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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.

Never say never they say. I don't know how the hell they pulled this off. Toei must have been feeling generous. I'm a huge fan of One Piece so I'm naturally stoked that this is happening but I'd be lying if I said I thought this was the best show they could have picked up right now. But I'm cautiously optimistic. One Piece is arguably more popular in the US now than it was between 2013 and 2017 and the bar is real low now. But this will surely test the limits. Starting at the time-skip is a gamble to be sure. If the prior viewers didn't continue where Toonami left off nearly 5 years ago then they have quite a lot of episodes to watch before... Saturday. It's a very tall order. And if those viewers did continue it, did they stop at 516? I highly doubt it. There's even a One Piece watch-a-long on Twitter that formed when Toonami took it off the air which is 200 something episodes further than that. Their best hope is people want to watch those episodes again and also that new viewers will find the show approachable enough. To that I say, it's at least a better place to start than the Davy Back Fight and the Foxy Pirates. But you're still missing huge moments that define the series. At least thematically it will feel right that the Straw Hats are reuniting in these episodes.

Talk about a plot hole.

The leader? He certainly isn’t putting in a good performance here.

They are probably trying to keep things vague but I still think they should have picked different dialogue for the promo. That is literally some of the worst in the first episode even if it does explain some things.

😭

That promo was weak sauce... Like of all the voices to use in a promo you pick that guy and his flat reads? I hope people give the show a chance because that promo is anti-hype.

Sentai picked up the dang phone for once! Leave it to Toonami to put the assumptions of the AMC deal immediately to bed by announcing the best title Sentai has. Made in Abyss is phenomenal but not for the faint of heart. It’s a crying shame this wasn’t announced via a promo last Saturday but it should make for a nice surprise for people tuning in this weekend. I’d say this greatly ups the chances that Titan and AC are the only sequels among the incoming shows but it could go either way.

They have listed that incorrect time for a while. Bebop is still double stacked for now.

It’s totally understandable if they could not do the promo in time to air it yesterday but I really hope they don’t make us wait till Thursday night to confirm the next schedule. I don’t want to have to keep recording a 4.5 hour of American Dad.

AC might end up settling into the 1am slot when it’s all said and done. Or maybe even 1:30 or 2am. It’s at 12:30 and 1am now because it sort of has to be.

Finally! I hope they never beat this record of barely two days before broadcast. It’s a nice start with tremendous room for growth. And they’ll be filling out this schedule one new show at a time every week for a month or so. That’s very exciting!

And now it’s past 2pm EST on Thursday and still nothing. I can’t imagine they will hold off till Friday but then again I was pretty confident they would post by Wednesday. Edit: it is now past 4pm EST Edit: it is now past 6pm EST