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I’d really rather CN get 5-7pm back and AS start at 7pm with Checkered Past. Playing 2 hours of KOTH before a block of Cartoon Cartoons would feel very strange. However, Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo and The Flintstones 5-7pm would just be classic Cartoon Network on Adult Swim. Regular Show and Adventure Time aren’t bad options either. Of course Toonami is another option but even MHA has many TV-14 episodes so that might be a bit of a problem despite ACME Night running TV-14 movies as early as 5pm going forward. One Piece has been entirely TV-PG though and Shippuden rarely pushes TV-14 due to so much filler.

That promo was uploaded months ago on YouTube and apparently whenever it was going to happen they were planning to air it at Midnight.

Practical?!?! Wow that’s fantastic

Season 1 of Attack on Titan was certainly popular but Toonami getting the dub premiere took it to the next level. Roughly the same is true for OPM season 1 but in both cases it was only season 1. I’d say Toonami also drew more casual interest to SAO and Toonami viewers and animation otaku are the only people who give Space Dandy its flowers.

It won’t be that hard for Grunge to do similar numbers to the other originals this year. Things are that abysmal. The thing that frustrates me the most is even in their current financial struggle, WBD could easily afford whatever CR is asking for but they simply won’t bother. And if giving Toonami more money for acquisitions is a bridge too far then they could at least share more Max shows and much more of the DC library with Toonami so the block has something besides One Piece and Naruto to air next to these risky originals. They demand Toonami be promoted but give them nothing much worth promoting. It makes no sense. It feels like last year they saved up most of their budget to keep MHA though YashaHime might have been costly and Titan probably was as well. Is Dr. Stone the only big ticket for this year along with two Titan specials? They would have been in dire straits if WBD didn’t let them encore Unicorn and Supes. I’m still willing to believe they have one more acquisition coming before next year but I can’t say I expect more than that. Viz is sharing ZOM 100 with 3 services unlike Bleach. If Toonami doesn’t also get in on that action then it’s safe to say Toonami either lacks the budget, the interest or both for much of anything besides sequels and spin-offs of established brands. If they do get ZOM 100 (or something else) then maybe there’s a glimmer of hope we’ll see new acquisitions that aren’t sequels or spin-offs. But man I really wonder why they didn’t get Urusei Yatsura from Sentai. It’s the kind of classic anime Toonami loves to introduce to their current audience. If that was too expensive for an unproven commodity but Food Wars 5th Plate wasn’t too expensive for a proven one then I don’t even know what to think of the how the network and WBD assess these things.

Bleach did gang busters for Adult Swim Action and much of the Toonami viewership grew up on Bleach. It wouldn’t give Toonami more variety and wouldn’t get the block noticed much more than MHA does if it streamed first but it would probably do very well and having the dub premieres would have definitely drawn more attention back to Toonami. Probably more than Titan does because arguably more people watch Titan subbed than Bleach subbed.

I want to see Cow & Chicken, I Am Weasel and Johnny Bravo. They should also have short series once a week like Evil Con Carne, Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? and Time Squad. I want an action block on Saturday with SWAT Kats, Pirates of Dark Water, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest and Samurai Jack. They’re putting thought into curating the programming but I wonder how long they’ll keep that up and if they’ll quickly run out of “good enough” episodes and just start repeating the same ones. Dexter has 78 half hours, Edds has 69 (nice), Billy & Mandy has 84 and Courage has just 52. But I suppose even if they only air about 50 half hours of each show, that will fill 10 weeks before repeating. They could probably get through two or three cycles before dedicated viewers would get bored of these cream of the crop series. It would however be more of a “must see” thing if they rotated in other shows after one or two cycles. I just have a hard time believing they will continue to put that much effort into the block unless it dramatically improves the viewership and ad revenue. And even if it does that, they’ll be hesitant to swap out any shows for a good long while unless one or more of them does significantly worse than the others. Remember for AS something can last for years if it does well enough or can be immediately pulled if it doesn’t meet expectations.

Teen Titans Go has actually been airing a reasonable amount considering how many episodes it has but they have gone crazy with Gumball. Gumball is currently airing 5.5 hours out of 13 and considering CartoonIto is on for 1.5, Gumball is using up nearly half of CN’s day. It’s a great show but that’s beyond excessive. That said, I think CN’s schedule has improved dramatically from how it was in recent years when they did endlessly spam both TTG and Gumball. After Checkered Past starts TTG will be down to 1 hour a day instead of 2 and Gumball will be 4.5 hours, Clarence gains a half hour and the only show entirely removed is the 6:30 airing of Adventure Time which is a bit unfortunate. I’m sure pasting from a text pad will make this nearly unseeable but here’s a comparison Now 06:00 The Amazing 06:30 World of 07:00 Gumball 07:30 Cocomelon 07:45 Batwheels 08:00 Cocomelon 08:15 Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go 08:30 Cocomelon 08:45 Bugs Bunny Builders 09:00 The Looney 09:30 Tunes Show 10:00 Craig of 10:30 the Creek 11:00 The Amazing 11:30 World of Gumball 12:00 Summer Camp Island 12:30 Clarence 01:00 Teen 01:30 Titans Go! 02:00 The 02:30 Amazing 03:00 World 03:30 of 04:00 Gum 04:30 ball 05:00 Craig of the Creek 05:30 Teen Titans 06:00 Keep Going! 06:30 Adventure Time Soon 06:00 The Amazing 06:30 World of 07:00 Gumball 07:30 Cocomelon 07:45 Batwheels 08:00 Cocomelon 08:15 Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go 08:30 Cocomelon 08:45 Bugs Bunny Builders 09:00 The Looney 09:30 Tunes Show 10:00 Craig of 10:30 the Creek 11:00 The Amazing 11:30 World of Gumball 12:00 Summer Camp Island 12:30 Clarence 01:00 More Clarence 01:30 Craig of the Creek 02:00 Teen 02:30 Titans Go! 03:00 The Amazing 03:30 World of 04:00 Gum 04:30 ball 05:00 Dexter’s Laboratory 05:30 Ed, Edd ‘n Eddy 06:00 Billy and Mandy 06:30 Courage

Double OP at 12:30 sure wasn’t on my bingo card but I like being able to watch it and get to bed at a decent-ish time for work on Sunday. The one of the doubles are just holding a space for Uzumaki I figure but finishing before Halloween be darned if they’re so strapped for shows. They are better off waiting till Grunge ends. I was wrong about Batman day. WBD keeps putting DC movies on ACME night instead of Toonami. This schedule could last just two weeks and essentially make up for skipping OP and Shippuden two weeks for marathons but depending on circumstances they might keep one or both doubled up at least until Dr. Stone returns. That gives them the ability to start Stone as soon as it’s available to them. That said, they might need Stone to be the headliner in November if that’s even an option. They clearly have no acquisitions they can throw on currently and I would not bet on that changing before November or even January. At least they didn’t add reruns. That took some restraint.

Asking us to believe even for a second that Kohaku isn't cute or at least attractive compared to everyone else in the show is just ridiculous. That makeup job was full on Joker though Senku did look that bad and Gen can work it but of course they had to pick Ginro for the lulz. Why even TRY with Soyuz before Ginro? Maybe he didn't want to be left out. Moz and Kohaku certainly have a dynamic. He's gonna regret letting her into the inner sanctum. Making them think the moving lab was a large beast was a good trick but it seems Ibara isn't entirely convinced.

Nah nah they will rerun Dr. Stone instead of double One Piece

I'm not going to ask him if One Piece will be back. We'll see soon enough if it is or not. And yeah from the sound of it the other thing probably fell through. Hopefully that doesn't mean they have no additional acquisitions to show before the end of the year.

Turns out CR is the only place that 629 isn’t the start of Dressrosa. FUNi has 629 start Dressrosa and more importantly the DVDs start Dressrosa with episode 629. One more thing I can confirm. The bumps use clips from 629 so if that is what Toei considers the start of Dressrosa then Toonami will at least be showing a chunk of the arc. To play devil fruit’s advocate… if 629 is actually the last episode Toonami got then there’s no reason they absolutely have to air it before they remove the show again.

629 is categorized as season 9 on CR and FUNi while Dressrosa is season 10 even though the OP changed on 629 as you say.

Time dang about This was my expectation for 9/9 And I think we’ll have a Batman Day movie on 9/16 maybe even a movie on 9/23 and they start Uzumaki on 9/30 Its certainly is sus that One Piece is off the block 3 weeks in a row after the filler arc airs but I believe there’s one more episode that’s not part of Dressrosa that’s unaccounted for.

My familiarity with Mallah and The Brain extends only to 2003 Teen Titans, Young Justice and TTG prior to this so I wasn’t expecting them to be lovers but that’s apparently been a thing for years. And they made team Gurren looking mutants because they were bored. Another clear homage to an anime.

They’ve had Alt and Prog this whole time and didn’t use either to fill a void in 2020 or 2022? Okay then. I was fully expecting a marathon on Labor Day weekend but not the weekend prior. Leave it to Toonami to nuke the rest of the night just because they had one slot to fill that night. I am interested in rewatching both Prog and Alt but I probably won’t watch these marathons live. It’s not a given Dr. Stone will rerun but a rerun of some or all 11 episodes is the easiest way to keep a spot warm for the 2nd half of the season which can probably start airing in December. They really ought to have a new acquisition in September but chances of there being two are slim to none. Unless they double up One Piece in September a rerun of Dr. Stone seems very likely. I just hope they don’t stick it at 1am just to avoid moving One Piece and Shippuden.

There was a non-zero chance of that happening but I mean... nah they were not going to do that. But they WOULD have done a Barbenheimer skit and we should all be thankful they couldn't.

Bishounen Slade has some pretty rad gear but having his suit be decked out in a bunch of Krytonian tech downplays his own skills with normal swords. So that mention of the tech getting integrated into the suit has me concerned he's gonna keep adding stuff but we'll see. I am also thinking Jimmy bumped into Grodd. Don't think so badly of your homies Jimmy, emergencies happen a lot in Metropolis and they're both aspiring reporters. Remember when we only had phones and home and work and were not expected to be contactable at a moments notice? Cell phones and texting is efficient for communication but they put so much pressure on immediate responses. Obviously something involving the crash happened to The General but we don't know what yet. He's got beef with Superman because of it though. They didn't even go an episode before Steve was revealed as the troll going after Flamebird and I was not expecting that. Having someone troll Jimmy almost immediately did feel accurate though. He totally called the interns out about never following Perry's orders. Gotta say his voice just sounds too young for his character model and it's probably the least fitting voice so far. Having Lois find out Clark is Superman by episode 5 in season 1 is certainly a choice. Feels weird for her to do that before she's even an ace reporter but then again the other continuities always her meet Superman the first time after she's an ace reporter. I don't mind it and I do think it's reasonable for her to be upset but she should also come to terms with why Clark didn't tell her sooner. I'm not sure what I would prefer between her getting over it oddly fast or her taking a long time to get over it but I hope the writers know what they are doing. All around things are escalating quickly which may or may not be good but it's entertaining so far.

While I'm not hopeful for more than maybe 1 acquisition for the rest of the year one series if they can get one new thing then maybe it's ZOM 100. Viz licensed it and it's getting dubbed. It is streaming on Hulu, CR and Netflix so it's not exclusive. It could definitely live'n up the line-up.

That's where The Eminence in the Shadow comes in. The second season is airing right now and they're simuldubbing it. The first season ran 20 episodes between October of 2022 and February of 2023. Plenty of episodes and not even a full year old yet. If it's anything, I would say overall way more interesting stuff happens in Dressrosa than either Fishman Island or Punk Hazard those arcs are just significantly shorter and still have needlessly dragged out conclusions. But by comparison to that Zou is a breath of fresh air and Whole Cake is more fun than Dressrosa and also hinges tremendously on the relationships of the Straw Hats which is where some of the best moments in One Piece come from so I'd easily rank them higher than Dressrosa.

Why would they run both AoT movies on one night when they can make it an event two separate weeks and then probably re-air both together on a holiday weekend? They gotta try to get as much out of two specials as they can. Give One Piece some credit, even when it's literally a chapter per episode usually something of interest happens every chapter. Dressrosa doesn't start out slow as shit and a lot is going on but the fight with Doflamingo which is broken up via numerous flashbacks (all rather good stuff) drags on and on and on and on and on. Truly most isekai are just mid as it gets and relatively few are absolutely terrible.

Ideally they have their ducks in enough of a row that they actually premiere the Titan special on Labor Day weekend and launch a 2nd show with Grunge on the 9th. That's the least disruptive way they can run the Titan special before they swap in some fresh shows. Shit on Dressrosa's pacing all you want but its not a badly written story and has several great moments. Of all the seasons you're suggesting they get an isekai from... this one... really? Jobless Reincarnation season 2 and Vending Machine aside the isekai this season are so so so so uninspired. But of course Crunchyroll got all of them which is the usual problem. If they have to deal with Crunchyroll they are better off looking at stuff like DECA-DENCE, Akudama Drive, GARO, The Case Study of Vanitas, Ranking of Kings, LINK CLICK, BACK ARROW, 86, SABIKUI BISCO, Blood Blockade Battlefront, Psycho-Pass, Revenger, Golden Kamuy and many others. And some more recent isekai that aren't garbage but not well known like Skeleton Knight in Another World, Cautious Hero and Combatants will be Dispatched are fine picks as well. Sentai has some isekai worth considering though. The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Reincarnated as a Sword and The Eminence in the Shadow for 3.

I just got confirmed episode counts for Ninja Kamui (13) and RickAniMorty (10) I’m at least a little surprised DeMarco gave me straight answers to both queries.

Making originals makes sense financially and bidding against Hulu, Netflix and Amazon is foolhardy for the most part. But there’s so many shows out there that could make it feel like Toonami isn’t content with the bare minimum. And wouldn’t it make sense to pair these originals with something else? Akudama Drive would have been perfect to pair with Black Lotus. GARO Vanishing Line would pair nicely with Ninja Kamui (also the same director). Pair FLCL Grunge with Land of the Lustrous (also CG) or Akudama Drive. It’s gonna be total mood whiplash to go from Lazarus or Ninja Kamui much less Uzumaki to One Piece. Yeah I realize they might be concerned that a new acquisition of high quality could upstage their own shows but that’s a lousy way to think about it anyway. I’m expecting we’ll be down to 4 block premieres when Dr. Stone breaks but I’m hoping they have at least one acquisition joining in September. As for avoiding a double or triple premiere while two slots open up on September 9th there is one obvious solution. They finally air the Attack on Titan special. The next Saturday after that is Batman Day weekend as well and they might run a movie like prior years, maybe even the weekend after as well. That breakdown would be this: September 2nd - Superman then a marathon September 9th - Grunge plus Titan special September 16th - Grunge plus Batman Day Movie September 23th - Regular lineup resumes plus new acquisition at 12:30 and Dr. Stone reruns But if they ran another movie on the 23rd that takes them to September 30th which could lead the 12:30 slot to go to Uzumaki so it finishes before November. I only think they’ll overlap Grunge and Uzumaki if RickAniMorty replaces FLCL Grunge on October 21st, probably premiering Sunday October 15th or maybe Thursday the 19th or Wednesday the 18th since they are currently premiering Teenage Euthanasia on Wednesdays. The mid-week premieres are surely to appease Max. Another wild card being they might get to air Scavengers Reign on Toonami after it premieres on Max. If Toonami doesn’t air RickAniMorty it would only make sense to run it right before Toonami so it makes an hour of subbed anime with Uzumaki. I imagine that’s what we would all prefer but once Uzumaki ends Toonami is without a headliner in November and December baring a major acquisition or Scavengers. Not a bad time to start Bleach if that’s what they’re thinking. 13-26 episodes of Bleach tides them over till Shoegaze and Ninja Kamui are ready. But I’m rather hoping one of these openings go to Eizouken now that it is dubbed. That of course requires at least a bit of cooperation on Crunchyroll’s part and I doubt they’ll make it easy even though they themselves couldn’t be bothered to dub the show when it was sort of a hot commodity. Based Sentai to the rescue.