Jman

If it helps any, the Naruto/TMNT comic was second in sales only to Ultimate Spider Man, which is Marvel’s hottest title.

Executive Producer Jason DeMarco.

That would be preferable to a rerun of the Flop Girl. Gonna need to edit it down though. Hopefully the preview confirms the song for the opening. Rumor was it was going to be “Mother” by Danzig.

No way they can “accidentally” play this next month instead of Flop Girl?

That’s just it. All the wackiness, all the copy/paste from Bleach and MHA probably wasn’t in the first draft if it was just their take on Garouden. Not that I expect these writers to know what Garouden is, mind you, but the goofiness seems grafted on.

Here’s the cast.

I haven’t admittedly cared about AXS since they switched from a variety network that aired a surprisingly robust amount of international MMA (before our modern UFC-opoly had most of the minor leagues go through their Fight Pass service) to a mostly music based one. Fate is definitely a new path for them, even if I’d prefer they aired RIZIN or something.

I think I’m going to need to watch Fate on CR then. Let’s see how long I last.

Steak, salad, and fondant potatoes. The potatoes were more trouble than they were worth though, got burnt a bit and smoked out the apartment, for an…ok taste.

Ranma 1/2 8 Dan Da Dan 8.

Anyway, the more of this show I watch and dislike, the more I feel like this originally began life as an MMA story more akin to Kengan Ashura, Garouden, or even Teppu before it was made perfectly clear there was no way IN HELL Cartoon Network would sign off on an MMA show, since MMA is associated with real violence, as opposed to pro wrestling which is associated with fake violence, because it is, to quote Kevin Nash - "Fucking fake." So cue adding in the pro wrestling motif and a lot of really wacky elements that don't really work, not to mention the Current Year character designs which are very ugly and derivative. I mean look at this episode. In addition to being boring as hell, why would a pro wrestler be teaching strikes and not well, WRESTLING?! OK, you need to master the Bruce Lee one-inch punch, and fail at it. Kinnikuman had a similar training arc, and it was about teaching wrestling holds. The new series even flashes back to it, pointing out the importance of grappling fundamentals (not hurt by the fact that Kinnikuman is supposed to purposefully wrestle like Antonio Inoki). Maybe I'm being pedantic here, but it feels like the IFG skin is covering what was probably closer to Garouden than this.

Another week, another Top 10 on Max without the Flop Girl, losing to…1000 LB Sisters which rounds out their top 10.

Surprised this got posted after two weeks of ignoring the show’s existence. I would have laughed if it was just ignored every Saturday. So yeah, the show is back to doing nothing original and having its creatives start shit on social media for daring to say it’s unoriginal.

If this somehow ends up on FX or TBS, we all start hitting the “Toonami is dying” button.

Rewind has been a fun experiment, but when pretty much every single show on it is available on a streaming service, including YouTube in certain cases, it's not surprising people aren't heading home to watch the lineup on a Friday afternoon, even as the weather gets chilly. The best thing they can air there is stuff that isn't serialized because serialized materials at this point seem to be the domain of streaming, judging by how Crystal's movies seem to have done for Netflix. Channel surfing is a dead concept it seems. I'm also curious what the combined forces of Crunchyroll and Netflix will have to say about the dub of Daima being a Toonami first run. Given the massive amounts of cash both have, at best I could see it being simultaneous.

Looks like the Flop Girl is being wrapped up on the 21st for a fresh new year.

I’m presuming she’s a minor. It’s completely failed to chart on Max which was the big saver for a lot of these originals, including MAWS which did frequently chart on Max.

Behold the Popcorn Hammer.

My non-existent tolerance for bullying creatives aside, MMA anime has been VERY popular for Netflix between the various antics of Baki, Kengan Ashura completing its manga adaptation and even getting a crossover with Baki, and Record of Ragnarok. Not to mention on the live-action front there's been a very popular show called The Cage that has been in the Top 10 these past few weeks along with Cobra Kai. The problem is that all those shows skew older than the original Cartoon Network target audience. And while there are wrestling anime they could have used to mold their show into something more original, everyone involved is utterly disinterested in engaging with the material on that deeper level, hence the shallow fights that feel like the oft-criticized "Diet Anime", where they have a surface level understanding of the aesthetic but do not understand why those aesthetics are used, nor are they able to successfully blend them together with their Current Year designs. A big problem with the show is the designs to be frank. They don't work, they're not believable, and they create this weird visual discomfort. I've said it before, most people really don't want to see this little black girl get wailed on by bigger dudes. It doesn't look or feel right. Not to mention because she's small and doesn't really have anything noticeable, because this is (allegedly) based on pro wrestling, you run into the believability problem that a lot of older school guys rant about AEW being guilty of. Namely, if your performer does not look like he or she can whip someone, which isn't necessarily just size, it's going to look off. In a case where it's a girl getting beat up by men, it doesn't look right. Jim Cornette discusses it below in a pro wrestling context, but I think it also applies to the show.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2024-11-20/tsukasa-hojo-cat-eye-manga-gets-new-anime-on-disney-in-2025/.218113 Someone joked this means the Animation Guild negotiations have gone south.

Apparently the creators of the show are graduates of the Jason DeMarco School of Searching for People To Start Shit With. Now this may strike some viewers as harsh, but…

It’s worth noting most of their IP’s are creator owned but this is still terrible and should not go through.

For what it’s worth, next month AEW joins Max as the last sports program that The Turner channels had that wasn’t already on there. When the streamers are nearly replacing cable for sports, seen prior as the last safe haven for cable, then things are going south.