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Having just 8 premieres would kill Toonami for you? It’s not like we used to only have 6 or even less. You guys might be thinking two reruns early in the year is disturbingly similar to 2018 when we had to wait till May for the first new show of the year but at that point we only had 7 premieres and two slots were Dragon Ball and FLCL1 reruns were in the middle. I’m sure there will be two new shows replacing Fire Force and Dr. Stone. We won’t have to wait half a year for the next premiere.

They’ll probably rerun OPM season 2 but it doesn’t have to be immediately after it ends. It could replace TPN for instance. I won’t rule out the possibility that they won’t have another show ready by the 3rd week of January but they probably will have one. If not, Fire Force ends very soon after and Dr. Stone also ends early in 2020. So it would not be horrendous if they got down to 8 premieres. They should probably just drop a slot instead of adding a third rerun though.

I'm all good with a rerun replacing Lupin. 9 premieres is plenty. The Promised Neverland is a good show to replay. Moving up Dr. Stone is fine but it seems a shame to leave Demon Slayer so late. I guess it does fine where it is and they don't want to shake things up too much. I'm guessing whatever is replacing One-Punch Man was deemed unsuitable for 11:30PM so they moved Dr. Stone up, either that or they just wanted to move Dr. Stone up regardless.

They tried to get Yuri on Ice...

Which part is that?

Here’s a question. Would you give up 2 hours of Toonami a week if it meant they never took a week off?

And by comparison, AS shoves less ads down our throats compared to many. It’s not gonna get better though.

Adult Swim tends to run shows that are 23 mins or less per half hour. Many anime run 24-25 mins in length. They run anime with shortened OPs and EDs so they can have at least 6 minutes of ad space per half hour not counting their own bumpers and promos. One major change from when AS was airing full OPs and only trimming EDs was ASA had minimal packaging. Toonami bumpers take up about 40 seconds per half hour so even with trimmed OPs and EDs a 22:30 episode of Fire Force fills 23:10 give or take and longer shows with Toonami bumps can end up being 24 mins or a bit longer. Shippuden runs short due to having no opening on Toonami so that’s usually where the occasional music video will air. So I ask you, would you prefer anime to usually have full OPs at the cost of any kind of Toonami packaging with TOM and Sara? Because that’s probably the only feasible trade-off due to the run time. Aside from pulling an Ani-Monday and cutting episode content instead of the OPs. And if you think that’s bowing down to commercial overlords, the average 60 minute basic cable show runs 41-43 mins. That’s 17-19 mins of commercials. It used to be 44-45 mins and once was even 50 mins. Ad space became much more important over the years. So the AS average of only 14-16 mins of commercials per hour is notably less intrusive, especially because they only do 1 break in the middle of a show and 1 break between shows as opposed to 3-4 breaks.

It sucks for Toonami but these companies with their own streaming platforms probably should be offering the best shows they have exclusively to their paying subscribers for at least a week or two. If Toonami wants to circumvent that they have to make it the deal worth while. Before they could guarantee greater exposure by simply airing shows but now they can't really make that claim despite how many homes have Cartoon Network still. I don't think the lack of FUNimation simuldubs was entirely due to FUNimation taking some balls and going home though. Toonami's strategy in 2016, 2017 and especially 2018 was largely to depend on proven franchises. There were probably a lot of shows that FUNimation pitched to Toonami that ultimately were passed over for Hunter x Hunter, Gundam: IBO, One-Punch Man, JoJo, more DBZ Kai, Dragon Ball Super, Gundam Unicorn, a new season of Samurai Jack,Tokyo Ghoul, Lupin the 3rd, an fresh run of Outlaw Star, more Attack on Titan, My Hero Academia, sequels to FLCL, Boruto, Mob Psycho 100, more SAO, etc. Come 2019 they seemed a bit more willing to try untested properties like The Promised Neverland, Food Wars, Fire Force and Dr. Stone. Dimension W was the last time they dared to pick up a show around the time it started airing in Japan. FUNimation probably wanted Fire Force to be as visible as possible but Toonami was committing to a show that had only just started airing in Japan. I think someone making decisions finally realized that it was important to get shows while they are still hot. Not everyone will wait. At this point I'm feeling like a sucker for not watching Mob Psycho 100 season 2 yet but I hope my patience will be rewarded soon.

I’m just a repair man. You let me in.

There’s kind of no telling what Toonami will pick up in early 2020. There aren’t exactly any obvious picks in the upcoming Winter season. I strongly suspect Mob will replace Saitama but as for the rest of the shows, there’s really no telling what they will air. Boruto could be back sooner than later. SAO Alicization season 2 is taking a break and finishing in Spring. They may run the first half in February or wait until they’ll be able to air the whole season without a break. I have no idea when Neverland’s second season will air but it doesn’t seem to be Winter. Its rather exciting to not have many obvious choices. Toonami could try some interesting things.

Is your house appropriately both mouth burning hot in some parts and also ice cold in other parts?

We all basically do that with some shows currently airing on Toonami. Personally there are some shows I don’t mind waiting to watch (Dr. Stone, Fire Force, OPM S2, JoJo, Demon Slayer, Food Wars, Lupin) and some shows I like being up to date on whenever possible (MHA and SAO currently). I waited for the dubs of OPM, DS, JoJo and Lupin and did not keep up with the subs so that they’d be new to me on Toonami. Fire Force is close enough and not a must watch so I can wait. I just haven’t been diligent with Dr. Stone lately so now Toonami is almost up to where I left off. But I will admit I have considered finishing the second season of OPM subbed but I’d still rather watch the dub.

Expected /10

People are more likely to travel for big holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving. It’s not that people don’t watch TV during those holidays but many are less likely to be able to maintain their regular viewing habits while traveling. They’re also more likely to watch event programming, especially holiday centered specials and sports. So networks don’t tend to air their regular programming on the weekends surrounding major holidays. When you go on a trip, are you always able to watch Adult Swim where ever you go? Hell, with all the cord cutting going on folks are much more likely to visit a relative who does not have access to Adult Swim live or on-demand. And if you’re on a trip and having a good time doing something out of the ordinary on Saturday night, will you really make sure to watch Toonami? On convention weekends and family trips, I generally don’t. I’m too busy to stay up late watching Toonami and too busy to watch it on-demand until I get home. Same goes for watching streaming shows even if I have my phone and access to the internet. I’m not forgoing a rare opportunity to watch my regular anime. So I honestly appreciate a week off from Toonami in those instances.

A little too accurate

Yeah I was surprised to find that Kono Oto Tomare (a Saturday show) and Africa Salaryman (a Sunday show) didn't upload new dubbed episodes on Thanksgiving weekend but it makes sense. They get MHA episodes early but if there's a week off in Japan, they'll have to take a week off as well. That has already happened once and could happen in late December.

There's still hope for the 4th Plate 😰

So both the 4th of July and Halloween are on a Saturday next year. You can bet that both will be marathon nights. We’re probably looking at 5 to 7 weeks off in 2020 because of that. While part of me believes that people will do that, if we look at the performance of Dr. Stone which is a good month or so behind the dub stream, it does not seem to be hurting it significantly. It doesn’t lose to Fire Force which is only a week behind and it holds the dub premieres of OPM just fine. Then there’s Food Wars which is years behind the streams that are widely available, and it’s doing as well as dub premieres. Maybe some really popular shows would do better if they weren’t behind streams but it honestly doesn’t seem to matter as much as we thought. Not every potential viewer cares to pay for FUNimation on top of every other streaming service they may have.

I mean don't even joke. If they actually tried to air a DBS marathon for four hours every Saturday for a year, it would probably do better than a regular lineup of Toonami. It could go either way with the marathons next year. I had hoped that they have seen enough evidence this year that reinforces that holiday weekends aren't necessarily bad for ratings. Preferably they don't have 7 in 2020 but I doubt there will be less than 6.

We still post podcasts 2-3 times a month. Go to the Sound Cloud. Yes I'm plugging my Sound Cloud 😁

It almost feels like nothing's changed at all...

Interestingly enough they seem to be uploading DBZ Kai episodes as if it was still airing. They have added episodes 53, 54, 55 and 56 over the past four weeks and I don't suspect they will be stopping any time soon. I kind of wondered if their Kai license was only renewed for the first 52 episode season but it seems they at least renewed the first 98 episodes. It will be a good long while before we may know if they have renewed the Final Chapters though it wasn't that long ago that some Final Chapters episodes were still streaming. DB is entirely off the schedule for now but it may very well return to weeknights whenever Adult Swim gets 8pm back. That would be the best way to make use of 131 episodes of Super and 167 episodes of DBZ Kai. And if it doesn't return to weekdays then I would definitely expect it to return to Saturday prime time.

Amazon is just annoying because they get some of the best anime every season and most don’t get a physical release much less a dub. They do simulcasts, which is nice compared to Netflix, but the drawbacks are greater.