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I just realized I didn't talk about the "why" Well Jason says it's ratings and some other factors he can't get into. It's very likely that while the ratings One Piece has gotten might be okay for a short lived series that gets cycled out, it's not pulling a high enough number for something that has been airing for four years, nearly 200 episodes and has no end in sight. We can't even pretend that One Piece ever did particularly great and at 2:30AM it has continued to maintain the sizeable gap between it and Naruto. It wasn't going to grow an audience at 2:30 in the dang morning but it had to at least maintain the one it had and signs pointed toward it not managing even that. To say nothing of the retention from Naruto, it is one of the only shows on Toonami in the past 2 years to have been outrated by the shows after it more than a couple of times. Reruns of AoT, KLK and OPM all beat it more than once as I recall. Parasyte probably never did but it was a nicher show than the other three. That just plain doesn't look good when you're arguing to keep a never-ending show on TV late at night. I'm figuring Adult Swim allowed Toonami to pick up Thriller Bark thinking maybe a shorter arc than Water 7 could produce better results but things stayed largely the same and Toonami was allowed to grab more long running series and no doubt that was expensive. When the time came to decide whether or not to renew One Piece again for Sabody, they saw little reason to continue One Piece and opportunity to switch it out for shows that might do better. At the very least they could put Shippuden at 2:30 and probably get better ratings than One Piece would. Adult Swim for the most part had a lot of patience with One Piece and even tried it outside of Toonami briefly but it didn't ever take off for them and Toonami can't entirely be a vanity project that doesn't bring in ratings. The probationary period at 2:30AM didn't change One Piece's behavior so it was finally time to cut it loose. Either that or Toei wanted more money for a show at 2:30AM or had some other demands and Adult Swim was not gonna indulge them. Toei has been known to muck up many a deal in any number of ways and usually by looking for more money.

I'm gonna miss One Piece. It always lifted the block for me. Regardless of anything else they were airing, because they had One Piece I was content. Now I've got JoJo and Hunter x Hunter so I have some other horses in this race but I will still miss watching One Piece on Toonami. I guess it wasn't a mistake to recently plow through Amazon Lily and Impel Down. I was saving most of Sabody for Toonami but so much for that. This is the nicest place they could potentially stop One Piece. The whole crew has been assembled and their off on their next adventure. If they dropped it within the next 130 episodes it would be far worse. Especially if they pulled it directly after the end of Sabody. That would be devastating and no One Piece fan deserves to have that happen to them. I feel for the people who don't have adequate internet who were only following One Piece via Toonami. Now they'll have to buy the DVDs (because BDs don't exist) to continue it or pay whatever it would take to get a good enough internet connection to watch it on FUNimation's site. Sad to say I don't think that many people will have that dilemma but some will. It is very apparent that most of the people who watch One Piece watch it subbed. The majority of the fandom does not bother watching the dub at all much less once a week on Toonami. Close to 4 years is a hell of a run. That's longer than One Piece and Naruto lasted on CN. Get it straight: Case Closed is a failure here. Shin Chan is a failure here. SGT Frog is a failure here. Toriko is a failure here. One Piece is not a failure here. One Piece sells here just not to as wide an audience as Naruto and some other anime/manga.

I have arrived. I see Roman was Roman. That doesn't really work when he admitted to us that he's been trolling. If he's being at all legit this time, I feel his pain. Maybe I feel more than his pain. The status of One Piece in America has brought me emotional turmoil several times. The day 4kids announced the license I failed the final of my Logic class because I my mind was reeling over that. The day the 4Kids dub premiered and all of my fears were realized, I cried to my friend over the phone. When CN announced One Piece for Toonami I didn't even know what to feel at the time and watching the 4Kids dub air on the block was dreadful. When Cartoon Network pulled the show off the air after we finally got a good dub I was devastated because that could have been the end for One Piece here entirely and we had no way of knowing if it would live on. This time there's really no reason to be worried about One Piece because it sells well and streams well. None the less this weekend the knowledge that One Piece was leaving the air for a third time hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm not going to blow it out of proportion but it hurts me to see this happen again and I do expect it to come back again. It's nonsense to even suggest One Piece is a failure here. It's the #3 anime on Hulu behind only Shippuden and Bleach and #2 on Crunchyroll. Considering Shippuden is #1 and it's also barely getting by at 2AM on Toonami the ratings of either of those shows does not prove one a hit and the other a failure. The gap is that wide but there is a gap and no matter what Toonami tried (everything short of I dunno swapping it so One Piece got to air ahead of Naruto for once) did not work. One Piece just doesn't appeal to the dude bro audience of Adult Swim and any good will built up for the brand was destroyed by starting with Foxy and filler, it did nothing to prove One Piece had a serious bone in its body. It's a show that was originally intended for children and it shows but unlike with Dragon Ball Super and Shippuden, there is no deeply routed nostalgia. You can thank Toei and 4Kids bonehead decisions for that. They tried to market a hack dub in an age when any kid in the US could see what they were missing by reading Shonen Jump magazine or going online to watch fansubs or read up on what was cut from One Piece. Kids in 1998 didn't know DBZ and Sailor Moon were heavily censored and didn't really care. Had One Piece arrived in 2001 with a hack dub it probably also would have hit big but by 2004 those kinds of changes were only going to get a show ostracized. For the record I blame Toei and 4Kids almost equally for how One Piece was butchered. Compared to the handling of Naruto by Viz it was night and day. No wonder kids and teenagers turned their attention to Naruto and left One Piece behind. FUNimation's dub was too little, too late but CN was going to kill off even Naruto regardless of performance so I think One Piece was actually holding its own on CN in 2007 and 2008. So seriously, Jman stop calling One Piece a failure in the US. It certainly isn't that. Not being as popular as Dragon Ball and Naruto =/= being a failure. The sales and streams are great. FUNimation has been selling this show here for nearly a decade and Viz has been selling the manga here for even longer than that and the sales have increased rather than decreased. One Piece is good business for FUNimation and Viz Media here and that is the measure of success not how well it does once a week on the anime ghetto that is Toonami. And Roman if you're reading this. You have my condolences but get some real help.

I don't think they will ever let that happen. Either they'll take off the 8pm airing, re-air the previous week's episode at 8pm or manage to air the 11:30 airing on holiday weekends even if 12AM-3:30AM get preempted.

The whole series is on Hulu. Because of that they can only do linear streams on AdultSwim.com rather than make individual episodes available on-demand.

You really don't have to defend One Piece to Jman. He's clearly not gonna budge. The best way to tell him his opinion on the matter means nothing is to simply not indulge him. Now was someone joking about Red Turtle airing?

Baring an immediate rerun, Titan season 2 might end before FLCL 2 starts.

For one thing all of those franchises except HxH have new content still being produced. This Toonami certainly is late to the party on pretty much all of them though. I don't disagree they should get fresh content and in turn not rely so heavily on long standing franchises. However, I personally consider everything on Toonami except Shippuden to be quality anime that are worth airing. I'm all for Mob Psycho 100, Lupin Part 4, Blood Blockade Battlefront and other new to newish series getting a shot. Re: Zero seems like an easy mark based on how popular it is but I've yet to watch it and have nothing further to say on that topic. They probably should have aired Psycho-Pass when it was relevant and likewise Tokyo Ghoul but I don't particularly like that series so I'm completely good with them passing on it. They probably missed the boat early on by not airing Future Diary when it was hot and they could feasibly still play that, Madoka, Psycho-Pass and other shows around that old but the ones that were already popular likely wont be big draws. If they're gonna air older shows they should find a series that didn't get much exposure like Michiko and Hatchin.

That would be a serious exaggeration. Action cartoons are not thriving on those on-demand platforms. Voltron is the only real success story there besides maybe Troll Hunters (not sure on that one yet). In general children's content is struggling to find footing on Netflix. All that can be really said there is streaming hasn't abandoned action animation for children so far (neither has DXD) but they're not going out of their way to get many of them made. They just end up grabbing existing kids action shows that nobody else wanted. Things like the frog show that wants to be Avatar and the newest CGI King Kong cartoon sure aren't Voltron league. I definitely appreciate that streaming services are giving various kids action shows a venue but they're really not taking off to any significant degree. They're just being allowed to exist which is more than Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network will offer them.

LMAO Haven't you heard Zeni? The current generation of kids don't watch action cartoons. They're not even watching the 8pm airing of Super.

GATE and Overlord... popular? Future Diary is old news now man. We can talk Re: Zero whenever that gets dubbed.

The majority of the people who tune in for Toonami aren't the dedicated audience. The dedicated audience makes up maybe 1/3rd to a half of the audience the later the night gets. Toonami doesn't exist in a bubble. The casual audience is easily affected by how well comedy does in the hours leading up to Toonami and the casual audience is the difference between the 12:30 show getting 0.4 18-49 and 0.5 18-49. The further it is away from Family Guy the harder it is for the 12:30 show to do better than a 0.4 18-49. And if Family Guy can only manage 0.6 18-49 that night then even a Dragon Ball series probably wont get 0.6 following it but DBs retention following Family Guy is some of the best of any show airing on Adult Swim. Relative to the rest of cable, Toonami is doing well but cable is waaaay down from last year and Adult Swim in particular is between 15 and 19 percent down from last year despite remaining the top rated network with 18-49 in total day ratings.

ADULT SWIM 5D SATURDAYS (under 2009 general promos), a rare time when comedy and action were promoted together

Starting One Piece from the beginning can be pretty fun. There's some dry spots but it gets good faster than the other two IMO. Eventually you'll find that continuing One Piece feels like a slog even when you marathon it and will probably want to switch to the manga. Only watch certain fights of Naruto Shippuden in anime form. For the story read the manga. HxH starts slow, slower than I thought at first but it it get tremendously good and is the best adaptation of the three overall. IMO HxH is better as anime while One Piece and especially Shippuden are better as manga.

I honestly don't think I could even commit to watching Toonami on weeknights as much as I'd like to see that.

Well since this is the general thread... Allow me to resume 11PM HYPE What once seemed nearly impossible is actually happening. HOLY SHIT SON IT'S HAPPENING

I subbed in Fairy Tail instead of Shippuden one week. I might do that again.

I really doubt the 8PM Super is causing much damage. Unless Super dropped big time from Family Guy this week, there's no good reason to be concerned about a negative impact from the 8pm premieres. I will say though after a month I expected more from a power hour of Dragon Ball but it really just shows how far cable has fallen from the days when Family Guy would regularly break 2 million viewers. If this is the new norm, I guess it is what it is.

I sure hope Goku vs. Beerus round one brings in some ratings and the rest of a honestly largely action light Toonami will manage to hold onto those viewers.

Oh Ben, I guess you're just gonna have to keep trying to hurt Hunter x Hunter's feelings because it is here for at least two more years.

Well buckle up boys and girls, Toonami's heading into the great unknown of 11PM! Samurai Jack will lead the charge followed by Dragon Ball Super. And Ghost in the Shell (which returns this week) will be broadcast in HD. They're finally putting the 2004 tapes to rest.

Well since you're so convinced NOTHING HAS HAPPENED you'll be fine to pick up the show again in 3 weeks. You must at least be curious why so many people like the show and why it still regularly floats around the top 10 most popular shows on Crunchyroll despite it finishing in September of 2014. Just as I was curious why people still liked Fairy Tail, Bleach and Naruto Shippuden. Did you ever even watch Yu Yu Hakusho?

We'll see if I agree with all that whenever I get to those points but for now I'm keeping an open mind.

I've started Fairy Tail over for a group watch. I made it past the point I initially got bored of it and now I will honestly say, it's pretty entertaining once you get past Lullaby and Galuna Island. I've laughed, I've teared up and have largely enjoyed the ride. There's decent world building as well. It's innofensive and not frustrating to watch. I can see why it has a broad appeal. So I'm not going to trash it but I'd still rather not have it on Toonami unless it replaced Shippuden which is far more of a chore to sit through to get to the occasional good moment. On the other hand, someone who accepts the writing of SAO has no business insulting Togashi's writing.

That whole tirade was so overly dramatic Ben. Especially the part about you never forgiving the show for wasting your time. Insulting Togashi so much is quite uncalled for though. All I can say is this, I thoroughly enjoyed this series from York New until the end (that's about 108 episodes, we are a 3 episodes away from that arc) I won't say the arcs so far were never a slog. It does take its sweet time to ramp up. I expected Heaven's Arena to be better in this adaptation but it felt needlessly dragged out as well. By comparison the Hunter exam arc was a arguably more enjoyable. York New brings Kurapika to center stage and the violence kicks up several notches.