100k total. That said, the BE rerun was obviously a moronic choice. OP pretty consistently made the chart, close to the bottom, but making it. Now it has a rerun in front of it which is pushing it just low enough to miss the chart. Hopefully the Friday schedule update comes with some kind of shuffle that moves BE down with the other reruns where it belongs.

They might just be stalling till next year for the budget reset to get the next season. A costly way to stall though since it’s gonna eat up a lot of Kai. Or maybe they just decided the Rewind experiment is was not worth continuing on and they are exhausting what’s left of the licenses they bought before winding it down.