Genndy Tartakovsky's Unicorn: Warriors Eternal premieres May 4th @midnight

[3ngag3]

Honestly, I had no clue he was working on a new project. Not sure of what to think from the initial trailer, but seeing this is Genndy, there's no way this is going to be awful, right?

[PokeNirvash]

Wasn't this supposed to be a Netflix exclusive or something?

Still, this is very neat. Twenty bucks says it fills the midnight slot as one of My Hero's replacements.

[Jman]

2 minutes ago, PokeNirvash said:

Wasn't this supposed to be a Netflix exclusive or something?

Still, this is very neat. Twenty bucks says it fills the midnight slot as one of My Hero's replacements.

HBO Max exclusive, but we all know Zaslav treats animation the same way corporate landlords treat the poor.

Genndy is the one Western creator that can get his stuff on Toonami and not cause a fit, even if he’s not a fan of the block.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Jman

[Sketch]

I guess CN got cold feet and pushed it to Adult Swim. I’m very disappointed at CN but this move is probably better for the show’s potential anyway.

Safe bet this is replacing MHA at midnight in May or maybe 12:30 if FLCL Grunge starts on May 6th.

[Toonamiguy321]

Oh great, now there will two eternal Genndy shows eating up space on Toonami. And I’m sure despite premiering outside the block, for some reason it’s also going to have to do a full rerun at midnight on Toonami. 

[3ngag3]

Apparently, AS is doing a takedown of all twitter posts showing the trailer to the show. I guess they wanna promote it themselves.

[atomicinumatt]

35 minutes ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

Oh great, now there will two eternal Genndy shows eating up space on Toonami. And I’m sure despite premiering outside the block, for some reason it’s also going to have to do a full rerun at midnight on Toonami. 

Bleh, I am sure that this one will be alright, though Genndy's stuff is not really my cup of tea. I mean Samurai Jack is alright but yea, I am not looking forward to this eating up the block. I think it is only supposed to be 10 episodes but you know they will want to rerun it excessively, especially if [as] is really trying to push it. 

Here's to hoping that it will air out side the block but we know that probably will not happen. 

I wonder if they will air this as part of the April fools prank. Probably not but you never know.  

Edited March 28, 2023 by atomicinumatt

[Toonamiguy321]

1 hour ago, 3ngag3 said:

Apparently, AS is doing a takedown of all twitter posts showing the trailer to the show. I guess they wanna promote it themselves.

Think this could have been part of the April Fools prank for this year that escaped a little early? This would make a lot more sense to have seen after a Post Malone style sneak peak of an episode rather than out of the blue during KotH. Would also explain why AS is so quickly smashing the DMCA button. 
 

1 hour ago, atomicinumatt said:

Bleh, I am sure that this one will be alright, though Genndy's stuff is not really my cup of tea. I mean Samurai Jack is alright but yea, I am not looking forward to this eating up the block. I think it is only supposed to be 10 episodes but you know they will want to rerun it excessively, especially if [as] is really trying to push it. 

Here's to hoping that it will air out side the block but we know that probably will not happen. 

I wonder if they will air this as part of the April fools prank. Probably not but you never know.  

I have three issues with it. One, the show was created for Cartoon Network. We already struggle with half the block being shonen that barely clears the AS bar. Second, they are once again seemingly bowing to Genndy’s absurd hatred of Toonami and premiering the show on a Thursday, rather than just premiering it on Toonami. Lastly, it’s looking like the reason they burned off a hard fought pickup in MHA was to replace it with a rerun. This is the one the rubs me wrong the worst of all. They made it look like there is some grand plan in the works and it’s actually nothing. 
 

I know, I’m making a lot of assumptions here about it coming to the block, but all the signs  we saw with Primal S2 are present here. And if MHA doubles up on the 15th, and AoT takes the following weekend, that leaves just one unaccounted for weekend before May 6th when this would presumably start. 

[Sketch]

There's probably no good reason to double up MHA just to make room for encores of Genndy's new show but if the other slot isn't going to FLCL Grunge then it's anyone's guess why they sped through MHA instead of doubling up anything else.

I really don't mind sloppy seconds beyond the principle of the matter. If its airing on Toonami it should be the premiere. They saw how Primal did outside of Toonami and inside of it and should have come to the conclusion that premiering it inside Toonami was the better choice.

If all they have coming is a glorified rerun and their own originals and they're relying on a Genndy show to garner interest for their block of already streamed anime then its safe to say 2023 is 2022 the sequel. Perhaps their only hope is Bleach. Well... maybe they can get it but it's gonna be old news once they do.

[Toonamiguy321]

1 hour ago, Sketch said:

There's probably no good reason to double up MHA just to make room for encores of Genndy's new show but if the other slot isn't going to FLCL Grunge then it's anyone's guess why they sped through MHA instead of doubling up anything else.

I really don't mind sloppy seconds beyond the principle of the matter. If its airing on Toonami it should be the premiere. They saw how Primal did outside of Toonami and inside of it and should have come to the conclusion that premiering it inside Toonami was the better choice.

If all they have coming is a glorified rerun and their own originals and they're relying on a Genndy show to garner interest for their block of already streamed anime then its safe to say 2023 is 2022 the sequel. Perhaps their only hope is Bleach. Well... maybe they can get it but it's gonna be old news once they do.

I wouldn’t pay it any mind if it was treated according to its status. A rerun should not get the red carpet midnight slot treatment. It should get the 2:30a treatment. All this means for us is 10 (or more) weeks without a new show. And there’s no point in watching it, because we all know AS will beat the piss out of the rerun as they are doing to Primal. 

Even if it ends up not being the lead, that’s annoying too if it goes at 12:30, because that means having to find something else to do for 30 minutes before the block comes back. 

I wouldn’t call this a sequel to 2022, because at least last year we had a pretty solid January. So far this year has sucked ass on the acquisition front and shown no real signs of improvement any time soon. 

[Sketch]

I have another theory disregarding FLCL Grunge.

They have kept MHA doubled up because they have an acquisition lined up and now Unicorn has been dropped in their laps so they sped up MHA to clear the spot by May and will start a new acquisition two or three weeks before that depending if Titan is ready by April 15th.

 

Option 1 (makes the most sense)

April 15th Titan

April 22nd MHA 137 / New Show ep 1

April 29th MHA 138 / New Show ep 2

May 6th Unicorn / New Show ep 3

 

Option 2

April 15th MHA 137 / New Show ep 1

April 22nd MHA 138 / New Show ep 2

April 29th Titan

May 6th Unicorn / New Show ep 3

 

You can gripe about semantics and how it wastes a slot where a premiere should be but UWE will do much more for Toonami as an encore at midnight than at 2:30am. We know it and they know it.

[OwlChemist81]

Maybe this is why they kept PRIMAL at 2:30 AM. The midnight airings of PRIMAL Season 2 didn't exactly do gangbusters last summer, so perhaps slotting reruns of Unicorn at 2 AM and moving everything else up would be a sounder strategy?

How long will the first season of Unicorn be? If it's 6 episodes, this strategy works nicely, as both would conclude simultaneously.

[Sketch]

Didn’t do gang busters? Primal reruns at midnight did great for Toonami last year.

[Toonamiguy321]

9 hours ago, Sketch said:

You can gripe about semantics and how it wastes a slot where a premiere should be but UWE will do much more for Toonami as an encore at midnight than at 2:30am. We know it and they know it.

That’s a major assumption. This is an untested show, Primal did well because people already liked Primal. For all we know this will crater the entire night at midnight since it was created for CN, not AS. I can’t see a scenario where 2/6 slots on the block being reruns is going to be helpful, both to ratings and morale. 
 

2 hours ago, OwlChemist81 said:

How long will the first season of Unicorn be? If it's 6 episodes, this strategy works nicely, as both would conclude simultaneously.

If nothing has changed, it won’t have seasons. This is supposed to be a 10 episode miniseries. 

[Jman]

I think people arguing over the show at least need to concur that they really don’t have a friggin choice.  This isn’t DeMarco curating a perfectly tuned schedule to his exacting highbrow taste, this is the schedulers trying to find something to air that isn’t another rerun.  

Now thankfully, Genndy is generally considered a mark of quality, so this show should be good, but my fear is that it’s going to get the Beware the Batman treatment if there isn’t a lot of blood and/or cursing right away - “This is a kids show!”  And yes, I know Beware the Batfleck supporters argued One Piece, MHA and Naruto were also kids shows, but they were kids shows with lots of violence and foul language, (there’s a lot of anecdotes about what actually is attracting kids and the levels of violence in say, Demon Slayer being enjoyed by the children, but that is another topic).  So I think Unicorn is going to need to come out the gate with violence or adult language or else it will be dismissed as a kids show.

[Toonamiguy321]

2 hours ago, Jman said:

this is the schedulers trying to find something to air that isn’t another rerun.  

Well they aren’t doing a very good job, because if this airs on Toonami, it is in fact another rerun. 

You are right though, this one is probably out of Demarco’s hands. But that’s not a reason to withhold negative feelings towards the schedule team if they really did force Toonami to burn off probably it’s biggest pickup of last and this year just so they could cram on another mid Genndy rerun. It also shows a growing disregard for the blocks future if we continue to see less and less acquisitions and instead just getting sloppy second reruns and originals people have zero faith in. You could make the argument that Toonami is “saving money”, but for what? We have been “saving money” since February. When do we get our payoff? 
 

2 hours ago, Jman said:

So I think Unicorn is going to need to come out the gate with violence or adult language or else it will be dismissed as a kids show.

Until less than 24 hours ago, this was presumed to be a Cartoon Network show. More specifically, it’s slightly looser content Acme block. I highly doubt the show went through any radical changes for its shift to Adult Swim. Interviews with Genndy cite it being a family friendly adventure. I’d expect this to be more in line with CN era Samurai Jack where the enemies are robots are some other inoffensive non red blood creature. Same with the language, maybe it will pull a PG-13 movie gimmick where someone says shit one time, but other than that I expect clean dialog. 

[Jman]

Unicorns getting crapped on due to not having the content really makes me wonder how far we’ve gone, and also looking in at the decline of action cartoons for the younger set.  Most of them, judging by the kids who went to see that Demon Slayer movie earlier in the month, can’t be bothered with stuff that appears sanitized.  We are a long way from DBZ freaking parents the fuck out -

(Remember at this point DBZ was pretty much one of the highest rated shows in the entirety of cable).

Now we see this kids show, and Genndy clearly wants to target families, and I’m wondering how it will play when it’s not airing in a family timeslot.

Still, it is definitely a case of not having a choice.  Crunchyroll is not sharing (and they’re currently sitting at 5 million paid subscribers with distribution deals to Hulu) and Sentai only has so many shows, many of them not fit for DeMarco’s taxing standards.  As fun as Akhiba Maid War or Princess Principal would be, they don’t fit DeMarco’s tastes, so they do not air.

I feel really bad even implying that I’m crapping on Genndy.  I’m not.  I’m sure the show will be great.  But I don’t expect it to do great on Toonami.

[Toonamiguy321]

1 hour ago, Jman said:

Now we see this kids show, and Genndy clearly wants to target families, and I’m wondering how it will play when it’s not airing in a family timeslot.

 

1 hour ago, Jman said:

I feel really bad even implying that I’m crapping on Genndy.  I’m not.  I’m sure the show will be great.  But I don’t expect it to do great on Toonami.

IMO people aren’t crapping on the show or Genndy. They are crapping on CN hitting the abort button for something that was pretty well sanitized for their network. Not everything has to be edgy, adult action animation. People were enthusiastic for CN to move forward on a PG action title after so many years of having no action content. It ain’t no Demon Slayer, but a PG show is a pretty big step up from the typical Gumball and TTGo fare on CN. But instead, it’s getting dumped at midnight on a Thursday, basically a death sentence and guarantee of failure. At the very least, they could have met some middle ground and aired it at like 9pm so kids could catch it before bed on a school night. 

On the Toonami side, fans of the block are upset at the prospect of its reruns eating up the most valuable slot on the block, further frustration to an already unstable and unstocked block. There is a lot of lingering frustration tied to Genndy content because of what’s happened with Primal S2. 

[Blatch]

Well cool. I was A-OK with Primal sloppy seconds, so I'll watch the Toonami airing of this.

Seems like [as] is largely doing this because they're desperate for any sort of content. We still don't know anything about the immediate future other than Royal Crackers, which, funnily enough, just got renewed. Network brass finally did it!

[Sketch]

I really don't think Unicorn is going to be so outright rejected by Adult Swim viewers. And think about the casual audience that don't even know the show was being made for CN prime time? They'll think nothing of it beyond, "hey this is from the Samurai Jack and Primal guy" and not be concerned with whether or not it was written for adult audiences specifically.

Content wise, lets remember the last show Genndy made for CN was Sym-Bionic Titan which wasn't exactly tame. I know it was after all the premieres when it joined Toonami in 2012 but I don't recall anyone being all that unwelcoming of it at the time.

[Sketch]

7 hours ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

Toonami is “saving money”, but for what? We have been “saving money” since February. When do we get our payoff? 
 

Bleach probably

[Jman]

 

Official trailer has dropped.  

[Top Gun]

Okay that looks kickass.