Jman

Or “we’re still going to try to air Galaxy Trio episodes in 1995”. The first action block was “Super Adventures” with dusty 60s Hanna-Barbera cartoons, including one they did of the Fantastic Four. (Fun fact, except for the Fantastic Four for really obvious reasons, when Toonami was a featured part of a DC comic called “Cartoon Network Presents”, all the stories were based on these old shows. Because they had the rights to Galtar gathering dust). Then we got “Afternoon Adventures” Fun fact, the very first Toonami schedule was primarily leftovers from Afternoon Adventures, including a random episode of the 60s shows called “Cartoon Roulette.” It was only later on they stumbled on anime...and changed how the entire medium is viewed.

It went slightly better than Trump hosting because Musk can at least make fun of himself. So between Musk, the UFC, and a Canelo Alvarez boxing match, it was a tough night for Toonami. The block simply isn’t appointment television anymore the way sports and live programming are.

Hulu?

This is the equivalent of Mark Ruffalo finding Hulk hands to mess with and it’s amazing, but it also speaks to AS not being the primary source even more.

I’ve been reading some comics and looking at some materials, and I think it hit me why VB was shitcanned by higher powers than Adult Swim, why Birdgirl doesn’t use a single Hanna Barbera character, and why a lot of the parody of older cartoons is now verboten (besides Clay Martin Croker sadly passing away a few years ago). Warner Bros wants to use the HB characters again. They began the rehabilitation of those characters with the “Hanna Barbera Beyond” comics a few years back, and characters like Johnny Quest and Space Ghost are frequently seen in crossovers with those characters. Hell, there’s a comic crossover between Scooby Doo and Space Ghost that literally retcons the entirety of Coast to Coast as a hypnotic illusion Space Ghost breaks out of. Warner wants to make a Johnny Quest movie. But as long as Venture Bros exists, Johnny Quest is pretty much radioactive. So the solution is to kill VB and rehab Quest. Just a theory, but it seems that a lot of the parody that Adult Swim freely indulged in is now off limits. And it’s also why Birdgirl sucks ass, but that’s another topic.

New dub trailer.

Admittedly this is why I’m hoping against hope they just bypass Toonami completely and go right to Hulu and Netflix. Strike while the iron is hot, because if it airs on Toonami under the Toonami exclusion clauses, it will cool.

Ridiculous is OK. The problem with Thomas is throws stuff together without rhyme or reason to ground the show. You can have all the stuff together, but don’t use real people. Explain why the world is this way. Did aliens give the Goddamn Mongorians robots? Etc. It’s my hope that the elements gel together better with Fena.

The more I hear of Fena, the more I feel like it's going to resemble a LeSean Thomas disasterpiece (creator of the "we scammed $150k from Kickstarter backers Cannon Busters and "Let's throw all the shit at a real person" Yasuke) where it's going to try and cram as many anime tropes into its runtime, and the end result will feel like a disjointed mess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69VYL15XQUE Apparently a card later revealed that Brak didn’t invite any of the anime characters except Inu-Yasha...who couldn’t stand the guests outside of Space Ghost and Birdman so he was a no show. Which sucks because him reacting to Brak getting canceled or arguing with Shake would have been pretty funny.

It’s also worth noting that the film got real trailers instead of just one or two for FUNI releases. The Suicide Squad, Black Widow, etc. It’s unusual.

It was an arc of the series, yes, but one with VERY high production values and amazing animation. If one aspect of the film lives up to the hype, it’s that the animation is legitimately great with the Sakagua moments when needed. But yeah, it’s an arc of Demon Slayer with all its associated faults and foibles, the characters you like and the ones you can’t stand (although Zenitsu’s antics are at a rather minimum since he took the lesson about respecting women from the little girls to heart and only has eyes for Nezuko now). Still I liked it quite a bit, but I still wonder if I would like it as much if it wasn’t the first time I’ve gone to a theatre in almost two years).

Demon Slayer beat Mortal Kombat at the box office this week and was also the highest grossing first weekend for a foreign language film. That is unprecedented. Was any of it thanks to Toonami?

Many of Toonami's audience, but most people have moved on. One only needs to look at the middling ratings Toonami does for certain shows while Mugen Train is making legit bank in the US and the MHA films in limited release always score a decent haul. Or the massive reaction to Netflix airing Sailor Moon Eternal. (Which from what Twitter said, was pretty much joy all around). Toonami remains a block for people who liked Toonami. That's what they're trying to re-create here. The problem is a lot of the audience has moved on. It's very difficult to get a new show over solely on Toonami unless you literally cannot see it anywhere else, and even in a lot of cases, people will either deal with the subs or just wait. Demon Slayer is a great example of that. It did merely OK on Toonami, then aired on Netflix and absolutely blew up, and now the movie made around $20 million week 1.

It truly is amazing the goodwill this franchise has around the world when you consider how it was initially handled. Still, 7.3 thousand likes can’t be wrong.

You gotta remember that for a lot of people, this is the first time they've been to a movie since before COVID, unless they rented out a theater for something (which some theaters were doing during the pandemic in an attempt to keep their heads above water). I'm expecting an arc of Demon Slayer with a bigger budget, but the circumstances, I presume, make the film more special.

I think we all sort of suspected that was the case, but it's nice to have it confirmed.

I got my second shot, so I'm probably going to go this weekend. Apparently it was available for sale on PS Video for a few hours (only via the PS4 and Google, not via any other method) but it's since been removed. So if you want to get on board the Train, you're gonna have to find a theatre or wait till June.

Then there was the time Okada showed up on a random card game show, got pissed, and hit the monster with a Rainmaker.

Pro wrestling anime is hardly new, but the last one sponsored by an actual organization was Tiger Mask W, thanks to New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Apparently the film beat the Mortal Kombat remake at the box office, but the latter has the handicap of being on HBO Max for no extra cost (that and everyone hates the OC as they should). DeMarco probably will pick up S2 as soon as it’s available otherwise Netflix will get the film and the second season for viewers.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2021-04-24/icv2-report-2021-1st-quarter-graphic-novel-sales-rose-dramatically-due-to-manga/.171994

I want to see it but I don’t get my second jab till Monday. That and half the theaters here are still closed for COVID.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2021-04-23/warnermedia-unites-adult-swim-hbo-max-adult-animation-teams-appoints-suzanna-makkos-as-programming-head/.172063 Basically HBO MAX succeeds or nothing succeeds.