Sketch

Been a while since they ran a Crunchyroll service ad during Toonami but a you said about movies, last month they bought a lot of ad-space to promote Jujutsu Kaisen 0's theatrical run. I wouldn't put it past them to run an ad for Spy x Family or other CR licenses soon.

CR buys ad space on Toonami from time to time. It’s not like Disney puts their Marvel series on FX. Amazon and Netflix don’t like to share their originals with cable either.

According to DeMarco Rick & Morty: The Anime will air subbed. Now that’s a bold choice.

Thanks for looking into the 18-49s. Colt’s chart stopped listing those at some point so I was only seeing the total viewers and basing it on that but those don’t always correlate.

One could argue the bigger Toonami news here is that they got the director of Jujitsu Kaisen on tap for an original ninja anime. When Crunchyroll cock blocks you from a big show, just get the director to make you a show instead. It might have actually been CR people who introduced DeMarco to Sunghoo Park and Takashi Sano. Though Sano is a professed Rick & Morty super fan. So perhaps the CR relationship had some lasting value for Toonami after all.

There's been something kinda off about Ruff's Fujiko this season. I don't remember thinking the voice sounded off in prior parts but its definitely bothering me in this one.

Honestly it might be my favorite episode of Lupin in general. The hard-boiled film noir discussion was so captivating that before I knew it the episode was already over.

Primal got 0.14 and 287,000 Let me put that into perspective. A rerun of Primal episode 1 did better than 6 episodes of Fena after Family Guy left Saturday, all of Black Lotus and all but 1 episode of Shenmue the Animation. At least in total viewers if not also 18-49. I’m frankly shocked. It might be a fluke but if this keeps up then maybe Primal reruns actually do interest more people than the anime on Toonami does.

More “wonderful” news… Crunchyroll got Chainsaw Man. Well, at least it didn’t go to Netflix but it’s still very unlikely that it will air on Toonami.

It's always been a bit puzzling why Crunchyroll seemingly doesn't want to lend shows to Toonami. The people that founded Crunchyroll and various staff have sung the praises of Toonami but it looks more and more like Crunchyroll wouldn't have partnered with Toonami if not for AT&T buying Time Warner. Time Warner was notorious for its lack of synergy, so while it made no freak'n sense that Warner's DC content was out of Adult Swim's reach it became the expectation when DeMarco made it clear they couldn't afford Young Justice or older DC series. Likewise, Crunchyroll even under WarnerMedia didn't want to do Toonami a solid unless it was a co-production that both Adult Swim and Crunchyroll helped fund. But it's somehow an entirely different story in Latin America where Crunchyroll continues to provide programming for the small nightly Toonami block over there. On the WarnerMedia side they wanted to make use of the Crunchyroll catalog for HBO Max and that may or may not have kept those shows off of Toonami. Warner could have really done Toonami a solid and let them run Harley Quinn season 2 instead of Primal reruns but that clearly didn't happen. It's not as if FUNimation hasn't played hard ball from time to time but I was really hoping that the merger with Crunchyroll would mean more CR titles would be on the table. Thus far it looks like the opposite has occurred. However, that might not be the sole or even primary reason for the drought in new content right now. The real issue could very well be Toonami's acquisition budget getting even tighter but on the other hand, I don't think they would have turned to double One Piece if money was the primary reason why they couldn't get shows from the FUNimation catalog right now. Whether its a lack of budget or a lack of viable options, things aren't looking great right now. All that said, I do think they will replace Ass Class with new content in June but I don't think they'll add more than 2 or 3 more acquisitions this year. And regarding Mob, I think I'll finally stop putting off watching season 2. I hear it's better than the first season but up until now I've lacked the motivation to watch it at my leisure because I didn't watch the simulcast when it was the talk of the town.

He's probably also saying there's still people out there that see a value in Toonami or at least implying that there should be.

Yeah the two burly newkama that nursed Sanji back to health and gave him blood transfusions are shown at the end of the lineup promo. BTW, they fixed the lineup promo to say Toonami is 12am-4am rather than 12am-3:30am. They also got the time right on the Ass Class promo this week, 12:30am instead of Midnight.

They took some subtle jabs at Netflix Bebop in the marathon promo back in January. At least that’s how the dialogue read to some. But they didn’t go full Jake Long on it.

As much as I dislike the newkama jokes in One Piece, the “up all night” line certainly works in context. Perhaps they could have spliced the dialogue with a different scene though.

Truthfully, TBS and TNT have been winding down on scripted shows for a while now but they WarnerDiscovery must really be intending to pivot both networks to include more live sports, unscripted tv series and movies on top of syndicated reruns of comedies on TBS and dramas on TNT to fill the day hours. Scripted live action series will be made almost exclusively for HBO Max. American Dad has a few more seasons under contract at TBS but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't renewed again. Hard to say if that culling of departments will bleed into Adult Swim but on the Cartoon Network side they just announced a couple more series in development so maybe the Adult Swim upfront later this month will put those concerns to bed.

Yeah... calling out Sony was not a good idea. Not doing so might not have improved the situation but doing so assuredly didn't help. DeMarco has never called the big shots at Adult Swim and now he's probably even less involved with the decisions pertaining Toonami outside of original productions but he does come off as a guy who will pass the blame when things go south and accept any praise lofted at Toonami. And he often rides a fine line between not trashing the management and not taking responsibility for mistakes until they are water under the bridge.

"Talented people are capable of understanding us" is a quote from Gundam Wing that was used in the Toonami music video titled "Space is the Place" He's making a nod to that.

They actually made a lineup promo? That's a nice change of pace. Despite the lineup being almost half reruns they somehow made it look presentable. At least they are giving proper on-air notice of the changes.

I saw this editorial on Crunchyroll and I find it interesting that it highlights Megalobox 2: Nomad and SSSS.Dynazenon while also name dropping One Piece, Dragon Ball, Yu Yu Hakusho and Assassination Classroom. Specifically mentioning Megalobox and Dynazenon? Granted Gridman and MB season 1 did simulcast on Crunchyroll while their sequels didn’t and were only just added to CR but I can’t help but notice the coincidence. https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-feature/2022/05/05-1/recs-check-out-these-11-shonen-series-now-on-crunchyroll?utm_source=community_cr&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=news_en&referrer=community_cr_twitter_news

Netflix got Shaman King and Eden’s Zero so I think they’ll be interested in new Bleach but one point against that is they never bothered to stream the rest of the series and I think only ever had up to the Bount arc if even beyond Soul Society. Though they do currently have two animated movies and the live action film so they have at least some interest in the franchise.

Viz might avoid Netflix after Netflix screwed them out of JoJo but yeah even with Netflix cutting back, they can probably outbid AS for Bleach. Regardless, Toonami probably won’t get more than 4 additional acquisitions this year so it’s best not to burn through one of those when they still have 5 premieres and probably will have 6 again in June or July.

At the very least they had to pay for Made in Abyss, Lupin and One Piece since January, possibly also Attack on Titan. That’s 4. Seems unlikely they will exceed the amount of shows picked up last year. Have you already forgotten how few things they picked up in 2021? Titan, Dr. Stone, Neverland, Food Wars, YashaHime and probably Assassination Classroom season 2 and a final renewal for Black Clover if that wasn’t paid in 2020. Gridman was 2020 budget. So we’re probably looking at 2-3 more acquisitions before 2023. Maybe 4 if 3 of them are 10-13 episodes in length. And if they’re saving up for Bleach and dare I say MHA season 6 (which they might get if the Japanese producers want it to air on TV) then they have to be frugal. The one thing I’m particularly concerned about is whether or not they intend to rerun Primal season 1 for ten whole weeks before starting season 2. That’s really gonna screw over AC in it’s final stretch along with everything else. They can feasibly recover when season 2 starts but a lineup featuring Lupin and an hour of One Piece is considerably nicher than last year’s lineup with MHA, YashaHime, Food Wars and Black Clover. AC getting replaced by Food Wars or YashaHime won’t likely help matters significantly. It’s a boon for Lupin and One Piece fans but not really anyone else.

It makes perfect sense really. The best way to avoid a serious drought is to pace out the acquisitions as well as the originals. If they can only afford 2-3 more shows this year and they're 12-26 episodes each then they shouldn't blow through them. Lupin finishes before November so that's 1 additional opening. Food Wars replacing Assassination Classroom would end by October so that's another potential opening. YashaHime replacing Assassination Classroom would end before December 24th with 2 weeks off. The midnight slot will probably be Primal Season 2, Uzumaki and then Housing Complex C but if they start Primal Season 2 before a full rerun of season 1 then they'll have some weeks between when Primal Season 2 ends and October when Uzumaki will start. We have no idea when Housing Complex C can start airing but unless they wait until at least October it won't last into 2023 either. And besides all that, if they are trying to get the new Bleach season and the new Gundam series before 2023 then they can't blow their budget on shows earlier in the year.

4) They can’t afford to run all their acquisitions for the year without spacing some out. If YashaHime or Food Wars replace AC then that will be all but confirmed to be the situation.

Based on 10 years of DeMarco trying to explain why things are as they are… I’d say he’s better off staying quiet. The only good spin for this is confirming it means Primal season 2 premieres on Toonami. Let’s just hope Primal season 2 will bump off the reruns by June or early July. A marathon on 05/28 could burn off the other 8 episodes after just two weeks of this underwhelming schedule. He won’t be able to say a thing about season 2 until AS announces the premiere date.