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Blue Exorcist at 11:30? April fools was yesterday AL. It might air the week after Titan's season finale but I'd sooner expect it to replace Tokyo Ghoul.

There was also the business attire image.

I'm figuring 11:30 for AoT and the DB hour will move to 12-1am. That would make for an easier transition to having AoT at 11pm after Jack ends.

So Ben, how did you like this week's Showdown?

Yes PV is short for preview.

Waiting till after Memorial Day to start season 2 of AoT means being close to half a season behind Japan, that rather defeats the point of going to the effort of dubbing the show using broadcast masters. Adding weeks off for marathons and they'll get even more behind. Given that I'll make two bold predictions. Either they start AoT on April 29th and potentially do not give the 11pm hour a week off for most of the usual holidays (meaning no preempting Super those weeks either) or they start AoT on May 20th and do not preempt the 11pm hour on holidays until AoT ends.

Most things not called One-Punch Man lose about that many 18-49 viewers from DBZ. JoJo did not start that trend though it has arguably seen the worst drops from DBZ yet on prior weeks. It's an acquired taste. The old anime style visuals, over the top narration and accents and the overall bizarreness just don't appeal to a lot of the general audience. Add to that people could have seen the dub already and plenty of people are waiting for Stardust Crusaders to air as opposed two the first two arcs.

Hasn't the encore of Super retained Family Guy and Jack about as well as DBZ Kai retained Family Guy by percentage? I'm not convinced the 8pm airing is holding the 11:30 Super back from greater success. We all know starting Toonami earlier poses a risk of lower ratings and that's compounded by cable viewership declining. Jack's doing great so far. Hopefully everything else improves with the upcoming schedule shift but this week is already a nice improvement over the last one.

At this point, I figure it's mostly nostalgia for people who grew up watching the original Naruto series. Honestly I still think the original Naruto anime before 136 is holds up rather well. It has some painfully childish antics from time to time and young Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura are more insufferable than their Shppuden counterparts but it's a pretty well constructed story that builds and interesting world and a lore and goes places at a reasonable pace. It's a pretty solid adaptation of a decent manga up to that point but Shippuden's long stretches of filler and slower pacing for canon in the first 70 or so episodes instantly killed my enthusiasm. People are invested enough to overlook Shippuden's downsides (excessive filler, obnoxious moody characters, how useless Sakura is). US TV viewers never got invested in One Piece to that degree because the dub was hot garbage for 104 episodes and then not long after Cartoon Network dumped all non-toyetic anime. One Piece fans and anyone who could stand watching subs watched it subbed and have continued to do so. A lot of people ditched Naruto dubs once it was taken off Cartoon Network if not before that but enough the general audience still like watching Naruto dubbed while considerably less viewers took a liking to One Piece. I figure a large percentage of the Adult Swim viewership rejected One Piece because it wasn't drawn like Bleach or Naruto Shippuden and I'm sure the Foxy arc and the filler right after it did not help make a good first impression. They saw it as the same goofy show that 4Kids dubbed in 2004. The Adult Swim viewers they did enjoy One Piece probably switched to watching it on Hulu at some point so they could watch the series at their own pace. For others, the episode count was simply too much to bother with. Naruto was only entirely off the air about one year IIRC and Dragon Ball was only off the air for about two years and got a HUGE push when it returned and didn't leave the air again since. Meanwhile One Piece was off for about 5 years and in that time people simply moved on to watching it however they prefer and had little reason to go back to watching it once a week on Toonami.

Putting Gundam Unicorn after Family Guy or Samurai Jack rather than having a Dragon Ball series there is asking for it to tank tremendously. I imagine Toonami is putting Gundam Unicorn at 2AM because it's time on Toonami will be short-lived anyway so no need to bury HxH even later just to finish Unicorn at 1:30AM.

They tried to get Sailor Moon Crystal. They have said they were outbid.

Seems the grids have been updated. Hunter x Hunter stays at 1:30AM, Gundam moves to 2AM. That's more like it.

Considering JoJo got the kind of ratings One Piece used to get at 2:30AM and Gundam got the kind of ratings One Piece has gotten lately, here's hoping it was an unusually bad night.

I realize the fact that One Piece has nearly 800 episodes plays well into it's favor with rankings but if people were not watching it then it wouldn't still be the 3rd highest viewed anime on Hulu right? It would only rank well for all time rankings rather than maintain it's position as the 3rd most watched anime on Hulu any given day. Look how far Attack on Titan has dropped since 2013. It should be noted DBZ isn't on Hulu anymore but when it was somewhere behind OG Naruto and or Yu-Gi-Oh for the most part and didn't come close to touching Bleach and One Piece much less Shippuden.

How popular people wanted One Piece to be is irrelevant but it's very popular for an anime. Let's observe Hulu's rankings for every show on the service. It's the 3rd most viewed anime regardless if it's ranked by today, this week, this month and all time. All-Time is the easiest to manage I would think but the fact that One Piece is still in the top 75 programs to this day and among the top 30 of all time speaks volumes doesn't it? Look at it's anime competition for comparison. Many shows that have come and gone on Toonami or been requested for the block. Others that are as close to household names as anime get here. How can anyone look at this and deny One Piece is heavily watched in America. TODAY Naruto Shippuden #27 Bleach #55 One Piece #69 Naruto #101 Yu-Gi-Oh #109 Fairy Tail #121 FMA Brotherhood #146 InuYasha #168 Gundam 00 #189 (recently added) Pokemon #224 Gundam Wing #233 Yu-Gi-Oh GX #241 One-Punch Man #249 Sailor Moon #253 Tokyo Ghoul #279 Dragon Ball #280 High School DxD #288 Sword Art Online #312 Assassination Classroom #313 Ghost in the Shell: SAC #316 Hunter x Hunter #323 Log Horizon #339 Kenichi #348 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure #377 Blue Exorcist Kyoto Arc #380 Hitman Reborn #381 Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds #385 Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orpahns #394 My Hero Academia #395 Blue Exorcist #396 Death Note #406 Ranma 1/2 #409 Samurai Champloo #419 Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan #421 Fruits Basket #425 Cowboy Bebop #429 Sonic X #430 Attack on Titan #433 Sailor Moon Crystla #436 Ouran High School Host Club #438 Crayon Shin Chan #444 Food Wars #449 Initial D #462 Seraph of the End #466 Gundam SEED #467 Trigun #483 Sword Art Online II #488 Noragami #497 Gundam: O8th MS Team #499 InuYasha: The Final Act #500 D.Gray-Man #503 Yu-Gi-Oh ZeXal #505 Digimon #517 Akame ga Kill #522 Dragon Ball GT #524 Toriko #528 Parasyte #533 Haikyuu!! #542 Black Lagoon #544 Is it Wrong to Pick up Girls in a Dungeon #546 Rock Lee and His Ninja Pals #550 THIS WEEK Naruto Shippuden #24 Bleach #63 One Piece #74 Yu-Gi-Oh #113 Naruto #119 Fairy Tail #127 FMA Brotherhood #152 InuYasha #172 Gundam 00 #189 Pokemon #223 Gundam Wing #231 Yu-Gi-Oh GX #247 One-Punch Man #256 Sailor Moon #263 Dragon Ball #280 Tokyo Ghoul #287 High School DxD #293 Sword Art Online #316 Assassination Classroom #318 Ghost in the Shell: SAC #326 Hunter x Hunter #328 Log Horizon #333 Kenichi #346 Blue Exorcist Kyoto Arc #351 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure #380 Hitman Reborn #381 Blue Exorcist #391 Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds #393 Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans #400 My Hero Academia #408 Death Note #416 Sonic X #422 Ranma 1/2 #425 Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan #429 Fruits Basket #430 Attack on Titan #433 Samurai Champloo #439 Sailor Moon Crystal #445 Cowboy Bebop #446 Crayon Shin Chan #448 Ouran High School Host Club #449 Food Wars #463 Seraph of the End #475 Initial D #490 Gundam: 08th MS Team #497 Trigun #500 InuYasha: The Final Act #503 Sword Art Online II #504 Gundam SEED #505 Yu-Gi-Oh! ZeXal #516 Noragami #521 Akame ga Kill #525 D.Gray-Man #531 Digimon #544 Toriko #546 Parasyte #548 Dragon Ball GT #550 THIS MONTH Naruto Shippuden #22 Bleach #59 One Piece #63 Yu-Gi-Oh #98 Naruto #110 Fairy Tail #131 FMA Brotherhood #145 InuYasha #191 Pokemon #132 Gundam 00 #146 Yu-Gi-Oh GX #154 One-Punch Man #181 Sailor Moon #191 Gundam Wing #195 Tokyo Ghoul #198 Dragon Ball #205 High School DxD #215 Assassination Classroom #253 Sword Art Online #254 Log Horizon #255 Kenichi #270 Ghost in the Shell: SAC #272 Blue Exorcist Kyoto Arc #288 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure #302 Hunter x Hunter #304 Hitman Reborn #312 Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds #316 Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans #321 Blue Exorcist #325 Death Note #333 Sonic X #339 Ranma 1/2 #342 Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan #352 Attack on Titan #355 Fruits Basket #358 Cowboy Bebop #361 Samurai Champloo #365 Food Wars #368 Sailor Moon Crystal #373 My Hero Academia #376 Ouran High School Host Club #380 Crayon Shin Chan #385 Initial D #400 Serpah of the End #413 Trigun #414 InuYasha: The Final Act #422 Sword Art Online II #431 Akame ga Kill #433 Noragami #434 D.Gray-Man #442 Yu-Gi-Oh ZeXal #449 Digimon #452 Toriko #453 Dragon Ball GT #455 Gundam: O8th MS Team #456 Parasyte #460 Rock Lee and His Ninja Pals #470 Black Lagoon #474 Haikyu!! #475 Is it Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? #493 Gundam SEED #494 K #496 Kamisama Kiss #505 Soul Eater #508 Claymore #518 Zatch Bell #519 Blood Lad #520 GATE #530 Digimon Tamers #531 Maid Sama #532 Kimi ni Todoke #536 The Irregular at Magic High School #550 ALL TIME Naruto Shippuden #6 Bleach #25 One Piece #27 Naruto #41 Yu-Gi-Oh #51 Fairy Tail #60 InuYasha #113 Pokemon #124 Yu-Gi-Oh GX #129 One-Punch Man #191 FMA Brotherhood #198 Tokyo Ghoul #208 Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds #210 Sailor Moon #214 Dragon Ball #218 Sword Art Online #225 Death Note #237 Attack on Titan #249 Hitman Reborn #254 Soul Eater #260 Sonic X #279 Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan #286 Assassination Classroom #303 Sword Art Online II #305 Fruits Basket #331 Yu-Gi-Oh ZeXal #333 Kenichi #335 Blue Exorcist #337 InuYasha: The Final Act #338 High School DxD #341 Toriko #344 Rurouni Kenshin/Samurai X #355 Sailor Moon Crystal #366 Crayon Shin Chan #370 Log Horizon #411 Vampire Knight #421 D.Gray-Man #433 Ouran High School Host Club #435 Digimon #437 K #439 Guilty Crown #449 Parasyte #463 Seraph of the End #467 Akame ga Kill #470 Pokemon: Origins #478 Kamisama Kiss #479 Rock Lee and His Ninja Pals #511 Ranma 1/2 #516 Trigun #520 Future Diary #527 Samurai Champloo #534 Cowboy Bebop #545 Infinite Stratos #547 Initial D #550

Naruto speaking to Gon: "Is this your first day at 2AM? Welcome to Hell." This deal just keeps getting worse and worse. I saw this coming but I wanted to believe they wouldn't hose Hunter in less than a year. If this was inevitable why did they even bother picking up Hunter? How can a dub premiere of a 148 episode series succeed at 2AM much less behind a niche show like Gundam? Ugh... People will say "you should just be happy that it's airing at all" and I am happy about that but I'm not the least bit happy that within less than a year of it starting they have already buried it to a slot it will only escape via completion, moving to 2:30 or getting pulled of the air. The only chance it has of airing earlier is if the whole block shifts earlier. What a crock of shit for Hunter x Hunter. At least JoJo doesn't move. That either says it's actually doing well enough or they just plan on replacing within about a month when it's season ends. Might be a combination of the two.

Oh yay...

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.