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Silly me I did mix those up so it’s even more of a roller coaster going from Titan to Ass Class to Made in Abyss and finally to One Piece.

Elle isn’t voiced by Kaley Cuoco, you’re thinking of Harley Quinn. But given how hard WarnerMedia pushed Black Lotus they really ought to try it on TBS after TBBT or at least on TNT after an action movie.

Yeah I would definitely say I'm watching more the block now than I was in February of 2019. I love HxH and Megalobox, Diamond is Unbreakable was good and bad as it was I did get amusement from SAO Alicization but I didn't really feel compelled to rewatch MHA regularly and had no interest in DBS, Boruto or Black Clover. The current line-up only has one show I'm watching that I haven't already seen in Japanese (Shenmue) and the same is true with that 2019 lineup because I had watched Megalobox, SAO and HxH in Japanese already but hadn't seen JoJo DiU before. I've seen Made in Abyss in Japanese but not dubbed and I've kept up with the TItan simulcast but I'll see the dub first on Toonami. So there's about as much new to me content as that other lineup offered (which I would watch anyway). It's been a good long while since I've seen these episodes of Ass Class and One Piece so they're a lot of fun to revisit. Other than being mostly older dubs it feels pretty stacked and I'm watching everything except the last hour live. That's pretty dang good IMO. And there's arguably better variety because that prior line-up had MHA, Boruto, Shippuden, HxH and Black Clover which are all cut from a very similar cloth of shounen (basically Naruto clones though Naruto arguably ripped off HxH since it came first). Even with double One Piece the shounen level of this lineup is surprisingly low at a total of 4 slots and Ass Class certainly feels different than most shounen battle anime. Yeah Titan is technically shounen but it certainly isn't like the Jump series airing on the block. At any rate I think the current block has a good variety. It's quite frankly going to be a rollercoaster for tone going from grim dark fantasy with Titan to lighter fare with Shenmue and Ass Class then taking a turn for the uncomfortable and grotesque with later episodes of Made in Abyss then lightening back up for One Piece. At least until One Piece starts hitting the heavier subjects in the Fishman Island arc. And if you don't fall asleep during Shippuden then you can chill out with the Bebop crew and after all of those other shows you're gonna need something chill.

They care because when Toonami gets a dub exclusively there is no legal way to watch the episodes without cable/satellite/slim package and they want those shows to be available on their preferred streaming platform or at least one a lot of people subscribe to. I get it but Toonami wants exclusives just like everyone else does. It’s supposedly the only way to compete. But IMO airing the anime on Toonami and streaming it a day after appeases way more people. So that’s the kind of contacts they should get or they could settle for airing anime a week or two behind streaming like with MHA and Fire Force season 1.

Adult Swim has always run a tight budget compared to other major networks like TBS and TNT. WarnerMedia’s ad-revenue got shot to hell when they lost live sports for a while and when they got them back a lot less people had cable to watch them. WarnerMedia’s TV ad-revenue will probably never be what it was and focusing on HBO Max all but assures that. I suspect that the bosses looked at how much money Toonami was using and how often they were producing new CG for bumpers and determined it was time to dial that back. Possibly as a trade off for a healthy budget for originals as well as more for acquisitions so they avoid another Fall 2021 scenario. According to DeMarco, the network is satisfied with the performances of Fena and Black Lotus and is giving Toonami lots of support. From the look of it they are making almost as many hours of original anime for Toonami as they are making for animated comedies per year. They clearly value Toonami. But look at the rest of AS. They scrounged enough to get King of the Hill and Futurama back but the network looks far from healthy and the CN side looks as bad or worse. So it’s understandable that they aren’t letting Toonami spend so much money on packaging. I love that stuff but they can make do with reusing more of what they have already made.

Probably not but I’d love to see them try Mr. Osomatsu.

Well if no amount of new shows makes the young people choose Toonami over streaming then giving into the wants of nostalgics might have its merits. They’ll probably never do that though, they want to air more than old favorites.

You sound like someone who doesn’t appreciate something unless it’s new and shiny. Dub exclusives? The non-original shows they got to air first in the past 4 years are DBS, Titan, JoJo, Neverland, SAO, Boruto, Lupin, Gundam, Megalobox and Demon Slayer season 1. Basically… Aniplex and Viz dubs, Lupin and Gundam aside from Titan and DBS. Titan they only get about 12 hours before streaming. They had to share Dr. Stone, Fire Force, MHA, Black Clover, Food Wars and Shippuden. But the biggest boon of course was Dragon Ball Super thanks to Toei. They could be running Dragon Quest Dai’s dub if they had the mind to go for it, I’m sure Toei wants it on TV as well.

It is difficult to say how well Fena and MHA would have done without Family Guy carrying the night until October but I suspect Black Lotus would not have done better than Fena under the same circumstances. We’ll also only ever be able to guess if leading with MHA and pairing Fena with YashaHime would have yielded better results during the Summer but… it probably would have.

Probably not but they should try.

Then what do YOU think can carry the block? No singular show can but a combination of good/interesting/engaging shows might.

There are so so so many underutilized anime from the past 1-5 years. They could easily fill 3 rotating slots with just those for the next 5 years or longer. There’s no shame in that. If it doesn’t matter to you if the dub isn’t exclusive then why should it matter if the shows are older if you haven’t seen them?

Toonami’s not going anywhere even if they can never get Demon Slayer season 2. If they are froze out of MHA this Fall that’s quite a bit more alarming but it remains to be seen. And looking at the 2022 year of anime what other heavy hitters are there besides those two, Bleach in the Fall and Titan which they probably have? Demon Slayer certainly would be great to have right now but I don’t honestly think it would alone would significantly help Toonami this year. And if there’s a time when they really need it that will arguably be after Titan and Shenmue end. Maybe they will get it by then, not that people won’t have already watched it in droves by Spring.

Some would prefer that, at least they would say as much but probably would lose interest because shows like Yu Yu Hakusho, Trigun, and Gundam Wing are just a click away on Hulu and other services. I would still watch a retro focused Toonami if they are airing shows I enjoy watching or have not seen but have interest in. I don’t believe for a second that they will be unable to air anything new that isn’t an original but it’s definitely harder to get new hit dubs exclusively. But did they help all that much in the past few years? Demon Slayer didn’t really benefit Toonami and Toonami didn’t benefit from Demon Slayer. Dr. Stone was a modest success. MHA did help Toonami but it’s far more successful outside of Toonami. I feel the same would have been true for Jujutsu Kaisen. You worry that Toonami won’t even be part of the conversation anymore if they can’t get Demon Slayer season 2 and the like but hasn’t that already been the case even when they were stocking up on hit shounen and had their dubs locked down? I’m not saying there’s no hope for Toonami to be part of the conversation but I am saying that chasing trends hasn’t helped them stay relevant either. Toonami’s gotta be like Nintendo and do their own thing rather than throw money around and get exclusive deals on quote on quote AAA titles. But of course that analogy fails right now because Nintendo has found tremendous success with the Switch so they can continue to do their own thing and make boat loads of money. But I think you’re undervaluing the potential of hidden gems. Toonami could not make a hit out of Demon Slayer but did draw attention to Michiko & Hatchin, SSSS.Gridman, Assassination Classroom and Food Wars. But there are dozens of better shows that have completely fallen out of the conversation after they finished simulcasting. Shows from the past year or two along with many great series from the past 10 years or so. A mix of those, original series and some brand new dubs that they can get from Sentai, Viz, TMS and Sunrise seems like a better use of their resources that paying out the nose for more Demon Slayer or even more MHA when the time comes. But they’ll still try to get DS and MHA and they will probably get Bleach from Viz once it’s available. They are definitely amping up original production as well. There’s another TBA series airing some time this year and supposedly 3 for next year. That’s their head liners if they cannot get delayed airings of Demon Slayer, JJK or even MHA. To its credit, people did talk about Fena and some consider it among the best anime of last year. FLCL sequels mostly got spite. Bias against CGI is doing Black Lotus no favors but I also feel it’s been pretty underwhelming in general. Shenmue might catch some interest, Uzumaki probably will and who knows what the other originals will accomplish? But if Toonami wants to be relevant again then the only way the TV block can be, is to offer something nobody does. But even if they continue to do that, it’s the conversation will mostly amount to “that show looks interesting, why isn’t the dub streaming somewhere convenient?” because that’s how the majority of anime consumers choose to consume content.

And though TV grids are supposedly correct, Toonami hasn’t posted a schedule for this week via Facebook so it’s bound to catch people who look for that info on FB a bit of confusion this Saturday. Probably after next week things will be stable and that should help increase the viewership unless the viewership has decided what Toonami is airing isn’t what they want to watch.

There literally hasn’t been a week in nearly 10 years in which Toonami wasn’t airing between midnight and 3am on Saturday if not a bit earlier or later. So how can someone who was watching it not realize it’s still on? That’s just… Did they forget what day it was airing on? I guess that’s easy enough to do if you lost interest at some point. Man it’s real bad luck that One Piece returned just in time for Toonami to have a straight up abysmal night for Nielsen ratings. If it sticks around then clearly these numbers mean nothing anymore. It’s too soon to judge but it’s return might have actually turned off a decent sum of regular viewers. Like so much so that they avoided watching the other shows live. I suppose that’s at least about as likely as outside factors suddenly screwing over One Piece and the rest of this sub 0.06 18-49 lineup. Here’s hoping it’s a fluke. That Janet Jackson special and college football certainly could be factors.

A six year old show for tweens flexing on a brand new original series made for adults in the adult demo. 😂

Throwing shade at their own show. Classic Adult Swim.

It certainly can feel that way.

Advanced schedules are showing double One Piece will stick around for at least 3 weeks. It will however move down a half hour on February 5th when Shenmue bumps AC and MiA down a half hour as well. Shippuden drops one episode and only airs at 3am followed by Bebop reruns. Place your bets on whether or not the extra One Piece is keeping a spot warm for something Black Lotus reruns, something else or is actually something they'll keep going for a while. With 500+ episodes to air (250+ that are currently dubbed) they have plenty of episodes to run for years if their deal with Toei is so good that they can afford to run two episodes a week. There are certainly worse ways to fill the 2am hour and only Naruto and reruns would get stuck airing after it so that's fine by me. But that said, I wasn't expecting double One Piece to last more than one or two weeks so I can hardly judge what their intentions are but you wont see me complaining. The pacing of Fishman Island onward would greatly benefit from back to back episodes, maybe they think so as well.

So I just wrote up a spoiler loaded summary of the arcs Toonami skipped. Read it if you want but there are serious spoilers in this. https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1srug6o?new_post=true

So it would seem we aren’t getting a new addition on 1/29 so we can’t take that promise of a new show every week for a month or so verbatim. Granted, that schedule could change by next Thursday if they suddenly land a show. However, that would force an expansion if they intended to rerun Black Lotus. As it stands, Shenmue would drop a One Piece on February 5th and Black Lotus reruns would drop a Naruto on Feb 12th. Black Lotus makes way for Titan. So probably no new show on 1/29 much less Demon Slayer but on the plus side, we get two weeks of double One Piece.

Toonami never seems to “give up” on getting older shows they have had their eye on. Case in point, One Piece. I swear they will try to get JoJo back if Netflix ever releases it’s death grip on it.

DeMarco on why One Piece is back: In short. FUNi/Sony bad. Toei good. I figured as much.

With Shenume going to 12:30am, it’s all but assured Titan will get midnight. I think Demon Slayer will finally return when Titan ends and be the headliner in late Spring.