Sketch

There's arguably no reason to start another show until Food Wars ends unless they expand so that comes as no surprise. Nice of them to give a heads up about the extra long episode of Unicorn I guess. It seems pretty dang likely that the last two episodes of Unicorn will premiere on June 22nd and encore on June 24th bumping Dr. Stone to 1am. Either that or maybe they double up One Piece that week. And I'm already dreading the likelihood that Jul 1st will be another Unicorn marathon. And these schedules also basically confirm they're not showing a DC animated movie the weekend The Flash hits theaters which IMO is a pity because Justice League: Flashpoint is pretty rad.

Oh I just love having all these data points to compare! Thursday Unicorn premiere 0.09 18-49 / 187k TV after a Rick & Morty 0.14 18-49 / 268k TV (7th highest Rick & Morty reruns with 18-49 which was the 48th highest cable rerun that week with 18-49) Saturday Unicorn encore 0.14 18-49 / 276k TV after an American Dad 0.20 18-49 / 356k TV (2nd highest American Dad rerun with 18-49 which was the 10th highest cable rerun that week with 18-49) And the number one American Dad that week was the 11pm Saturday airing that got 0.22 18-49 and 440k total viewers which was also the 5th highest cable rerun with 18-49. Seems like that week, Saturday was probably the best performing night of Adult Swim and it was mostly thanks to American Dad. That was a sizable improvement for American Dad from the prior Saturday as well so who could say why they did so much better. That week the best performing American Dad and Rick & Morty were on Thursday before the 1 hour premiere of Unicorn. So we can see that Unicorn lost about 0.05 18-49 from Rick on week 2 and about 0.06 from a unusually high Stan on week 2. Doesn't look like Unicorn is going to beat it's lead-ins at this rate or even get in a loss range below 70k but I wonder how the premiere of episode 3 could have done on Saturday after American Dad. Maybe 300k and 0.16 with 18-49? All that said, Unicorn is doing well on Toonami but Stan is giving it quite a lift and if American Dad keeps doing some of its best numbers in the 11pm hour on Saturday then the network will see no reason to move Toonami to 11pm.

You'd think it would make so much more sense for Cartoon Network to embrace the all ages philosophy and be comfortable airing shows like King of the Hill and Futurama outside of the AS branding but instead of doing that they're pushing Adult Swim to start earlier and earlier and tossing any action show not targeting preschoolers to Adult Swim. I can tell you I'd much prefer for Adult Swim to be a small block of TV-14-DSLV/TV-MA (primarily) original content and for Cartoon Network to encompass the PG and even light TV-14 stuff after 6pm. But Adult Swim has the brand recognition and it would take too much effort to remarket The Cartoon Network as something for viewers older than 11 years old. It's just insane for Adult Swim to start at 6pm but at this rate I think they'll take 5pm sometime in 2024. It certainly would be great for them to use at least some of that 6-8pm time for action animation Monday-Thursday (they already are doing that on Friday). Part of the reason why Toonami worked as well as it did on CN was because it was early enough to avoid competition from network prime time and in a rather good position to be viewed by both kids coming home from school and adults coming home from work. There's no reason to believe that time slot will instantly be successful for action animation now but it couldn't hurt to try. If they don't try some action animation on weeknights they're really gonna be stretching King of the Hill and American Dad this Fall when they lose Bob's Burgers. They're oddly reluctant to run Futurama in a decent time slot except on Sundays. But unless Futurama actually does considerably worse than King of the Hill then they'll probably just 2 hours each of King of the Hill, Futurama and American Dad. As for Saturday... they really don't need 5 much less 6 hours of comedy before Toonami so they dang well better move it up to 11pm.

I feel that’s an exaggeration when all the guy said was “we would have made some noise but it wasn’t to be” And that was in direct response to an article questioning why it dropped with no notice. It’s a fair observation and I think CR has actually been overall better about not shadow dropping dubs since then. A positive change from before.

Not a bad night at all. Unicorn surely exceeded 200k and 0.12 18-49 on Saturday (Primal as well) beating the Thursday airing soundly. Unless somehow Food Wars beat those reruns and boy that would be something. Unicorn’s drop from American Dad wasn’t great last week. American Dad probably did some heavy lifting this week as well.

We’ll probably never know how easy or difficult it is for Adult Swim to get various lesser known anime but I have a real hard time believing they’re unable to get anything besides Food Wars, Dr. Stone and this other thing they can’t announce for half a dang year. Maybe their budget is so shit that they have to stretch a few shows to maintain even 4 premieres regularly. WBD certainly isn’t running like a well oiled machine yet. WBD acts like they value Toonami and promote it even outside of Adult Swim but don’t give it enough financial support to avoid stagnation and content droughts. But I also strongly suspect that Toonami lived on the graces of companies like FUNimation, Aniplex and Viz Media and that’s simply not going to continue in the current climate. Those sweet deals they got are a distant memory now. And if we add onto that a hesitation to try untested anime that they’re not co-producing, we can only speculate what if anything they could get if they took more chances on unknown quantities. I don’t think they are so allergic to trying something different that they’re passing on every show that isn’t popular and I still want to believe they’re looking beyond the usual suspects but they can definitely stand to up their game in that area in particular. Made in Abyss feels like it was a miracle. Sentai has Gridman and Ass Class tier shows they can probably get if they asked.

A rather odd way to air the show on CN hours. Seems any showings on ACME Night will be events.

Yeah it's a slog. Maybe by then they will double up again. Who can say?

It's glorified filler that they keep on because they like it. Some people say Toonami got 150 episodes initially but I can't find a source for that at all. That said, I don't think they only acquired up to the end of Punk Hazard but its hard to say at this point. But what about this other rumor Jman? Where'd that come from?

Yeah its bizarre they don't even mention Dr. Stone returning in that Facebook post. I also thought they might have goofed and announced it without permission but that's apparently not what the thing they can't announce. Nice to know they have something else coming as well as more Dr. Stone but it figures that they didn't get the plot relevant TV special that introduces a major character. May turned out to be a wash but June looks promising. The other show will probably replace Food Wars or Unicorn (depending on when Superman flies in) but maybe it will actually launch before Food Wars ends and they'll add a slot.

I appreciate the character designs showing so much classic cartoon influence. Popeye, Betty Boop, Looney Tunes, vintage Disney, you name it. Though yeah some are rather ugly. Interesting enough concept but I don't really like that each time these souls are passed on it completely erases the life of someone else, that's rather f'd up and they'll probably go into that. I'll see how they go about it before I make any judgements. Honestly I don't love these characters, certainly not as much as Spear and Fang, Jack or the Sym-Bionic Titan trio but that's kind of a high bar. They might grow on me but my initial impression is "why do I care?" and I kinda just don't. The monk boy and robot make for good visual gags but I'm getting increasingly irritated at the elf and Melinda. I totally understand Emma/Melinda is having trouble accepting everything at face value (and should) but her attitude and outbursts is already tiresome. Meanwhile the elf guy is trying to force her to just go back to being the former Melinda (and his lover) and it makes me dislike him the most.

Another possibility that probably is a deal they would make directly with a Japanese company… Lupin Zero. Yes it’s only 6 episodes but I still expect them to be interested and so far no dub has streamed. Or maybe they went to Sunrise directly to plead their case for Witch from Mercury because CR isn’t budging on their own.

Maybe Urusei Yatsura or Dr. Stone but probably Attack on Titan. I don’t think the Japanese side of the committee is keeping FLCL Grunge from starting but I suppose it could be.

A bit of a drop from ep 1 to ep 2 but overall a fine performance. We’ll see if it keeps that up.

Extra ad revenue for adults from King of the Hill which to the network is always a plus I guess.

If you’re gonna air a PG show then I suppose it makes more sense to lead with it than air it at 2am but uh… One Piece is almost always TV-PG at 1:30 so *shrug* At any rate they weren’t going to lead with Food Wars

It only moved once in the first 8 episodes. It was at 3am for 2 nights then it was at 2am the other 6 nights. Hardly “all over the block”. I also think you greatly overestimate the amount of people who ever saw DeMarco say “just watch it somewhere else” but I agree that Hellsing had a rough ride overall because above all else it was abruptly removed twice. Any removal for any reason is going to cause a decline in casual viewership because those viewers aren’t looking at social media or TV grids to see if the show will return, they simply assume it’s gone and not coming back. Akame, KLK and Parasyte did well enough to make the argument that TV-MA anime can succeed under the right circumstances. I do wonder how Psycho-Pass or Jormungand would have done at 12:30 or 1am in 2015 but I guess we’ll never know.

It’s pretty understandable if higher ups told Gill Austin that Toonami could not keep burning through two episodes of their One Piece stash per week. What doesn’t make sense is why doing that with MHA was approved instead. Maybe they were just that desperate for a ratings boost to 12:30 but if that’s the case they sure did a shit job of letting their audience know that two new episodes were airing every week for a month and a half. Not one single mention of that in a weekly topical and the results? The 12:30 MHA didn’t do all that much better than an extra One Piece would have. But they probably made the right call not airing Foid Wars at 12:30 given it’s lost to One Piece a few times in recent months. Of course, whatever was coming to replace MHA didn’t pull through yet but it’s hard to imagine whatever it is would be a better 12:30 show than new MHA. Probably not even Bleach is going to be that much of a draw.

Quite the revisionist history. Beware was beating Black Lagoon when it aired after it so they swapped slots when the new to CN episodes started airing. ThunderCats, SBT and Beware did rather well for Toonami but they were expensive to make and not profitable via toy sales so they were all written off rather than continued for Adult Swim. Its true Black Lagoon and Hellsing both had higher ratings at 3am than Beware at 2:30 which made the move earlier actually detrimental to its performance but the overall ratings of Toonami saw an interesting drop when Space Dandy ended, Beware exited and Hellsing moved an hour earlier. I theorize that Beware was more of a point of interest than many regular Toonami viewers realized and when it was pulled, some viewers no longer sat through much if any of the block because it wasn’t there. Moving earlier did Hellsing no favors and it’s finale did so bad that they all but avoided intensely graphic anime like it ever since. MHA has gotten more violent but it’s nowhere near TV-MA. One-Punch Man season 1, Attack on Titan season 1 and Akame are about the only examples of very violent anime doing exceptional and Akane still lost 200k+ from DBZ Kai every week. Hells Paradise would probably do well or at least as well as most any recent action anime would for Toonami. It’s got the same target audience as Chainsaw Man and Spy x Family.

I expect this to be Adult Swim’s best rated premiere since R&M season 6 despite it being family friendly. But any good it might have done for Toonami will inevitably be squandered by the Primal reruns airing right after it.

They will probably keep Unicorn first if only because having a rerun in the middle tends to cause more problems than starting with one. Though if it does really bad they might even toss it to the back and move up the anime.

The writer hasn’t done a whole lot, never written RWBY and only a few DC projects that all lack Batman. Justice Society: World War II was fine IMO but this ain’t it.

I sure hope they continue One Piece. As it stands, for me, Toonami starts at 1am and ends at 2am.

I’m not lying about the restart It feels like a running gag that the episode title we least like to see is “Sea of Despair”

Ah terrific, Primal season 2 restarts from the top for that hour this Saturday. They just aired episode 3 (13) last week so they aired those two episodes less than a month ago. There’s 10 episodes of Unicorn and 10 episodes of Primal season 2. They’re probably going to keep that Genndy hour for the whole 10 weeks. Whatever they’re waiting to announce either warrants expansion (ahahaha) or waits for Food Wars to finish. Hopefully they have the good sense not to stick whatever that is behind two reruns.