toonami DC's Injustice, Ballmastrz: Rubicon, and DC's Justice League vs. The Fatal 5 coming to Toonami in February!

[OwlChemist81]

So, with Yashahime Second Act ending this Saturday night...

...and Made In Abyss Season 2 ending the following week, Toonami's gotta have some new blood joining the lineup soon--or does it? Speculate away here!

[Jman]

Obligatory -

 

[OwlChemist81]

25 minutes ago, Jman said:

Obligatory -

 

No, that's not it. But I DO feel either we get an hour-long show (Pantheon, Tenchi Muyo: War on Geminar, or perhaps Sentai provides Broken Blade?) or a half-hour show with doubled-up One Piece. Two half-hour shows is unlikely.

[Jman]

Well this just came over the wire -

 

[OwlChemist81]

That's cool, but unfortunately it's not coming to Toonami anytime soon.

[Toonamiguy321]

I can’t even make a guess honestly. A week ago, I probably would have put my chips on Witch from Mercury, but as we know now, that’s not gonna happen. 
 

I will bet that at best, we are only getting one new show. The other slot will be given back to One Piece. 
 

Just to leave a shot in the dark here, Dragon Quest The Adventures of Dai. That seems like something that would pull Demarco’s attention. 

[PokeNirvash]

Either Bleach or Kaiji, and to second @Toonamiguy321, the return of the second One Piece.

Originally had Gundam, but...

...doesn't look it.

Edited February 1, 2023 by PokeNirvash

[OwlChemist81]

57 minutes ago, PokeNirvash said:

Either Bleach or Kaiji, and to second @Toonamiguy321, the return of the second One Piece.

Originally had Gundam, but...

...doesn't look it.

Yeah, at least not in February. Shame too, would have been GREAT to cross-promote with Battlebots!

[Sketch]

One slot goes to Urusei Yatsura, hopefully as dub premieres from Sentai

The other slot goes to one of the following:

Lupin Zero, which can then be replaced by FLCL Grunge in six weeks

FLCL Grunge (with not nearly enough promotion time)

A yet to be announced dub premiere of Giant Beasts of Ars from Sentai (it's a co-pro so they probably want to push it)

Akiba Maid War or another recently dubbed show from Sentai but there's literally no telling what Sentai titles they're looking at

Food Wars Fifth Plate because CR might cave on that if nothing else

Bleach, because if they can get it now they probably will even if it makes more sense to wait till closer to Spring so they can continue into the 2nd cour

One Piece gets doubled up again because something didn't pan out or alternatively both slots get occupied by extra Naruto and One Piece for a week or so because nothing ever seems to go smoothly these days... but honestly I think they do have 2 shows coming this month it would just be foolish at this point to rule out another sudden drought

 

[Blatch]

My gut is saying Akiba Maid War, even though I want to doubt that because it feels like a lot of Sentai simulcasts have been floated for Toonami over the last few years, and none of 'em have panned out. Hell, remember when people thought The Executioner and Her Way of Life had a shot?

The other slot will probably go to the second episode of One Piece, unless CR wants to play hardball with that one. I'm expecting the big guns (i.e. Bleach, FLCL sequels) to come out later in the year.

[Sketch]

CR has no say with One Piece’s distribution but Toei is unpredictable at best.

[Jman]

4 minutes ago, Sketch said:

CR has no say with One Piece’s distribution but Toei is unpredictable at best.

A lot of this I would gather depends on when LA One Piece is set to debut, and if they have any hope of it not being a one season wonder.  Does the anime’s presence promote or inhibit the show?  As much as we all hate the idea of it existing, I gather their attempt to make OP Game of Thrones will be their top priority.

[Toonamiguy321]

3 hours ago, Jman said:

A lot of this I would gather depends on when LA One Piece is set to debut, and if they have any hope of it not being a one season wonder.  Does the anime’s presence promote or inhibit the show?  As much as we all hate the idea of it existing, I gather their attempt to make OP Game of Thrones will be their top priority.

I highly doubt a dead of Saturday night run of 10+ year old episodes of One Piece will have any effect at all on the audience for the Netflix adaptation. I figure there are two audience brackets for the Netflix version. 
 

1. People with very little knowledge of the source material. These are the people they will loop in with advertising. And almost all people in this group probably don’t even know Toonami exists. I’d also say most people in this category don’t even have cable.

2. People well versed in the source material who are going to hate watch. People in this category are either keeping up with the subbed release of the anime, or are keeping up with the manga release. Maybe some of them watch Toonami for the novelty, but Toonami isn’t selling them anything they aren’t already well versed in. 
 

I have no clue what caused them to cut OP down to one episode. Perhaps it was never the plan to leave it doubled up and they simply didn’t have enough episodes last year to keep that up. Or maybe the speculation that Toei just wanted it on the block to promote Film Red held some truth. Maybe Toei doesn’t think Toonami is doing enough for it to succeed. Whatever the case, one of the last reasons I could see it leaving is due to the Netflix adaptation. It’s a total non factor for that project. 

[atomicinumatt]

On 2/1/2023 at 11:24 AM, OwlChemist81 said:

So, with Yashahime Second Act ending this Saturday night...

..and Made In Abyss Season 2 ending the following week, Toonami's gotta have some new blood joining the lineup soon--or does it? Speculate away here!

Hm

Since the slots are opening so soon, and given that they have not advertised anything to my knowing, I will assume that nothing new is going to replace MiA and Yashahime in the near future. So probably reruns. More OP or Naruto? Or maybe reruns of something else. 

In terms of what new stuff to expect later down the line, there is what we already know is coming, plus maybe getting some more Sentai stuff. And maybe a slim chance of something that CR is willing to kick down to us. I do not have much of an inclination though. And who knows, [as]/Toonami have been known to drop things on little news so maybe we will get something new right off the bat after both finales. 

In general, if we are most likely to get more Sentai content, then I would love to see something like Call of the Night. Urusei Yatsura is awesome too and I would love to see it on the Block. But those are just my hopes and not necessarily expectations. 

Just my thoughts. 

Edited February 2, 2023 by atomicinumatt

[OwlChemist81]

Who saw specials coming?

 

[atomicinumatt]

25 minutes ago, OwlChemist81 said:

Who saw specials coming?

 

Well there ya go. 

I cannot say I am excited about this but I will look forward to it either way! 

[Toonamiguy321]

24 minutes ago, OwlChemist81 said:

Who saw specials coming?

I did not. However, technically these are not proper replacements, and more just one night covers, so the question of what replaces Yashahime and MiA still stands.

With this new information in mind, I’m ready to revise my speculation. I now believe that FLCL Grunge is a strong possibility in March. Maki was tweeting about it a few days ago, but they didn’t come off as “2 more weeks” types of tweets. They do however, feel like a month from now tweets. I recall other discussion that the dubbing process was under way. So I’m gonna say Grunge at 12:30 in March. Prior FLCL seasons did not lead the block, and given the rocky road the other originals had, I’m gonna say they keep MHA at midnight just to give the block a fighting chance. 
 

As for the other slot, given the fact that they are stalling as early as February, I’m gonna stand by them having nothing else and it just going back to One Piece.  

 

[Jman]

Raiding the DC chest!  It’s a move I’m surprised Toonami didn’t do more before, and stunned they can do it with Zaslav selling the rights to animation off to Amazon.  
 

That said, Fatal Five is really good (and might as well be a DCAU movie) but Injustice is crap.  Then again, if they were going to animate an Injustice comic, I was hoping it would be Injustice vs Masters of the Universe.

[Sketch]

I’m sure DeMarco has wanted to use DC films to patch holes as often as possible. I think this is just the first time WBD is willing to throw them a bone without something to promote. Nice to see WBD coming in clutch rather than Toonami having no options but doubling up One Piece and Naruto. Granted they can simply do that in March if nothing can be acquired before then.

Yeah FLCL Grunge in March seems like a safe bet.

[CountFrylock]

13 minutes ago, Sketch said:

I’m sure DeMarco has wanted to use DC films to patch holes as often as possible. I think this is just the first time WBD is willing to throw them a bone without something to promote. Nice to see WBD coming in clutch rather than Toonami having no options but doubling up One Piece and Naruto. Granted they can simply do that in March if nothing can be acquired before then.

Yeah FLCL Grunge in March seems like a safe bet.

i don't think WBD did this out of the goodness of their hearts....

Toonami's not getting a free lunch from David Z

Edited February 3, 2023 by CountFrylock

[Toonamiguy321]

37 minutes ago, CountFrylock said:

i don't think WBD did this out of the goodness of their hearts....

Toonami's not getting a free lunch from David Z

It may not be obvious now, but I do feel like TOM will tie this into some event at the start of the night on these two weeks. Hard to believe DC just decided to play ball after years of not doing so. 

[Jman]

8 minutes ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

It may not be obvious now, but I do feel like TOM will tie this into some event at the start of the night on these two weeks. Hard to believe DC just decided to play ball after years of not doing so. 

The only immediate thing I can think of is a tie-in to the new Shazam movie, in March.

[Blatch]

Al, you didn't need to turn this into another thread to discuss the upcoming movies/specials when we already have two others for that. Not to mention, I second what Toonamiguy321 said about the next round of replacements.

[Sketch]

50 minutes ago, Jman said:

The only immediate thing I can think of is a tie-in to the new Shazam movie, in March.

Shazam is in Injustice but that feels like a stretch. If anything it’s counter-programming to Quantumania in theaters that weekend.

I would not be surprised to see them run Superman/Shazam vs Black Adam in March though. It’s short but so is the Ballmastrz special.

[Toonamiguy321]

1 hour ago, Jman said:

The only immediate thing I can think of is a tie-in to the new Shazam movie, in March.

I figure they can just make up a reason too. Promote all this stuff airing on Amazon now or wherever the hell it’s getting shipped off to now. 

 Neither of them really synergize with each other outside of being DC, but that’s no reason they can’t promote Shazam. I mean, last night they used random comedy pilot shorts to promote Knock on the Door, this would at least be more fitting.

[OwlChemist81]

11 hours ago, Sketch said:

Shazam is in Injustice but that feels like a stretch. If anything it’s counter-programming to Quantumania in theaters that weekend.

I would not be surprised to see them run Superman/Shazam vs Black Adam in March though. It’s short but so is the Ballmastrz special.

Looks like it's 1 hour 3 minutes. That just screams 90-minute timeslot, as that's what they did with the longer episodes of Hellsing Ultimate back in 2014. The schedule for that hypothetical night might be:

12 AM MHA

12:30 NEW SHOW OR Superman/Shazam

1 AM Superman/Shazam if preceded by new show

2 AM Shippuden OR last 30 minutes of Superman/Shazam

2:30 Primal

This would give them an open slot in which to air something new if need be, or just bring back Shippuden if not.

[Sketch]

4 hours ago, OwlChemist81 said:

Looks like it's 1 hour 3 minutes. That just screams 90-minute timeslot, as that's what they did with the longer episodes of Hellsing Ultimate back in 2014. The schedule for that hypothetical night might be:

12 AM MHA

12:30 NEW SHOW OR Superman/Shazam

1 AM Superman/Shazam if preceded by new show

2 AM Shippuden OR last 30 minutes of Superman/Shazam

2:30 Primal

This would give them an open slot in which to air something new if need be, or just bring back Shippuden if not.

That’s the full runtime of the DVD with all the shorts but just Return of Black Adam is 25 minutes.

[Blatch]

On 2/2/2023 at 9:45 PM, CountFrylock said:

i don't think WBD did this out of the goodness of their hearts....

Toonami's not getting a free lunch from David Z

Funnily enough, I feel the same way. This could be a harbinger of a smaller budget than usual. I guess it might've always been in the cards that they'd use Grunge as a replacement this time around, though. But they won't have that excuse next time (unless Uzumaki is ready by then), and it won't be long, because FLCL is six episodes every time.

[CountFrylock]

3 hours ago, Blatch said:

Funnily enough, I feel the same way. This could be a harbinger of a smaller budget than usual. I guess it might've always been in the cards that they'd use Grunge as a replacement this time around, though. But they won't have that excuse next time (unless Uzumaki is ready by then), and it won't be long, because FLCL is six episodes every time.

they shouldn't have to stall this early in the year so something isn't right....

 

[ben0119]

On 2/1/2023 at 11:13 AM, Jman said:

Well this just came over the wire -

 

Since she is played by Jill Harris, just out of curiosity, is this girl a tsundere? 

And something going to Crunchyroll still means "off the table?"  I thought that relationship had changed.  Or does Demarco mean for the near future?

I didn't know something like Akiba Maid War was a possible Toonami pick-up.  I was watching some Maid-themed animes recently, but I guess I will hold off on that one if Toonami might get it.

But yeah, I had my expectations in the basement, but apparently I should have set them even lower.  I expected them to just play more One Piece and Shippuden if something wasn't ready in time, but instead we get Ballmasters and Rick and Morty bullshit and DC filler.  You guys said one of the DC movies is good so at least there is that.

But I don't understand the need for stalling tactics yet again.  The Toonami crew knows when these shows are ending, so they should have all these deals squared away well beforehand.  All this last minute and stalling bullshit should not be going on, especially right at the beginning of the year. 

It makes even less sense, since they did all that rigmarole with Yashahime and Made in Abyss.  End them early just to waste time?

And the wait on that One Piece cliffhanger is going to he excruciating.

Edited February 5, 2023 by ben0119

[Toonamiguy321]

14 hours ago, ben0119 said:

And something going to Crunchyroll still means "off the table?"  I thought that relationship had changed.  Or does Demarco mean for the near future?

Even Demarco made that statement in a speculative tone. He never said there was a deal or that the relationship changed. He just said that he hoped getting MHA would open more doors with CR. 
 

We also should consider that their standing with CR could improve, but not in a way we theorize. For example, CR may allow the block access to shows that aired prior seasons on Toonami, but tell them to kick rocks for anything else. Whatever the case, we just don’t have enough info to go on to say either way. Myself, as well as a few others did caution to not take MHA as a sign CR was going to start full cooperation with Toonami, and it seems that was the correct mindset to take. 
 

14 hours ago, ben0119 said:

But I don't understand the need for stalling tactics yet again.  The Toonami crew knows when these shows are ending, so they should have all these deals squared away well beforehand.  All this last minute and stalling bullshit should not be going on, especially right at the beginning of the year. 

 

By the way Demarco was talking about it, it does seem like they tried lining up Witch from Mercury to be one of the new shows on the 18th, possibly even a dub premier. But either Toonami didnt have the budget for it, or CR just wouldn’t let them have it. The problem being, they didn’t have a fallback plan in the event they couldn’t secure it. So now we are in stall mode and just have to hope they can secure something else in the span of the next month. 
 

Ideally, the new schedule is posted on or before the 18th. That’s the two week cutoff. But, there is no reason they couldn’t take things up to the first day or two of March. That would mean almost zero promotion for what gets added, but that hasn’t stopped them before. If the new FLCL ends up being an accurate guess, we will probably know sooner rather than later. 

[OwlChemist81]

18 hours ago, ben0119 said:

It makes even less sense, since they did all that rigmarole with Yashahime and Made in Abyss.  End them early just to waste time?

And the wait on that One Piece cliffhanger is going to he excruciating.

What's happening with Made In Abyss is NECESSARY, since it's an hour-long episode, not 2 back-to-back episodes. 

But you are right--the wait after that One Piece cliffhanger is gonna SUCK!!

[Toonamiguy321]

2 hours ago, OwlChemist81 said:

What's happening with Made In Abyss is NECESSARY, since it's an hour-long episode, not 2 back-to-back episodes. 

But you are right--the wait after that One Piece cliffhanger is gonna SUCK!!

I think his point was they could have went about it a different way which would have generated them extra time. They could have kept this week normal, cut Yashahime next week for the hour finale of MiA, then brought back the Yashahime finale and an extra OP on the 18th. Not as much time, but if they were in a temporary stall mindset they are taking things a week at a time anyway. Instead, they took the path forward that cleaned off the schedule efficiently and as early as possible. That certainly felt like to me, they had a pretty good grasp on what they planned to air on the 18th. Obviously that’s not the case, so one or more deals likely went down the tubes in the past two weeks. 

[Sketch]

8 hours ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

Even Demarco made that statement in a speculative tone. He never said there was a deal or that the relationship changed. He just said that he hoped getting MHA would open more doors with CR. 
 

We also should consider that their standing with CR could improve, but not in a way we theorize. For example, CR may allow the block access to shows that aired prior seasons on Toonami, but tell them to kick rocks for anything else. Whatever the case, we just don’t have enough info to go on to say either way. Myself, as well as a few others did caution to not take MHA as a sign CR was going to start full cooperation with Toonami, and it seems that was the correct mindset to take. 
 

By the way Demarco was talking about it, it does seem like they tried lining up Witch from Mercury to be one of the new shows on the 18th, possibly even a dub premier. But either Toonami didnt have the budget for it, or CR just wouldn’t let them have it. The problem being, they didn’t have a fallback plan in the event they couldn’t secure it. So now we are in stall mode and just have to hope they can secure something else in the span of the next month. 
 

Ideally, the new schedule is posted on or before the 18th. That’s the two week cutoff. But, there is no reason they couldn’t take things up to the first day or two of March. That would mean almost zero promotion for what gets added, but that hasn’t stopped them before. If the new FLCL ends up being an accurate guess, we will probably know sooner rather than later. 

Might be a good thing that didn't get the Gundam dub premiere because due to inclement weather in Dallas Texas the 2nd episode (kinda the 3rd) wont stream for two more weeks. Toonami gets to catch up on MHA a little bit in theory but they would have quickly run into an issue with G Witch if this weather situation caused more delays. Imagine starting it on February 18th and almost immediately after it has to take 2 weeks off or longer? Probably wouldn't handle that like Gentle was but it would certainly cause some headaches. It's not even a simuldub but the production needs the lead time because they seemingly don't have a stock pile of episodes already but this is one of the reasons why Toonami is probably better off not airing simuldubs just a few weeks behind Japan. Several shows also got delayed due to coronavirus in Japan and other parts of Asia.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2023-02-03/crunchyroll-delays-english-dubs-for-revenger-buddy-daddies-gundam-the-witch-from-mercury-blue-lock-/.194511

Nonetheless the decision to finish off YashaHime the week before the Made in Abyss finale gives us every reason to believe they had two shows planned to air and neither panned out... or more optimistically one or both just needs more time in the oven.

For all we know, the first Saturday of March will have another movie and they might even do a 4th night to make a "month" of it leading to their anniversary in the middle of March but I sure hope they don't keep One Piece off that long. They can certainly make up for taking One Piece and Naruto off for two weeks by giving them double shots for a week or two in March but that optics of that aren't great. 😅

I strongly suspect they were counting on Grunge for February and they might have also been banking on Attack on Titan's Final Season Part 3 airing in February like Part 2 did. That is to say it's probably underestimating the situation to think ONLY 2 things fell through early this year.

Meanwhile on other parts of the internet people are raising the death flags high but honestly it looked about this dire after Titan and Shenmue ended last year and Toonami is still on the air and still getting promoted outside of Adult Swim (on other WBD owned networks) so let's not take another sudden drought as a sign that the end is nigh. That said, if come March there's double Shippuden and double One Piece for more than 2 weeks... that would be worrisome. If they didn't buy the last 50 episodes of Shippuden yet then there's 22 to go and there's 24 episodes left of Punk Hazard meaning 11 and 12 weeks respectively.

They're approaching their 11th year in late May. 11 years and about six months is how long CN Toonami stayed on the air. I'm sure they want to beat that record if nothing else.

[Toonamiguy321]

14 hours ago, Sketch said:

Might be a good thing that didn't get the Gundam dub premiere because due to inclement weather in Dallas Texas the 2nd episode (kinda the 3rd) wont stream for two more weeks.

That is a bit of unexpected fortune on our part. As cool as simuldubs are, they really just have not recovered from Covid. And honestly, I think that’s kind of a relief to the dubbing staff. At one point in 2019 we were 1 week behind Fire Force. Having to get an episode, do the script, get everyone in the booth, mix it, etc in less than a week for a huge slate of shows sounds like suffering and chaos for everyone involved. 
 

Also with the decrease in simuldubs, it has felt like other legacy projects have gotten more attention. For example, One Piece had its dub moving at a snails pace for like 5 years. Then around 2021 they really got it in gear, and in 2022 they cranked out like 100 episodes. I don’t mind waiting a little longer for brand new shows if it means everyone isn’t so overworked that nothing else gets done. 
 

15 hours ago, Sketch said:

Meanwhile on other parts of the internet people are raising the death flags high but honestly it looked about this dire after Titan and Shenmue ended last year and Toonami is still on the air and still getting promoted outside of Adult Swim (on other WBD owned networks) so let's not take another sudden drought as a sign that the end is nigh.

I don’t blame them, in previous years once stall mode starts, things don’t really go back to normal. We have an occasional spurt of something here and there but most of the time is spent jumping between stall tactics. In 2021 it started in October. In 2022 it started in May. In 2023 it started in February, so people are right to be concerned. 
 

To me, the most annoying part here is this was likely their only chance this year the surprise the audience because nobody had a clue what might be coming in. Now that things have changed, FLCL is a strong contender for one of the slots. And in not wanting to steal its thunder, probably is joining the block solo. So the people asking if the block is even capable of getting anything are just more to fuel the belief that it cannot. 
 

So if we get FLCL in March, that will likely be replaced by AoT. So in the summer months they may have one more chance to do something unexpected between MHA and AoT. Maybe sooner if AoT is as short as people say.

[ben0119]

On 2/5/2023 at 4:57 PM, Toonamiguy321 said:

Even Demarco made that statement in a speculative tone. He never said there was a deal or that the relationship changed. He just said that he hoped getting MHA would open more doors with CR. 
 

We also should consider that their standing with CR could improve, but not in a way we theorize. For example, CR may allow the block access to shows that aired prior seasons on Toonami, but tell them to kick rocks for anything else. Whatever the case, we just don’t have enough info to go on to say either way. Myself, as well as a few others did caution to not take MHA as a sign CR was going to start full cooperation with Toonami, and it seems that was the correct mindset to take. 
 

By the way Demarco was talking about it, it does seem like they tried lining up Witch from Mercury to be one of the new shows on the 18th, possibly even a dub premier. But either Toonami didnt have the budget for it, or CR just wouldn’t let them have it. The problem being, they didn’t have a fallback plan in the event they couldn’t secure it. So now we are in stall mode and just have to hope they can secure something else in the span of the next month. 
 

Ideally, the new schedule is posted on or before the 18th. That’s the two week cutoff. But, there is no reason they couldn’t take things up to the first day or two of March. That would mean almost zero promotion for what gets added, but that hasn’t stopped them before. If the new FLCL ends up being an accurate guess, we will probably know sooner rather than later. 

I was hoping to be positive and taking the MHA deal as a sign Crunchyroll might be warming up to Toonami.  Still, even bringing back old shows would be better than nothing.  Maybe they could get back Demon Slayer? 

And I would think Crunchyroll could at least throw a bone or two and let Toonami have stuff that is two seasons or a year or more old.  I don't get why they have to be so cutthroat.  Nobody's gonna' not watch something on Crunchyroll because it's airing on Toonami.  Toonami only has so many shows they can air anyway.  Funimation used to be one of their best partners.  This is why I hate mergers and buy-outs.

Having no fallback plan seems like poor planning.  And I agree with what you said about Toonami clearing the schedule off.  It doesn't make sense for them to do that if nothing was coming.  I just don't get how the deals managed to capsize at the last minute.

Well, I hope we find out sooner than later, whatever it is.  This limbo stalling situation has me antsy.