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As much as I enjoy some isekai, I really don't think Toonami needs to play a bunch of them. I'd dig them airing KonoSuba and ReZero but the rest... eh.

Maybe they will but even pulling something from the backlog takes a little bit of time to coordinate. If the situation lasts beyond June, I’m sure they’ll be able get something fresh to fill the holes. We were already under the assumption that either MHA or SAO wasn’t going to be replaced. Hopefully whatever was replacing one of those and Demon Slayer is already dubbed and I think that’s probably the case because Winter and Spring were pretty dry seasons that lacked shoe-ins for Toonami. So with the exception of MHA, they should be pretty well set until JoJo ends and Black Clover catches up. That will take them into Summer. Things shouldn’t get dire for a while. If their next two planned shows aren’t good to go then they might have to rerun something on the regular lineup but given a little more time they should be able to get a replacement or two.

I mean, there's something plenty rebellious about airing anime on US television and furthermore if the norm is binge'n at any time then Toonami is still being rebellious by focusing on cultivating a live-television experience. Curation has its uses when people end up scrolling endlessly through their various streaming apps trying to decide what to watch. Toonami says they'll pick something for you and your only choice is to tune in or not. Either way they're going against the grain still whether or not that's a progressive decision or not.

What's DeMarco gonna have to say when inevitably HBO Max posts entire seasons of original content to binge? We'll see. Personally I dislike the Netflix model more often than not. I prefer not having to feel the need to finish a show immediately to be able to take part in the discussion. It's rare for me to have such a large window of time to allow me to binge a whole season in one sitting and I like to savor episodes more often than not. It really depends on the show though. Some are easy to binge, others I like pace myself with watching 1 episode a week and others are perhaps best enjoyed by watching one or two episodes a day. I've been rewatching Gundam Wing and thus far I'm finding it best enjoyed once a day with a break on the weekend, just like it was aired on Toonami. Every now and then I decide to watch more than one episode and once recently I tried to watch a handful back to back but I'm definitely going back to the once a day pace. It's enough time to let things marinade a little before moving on but it's not the snail pace of once a week. I'm telling you watching a 25-50 episode Gundam show can really kill the pace. I'm pretty sure that's why Gundam SEED tanked on Toonami, the first 15 or so episodes were a slog and by airing it once a week they only exasperated that. Even Gundam Wing probably wouldn't have been a hit if it only aired once a week on Cartoon Network in 2000. One Piece on the other hand is a show where so little happens in an episode that it's better to watch at least two back to back if not three or four if you have the time. In more recent years I have primarily watched the latest dubbed episodes of One Piece in large chunks in one sitting with my local friend. We watched into Skypiea with my DVDs before One Piece returned to Toonami and finished Skypiea streaming the dub on Hulu before Toonami started airing it again. Then we watched it recorded off Toonami until it left the block. At that point went back to watching it in occasional 3-6 hour marathons until we ran out of dubbed episodes to watch. We're still waiting to continue but hopefully not for much longer. It's good for a long binge session if you're watching with another person but IMO if you're trying to watch over 900 episodes of One Piece, 2-4 a day is the way to go.

This batch of SAO and Demon Slayer wrapped up recording and Aniplex wasn't in the process of dubbing anything else that wasn't currently being handled by FUNimation. So there's nothing to announce delays for other than what FUNimation was doing for them. FUNimation is continuing to sub shows and said they were adjusting their dub production schedules to allow people to work from home. Whatever that means. Based on social media posts, up until the past week the LA dub actors were still recording for various projects but now that California has basically shut down any non-essential businesses, I believe all those recording studios have ceased operations for the time being. As evidence of that, Crunchyroll announced delays for their current dubs as well and those are all being done in California. SAO is handled in LA by BangZoom (as was Demon Slayer). Those studios have to start operating again before the next batch of episodes can be recorded. I wasn't expecting a simuldub for SAO regardless. If those studios are running again in June then SAO might be back by July or August but for now I'm figuring September or October depending how the situation plays out.

Only one week for Toonami but it will have been about 6 weeks since the last MHA dub episode was released. That might be just enough if FUNimation has gotten their record from home thing going by then. I have my doubts but it's not impossible with modern technology. Sure it ended in Japan last Summer but it was a bit surprising that Viz had some of it ready to air by October. It tends to take about a week to dub one episode even with modern methods. They would have needed about 9 months to finish dubbing it. If they started right around when DIU wrapped up dubbing then they might be done but it's equally likely they didn't have more than 13 episodes in the can when Toonami picked it up, in which case they might have finished recently but that's hardly a sure thing.

Aniplex hasn't announced any delays but I strongly doubt they'll be able to dub the next part of SAO (which starts in late April in Japan) for several months. If DeMarco and co were counting on Fire Force season two for July, that one probably went up in flames. It could feasibly get dubbed this year but probably not until September or October.

We're really stretching the definition of isekai over here. It's not about going to other planets, it's about going to other dimensions. Likewise, going to a different time period isn't "another world" either so I don't count InuYasha or other time-travel stories. That's my take anyway. Despite popularizing the theme, SAO wasn't really an isekai until Kirito ended up in the Underworld but I suppose a game world counts as another dimension so Aincrad was close enough but the Underworld being more of a living virtual reality is closer to the usual definition of an isekai. At any rate, DeMarco says he doesn't have a problem with isekai but he hasn't had the opportunity to air any other than SAO. Baring FUNimation, Crunchyroll and Sentai playing hard ball on those titles the lack of opportunity doesn't sound very convincing to me. If anything they weren't a high enough priority compared to other titles at the time. If they were going to play ReZero or KonoSuba they should have been doing so as soon as they were dubbed. At those times they had other shows they wanted to air. And history has shown us that they don't dig very far into the backlog for just anything. At least not since about halfway through 2016. For now we have a DBZ Kai marathon airing the week after SAO goes on break. At that point they will be just one episode behind FUNimation on MHA unless they dub more episodes by then (and lets be real, that's probably not happening). They're probably hoping that will buy them enough time to avoid putting MHA on a Toonami hiatus but chances are they will have no choice but to do that. Black Clover has three months worth of episodes, Shippuden is no issue, Demon Slayer finished dubbing and Food Wars has enough dubbed episodes to last till about November. A big question is JoJo. I have no idea how far into Golden Wind they have dubbed already. I'm hopeful that whatever was going to replace Demon Slayer will not be delayed but we have no idea which show that is. If the experts are right about the pandemic lasting 12-18 months, we have much bigger concerns than whether or not Toonami will have new shows. I dearly hope this situation doesn't last anywhere near that long but I expect it will take at least a few months in the US and only if people self-isolate like they should. Baring the acquisition budget having already been spent on shows they were expecting but can't air for the foreseeable future, they ought to be able to wrangle a few shows from their partners to fill some holes. More than likely they just need a bit more time to negotiate for some last minute replacements if the shows they were expecting cannot be delivered in the coming months.

How many times must it be said that original production budget is separate from acquisition budget? I think the lack KonoSuba hype from anyone at CR besides Miles has more to do with how little CR promoted anything until more recent years. They did not really hype ReZero either much less more obscure shows.

In that regard, Jason basically said they don't have the freedom to take whatever they want from the Crunchyroll library. In his words "if only it were that simple, summer child"

Definitely smells like a stalling tactic. SAO is taking a break after April 4th and they're probably hoping they don't have to delay MHA more than a week but we'll see how that goes. This may also be a test to see how Kai reruns do in the current situation. They might put it back on the regular line-up if they run into a major snag.

Best case scenario, FUNimation still dubs the last 5 episodes of MHA's current season fast enough that Toonami can finish out the season without breaking early. That seems like wishful thinking though. Worst case scenario, Toonami has to either rerun MHA a little before finishing the season or takes it off before finishing this season and leaves the remaining episodes for whenever it comes back for a 5th season. Honestly that might make the most sense even if it leaves the viewers on mid-arc cliffhanger. Even temporary reruns in the first slot tends to be terrible for the rest of the block. I really hope FUNimation doesn't insist they remain ahead by 3 weeks or something stupid like that because that would definitely screw Toonami unless FUNimation only delays by one week. It's pretty dang unlikely FUNimation will be able to get MHA's dub back to recording within a week. I would not be surprised at all if Toonami will have to abruptly pull MHA. FUNimation could very well put off dubbing episodes 84-88 for over a month and frankly they probably should. We have no idea how long this situation will last but it's entirely plausible that Black Clover's dub will take a production hiatus that is longer than a month. If it takes one for more than 3 months (and that's not out of the realm of possibility) then Toonami will actually run out of episodes to air. As for filling any potential holes to avoid losing more time. There are plenty of already dubbed shows they can potentially air in place of any simuldub they were intending to get. Food Wars, Shippuden and (probably) JoJo should be able to keep on truck'n. I firmly believe they will do everything they can to maintain 3 hours of premieres. Hopefully Crunchyroll, FUNimation, Viz Media, Sentai Filmworks or any other company will provide them with shows to air in place of whatever may have to be derailed. But that said, if they already spent some of their budget on the next planned seasons of Fire Force, Dr. Stone, Attack on Titan, etc. they may not be able to get something else to replace them. I don't think it will come to that but there's too many unknowns in this scenario. Regardless of what they do, we have to understand that this was an entirely unforeseeable situation. If that means Toonami has to air some reruns or lose another slot, it honestly should be the least of our worries.

I don't think he was shit talking his ThunderCats show so much as venting that "nobody cared" about it. Which is not true, plenty of people did care. That show got screwed by lack of toy sales and network schenanigans. Yes that was Larry Kenney as Lion-O and Jelenic was Snarf. Not sure why they didn't have Kenney reprise Snarf as well but maybe Jelenic wanted to do the voice. Kenney also voices Jaga in ThunderCats Roar.

Potentially but when someone voicing a simuldub gets sick they get an understudy and don't set the schedule back much. Toonami is far enough behind even MHA that if need be there's time to redub a character if they were out for a week or two. There's a possibility that enough people will get the virus that some dubs will have a delay of some sort or a studio like FUNimation may have to cease all recording briefly. Plenty of other potential production delays are probable, be it on the Japanese production side or the dub production and distribution side. There's at least a handful of shows that will not air in the Spring anime season. Other Spring, Summer and even Fall anime could have production issues if COVID-19 persists in Japan, Korea and China. For instance the upcoming seasons for Fire Force and Dr. Stone might have production issues this year. All that said, the simple solution is acquiring shows that are already dubbed. But if they intend to air the additional seasons of various shows in a timely manner they might end up needing a stop gap.

The situation could feasibly affect original production, especially if some of the animation was outsourced to other countries than Japan (China for instance). It could also affect the people working at Williams Street in Atlanta.

I did enjoy TMNT Team-Up. It was good nature ribbing of the 80s series and its characters. I just wish the voice cast was better.

Here's the clip and that last joke twists the knife just a bit more. This was from Teen Titan's Go as opposed to ThunderCats Roar. If you didn't know, Michael Jelenic who was the show runner for ThunderCats 2011 became the show runner for Teen Titans Go. So this TTG episode displays that the TTG writers have a better grasp of why people liked the old ThunderCats than the TC Roar writers do. What floors me about this episode of TTG is many of the jokes would only be caught by people who saw the behind the scenes video for ThunderCats Roar and volatile fan reaction to it. Also the TTG minus Starfire are mad that Roar isn't "cool" like the old cartoon. The TTG are angry that there is a comedic reboot of an action show. The irony there is certainly not lost on me. If this was an attempt to win people over, it totally backfired. As amusing as this meta commentary is to me, it only makes Roar look worse and is yet another example of the TTG writers mocking haters. TTG is pretty much the only kids cartoon that repeatedly responds to criticism. I usually find it funny but it tends to come off as petty and childish. They occasionally also points out that TTG is stupid but it doesn't really balance things out. And they dare use Larry Kenny's Lion-O to call out "poopy mouths with poopy opinions"? That's just shitty.

And just like that, Bob is back on Saturday, they add an American Dad and The Boondocks and Rick & Morty are gone from Saturday prime time. Next up, DBZ Kai returns for the whole 8PM hour.

I'm gonna guess the sudden removal of Bobs Burgers in favor of Rick & Morty and The Boondocks played a hand in MHA barely pulling in 0.2

Stardust was averaging around 600,000 for a decent chunk of its first half and gradually sank to around 400,000 by the time the battle of Egypt ended and that's only counting the live and same day ratings not DVR, on-demand, etc. I honestly don't think any one episode of Stardust will be streamed by more than 600,000 people on Netflix except maybe the first one. Relatively few anime that stream on Netflix break the 300,000 per episode threshold on any streaming service including Netflix. Series like MHA and Dragon Ball Super certainly did and the first season of Attack on Titan probably did (dunno about other seasons). That said, any show on Netflix that gets promoted on the front page should at least have the capacity to be noticed more than anything on Toonami that isn't MHA or Dragon Ball.

For one thing, Aiko the planet girl doesn’t show up until episode 3 out of 6. So no she’s not particularly well built up. That episode only shows she’s not the cutesy girl she pretended to be. When it is revealed she’s a countermeasure to Medical Mechanica it’s just like sure whatever. Progressive was full of memberberries and various moments that aped the original. That is a big criticism for the first episode in particular. And Kanti was there because… people like Kanti. Jinyu was indeed awesome and makes Prog worth existing if Hidomi’s story didn’t (but it did). Hidomi’s story about accepting change and finding a reason to live when she basically no longer wanted to exist was compelling enough. Haruko got just about as much focus though and her story was all about going after Atomsk again. Don’t get me started on that other faction that was trying to harness N.O. energy. Pets got an episode. It was heavily focused on her relationship with Kana though. As I said, it’s a bit subtle but you can notice Pet’s attitude and how Kana’s actions lead to their falling out. I felt Alt better fits the mold of playing around with the concepts in FLCL but being its own thing. It also offers a character who is largely the opposite of Naota. Jason doesn’t make the music, how many music producers and talent coordinators do you ever hear about? The ones you do were probably famous performers at some point. You apparently don’t even hear about Run the Jewels in your circle of podcasts and such, they’re not Beyonce or Drake popular but they’re not that obscure either. They give away a ton of music but I assure you music distribution makes AS money one way or another. And playing the music videos you destain can serve to bolster business relationships if nothing else. I doubt Toonami always made money. If I had to guess, it probably didn’t until at least mid 2013 if not 2014 when Titan hit or 2015 when DBZ Kai found its stride. Ratings and ad revenue probably piqued in 2015 unless comparatively Super improved upon that. He’s not introducing anime fans to anime they might not be aware of because it’s all hyped new shounen and sequels for the moment. However, Space Dandy, Parasyte, Dim W, Michiko & Hatchin, Casshern Sins, Deadman, Pop Team Epic, Megalobox and to a lesser extent KILL la KILL, Akame ga Kill, Food Wars, Dr. Stone, Fire Force and The Promised Neverland are fine examples of that (quality of two or three aside). But to his credit Pop Team, Megalobox and Neverland were timely pick-ups in the past two years that shows he’s still capable of finding gems. His more obscure show preferences tend to be 80s and 90s anime though. I would not call Utena and Magical Knight Rayearth mainstream though Utena is considered a seminal classic. Probably more often unable than unwilling. That’s business for you. Has anyone ever considered that a big reason why hit shows end up on Toonami has to do with the fact that distributors want those shows to air? Especially if the Japanese producers have a say (and they often seem to, at least for Jump shounen). When their library deal with FUNimation ended around probably 2016 with Champloo it became increasingly rare for them to air backlog shows from any distributor. The demand has shifted to “the new hotness” for better or worse. They realize they cannot get just any show so they are co-producing more unique anime to air the kinds of anime they want. That’s what’s on the horizon. It won’t be the only fresh content though. There’s 10 months left in this year and only one of those six productions will feasibly air this year. You can bitch about Soma and Naruto till the cows come home but they’re both earning their keep. Yeah the space is once again quite limited but Is it really in the network’s best interest to have premieres at 3:00 and 3:30? The rest of Adult Swim aside from the really really obscure stuff doesn’t premiere outside of the 9pm-1am time frame and most only premiere between 11pm and 1am. 2am hour premieres is an oddity that only Toonami maintains and 2am hour premieres are debatably a waste of resources. Even 3 hours of premieres was unthinkable for Adult Swim before Toonami hit its stride in 2013.

Looks like Kai is back at 8pm on Saturday on March 14th and MHA encores run at 8:30pm. Also Bobs Burgers is off Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday they replaced it with Rick & Morty and a 10pm airing of The Boondocks. One late night Boondocks on Saturday is replaced with Venture Bros. Nice to see The Boondocks in late prime time.

They probably can get away with the MA for that one episode. It was hardly necessary anyway. Maybe it could get a rerating.

They did want the original staff, particularly Tsurumaki the director but he told them to get new blood to come up with their own take on FLCL.

It wasn’t built up as well as it could have been but Kana had that fall out with Pets coming. Kana regularly meddled in her friends affairs for her own benefit and eventually they called her out on that. If you pay attention to Pets in every episode you can see the destain she has for Kana’s selfish behavior. It’s subtle and nuanced. I think Alternative is a much better written story even if they don’t stick the landing at the end. If you want to talk about things coming out of nowhere, plant girl mcguffin in Progressive takes the cake. Visually Progressive did some interesting things but the story was too beholden to the original and focused on Haruko’s obsession with Atomisk of all things. Jinyu depicting Haruko’s inner turmoil was a neat idea though and Hidomi’s story was fine, the rest was a mess or just memberberries. The interesting thing about Pro and Alt is people have differing opinions on which was better. I know two people who love FLCL to death and one liked Pro more and the other thinks Alt is as good as the original. Maybe they were more involved in IGPX scripts then, I don’t really know but I’m pretty sure they weren’t credited as episode writers. They definitely gave input on the story and characters regardless. You’re probably underselling what AS and DeMarco have accomplished in the music industry. What other TV network promotes more artists? Hell, what other music supplier spotlights so many new artists? You’re probably not well informed on that subject. That said, I would not say DeMarco in particular is as much of a taste maker as that article title implies. If you wanted Toonami back and you want it to stick around then you kind of are asking them to do it for no additional pay because that’s the only way it was going to happen. Now that choice helps keep costs down and ensures Toonami makes money for Adult Swim rather than just breaks even. It is their choice not to demand additional pay for working on Toonami but if they didn’t make that choice it would be harder to justify keeping Toonami around. It’s pretty dang likely that Toonami would not exist without DeMarco guiding it. I doubt anyone else at AS wants that responsibility. They could simply do things the ASA way again because that was even more affordable. FUNi has the biggest titles (DBZ, MHA, AoT, etc) but before Sony bought them they were no match for CR in sheer number of titles licensed every season. That’s changed though. CR still co-produces the most anime though. Basic bitch shounen gets views. That’s probably the biggest difference maker between ASA and Toonami aside from having a recognizable brand. ASA was content to only air only 2-3 basic bitch shounen most of the time while Toonami airs significantly more all of the time. I think AgK was trash as well but it certainly did well. But what exactly do you even want them to air that would feasibly do well?