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They have 11 followers and effectively no reach. Pretty sure I have seen their commentary on Anime Super Hero and 4chan. It certainly reads like them and regurgitates the same arguments. And on Twitter they follow Toonami Faithful staff, CN Schedule Archive and barely anyone else. I think they need a new hobby. One should not dedicate themselves so much to critiquing a television block.

You might be right but I won’t see that as much of an upgrade and I’d be annoyed if One Piece was pushed back down so soon. I don’t think double Shippuden will last more than a month or so but it could feasibly last a while if they hold off on adding anything else until the 3am shows are finished.

I’m not opposed to Adult Swim airing AEW before Toonami though if it’s not a live event then it will probably do a lot worse than AEW does on TBS. Still might do better than Saturday comedy but Saturday comedy doesn’t do bad compared to other nights.

The most frustrating thing is we are entirely in the dark when it comes to knowing most of what Toonami has been trying to get and who will come to the table at all. It’s hard to believe that Toei and TMS are the only companies that want their wares on cable television. I have not given up hope that Toho will push for MHA to return to Toonami but it could go either way. I don’t think WBD would bother giving precious as-space to the block if they didn’t intend to support it so I don’t think the acquisition budget is why they’re so limited still.

During American Dad as well? That’s excellent!

I think Lupin and One Piece have proven their usefulness in recent months and earned a chance to air earlier, but maybe that’s just me. Yeah get through the filleryomi sooner and take less than two years to finish Shippuden! Lupin getting to be the 2nd show on the block is a hell of a thing and One Piece at one, like God intended. I’m only watching till 2am starting next week, so I can go to sleep earlier or throw on something else to wind down but I’m glad the smug haters weren’t right about the block dropping 3:30am. I will probably rewatch Primal eps 6-10 because I only saw each of them once before. Maybe I’ll rewatch episode 5 as well because it’s freak’n rad. Things look dire but I don’t think that’s because Toonami is in danger. The unexciting lineup in recent weeks has been doing better than when Shenmue and Titan were premieres. Which is both a win but also feels like a loss. They can start a show any time but clearly it’s never been harder to get something and I really hope that’s not due to a lack of budget. It’s looking to be an uneventful Summer and AS won’t even premiere Primal season 2 on Toonami but the encores should do more than well enough to support Toonami. It still a waste of potential but Genndy gonna Genndy.

Thursday specifically? I don't think anything has premiered on just Thursday except for way back in 2005 when they tried airing a different anime every night but they have done stripped premieres across the same time slot on Monday-Friday like they did with Primal's first 5 episodes. Friday at one point was live-action premiere night and interestingly enough in 2004 action premiere night almost became Thursday nights when the network was deciding whether or not to bring ASA back to Saturday to pair with Saturday prime time Toonami (when it was launching in April of 2004) or to let Toonami fill 7pm-2am the way SVES did. An early schedule drafts showed them doing that but they eventually settled on having Adult Swim Action return to Saturday nights 11pm-2am with Toonami airing 7pm-11pm.

Ah good it aired during AEW, as it should.

They most likely don't feel it will mesh well with new episodes of Tuca & Bertie but they can stick it on after Rick & Morty any other night of the week and do better there.

While it’s possible that AS could change their minds between now and then, I think they have every intention of premiering Primal on Thursdays, with next day on HBO Max and encores on Toonami covering all their bases. Bubbleblabber isn’t a bad source and they most likely got the info from Adult Swim PR.

They (probably Mitty from Reddit) is among the people counting on Toonami to lose a slot and will definitely remind everyone that they’ve been expecting this ever since the first airing of the lineup promo used the wrong time.

I don’t blame the man for choosing not to engage on Twitter, I would have recommended that years ago at this point. When so many people have made up their mind not to trust that you know what you are doing, what’s the point in saying anything? That said, I have an unfortunate feeling that he just posted this now because bad news is coming, be it another rerun or a slot cut. Personally I hope it’s another rerun rather than a slot cut because I don’t want to see those smug asshats who expect a slot cut because of the promo flub a while back to be right.

Primal is on fire! It was most likely another very good week for Saturday comedy, particularly Rick & Morty and the 11pm American Dad.

Having a black Nami would have followed the noticeable trend of red heads becoming black characters which has certainly caused ire whether it should or not. It’s kind of like trading one kind of underrepresented group for another though that’s probably a stretch. Still I love me some redhead white girls so I’d at least be a bit bummed. I think Nojiko being a different ethnicity than Nami is fine. Maybe Bellemiere will also be a different ethnicity than both? I have no qualms with that.

Probably something recently aired. It’s just about as misleading but at least it won’t make people think Toonami is still in the Pain arc.

Cross-promotion between networks? What a novel idea. Seems odd it wasn’t the lineup promo and the only program shown was Naruto Shippuden and from the Pain fight I think. Well that’s more than AT&T ever did to promote Toonami so maybe the Discovery people will do more than this?

He recently mentioned in a Twitter AMA that they tried multiple times to get Fairy Tail and each time the parties involved could not agree on the terms and the cost. DeMarco definitely doesn’t watch every show they have considered for Toonami or aired on Toonami but if he hates or strongly dislikes a show then it’s not airing. He’s hardly the only person who doesn’t like Panty & Stocking and thought Darling in the Franxx went to shit. Arguably we dodged some bullets due to his veto power for whatever else it might have robbed us of. Some shows aired primarily because the staff liked them and the deals were good enough but there were surely other shows that were thrown their way that they hadn’t researched AT ALL which they put on the block. Admittedly some of which were picked up due to association with a known franchise. I don’t think they hand picked SAO, Blue Exorcist, Akame ga Kill, Dimension W, Black Clover, Boruto and Fire Force. They hand picked Casshern Sins, Samurai 7, Soul Eater, Black Lagoon, Gurren Lagann, Hellsing Ultimate, Michiko & Hatchin, Pop Team Epic, Assassination Classroom, Gridman and Made in Abyss. I doubt they even knew much about Demon Slayer, Neverland and Dr. Stone when they got them. There’s really no telling what they can actually afford or negotiate for now or what they have been trying to get in the past year. I’m not at all surprised there hasn’t been an announcement yet, it’s probably happening this week. They didn’t even have the decency to run the Lupin promo before the tail end of the block the night MiA ended. A Wednesday or Thursday announcement is par for the course so I’m not battening down the hatches till at least Friday but more than 11 days notice would be nice. It should be at least 14 days / 2 weeks notice.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe they started looking at Fairy Tail after DeMarco admitted he’d never watched it. We’ll never know if they had tried to get it before DeMarco watched any of it or if waiting a while made it harder to get it but sometimes deals just don’t work out. I agree that variety should be a their focus, especially now. A variety of lesser known shows and original series are the only things they can use to attract an audience in the heat of the streaming age.

Didn’t have the patience to watch the last two episodes with us huh?

They could certainly do worse than an extra episode of Primal for two weeks. Having a full marathon of Primal right after finishing weekly airings would be excessive.

Yes

As much as I’d appreciate a rerun of Dandy that’s not after 2am, I don’t think a midnight airing at the top of the block is advisable. IGPX, GITS, FLCL, Bebop and Big O season 2 are better left to the end of the block. I don’t think Jack reruns would do nearly as well as Primal has though maybe season 5 reruns at midnight wouldn’t tank the block. You need look no further than DBZ and DBS to know how good a rerun can do for Toonami, quite good if it appeals to the casual audience. They could certainly do worse than rerunning the latest batch of MHA (which they probably don’t have anymore) but maybe early Bleach is feasible? Naruto Shippuden has plenty of casual appeal still, if cannot lead the block with fresh content then maybe they should try letting Shippuden lead the block. There might even be merit in trying One Piece as the lead if they have nothing coming.

Probably not just any good rerun that hasn’t aired in a while. But there’s really no other options Adult Swim can provide for Toonami after Primal’s good will is spent. Even though it hasn’t been aired regularly in a while, I don’t think Samurai Jack season 5 would fair nearly as well. Though I’d appreciate the balls it would take to rerun Space Dandy at the top of the block, that would probably flop. I do wonder how Harley Quinn or Young Justice would do in that position. My expectation is that midnight will be covered by Primal season 1, Primal season 2 (as an encore at least), Uzumaki and Housing Complex C for the rest of the year.

Primal is holding Rick & Morty better than Shenmue and Black Lotus most likely because it’s freaking good and not actually overplayed compared to most AS originals. It’s been off the air for a year and a half before it recently returned. Had it been airing regularly since 2020 then it probably would not be finding as many eyeballs right now. It really makes me wonder how well season 2 premieres could do on Toonami. The Saturday Rick & Morty episode seems to be just as good of a lead in as the Sunday one right now, so why not? If they try to premiere it at 10 or 10:30 on Sunday then it probably won’t do much better than the reruns are doing on Toonami.

The reruns are starting to do pretty well. Lupin and One Piece are holding fine. Things are far from falling apart.