Jason Demarco Q&A Twitter Recap

[CountFrylock]

as well as the following

-"Kind of a total mess" regarding synergy at CN / AS right now

-A Toonami making of book has been written and laid out but unlikely to be released

-AMC would never license Pantheon over to AS

-"A little bit" of progress on getting anime from Crunchyroll

-- Uzumaki still in production, "has been a hard road tbh", still hoping for this year

- Looking into doing more things like they did with GITS SAC where the network help funds the anime in exchange for airing rights

 

although someone on the toonami discord noted that demarco had already deleted the tweet mentioning Ben 10 so it's possible he broke NDA

Edited April 24, 2023 by CountFrylock

[Daos]

More Ben 10? 

OY

[Toonamiguy321]

That book would be cool, but I can understand why it probably has too many prototype “this isn’t supposed to leave the office” type of things to ever be a thing for the public. 

Have my doubts on the Crunchyroll progress until we see some actual evidence of such.

Big oof on Uzumaki. It’s almost May, and it’s thematically supposed to air in October. If they aren’t confident on that now, I’m expecting another summer delay apology video. 

Even if they did that to another show like what they did for GitS and Big O, what from the list they have already aired could they even float that option with? First that comes to mind is Deadman Wonderland, but it’s animation studio is dead and the manga concluded many moons ago. I wouldn’t complain, but would anyone in Japan see value in such a project? Maybe a total restart with a different studio, iirc the anime deviates pretty hard early on, so continuing where the anime stopped wouldn’t even really be viable. 

What else? Toonami has stayed pretty far away from the one season wonders over the years, so I’m at a loss for what they could want to invest in continuing. I guess Dimension W is another one. But again, does that have any clout to its name to get more made, even if AS covers some of the bill? 

[PokeNirvash]

The one that stood out to me among all the answers was that the rights for Dawn of the Deep Soul were "not gettable". Not sure if that means they were out of their price range, required clearing too much legal red tape to acquire, or if TV broadcast rights just don't exist for it. But for sure, it was not an issue with the film's content.

Edited April 24, 2023 by PokeNirvash

[Jman]

I'm not surprised everything at Warner Bros. Discovery is a mess.  Cuts here, there and everywhere, the upcoming Max launch, the whole DC reboot, etc.  Adult Swim has to be a very low priority.

Looks like DeMarco did get his hands on AOT Part 1.  That should be good.

Bloody shame about the Toonami book being unpublishable.  That's the sort of coffee table book a lot of Gen Xers would love.

Pantheon was written off for taxes months ago, and AMC doesn't work directly with Warner.  It was never an option.

Sony has been public about not taking sides in the streaming wars but when it comes to anime they seem to be very happy giving their wares to everyone but Toonami.  If DeMarco can convince them that Toonami is not Crunchyroll's enemy, maybe they can get a working relationship going again.  Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku is lighting up social media right now and would be a great show to air, but it's probably not happening.

I maintain Uzumaki is probably hanging on by a thread.  Let's hope the production delays are over because I still think it could be a cut given its long history.

What money?  A lot of DeMarco's ideas boil down to a singular complaint he has - What freaking money?

[CountFrylock]

here's some more

-despite lamenting that isekai trio never airing on toonami demarco thinks there's too much isekai

-he enjoys trigun stampede as a stand alone series but prefers the originals

-the whole cast of igpx signed a still frame that he still has and holds dearly

-there is some hope for more dc content on the block

-black lagoon is one show that cartoon network forbid them from airing but thankfully they could once returning at adultswim

-of all the modern/current anime out there jujutsu kaisen is the one he wants on toonami

-at the moment the budget is too small for another Total Immersion Event

-the designers of the absolution will remain a mystery as they requested to be anonymous

-they always choose and pick what video games to review based on what they are currently playing(dennis malooney writes the reviews)

-he's shocked and surprised at oshi no ko being so successful but gave no honest opinions on it himself

-he likes moribito

-he enjoyed the 1995 ghost in the shell movie more than stand alone complex

-he never wanted moltar to meet tom

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by CountFrylock

[Jman]

Let's see...

You can still lament shows not airing while thinking their genre is overstuffed.

Stampede isn't terrible, and quite the technical achievement, but I think people preferred the original story.  Shame the first anime never got to the rest of the manga.

One of the few good things about Zaslav being such a penny pincher is that he seems more willing to license internally made stuff to Toonami to fill gaps rather than spend precious money.

Jujutsu Kaisen is a Crunchyroll property whose movie outgrossed the Bob's Burgers movie (which never belonged in theaters anyway, but I'm pretty sure had a contract rider forcing it).  It's never airing on Toonami.

Budget's being crunched on all levels is very unsurprising.  They need that budget for shows, when they're available.

Oshi no Ko is actually available to them if they so desired (being a Sentai product), and it seems to be connecting with people despite it not being an action show, but probably the most scathing deconstruction of the idol industry since Perfect Blue.  

Not surprised he likes Moribito.  It never would have gotten airtime unless someone on staff personally enjoyed it.  Funny thing is the franchise these days is better known for the trio of live-action J-dramas that started in 2016 rather than the 1 season anime (which last I checked, is free to watch on Prime Video).

Him liking the original GITS more than SAC is actually a genuine surprise.

 

[CountFrylock]

-those three shows he lamented toonami never got to air were escaflowne slayers and magic knight rayearth

-Fox Kids indeed did pick up Escaflowne simply to prevent Toonami from airing it. (Although, I did hear that they tried to get Magic Knight Rayearth less because of their interest, and more because it was offered to them through Ocean and TMS back in '95, and they passed on it due to DBZ and Sailor Moon not doing so well in syndication, but Toonami being successful and Fox Kids' own success with Digimon caused them to reconsider)

-So apparently Yu Yu Hakusho was bound for Toonami before the decision to air it on AS, but was later moved to Toonami anyway due to higher ratings with the K6-11 and T9-14 demographics than AS's 18-35.

-Do not count on anything Criterion Collection related ever airing on Toonami, and no it's not budget reasons.

-He worked on "The Mouse in The Mask" album by Danger Doom

-Outside Toonami shows, Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule is his favorite Adult Swim show. (I don't know if he worked on it between Toonamis, like he said about Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job!, so it could be one of his "babies", per se)

-Even in the CN area, there was no way they could air the Daft Punk music videos for Random Access Memories. Their budget was bigger, but just not big enough for where they were in their career at the time.

-Either he's backpedaling or the real reason CN didn't let them air Evangelion was because they didn't think it would do well enough in ratings and GRW was his chance to prove it could, and that failed just like Nadesico. (I could have sworn that before he said it was just too much to edit for CN's standards so they used GRW as an excuse to be able to air it at all.)

-Whoever predicted this was correct: The network used 9/11 as a convenient excuse to stop airing Mobile Suit Gundam prematurely, because neither CN nor Toonami wanted to air it and Bandai essentially forced them to, and it got low ratings (possibly on purpose). (It wasn't discussed, but I'm willing to believe Bandai had a huge foothold on CN and Toonami - .hack//SIGN was apparently going to continue airing reruns into the City Era before it was replaced with Legend of the Twilight Bracelet. There's even a "Now/Then" City Era bumper face with it used on Legend's premiere date. It also explains why DICE and Gundam SEED's burnoffs immediately happened while Yu Yu Hakusho's was delayed.)

-None of the other Toonami original shows will use CGI/3D, besides FLCL: Grunge

-The whole idea of Toonami came from Sean Akins. DeMarco himself came up with the name though.

-Jason DeMarco is "full time developing and producing now" since Discovery stepped in.

[Top Gun]

Escaflowne never airing on [as] and/or Toonami remains an absolute crime. Gorgeously-animated fantasy mecha action by a lauded staff, an all-time great Yoko Kanno soundtrack, a classic dub (let's ignore that McNuggets-infested Kickstarter one)...everything about it screams a perfect fit.

[PokeNirvash]

5 hours ago, Top Gun said:

(let's ignore that McNuggets-infested Kickstarter one)

Even ignoring the whole sex pest thing, a deeper voice suits Folken far more than his character design suggests, and this is coming from someone who's only seen the abridged series.