Predict Toonami in 2025

[brianycpht]

5 hours ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

I suppose we don’t. I know nothing at all about the series, but from the assumptions I gather from the cover art, I assumed the getting of Jiro was action oriented. 

In a not-too-distant future L.A. where master chefs rule the town like crime lords and people literally kill for a seat at the best restaurants, a bloody culinary war is raging.

[Jman]

6 hours ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

I suppose we don’t. I know nothing at all about the series, but from the assumptions I gather from the cover art, I assumed the getting of Jiro was action oriented. 

The original novel is a culinary tale mixed with a crime drama while the prequel is a far more traditional yakuza story that just happens to have food as a central motif.

[Toonamiguy321]

6 hours ago, brianycpht said:

In a not-too-distant future L.A. where master chefs rule the town like crime lords and people literally kill for a seat at the best restaurants, a bloody culinary war is raging.

 

4 hours ago, Jman said:

The original novel is a culinary tale mixed with a crime drama while the prequel is a far more traditional yakuza story that just happens to have food as a central motif.

I dunno, that sounds little light on the action side of things. Sounds like it would be a better fit for normal AS. Though, it also sounds like Food Wars: Violence edition, and we had 5 seasons of that so we will probably end up with it. 

[Jman]

1 hour ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

 

I dunno, that sounds little light on the action side of things. Sounds like it would be a better fit for normal AS. Though, it also sounds like Food Wars: Violence edition, and we had 5 seasons of that so we will probably end up with it. 

Trust me when I say, at least the comic is not light on the action.  There’s plenty of food porn and waxing poetic about good food and etiquette, but a guy dies in the first ten pages, violently may I add.  From there there’s a lot of violence, gang warfare, and fight scenes.

Edited Sunday at 10:40 PM by Jman

[Sketch]

On 1/4/2025 at 11:06 PM, brianycpht said:

It’s bad enough when you have distributors starve the block of content, but I really font like it when its own network doesn’t give the block premieres when it REALLY needs premiere content. They should be doing everything they can to help it out 

They won’t do that at the cost of having nothing to premiere outside of Toonami if it comes down to it and the Max overlords demand new untested go up on Fridays rather than Sundays. IFG was an exception.

[Jman]

So what is Crunchyroll’s non-DeMarco exclusive anime going to look like?

 

Oh.

[Sketch]

Seems like sensible synergy to have CR produce an anime based on a Sony IP but whether or not it turns out decently… well… maybe better than Shenmue.

[Jman]

10 minutes ago, Sketch said:

Seems like sensible synergy to have CR produce an anime based on a Sony IP but whether or not it turns out decently… well… maybe better than Shenmue.

Shenmue was arguably the best Toonami original to date, more screwed over by licensing nonsense than its story.  I stand by that, I really liked it and wanted them to fix the dumpster fire that was Shenmue III.

[brianycpht]

22 minutes ago, Sketch said:

They won’t do that at the cost of having nothing to premiere outside of Toonami if it comes down to it and the Max overlords demand new untested go up on Fridays rather than Sundays. IFG was an exception.

So it’s safe to say the block is much lower on the list of priorities than years past 

[Mr. Idea Box]

51 minutes ago, Sketch said:

Seems like sensible synergy to have CR produce an anime based on a Sony IP but whether or not it turns out decently… well… maybe better than Shenmue.

My thoughts exactly. An anime based on a PlayStation game would be practically easy money. And yet, the console had its own dedicated episode on Secret Level, making it a bit muddled.

[Top Gun]

2 hours ago, Jman said:

Shenmue was arguably the best Toonami original to date, more screwed over by licensing nonsense than its story.  I stand by that, I really liked it and wanted them to fix the dumpster fire that was Shenmue III.

Yeah, I'd never played the games but I genuinely enjoyed the series. It felt "game-like" in the best way, more than any other game adaptation I've ever seen.

[Toonamiguy321]

2 hours ago, Jman said:

Shenmue was arguably the best Toonami original to date, more screwed over by licensing nonsense than its story.  I stand by that, I really liked it and wanted them to fix the dumpster fire that was Shenmue III.

Its story is what held it back though because its story is really dull and incomplete. Shenmue got popular due to its gameplay, the GTA sandbox before GTA was a thing. Adaption wise, the anime stayed pretty true to the material, and it’s not its fault the material is boring. 
 

 

2 hours ago, brianycpht said:

So it’s safe to say the block is much lower on the list of priorities than years past 

If they don’t want their stuff to premier on Toonami, at least give it the money to license stuff. And if that’s also too much to ask, put the block out of its misery.

[Jman]

With Sony investing more money in the animoos, Netflix investing more, and even Disney investing more, I can see why Warner would be hedging their bets.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/ces-sony-group-deepens-investments-anime-1236102709/

Even as Cartoon Network is in fewer and fewer homes, I can see why they might view Toonami as a value add for the brand, but unfortunately, that means DeMarco and his shit taste are along for the ride.

They're not going to put the block out of its misery until Adult Swim and Cartoon Network itself mean more as branding on Max than they do as linear programming blocks.  Otherwise, they're going to be leaving Sony or Amazon MGM the inevitable Jujutsu Kaisen movie.

[Toonamiguy321]

9 hours ago, Jman said:

They're not going to put the block out of its misery until Adult Swim and Cartoon Network itself mean more as branding on Max than they do as linear programming blocks.  Otherwise, they're going to be leaving Sony or Amazon MGM the inevitable Jujutsu Kaisen movie.

I guess that’s true, similar to how they don’t want to pull the plug on Checkered Past entirely as in the future, they may be able to put that branding back to use. I guess a compromise I would accept is heavily cutting Toonami’s timeslot so there is no false hope of it improving in the future, especially if internally they know they don’t intend to do much with it. If the block was cut to 1 hour next week, with Mashle and One Piece being the survivors, absolutely nothing at all changes for most viewers. But we can look towards the future with much less speculation and expectations. 
 

But, as I do expect a return to 3 premiers, I believe a 2 hour timeslot would be a better fit. That allows 2 rotating premiers, One Piece, and a flexible, but normally rerun slot. No extra fluff, no increased expectations. Just the bare minimum time for the bare minimum investment into the block they are willing to make.