Toonamiguy321

And my reward for showing a tiny bit of optimism is being shit on. Having the entire Rewind schedule vomited onto Saturday is such a great way to start out 2025. I’m assuming this is a restart from episode 1, as R would have been worth noting and not putting in the very last slot. Now looking forward, it’s much harder huff hopium because the next free slots are over a month away. We are going to have to sit through that entire IFG rerun at 12:30. Well, I won’t, as I will watch Mashle and go to bed. 2025 is not gonna be a good year for this block.

I guess that’s true, similar to how they don’t want to pull the plug on Checkered Past entirely as in the future, they may be able to put that branding back to use. I guess a compromise I would accept is heavily cutting Toonami’s timeslot so there is no false hope of it improving in the future, especially if internally they know they don’t intend to do much with it. If the block was cut to 1 hour next week, with Mashle and One Piece being the survivors, absolutely nothing at all changes for most viewers. But we can look towards the future with much less speculation and expectations. But, as I do expect a return to 3 premiers, I believe a 2 hour timeslot would be a better fit. That allows 2 rotating premiers, One Piece, and a flexible, but normally rerun slot. No extra fluff, no increased expectations. Just the bare minimum time for the bare minimum investment into the block they are willing to make.

Its story is what held it back though because its story is really dull and incomplete. Shenmue got popular due to its gameplay, the GTA sandbox before GTA was a thing. Adaption wise, the anime stayed pretty true to the material, and it’s not its fault the material is boring. If they don’t want their stuff to premier on Toonami, at least give it the money to license stuff. And if that’s also too much to ask, put the block out of its misery.

I dunno, that sounds little light on the action side of things. Sounds like it would be a better fit for normal AS. Though, it also sounds like Food Wars: Violence edition, and we had 5 seasons of that so we will probably end up with it.

I suppose we don’t. I know nothing at all about the series, but from the assumptions I gather from the cover art, I assumed the getting of Jiro was action oriented.

I think we can confidently write of Daima, at least for this schedule cycle. Why? Because if that was the show, Mashle would not have moved to midnight. They would have gladly torpedoed viewership for a few weeks with IFG reruns at midnight if Daima was in the wings. Mashle moving up is one of our biggest hints here. It’s hardly “being buried” beyond an optics standpoint. It literally just aired to completion at midnight. No other rerun has been given the luxury of a full rerun that early, 3am is where it belongs. I don’t care much for One Piece but IFG scaring the audience off (because they just watched the show) isn’t fair to it. OP barely is surviving BE reruns, and that’s been off for 10 years. We shouldn’t rely on leaks as a consistent source of info. Odds are when Ninja Kamui leaked, AS patched up that hole so it wouldn’t happen again. We are still in the first days of January, so any original still has a little bit of time left to be revealed in the typical window. For lack of a better comparison, it’s Mashle without Mash kicking people’s teeth in. Same vague Harry Potter parody but it’s exclusively comedy. Mostly PG comedy, I’m really surprised it’s an AS thing at all. It would be incredibly out of place on Toonami, but I don’t put it past them shoving it on there just so they have to license one less show.

Yea I feel the same way. It’s not an issue that needs a replacement, it’s an issue that needs gotten rid of. Anime does not need direct western influence in its creation. Anime has been rocketing to prominence primarily because it does NOT have direct western influence. I say direct because it’s well documented that Japanese projects have made changes on their own in an effort to be more appealing to the west, primarily with the removal or censorship of fanservice. Unfortunate, but that’s more Twitter’s fault than anything.

No chance. The only relation the two things have is Demarco working on both. AS programming doesn’t care if a theater film flops. What Saturday is actually being punished for is Rewind failing. He may not be the only problem, but he is a common problem on everything he works on. Pulling him out of the drivers seat has very high odds of improving projects, while having low odds of making them worse.

I don’t think we can really blame S&P here. Let’s gauge out the vague upper limits for content from things we had in the past. Kill la Kill was about as sexy as things have ever gotten, so things can be extremely close to nudity, just so long as there are no nipples. As we heard about the Fujiko Mine special, if there are too many nipples, they don’t want to do the work needed to blur them. Fair enough. So looking at your previous examples, Chained Soldier would be a no go, not because of the content, but because we get to see boobs too often over the course of the show. But something like Danmachi should be fair game, because despite its fanservice levels, we never actually see any nipples. There are significantly more action titles in the Sentai catalog with Danmachi levels of acceptable fanservice than there are Chained Soldier full nudity shows. Other factors don’t matter much to AS. I don’t think there is any upper limit for violence, and Black Lagoon is one of the harshest dialog dubs on the market which they seemed fine with just bleeping hundreds of times.

Even the faithful have their limits. Every time we see the schedule hit a new low it’s a breaking point for some to finally make the call to drop the block. A lot of fence riders would have a “it’s bad now but will get better” mindset, but recently years make it incredibly obvious it will only just slowly get worse, and even many die hard casuals are waking up to this. We are here talking about a best case scenario where the block returns to 3 premiers, one of which is One Piece. It’s not hard for people to make the decision. And you just know the higher ups are eager to see a ratings dip so they can squeeze a little more Fox time on Saturdays. The unfortunate thing is, Crunchyroll’s strategy of simply starving the block of content till it dies wouldn’t work at all if they were more open to lesser shows from Sentai, Aniplex, etc. If it’s new to Toonami and not a top 10 pile of shit, people will watch it. Instead we get to sit here and watch them fill it to the brim with reruns, which will cause a ratings nosedive, which will cause cuts. But I guess given the current situation, is a 2 hour Toonami really any different than the mess we have now?

I don’t think there is any business logic to it, it’s purely an ego thing. At a time long ago, Toonami truly was the king of anime in the west. Crunchyroll wants that title for themselves. And it’s not good enough that the old king is in a retirement home in a wheelchair, they want the old king dead. The Toonami name still carries a lot of respect among anime fans, even if the current schedule is anything but respectable. If one single person thinks “this is on CR, but oh it’s on Toonami too so I’ll watch it there”, that’s too much for them. Plus, even looking at it from a business standpoint, what does CR gain from working with Toonami? A paltry sum of money for each license? Hardly worth making a show less exclusive. Even looking at some of our allies, the only reason Aniplex works with Toonami is because the current top people at Aniplex like the block. It’s not a logical business choice, it’s just Toonami fans in the correct position of power. By blocking content CR was a large contributor to Rewind dying. And the current disastrous state of Saturday won’t be good for its longevity, even if this Dr Stone theory works out. It’s a grind, but killing Toonami is what CR wants.

You know, that’s not a bad guess. Episode 1 drops on 1/9, so that lets the dub get 2-3 episodes ahead which I believe is about where last season started. It’s also not really a lead material show, which would line up with them trusting Mashle there for a few weeks instead. Dr Stone also seems to have some outside influence that trumps Crunchyroll’s vice grip on everything since last season premiered with very little dub delay. And with 3 separate cours for this season, it will reliably come back two more times this year. If that does end up being the case, we won’t be getting a schedule update tomorrow. Maybe not even the following Friday.

I just don’t see them letting an original suffer the typical holiday marathon delay. As we saw with IFG, they smashed the last 2 episodes into a standard marathon night just so the show would conclude in 2024. So if it does come in 2025, expect it to finish in 2025 as well. Well, they have to announce something because R&M ends the week prior. Be it a new premier with IFG moving, a new rerun, or just cutting the slot, they gotta give us some kind of info. The typical build up time for any AS show is at minimum, 1 month. Common Side Effects is getting over 6 weeks. So if Lazarus is getting the bare minimum, and we assume it’s replacing Mashle, it should be announced by the 15th or so. And then promos for it will run accordingly up till its premier.

Looking at these, is Get Jiro really only just 3 episodes? I know what it’s adapting isn’t that long but that seems like it still really cramming things. And in a contrasting question, is Rooster Fighter really 13? Cause that one sounds like an idea that exhausts its novelty very quickly. Anyway, among acquired shows, I think the safest bet for 2025 will be more Mashle. If I had more faith in their competence, Blue Exorcist would be too, but it’s not unlike Toonami to do something that looks like it’s leading to a new show, only for them to reveal that was never the plan and they just wanted to waste everyones time. A notable omission I think you made was Demon Slayer Hashira Training. It’s only 8 episodes so it will make for a good brief time filler, and if we could get Swordsmith in 2024, I think Hashira should be doable in 2025. Dandadan is probably gonna end up being too hot for them to land. It’s similar to Zom where everyone has it, but this time it’s one of the top shows of 2024, so it’s likely outside their budget to pull off. I have to wonder for MAWS, will we even get it? The first two seasons were obligated to air on cable. Now that it got a big boy renewal, is anything stopping it from become a Max exclusive? Whatever the case, it’s about to be a new year, so any announcement embargos will lift by morning. And we just so happen to need a schedule update by this Friday. Let’s hope it’s something.

Eh, until we see Naruto exceed significantly beyond May, or go beyond episode 52, it’s time on the block should be considered finite. DBZ as well, but DBZ will probably go up to episode 98 so that isn’t a 2025 problem. Plus, we can still make his schedule work. 12 - Lazarus 12:30 - One Piece 1 - Blue Exorcist 1:30 - DBZ Kai 2 - Naruto 2:30 - Family Guy The fat man can patiently wait a few months for Naruto to expire and take 2. Not that I think any of this will happen, just saying, it’s possible.

It’s not new that the holiday months for Toonami are pretty advertising light. It does seem to be a little concerning that the only ads the block gets are for boner pills and AIDS medication. The adspace has to be borderline free if those pills are only 87 cents each. But like, is there really no one else at all who wants this ad time? There isn’t a single product out there that’s a little bit more in line with the demo? Because I can’t imagine many Toonami viewers have AIDS or a broken penis. Maybe Family Guy can revitalize the advertiser desirability later in the night. Even just a little bit would help. It wouldn’t surprise me if an internal issue the higher ups have with Toonami is its inability to sell adspace. Though, that’s a vicious cycle problem, as viewership drops as the blocks quality does, which discourages advertisers, which leads to less shows, and around we go again.

This is another one of their dirty little tricks. I agree, we probably aren’t going back to 5 premiers, even though that’s where we were at this time last year. We probably won’t even go back to 4 IMO. So how do they normalize this and make the audience accept this as the new normal? They make the block REALLY suck for a month or two, then “fix” it, and the idiot fanbase praises them for it. Right now, we have 2 premiers. By February, I expect us to be back up to 3. The fanbase and their collective handful of braincells will celebrate at how “Toonami is back” and we just had to be patient a little longer. They will be completely blind to the reality that the block is still running minus 2 on premiers. They only see a minor improvement and start popping the champagne. Two premiers will become the new bare minimum and three premiers will be the above average we shouldn’t expect year round. Yea, I don’t get it. I’m willing to humor the possibility that there is some kind of issue with Sentai preventing their shows from airing, but at the same time we hear things like that straight from Demarco which confirm he isn’t even looking at their catalog at all. We are long past the point where his own personal taste should be a factor. If it has action, it’s dubbed and it’s not ancient, it can at least pad out the schedule. Chained Soldier is something that wouldn’t air regardless because it’s got big ol anime tiddies bouncing around on full display, and they tend to not want to do censorship unless they are brief shots that don’t take don’t take much away from the show. CS would need way too much. That being said, Sentai has PLENTY of other options that would be fine picks for the block. Of all varieties as well. From just straight action titles, to action titles with big anime tiddies bouncing around, but appropriately covered for sensitive cable advertisers. Understandably, Friday Plans doesn’t want smoking hot anime tiddies airing because then you won’t have to order 100 milligrams, thank you very much.

I doubt it. These are 10+ year old episodes. They are probably surprised anyone is willing to pay for them at all. Plus, Toonami renews it’s One Piece batches at the start of the year, so it being on the schedule for Jan 11th means we are good for another 50 episodes. It really wouldn’t be that bad. If one goes, they simply return the block to 6 slots. No real loss there, and given the abysmal state of the schedule, most would praise the change rather than panic. If both go, they have enough originals now to fill the time. Plus, they usually squeeze another run out of a few acquired shows, so filling that time wouldn’t be too hard. Really, letting them both expire would bring more good than harm, as that’s two premium bills they wouldn’t have anymore. Money that would hopefully be redirected to some premiers. Crunchyroll has already mostly shut the block out. Our one foot in the door was sequels, but even that seems to be faltering. The Sentai situation is weird. You are right, most of the originals are using the Sentai cast. Yet, they won’t tap Sentai for any of their shows. The last one was Made in Abyss S2, which was 2 years ago. Be it because they can’t, or Demarco is just stubborn, I question how reliable Sentai could be. And while we do seem to be able to get things from Viz, they just don’t have that much to choose from. I think a page back I listed everything viable from their catalog, and it’s not much. Year isn’t even started yet and we are already able to write off an entire month of it. Not a promising start.

They actually can’t when you do an actual breakdown of those 3.5 hours. Not even close really. 12 - will spend most of the year occupied by an original. 12:30 - flexible slot #1 1 - flexible slot #2 1:30 - permanently occupied 2 - permanently occupied (rerun) 2:30 - permanently occupied (rerun) 3 - rotating rerun, more often that not an original So we are looking at a best case scenario, 2 slots to work with. A pickup like MHA S7 would occupy one of those slots for at least 6 months. Toonami airs normally about 45-47 weeks out of the year. Given the current state of things, I’d expect more delays than normal this year. The only way to break this gridlock would be letting either Naruto or Kai expire. But in that scenario, they don’t see value in paying for reruns, so if they do that it’s either to squeeze in another premier (unlikely) or cost cut by trimming up the schedule. The elephant in the room is still the Crunchyroll situation. MHA or Daima should have been on the 11th schedule. So either CR has slammed the door shut for good, which eliminates most of your show expectations, or we have to wait significantly longer than before. Which would probably eliminate Dr Stone and Fire Force for 2025.

There is a good chance that the actual contract deal happened 1-2 months prior to Rewind starting. I doubt they got the deal done in May for something that needed to air in May. Imagine if they don’t actually know when they will lose the rights and it ends up expiring right as the Zabuza arc is supposed to start. We have the potential for something funnier than Pickle Rick to happen here. By my count, without any delays or having it double up, it catches up to its skip point early April. So there are two scenarios that could happen, it expires before Zabuza even starts completely wasting everyone’s time, or it expires early in the arc, after giving people hope it would air and skipping the best parts. Both hilarious in their own ways.

On todays episode of the dumbest shit I have ever seen, Naruto is restarting from episode 1 on January 11th. Months of dull ass setup episodes before even having the chance at them airing Zabuza, which hey, they will probably skip again when this move gutters viewership.

Ah, it’s an episode where PokeNirvash makes a snarky quip but doesn’t actually retort the factual information of the post. Instead, he feels that somehow the quip magically invalidates factual information. I’m not too fond of this rerun, it airs a LOT.

It’s gonna be a Crunchyroll dub so it’s gonna be off limits forever. It’s starting to look questionable on us even getting S7. Plus, even before CR troubles, the block was never in a hurry to get spin offs.

Ah but we do know how well it did. Never well enough to chart, and not well enough to keep Rewind from being cancelled. Not the most accurate metric but we have to work with what we have, and that’s not a glowing review for the show. 100% I do. Because it’s historically proven that the Toonami audience will turn out for NEW content, while rerun content is ignored by all but the diehard full block watchers. Accel World is probably the best pick of the litter between being an action show and ever so lightly tied to the SAO universe. Bonus points for its goofy dub. You know how often people cite the very unfunny Ghost Stories dub as a dub worth remembering? That mindset alone would get people to sit through Accel World. With a quick catalog skim I’m seeing Coppellion, Blood Lad, K, and Terra Formers as Toonami appropriate picks. Tiger and Bunny too, but that’s not an option. Admittedly, not a long list of content. If we do each one of these one at a time, in 1.5 years or so, the Viz well is dry. And that’s when I would concede it’s time to consider Sailor Moon. But hey, that’s 1.5 years of fresh content which is better than 0 years. Toonami can’t subsist on being a rerun dumpster like it currently is. Family Guy can augment a good lineups ratings, but it won’t make people stick around for hours of reruns. We are going to see a lot of people watching Mashle and bailing because the only other premier is an hour later and just starting the worst part of one of its worst arcs. If you skip OP for 3-4 months and come back, the Doffy fight will not have progressed. Their number one priority right now should be securing 2-3 more premiers and getting the block back to 4-5 straight premiers. Once that is done, maybe discuss parking Sailor Moon behind One Piece, IF it’s borderline free. We don’t want to come up short late 2025 budget wise because of it.

Yet sat on the news till 1/1, which meant AssClass S2 had less than 1 week of promotion before going on air? Unlikely. Better theory is they hammered out the deal before the holidays, but the check didn’t clear to make it official until midnight on 1/1, which was when they could drop the announcement. Each distributor is different. Demon Slayer and Lycoris could have been 2023 budget, but neither was made official until 2024. The way it seems to me is Aniplex is just excited to share news and blabbed early but it doesn’t matter because they are the distributor. After that, AS seems to have reined them in since BE and Mashle didn’t leak months beforehand. Im sure they were eyeing Daima too, but they had to know landing it was a longshot. You don’t need to work in TV to know the most popular anime franchise ever will have a lot of competition for its final installment prior to the creators death. There should have been a back up plan in the very real event they could not secure the show. On that note, we really need to be asking where MHA is, because it’s out of plausible excuses for why it’s not airing yet. Did CR close up the last loopholes Toonami was using to get sequels? Because if so, that could be a problem with Dr Stone and Fire Force later in 2025. Yes yes, the same technicalities people use when a show gets remastered in HD. It’s the same damn show. And if you have been perusing posts about why Rewind flopped, one of the most repeated criticisms for the block is that very new dub rather than the DiC one everyone remembers. Now don’t get me wrong, the DiC dub licks ass and I’m not defending or advocating for it. But that nostalgia base? That’s what they wanted. So I wouldn’t say the new dub is a good selling point for why it should continue airing. You are right, Sentai hasn’t been on the block since Made in Abyss. I stand by the reason for that is Demarco being an idiot, but for the sake of the argument, let’s say they are off the table for a valid reason. We know Aniplex is being very cooperative, and if we can get SM, we can get whatever from Viz. There are plenty of options in both of those catalogs to choose from that are brand new to Toonami and should have full priority over any rerun, especially in the blocks current state. Now I know what you will follow up with, Sailor Moon is “proven”. Proven at what? Getting Rewind cancelled? Meanwhile, the previously untested Aniplex title of Mashle, is doing more than acceptable for its 12:30 timeslot from the weeks we have seen reported. So that’s another point to the “if it’s new people will watch” camp. Even back in those days when Toonami was in a much better place financially and standing wise among anime distributors, Demarco was skeptical if they could actually get Super. Even with the dumb 8pm premier it had to do for awhile, they walked away with a pretty healthy deal. Wouldn’t surprise me if WBD said get that deal again or don’t get it. Id think at the very least, Toei would want it on Netflix. They are already very cozy with them with all the One Piece projects.