The curious case of Toonami's dub premieres

[OwlChemist81]

At the start of June, Toonami had a 10-show lineup and featured a whopping 7 dub premieres: Dragon Ball Super; Attack On Titan (Season 3 Part 2); The Promised Neverland; Sword Art Online: Alicization; JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (Part 4); Boruto; AND Hunter x Hunter. Now, 3 months later, all of those shows have ended except Dragon Ball Super and Boruto, and only one has been replaced by a dub premiere: JoJo by Lupin III Part 5. All the others have been replaced either by shows that have been out for a while such as Food Wars! or Gundam: The Origin (in its OVA format), or shows from 2019 that have been streaming for a while such as gen:LOCK, Dr. Stone, and Fire Force. The end result is a lineup with plenty of variety that is only slightly fresher than the one it gradually replaced (before, there were 4 shows from 2019 and now there are still 4), but is still hamstrung slightly by the fact that none of the 2019 shows are actually dub premieres.

But looking back to Toonami's heyday on [as] in 2015, 3 dub premieres, which is what we have right now, is all we got ALL YEAR. Sword Art Online II, Akame ga KILL!!, Parasyte -the maxim-, and...yeah, that's it! The next year, 2016, was just as dismal variety-wise but really brought the dub premieres by comparison to 2015. During the year, Dimension W; Hunter x Hunter; Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans; One-Punch Man, and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure had all joined the lineup. Of course, 2017 also brought it with Dragon Ball Super, Dragon Ball Z Kai: The Final Chapters; and soon the World Premiere of Samurai Jack Season 5. Other dub premieres that would come later in the year included Attack On Titan Season 2; JoJo Part 3; Lupin III Part 4; and Gundam IBO Season 2--but over the year, ratings decreased sharply. All 3 years also included a Total Immersion Event: Intruder II; Intruder III; and Countdown, respectively.

Despite 2018 boasting more episodes of World Premieres since 2014's Space Dandy with the FLCL sequel and prequel, as well as a pretty steady stream of dub premieres, including another season each of AOT and JoJo and the premiere of Boruto, ratings continued to decline. Now in 2019, we're looking at the first year without a World Premiere since 2016, unless you count The Forge TIE, but perhaps more dub premieres than any other year Toonami has been in existence on [as] so far! So far this year, there have been a total of 9 shows with episodes in dub premieres airing on the block (all mentioned above in the first paragraph, plus Megalobox)! However, now Toonami's game is shifting slightly as it begins to rely more on shows with fresher animation than ever before, and less on dubs that have never aired before on TV though the animation has been streaming for much longer. It remains to be seen if this gambit will pay off, but it's clearly sort of a temporary situation, with at least one more dub premiere known to be coming to the block before the end of the year in Demon Slayer, and others may be coming as well to bump that number of currently airing dub premieres up slightly. And the World Premieres will return in 2020 with Uzumaki already on the horizon.

Edited September 2, 2019 by OwlChemist81

[The1gairon]

I should be happy they're getting more short-form series after we all complained that they have too many long-runners but that comes with a ton of schedule changes almost every other week. This focus shift is very interesting, and may all be coincidental.

[Blatch]

So what if Toonami lacks dub premieres? This is the most I've been interested in the block in a while... and granted, that's not a high bar to clear, but the fact that I'm intentionally seeking out stuff like gen:LOCK and Lupin even though they're not new raises an important point. Additionally, the freshness of the animation matters no more than dub premieres, as the best shows often look timeless.

[The1gairon]

38 minutes ago, Blatch said:

So what if Toonami lacks dub premieres? This is the most I've been interested in the block in a while... and granted, that's not a high bar to clear, but the fact that I'm intentionally seeking out stuff like gen:LOCK and Lupin even though they're not new raises an important point. Additionally, the freshness of the animation matters no more than dub premieres, as the best shows often look timeless.

2019 has been STELLAR for Toonami. They got a ton of hot, trendy anime, some of which are dub premieres.

[OwlChemist81]

5 hours ago, elfie said:

2019 has been STELLAR for Toonami. They got a ton of hot, trendy anime, some of which are dub premieres.

Oh yeah, without a doubt it's been stellar! Hell, I'd dare to say it's almost TOO good. Quality premiere shows are getting stuck at 3 AM and beyond for the first time since 2014, despite the fact the block gets an earlier extra hour that it didn't have in 2014!

[brianycpht]

I think it’s going to be a matter of knowing about certain shows and making deals before Funimation announces a streaming date. They also can’t keep up with FN if they have a day and date release with the sub because delays will happen. I don’t like though when Funimation forces us to stay behind, but that’s the best we can do to get their shows

Edited September 3, 2019 by brianycpht

[Sketch]

The lesson that HxH and JoJo may have taught us is being a dub premiere doesn't mean much when the episodes simulcast in Japanese years ago. Boruto is kind of proving that as well but less so than those two did. Food Wars is a curious situation because it's been dubbed for years now but it's doing pretty well for itself despite that. So clearly being a fresh dub isn't everything.

Toonami has traded in having more dub premieres for having new dubs that are just weeks behind the Japanese airing and the English simuldub.

As people grow more and more accustomed to subbed anime, waiting for dubs will make less and less sense. So unless that show is dubbed pronto, more and more viewers will just watch the simulcasts subbed to stay up to date and take part in the conversation. While dub premieres are great for us dedicated viewers who might have the patience to wait for dubs, they're not that attractive to viewers who could just watch the subs. And the viewers who benefit the most from this change in direction are those who don't have reliable internet connections that would allow them to watch the simuldub streams of shows like Dr. Stone and Fire Force and not have to wait a year or later to finally watch those.

Theoretically the combination of fast dub and hype action show should work well for Toonami and hopefully it does in Demon Slayer's case but being a dub premiere didn't convince people to watch The Promised Neverland, Lupin Part 5 and some other shows that were not loaded with action. So being a good fit with the audience matters more than whether or not the dub is available elsewhere because as I mentioned earlier, people will watch the sub. Lots of people won't even wait 1 week for a dub if the sub is available sooner.

So the winning combination likely includes some dub premieres that aren't airing long after they ran in Japan and some lightly used dubs of shows that are popular in the current season, if they appeal to the audience. World premieres factor in there somewhere because it gives people the most reason to tune in but the shows have to appeal to the audience enough that they will bother to tune in. If they don't care enough to watch the night they air or they don't care to watch them at all then an exclusive world premiere isn't accomplishing much. Uzumaki is way outside Toonami's regular box but who knows, maybe it can attract new viewers. Good luck keeping those viewers if it's literally the only thing in the same tone on the block though.

[OwlChemist81]

Bumping this because with Yasha-Hime coming, Toonami now finds itself in an interesting situation: the block is officially without dub premieres. It's not the first time this has happened, as it also occurred last year, in June and July, as Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind was forced into a 2-month hiatus. When it came back in August, the block was consistently with one dub premiere for almost 11 months: first the conclusion of JoJo; then SAOAWOU2; and finally TPN season 2. However, that isn't the case with Yasha-hime, so despite the block arguably being much fresher than the pandemic-induced summer doldrums of last year, it is indeed once again without a dub premiere.

But I don't believe it will last that long this time, as we've got not just dub premieres coming, but WORLD premieres, in Fena and Blade Runner! So, despite no longer having dub premieres for now, the 2nd half of the year looks quite bright for Toonami!

Edited June 23, 2021 by OwlChemist81

[The1gairon]

1 hour ago, OwlChemist81 said:

Bumping this because with Yasha-Hime coming, Toonami now finds itself in an interesting situation: the block is officially without dub premieres. It's not the first time this has happened, as it also occurred last year, in June and July, as Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind was forced into a 2-month hiatus. When it came back in August, the block was consistently with one dub premiere for almost 11 months: first the conclusion of JoJo; then SAOAWOU2; and finally TPN season 2. However, that isn't the case with Yasha-hime, so despite the block arguably being much fresher than the pandemic-induced summer doldrums of last year, it is indeed once again without a dub premiere.

But I don't believe it will last that long this time, as we've got not just dub premieres coming, but WORLD premieres, in Fena and Blade Runner! So, despite no longer having dub premieres for now, the 2nd half of the year looks quite bright for Toonami!

Where can one watch the dub of YashaHime?

Also ...... holy shit you're right.

[Sketch]

13 hours ago, elfie said:

Where can one watch the dub of YashaHime?

Also ...... holy shit you're right.

FUNimation, Crunchyroll and Hulu all have the dub and sub I believe. The dub started about two months into the Japanese broadcast.

[OwlChemist81]

On 6/23/2021 at 1:02 PM, elfie said:

Where can one watch the dub of YashaHime?

Also ...... holy shit you're right.

Actually, I was just a little off. TPN did indeed follow SAO, but there was a nearly 2-month gap between them! AOT held down the dub premiere fort in the meantime, and in fact in parts of January, February, April, and May, the block actually hosted TWO dub premieres during AOTFS1's run!