Blatch

Eh... now I'm not sure why I typed that. It's not like any discussion of SAO is going to be constructive when Ben's around. But it would be good for containment purposes, if anyone wants a controversy-free discussion thread for the new season.

Yes. For as good as Mob Psycho and Megalobox are, both shows had a lot of people saying they'd be good for Toonami, especially in the latter's case. I even had one guy on my Twitter feed say how great it is that Toonami is airing the show, because it's similar to when Cowboy Bebop was airing in 2002. I hope a truly "out there" pickup will result as part of the Crunchyroll alliance, and that could manifest as soon as next month. But until then, my opinions of Toonami will still be low.

It would be so nice if we kept all discussion of the rape episode in here, though. This shit is why I could never get into SAO on my own. Heck, with this coming out, I'll probably skip Season 3 if Toonami airs it. It's not worth it anymore.

The big streaming players are here to stay, so there's no reason to complain about them. What nice chivalry from DeMarco... but I'm sure others will sarcastically say that he's not mad. Between the Crunchyroll partnership and more origlinal projects coming out over time (like the new Blade Runner show, which is from CR anyway), I think Toonami is a in a good position. They're also at an advantage as not needing to get shows that'll ensure good ratings, so they can focus on making them really good.

To make up for the dearth of content ratings talk on these boards lately, here are my personal ratings for the subbed run. Already, there's a disagreement. I gave most of the show at least a 14V for general boxing violence, but Turner might not go there unless there's a significant amount of blood in an episode. We'll see what happens.

It's something you want and less. EDIT: Okay, since I beat AnimationFan14 for this, but they had the superior and effort-laden post, here's the opening imported from there:

I alluded to this in the adjacent post, but if you glossed it over, the rest of the schedule from 2:30 on is the same.

Another one of the [adult swim] OGs gets away. At least DeMarco has that upcoming Blade Runner show.

And now we have the other marathon choice: I'm shocked they didn't choose any FLCL series. Progressive and Alternative together would've been a golden choice, even if it doesn't take up the entire time. Neither is the Boruto marathon, because it doesn't have enough episodes, but nobody will complain about keeping the reruns. Now go... go ignore Toonami for a few weeks. This fandom could be so much better when we come back.

The original Toonami eventually weened down to two hours a week, with half of that becoming Naruto filler, before being cancelled. On the contrary, you don't expand all the way to seven hours and then abruptly get cancelled. If any time is lost, that'll be like sounding the alarm, but it'll take at least this before it gets kicked off the air.

But he's not right in that it's the best show period. For as long as My Hero Academia is still making new episodes, that'll be the default answer. The value in Black Clover is that it's a tolerable mid-tier shonen that some people like, but others don't, and there's nothing wrong with that.

We have a few people who blindly ignore DeMarco saying that the ratings are fine in order go and bitch. At this point, I roll with it and hope it takes us to meaningful conversation. Imma bring up the Shield Hero show again, if nobody minds. Crunchyroll has been promoting this show to an extent I don't think I've ever seen. Heck, look at this article they recently put it out. It rehashes a previous interview with the show's producer, but doles out praise that almost borders on hyperbole on it. Like, it manages to make the article saying how Black Clover is the best shonen anime adaption ever look sincere. The fact that it's another isekai show makes it more likely to air on Toonami, at least in my opinion, as they haven't really dabbled in the genre outside of SAO, and that was less isekai and more of an embryonic form of the genre. Additionally, it's in the vein of Re:Zero and KonoSuba! in that the hero isn't an overpowered MC bitch, although I'm sure he'll eventually become OP in some way over the course of the show and get all the girls, because that is a pretty rigid rule of the genre. What matters is that he doesn't start as a Gary Stu. But no matter what, most people interested in this show must think they're selling it too hard. If it ends up on Toonami early next year, I wouldn't be surprised. In fact, I've heard CR (and not explicitly Funi) was in the process of dubbing it months ago.

We have a new champion for the longest marathon in Toonami history. Alas, nobody cared enough to post about it the day of its announcement. Considering the surprise half-hour extension, this could be a way for them to expand the block without abruptly adding a show. And if it does go longer in January, I have the perfect show in mind for them to air.

We got Mob Psycho 100 recently, Megalobox premieres this weekend, and they have that Blade Runner show scheduled for next year. You can't say Toonami isn't trying. Heck, it's too early to gauge the full impact of the Crunchyroll partnership yet. I have a theory that they're going to premiere The Rising of the Shield Hero in January, solely because CR has been promoting that show to a huge degree.

Interesting. Although a good chunk of the shows haven't finished airing yet, it's a sensible list. My Sister, My Writer should probably be higher, as its content is hilariously terrible to go along with a production disaster even worse than the Märchen Mädchen debacle. Also, putting Himote House on there is cheating, as it's one of those shows that's intentionally bad. The director of it was behind gdgd Fairies, after all. I estimate I've watched about a dozen simulcasts this year, but still haven't finished a few of them. The only one I'd say was even close to being bad was Magical Girl Ore. And yeah, it's okay if you liked it or anything on the list. I'd rather not rehash this particular conversation again.

Again, you just picked a random show from this season to refer to as the worst ever. Invalid opinion.

Maquia - When the Promised Flower Blooms

If anything, Black Clover should be the 9:30 show, and simply swapping it with MHA seems like a good idea. I would be overjoyed to see that move royally piss off the Toonami hardcores.

Cowboy Bebop has a fandom in Japan. It's just that it was less of a huge phenomenon that shaped an entire country's view of anime and more of a cult classic, but American fans like to pretend it bombed over there. But to be fair, I can't say the same for Watanabe's other works, and they're probably not as known in his home country.

I probably like Megalobox more than you do (as I've seen it), and I wouldn't make a big deal of it coming to the block. These numbers look good enough. It looks like we're seeing actual stability where the block averages between 300K and 350K (in totals) a week. [less complaining is more]

Hot damn. This is the most effort I've seen anyone use to refute Ben since Gman was last on the boards. Don't worry, because I'm sure he'll blatantly gloss over all of this information and try to shift the target of the argument to something different. If that happens even once, let's get our asses out of here.

Anthem of the Heart

Damn. That's another thing I've seen no one mention. Now that this has largely been settled, people are losing their minds for another reason. Alternatively, maybe this is all a delusion, and everyone went insane months ago.

When people refer to the "girl power" lineup of early 2015, are they only bringing it up because of the ratings we had at the time? They were Toonami's best ever, but more than that, it was around the time where a new ratings source came in that gave us expanded demographics. People thought that was interesting and hyperfocused on it, even though we have no idea if the F12-34 ratings were any better before that. And it's not like Toonami lacked shows with female leads; there was the first SAO (ignoring the second half), Black Lagoon, and even stuff like Sym-Bionic Titan. The 2011 ThunderCats show probably also had strong girls/women, but I don't know for sure. Since both new FLCLs failed to make the numbers go up, the explanation for lower female viewership is the same as everything else: Toonami's numbers are down as a whole, but are still in okay territory. Let's not overthink this.

And the original dub itself should be made available again, if possible. Look at what Funi did with their new Escaflowne set; the first dub produced was edited, and far from perfect overall, but it was worth preserving for historical purposes as well as consumption by the people who like it.