Adult Swim-Con: Toonami Edition and Secret Anime Short Discussion!!

[Jman]

Toonami, for years and years (and Adult Swim Action by extension) ran on one guiding principle.  “We are the only game in town.”  And when that was no longer the case, the problems began in force.

These are unprecedented circumstances.  But Toonami is responding with actions that the viewers no longer accept.

[CountFrylock]

1 minute ago, Jman said:

Toonami, for years and years (and Adult Swim Action by extension) ran on one guiding principle.  “We are the only game in town.”  And when that was no longer the case, the problems began in force.

These are unprecedented circumstances.  But Toonami is responding with actions that the viewers no longer accept.

I See some online who do accept those actions and take it to mean "Covid-19 has just been hard on toonami and they have to be more patient"

Honestly jason Demarco has handled this very poorly and continues to handle it poorly

i just can't understand why anyone would defend him anymore

they should understand toonami can't just rely on reruns for the rest of the year

[Blatch]

Well, looks like we have an answer as to next weekend: JoJo's is coming back. Assuming it was settled by yesterday night, I don't know why they didn't announce it as part of the con. But there you go.

[Jman]

Well that’s a positive.  Shame they’re still stuck with Ballmasterz. 

[AnimationFan14]

This is a nice slice of good breaking news. I guess it was a day late of getting finalized which is why it wasn’t mentioned at all last night?

[CountFrylock]

ya know what's odd

last night during toonami

i posted "Save Us Giorno" on the toonami sub-reddit

[The1gairon]

48 minutes ago, Blatch said:

Well, looks like we have an answer as to next weekend: JoJo's is coming back. Assuming it was settled by yesterday night, I don't know why they didn't announce it as part of the con. But there you go.

Yep. Started a new thread on this.

[Top Gun]

2 hours ago, Jman said:

Well that’s a positive.  Shame they’re still stuck with Ballmasterz. 

Ballmastrz was FAR better than either Black Clover or Shippuden last night.  Mutant Totoros riding Akira cycles followed by a straight-up Spirited Away falling scene, and the second episode was one big Vampire Hunter D homage.  And the main character transforms into Mazinger Z every episode.  Give me more please.

[PokeNirvash]

I missed the Biker Totoros - though I did catch Baby Ball getting mobbed by kittens - but judging from having watched it in fast-forward, I'd say Ballmastrz is picking up. I'll probably wait to watch it until I can handle the first couple of episodes without wanting to scream at half the cast for being annoying, especially since I have three other [as] originals on my personal watching queue.

[EmpressAngel]

The fact that all their announcements were for next year is pretty good confirmation that, barring some major unforseen catastrophe that hits Toonami without affecting AS as a whole, they're already fully greenlit for operations next year regardless of how the rest of 2020 goes. They probably weren't able to announce anything big for the rest of the year because with the pandemic interrupting production on so many series, the plans they already had laid out are now uncertain and contracts can take months to renegotiate. There's probably several dozen emails in the Toonami inbox that look like this:

"Okay, you can't guarantee us New Show #1 anymore. Can we have a discount on Slightly Older Show #2, and Beloved Classic Anime #3 instead?"
"No, we can't do that. We can give you Slightly Older Show #2 for $$$$, and Bullshit Nobody Wanted #4 for $."
"We don't want Bullshit Nobody Wanted #4, what about Average Thing #5 for $$?"
"We will consider your offer and get back to you by next Friday."
"We will accept $$$$$ for Slightly Older Show #2 and Average Thing #5. Here are the terms for reruns, length of ownership and airing dates."
"Hold on, there's an issue with the airing dates. We won't have space available until a month after that, can we change that and update the terms?"
And so on probably right up until the show airs.

Edited July 26, 2020 by EmpressAngel

[The1gairon]

7 hours ago, EmpressAngel said:

The fact that all their announcements were for next year is pretty good confirmation that, barring some major unforseen catastrophe that hits Toonami without affecting AS as a whole, they're already fully greenlit for operations next year regardless of how the rest of 2020 goes. They probably weren't able to announce anything big for the rest of the year because with the pandemic interrupting production on so many series, the plans they already had laid out are now uncertain and contracts can take months to renegotiate. There's probably several dozen emails in the Toonami inbox that look like this:

"Okay, you can't guarantee us New Show #1 anymore. Can we have a discount on Slightly Older Show #2, and Beloved Classic Anime #3 instead?"
"No, we can't do that. We can give you Slightly Older Show #2 for $$$$, and Bullshit Nobody Wanted #4 for $."
"We don't want Bullshit Nobody Wanted #4, what about Average Thing #5 for $$?"
"We will consider your offer and get back to you by next Friday."
"We will accept $$$$$ for Slightly Older Show #2 and Average Thing #5. Here are the terms for reruns, length of ownership and airing dates."
"Hold on, there's an issue with the airing dates. We won't have space available until a month after that, can we change that and update the terms?"
And so on probably right up until the show airs.

Man can we just fast-forward all Life to 2021 please? Unless the country turns into Mad Max by then. Then don't!

[Blatch]

While I agree that we can almost write off the rest of 2020 at this point, it's worth noting that even if Toonami has a lot of things planned for next year, they're not going to take up a lot of time. Uzumaki is a four-episode miniseries, Blade Runner will be 13 episodes, and that Pirate Princess show is only a single cour. If they air consecutively, that's only a little over half a year's worth of content for a single slot. Economic conditions will likely be better by then so they can pick up other new shows, but considering how slim the pickings were before things got bad, can we really expect them to fill up the rest of the three hours or so with enough fresh content? People love to drag DeMarco and friends for relying on too much long-running shonen and prolific franchises (Gundam, et al.) since 2016, but with the current situation in mind, it makes that island of stability look much more appealing.

Basically, if we're going to have people complain about either a glut of formulaic shows or... nothing at all, I'd happily take the former, because at least we'd have something interesting to talk and make jokes about. But the industry has changed, and it's gotten to the point where I share some of CountFrylock's fears about endless reruns. Heck, after the lack of a show replacement on Saturday night, I really was afraid they'd try to sic Bebop or FLCL on us!

[CountFrylock]

3 hours ago, Blatch said:

While I agree that we can almost write off the rest of 2020 at this point, it's worth noting that even if Toonami has a lot of things planned for next year, they're not going to take up a lot of time. Uzumaki is a four-episode miniseries, Blade Runner will be 13 episodes, and that Pirate Princess show is only a single cour. If they air consecutively, that's only a little over half a year's worth of content for a single slot. Economic conditions will likely be better by then so they can pick up other new shows, but considering how slim the pickings were before things got bad, can we really expect them to fill up the rest of the three hours or so with enough fresh content? People love to drag DeMarco and friends for relying on too much long-running shonen and prolific franchises (Gundam, et al.) since 2016, but with the current situation in mind, it makes that island of stability look much more appealing.

Basically, if we're going to have people complain about either a glut of formulaic shows or... nothing at all, I'd happily take the former, because at least we'd have something interesting to talk and make jokes about. But the industry has changed, and it's gotten to the point where I share some of CountFrylock's fears about endless reruns. Heck, after the lack of a show replacement on Saturday night, I really was afraid they'd try to sic Bebop or FLCL on us!

i think they are saving one of those to fill in for black clover once it runs out of dubbed episodes soon

funimation just can't dub episodes fast enough to keep themselves ahead of toonami and it's also why something like fire force S2 looks very unlikely this year

 

[OwlChemist81]

Fire Force Season 2 is now coming October 24th. That's this year. How's that egg on your face taste?

Though granted, between Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas/New Years, it's coming out in a wasteland of potential marathon interruptions that will probably result in only 6-7 episodes premiering before the end of the year, but still...

Edited July 28, 2020 by OwlChemist81

[ben0119]

On 7/26/2020 at 3:14 AM, Daos said:

I thought you said FUTA Pirate Princess. Would watch.

Gross, dude.

[ben0119]

On 7/26/2020 at 9:41 AM, Jman said:

That is a very good question, but it is specifically highlighted by the problem that DeMarco ain’t got no damn money.

It’s telling everything announced tonight is a Crunchyroll co-production of sorts.  If something happens to Toonami, Crunchyroll can pick up the ball fairly easily.

It's pretty telling that if Demarco (or anyone for that matter,) can't be relied on now, when can he be?  If he doesn't get his shit together soon, it's not going to inspire confidence in his bosses.  I hate to lose Toonami, Tom, Sara, etc, but if Crunchyroll can put together a better block...

Also, Toonami could still continue under Crunchyroll leadership and co-branding, with Demarco and co.'s influence and power diminished, if not outright symbolic (think Gene Roddenberry "executive consultant",) or kicked out entirely, and I don't think anyone would be crying too much about it.

[ben0119]

On 7/26/2020 at 1:56 PM, Top Gun said:

Ballmastrz was FAR better than either Black Clover or Shippuden last night.  Mutant Totoros riding Akira cycles followed by a straight-up Spirited Away falling scene, and the second episode was one big Vampire Hunter D homage.  And the main character transforms into Mazinger Z every episode.  Give me more please.

I think you have to be on speed or meth to enjoy Ballmastrz.  It's way, way too fast and frenetic, and totally nonsensical on top of that.  Other Adult Swim shows were dumb or nonsensical, but they didn't go a mile a minute.  You had time to appreciate and understand the stupid and funny.  Also this show and the characters can be annoying as fuck, and the hyperactivity of it doesn't help that.  So really all those anime references don't mean that much to me, given all that.  Most of the time I find myself just looking at the forums or doing something else and the show is lucky it stays on as background noise.

Edited August 2, 2020 by ben0119

[ben0119]

On 7/27/2020 at 10:01 AM, Blatch said:

While I agree that we can almost write off the rest of 2020 at this point, it's worth noting that even if Toonami has a lot of things planned for next year, they're not going to take up a lot of time. Uzumaki is a four-episode miniseries, Blade Runner will be 13 episodes, and that Pirate Princess show is only a single cour. If they air consecutively, that's only a little over half a year's worth of content for a single slot. Economic conditions will likely be better by then so they can pick up other new shows, but considering how slim the pickings were before things got bad, can we really expect them to fill up the rest of the three hours or so with enough fresh content? People love to drag DeMarco and friends for relying on too much long-running shonen and prolific franchises (Gundam, et al.) since 2016, but with the current situation in mind, it makes that island of stability look much more appealing.

Basically, if we're going to have people complain about either a glut of formulaic shows or... nothing at all, I'd happily take the former, because at least we'd have something interesting to talk and make jokes about. But the industry has changed, and it's gotten to the point where I share some of CountFrylock's fears about endless reruns. Heck, after the lack of a show replacement on Saturday night, I really was afraid they'd try to sic Bebop or FLCL on us!

Yeah I didn't think any of that stuff would be that long.  They are still going to have to get some other new shows.

Yeah I would prefer shonens and popular, potentially formulaic shows over nothing, but Demarco can't even do that anymore!  And it can't all be blamed on covid since shows were ending without replacements since well before then, then Demarco rolled out his "well we always preferred a shorter block anyways!" excuse again.  Yeah, because things being downsized and taken away is always something people love, right?  And it's always a good sign.  Now covid hits and it's even worse.  This pandemic is a proving time for everyone.  And Demarco is proving more than ever that he can't cut the mustard anymore.

I don't think Bebop and Fooly Cooly airings will happen just yet, but things are still looking dire.

JoJo coming back and the Fire Force announcement are great news, but I hope there is more than that.  There's also the factor of people having lowered their expectations so much, it makes them accept more bad news and crap more easily, and get really happy about the good news.  I am really happy about both shows coming back, but there has to be more than that.

I also really don't want Black Clover to go on hiatus, since it is one of my favorite shows and one of the shows I look forward to the most each week.  It's also been a constant and stalwart on the block for so long.  It's going to feel even worse if even Black Clover, after airing nonstop for all this time, can't survive without a hiatus.  I also don't want Demarco to use it as an excuse to get rid of it and not bring it back.  Though I sure as hell won't stop watching it if that ends up being the case.

[Daos]

I still find it hard to believe that there is no company out there that wants any of their old anime from 10 years ago shown on Toonami.

Not one company thinks one of their old anime could benefit from exposure on Toonami? And there wouldn't even be work involved, you just send Demarco the DVD and say "Here play this."

[Jman]

28 minutes ago, Daos said:

I still find it hard to believe that there is no company out there that wants any of their old anime from 10 years ago shown on Toonami.

Not one company thinks one of their old anime could benefit from exposure on Toonami? And there wouldn't even be work involved, you just send Demarco the DVD and say "Here play this."

The bigger question is if the companies are interested in promoting older material, as opposed to wanting newer materials to stand out and do better.  

There are companies dedicated to older materials airing (Namely RetroCrush) but there’s only so many hours and so little money. Most of those distributors want their new stuff to be advertised.

[Sketch]

1 hour ago, Daos said:

I still find it hard to believe that there is no company out there that wants any of their old anime from 10 years ago shown on Toonami.

Not one company thinks one of their old anime could benefit from exposure on Toonami? And there wouldn't even be work involved, you just send Demarco the DVD and say "Here play this."

Even if those companies did want their 2010 shows on Toonami, they probably have minimum expectations to meet for the Japanese production committee (let’s use JPC for short) to be satisfied. And streaming services bid higher than Toonami is willing to for most series. Streaming is where the money is now and JPC really only ever push for bread and butter shounen and toyetic anime to get a TV broadcast these days. DeMarco and Manning had to negotiate directly with TMS and Sunrise for Lupin and Gundam respectively.

I’m not so sure anime streamers necessarily even have the TV rights to several of their catalog titles. FUNimation and Viz probably do but I don’t know about Sentai. Sentai doesn’t even have the streaming rights to some anime they sub-license. Discotek and RightStuf usually don’t buy the TV rights and often don’t even maintain the streaming rights to the shows they publish here.
 

CR is possibly the biggest question. I’m inclined to think they usually don’t obtain the TV rights and even when they do have them, I would bet they have to answer to the JPC regarding any TV deals. I even suspect CR isn’t free to do whatever the CR co-pros because they are only part of the production committee and not the sole owner.

Basically, due to business bullshit it’s going to be rare for anyone to give Toonami a sweet deal on any anime, even 10+ year old obscure ones. But I also doubt that DeMarco, Austin and Manning usually dig deep when they have an opening to fill. So there are probably still plenty of budget friendly anime that they haven’t looked into. And they probably are of the mindset that newer shows will do better more often than not.

I would argue less visible shows that have been buried in the sea of anime from 5-10 years ago could potentially do better than a popular show that recently streamed dubbed. It certainly worked for Michiko & Hatchin in 2015 though much has changed in 5 years. If a dub exists in it’s entirety on Netflix, Hulu or a dedicated anime service then you can’t really expect people to have much desire to watch that same show at the pace of one episode a week. That’s why dub premieres are crucial for Toonami and not being a whole season behind a simuldub is preferable as well. Toonami can still shed some light on more obscure anime though and I think they should.

[Jman]

I’m not sure about the feasibility of airing older material.  There’s a lot of issues there, be it easier to show the material in bulk via a channel dedicated to them, (RetroCrush) or as padding to deals for streamers.  I’m not sure if older material can be bought in to air to sweeten the pot when said companies would rather hold off in the name of bigger fees.  Most of these companies don’t need Toonami these days anyway, so Toonami, and its lack of money, need to make themselves attractive.

A lot of what DeMarco says points to this wistfulness for the old days of media.  It’s echoed as well by certain podcasts.  “Streaming is bad!  KIds need to be reminded of the hunt in video stores so they can appreciate media!  Having too many options makes you ungrateful!”

Yeah, that’s a steaming pile of horseshit.  The democratization of media to people who otherwised lacked the time and inclination to invest in it, let alone the cash and patience to hunt through a Blockbuster for a thimbleful of curated anime releases (Blockbuster’s death in the face of streaming is a good thing, make no mistake) has fucked over DeMarco and Toonami, but has added immeasurable value to the medium.  Granted, there are new challenges to deal with (The second wave of internet Puritanism) but having this material available to more people past cliched titles is ultimately a positive.  DeMarco is no longer the tastemaker, or the curator for what is or isn’t anime for all but the most hardcore weebs.  And Toonami cannot run on being that anymore.  If there’s a way to make the older material more valuable for the block, he should look into it.  I’m just not sure there is.

[PokeNirvash]

The solution is simple: directly license long-forgotten '90s anime on the cheap side, dub them in-house at Williams Street, and claim that you're doing it to celebrate Sealab 2021.

[CountFrylock]

On 8/2/2020 at 9:18 AM, ben0119 said:

I think you have to be on speed or meth to enjoy Ballmastrz.  It's way, way too fast and frenetic, and totally nonsensical on top of that.  Other Adult Swim shows were dumb or nonsensical, but they didn't go a mile a minute.  You had time to appreciate and understand the stupid and funny.  Also this show and the characters can be annoying as fuck, and the hyperactivity of it doesn't help that.  So really all those anime references don't mean that much to me, given all that.  Most of the time I find myself just looking at the forums or doing something else and the show is lucky it stays on as background noise.

I'll Never be okay with them using ballmasterz as filler on the block

[Daos]

You really think they couldn't get something no one has heard of before like ... say..... Codebreaker if they made an effort?

 

[CountFrylock]

effort's not the problem it's cost and how things always seem to be so last minute now

 

[ben0119]

On 8/3/2020 at 5:38 PM, Jman said:

I’m not sure about the feasibility of airing older material.  There’s a lot of issues there, be it easier to show the material in bulk via a channel dedicated to them, (RetroCrush) or as padding to deals for streamers.  I’m not sure if older material can be bought in to air to sweeten the pot when said companies would rather hold off in the name of bigger fees.  Most of these companies don’t need Toonami these days anyway, so Toonami, and its lack of money, need to make themselves attractive.

A lot of what DeMarco says points to this wistfulness for the old days of media.  It’s echoed as well by certain podcasts.  “Streaming is bad!  KIds need to be reminded of the hunt in video stores so they can appreciate media!  Having too many options makes you ungrateful!”

Yeah, that’s a steaming pile of horseshit.  The democratization of media to people who otherwised lacked the time and inclination to invest in it, let alone the cash and patience to hunt through a Blockbuster for a thimbleful of curated anime releases (Blockbuster’s death in the face of streaming is a good thing, make no mistake) has fucked over DeMarco and Toonami, but has added immeasurable value to the medium.  Granted, there are new challenges to deal with (The second wave of internet Puritanism) but having this material available to more people past cliched titles is ultimately a positive.  DeMarco is no longer the tastemaker, or the curator for what is or isn’t anime for all but the most hardcore weebs.  And Toonami cannot run on being that anymore.  If there’s a way to make the older material more valuable for the block, he should look into it.  I’m just not sure there is.

I agree with most of what you said, but there were some perks to the old ways of finding and watching movies and TV shows.  It was a whole experience going to the video store to pick something out.  You would also be more likely to find out about something new you ordinarily wouldn't watch, than today.  Nowadays people pick out what they want to watch and watch it, or stay pretty well in the lane of stuff they already like.  In the video store, you had shelves upon shelves of movies right in front of your face, walls even.  A much larger field of view than any screen and you saw more at once than you would on a streaming menu.  Would I have found out about the Jack Frost horror movie if I didn't see it on a video store shelf and pick it up, enticed by the holographic cover of a killer snowman?  On TV a similar sort of thing can happen.  You may stumble onto something you wouldn't ordinarily find out about or watch, just by surfing through channels, looking at the TV Guide channel when that came out and later the DVR channel guides, or something that would come on before or after something you were already watching.  You would really open your horizons in these ways.

On the other hand there are other things that were not so great.  Having to pay each time to watch something, whether it was renting or buying, the lesser video and audio quality of VHS and the TVs back then, movies being cropped for home viewing, and you rarely had a big enough TV to make you want to watch the letterbox version (a cool scene of the T-Rex in Jurassic Park briefly standing up on its haunches in the old scientifically inaccurate upright stance in the distance after it gives up the chase of the jeep, a nice touch, is cut off the side of the screen, and I swear the scene of Ellie picking up a prehistoric leaf and talking about it is gone from the home VHS release,) VHS tapes degrading over time, the joys of tracking to clean up the picture on a degrading one, of course after a while they became unwatchable, tapes getting randomly eaten by VCRs, having to clean VCR heads, movies being edited on TV for content (Pacino in Scarface calling someone a "COCK-A-ROACH!" ) and time (whenever Creepshow aired on TV they cut the final cockroach story entirely, and I swear I didn't pick these two examples on purpose.)  Of course the movies were almost always cropped when shown on TV. 

I tell you, I don't miss the days of having to pay 20 dollars or whatever it was for 4 episodes a tape of DBZ, from Suncoast.  Streaming is a much better deal.  And if I could afford to buy shows again they would be cheaper too!  Unless I buy from Aniplex.  Anything else anime related you had to go to the mall, shirts etc.  Of course, everything at the mall was more expensive, even if it could be a fun experience, and then anime and merch for it was more expensive on top of the "mall upcharge," due to being a specialty item.  I don't remember there being a huge section at the video store either.  I do believe I rented the Vampire Hunter D movies, the Armitage movies, Ghost in the Shell, and Broly, off the top of my head.  I think I made copies of some of them. Later I found out you could rent some anime for free from the library!  I watched Metropolis that way.  No idea if they still do that.  Late fees were annoying.  Funny enough, Blockbuster got rid of them to entice people back, but it only hastened their demise, without all the money they made from late fees!

It does make me wonder what the anime industry and fandom in the U.S. would look like now, if say, TV and format quality increased, but streaming didn't take off like it did and Blockbuster and Hollywood (I preferred them, and Game Crazy, didn't deserve to down with them,) were still king, and anime was as popular as it now.  Would it be on TV a lot more?  Though maybe anime wouldn't even have grown in popularity like it did without streaming.  I don't know why but for some reason anime being on TV less makes it feel less mainstream.  But then I see anime among the top shows watched on Hulu and then I see Seven Deadly Sins is one of the top ten watched shows on Netflix this week (Demarco shakes fist.)  I guess it is all perception.

[ben0119]

On 8/5/2020 at 9:48 PM, CountFrylock said:

effort's not the problem it's cost and how things always seem to be so last minute now

 

Naw Demarco can be pretty low effort too, except when he decides to be fucking Nobel prize winning peace envoy to get fucking Gundam back.  But for anything the fans might actually want to watch it is a crap shoot of how much effort he will give, and he definitely won't try as hard, if at all, if he personally doesn't like the show as much.

[ben0119]

On 8/5/2020 at 8:22 PM, Daos said:

You really think they couldn't get something no one has heard of before like ... say..... Codebreaker if they made an effort?

 

LOL this guy put the whole show up and even left their logo up and Funi don't even care?