Sweet Super Kami Dende they Doubledowned on Dragon Ball

mochi · December 10, 2016

**see's moose and J-man insulting eachother's favorite shows**

Jman · December 10, 2016

Yes, it provides more filler, more jokes no one laughs at, more stupid.

DBZ being called "weaponized dumb" when One Piece exists is downright hypocritical.

moose · December 11, 2016

It provides more story, more world building, more lore, more drama, more (FUNNY) comedy, more actual character and pretty much more anything positive. All DBZ has is... fights. Pretty simple. Pretty braindead.

Look OP isn't complicated either, but it's not nearly as "weaponzied dumb", as DBZ.

moose · December 11, 2016

It's all fucking opinion anyway which is something you always fail to grasp.

Blatch · December 11, 2016

Yes, it provides more filler, more jokes no one laughs at, more stupid.

DBZ being called "weaponized dumb" when One Piece exists is downright hypocritical.

Good job saying this when One Piece doesn't have a Kai equivalent.

Jman · December 11, 2016

There's a reason that there's a surprisingly large crossover of One Piece fans and combat sports fans. No other show really does that, except OPM, at least not on people's sleeves. One Piece meanwhile is seen as something childish and ignored.

moose · December 11, 2016

I'm assuming you mean DBZ fans.

And so? That doesn't prove it isn't "weaponzied dumb". Which is fine because I don't expect it to be anything else, but if we're comparing shows, DBZ is pretty much in the bottom of the barrel when it comes to thinking.

So him saying that about DBZ and not OP is just fine.

Jman · December 11, 2016

They're both cut from the same cloth.

And my main objection was that I've met a lot of smart, tough people who liked the show, so calling it that, yeah, fuck you.

moose · December 11, 2016

It's a mindless show. No need to take it so personal and attack other shows. It's DBZ. Why take offense to it being mindless. That's arguably a reason people like it, you don't really need to devote much of... anything to get into it. You just watch it for the fights (well, the 'dude-bros' of the world, anyway). The other shonen took what DBZ did and built on it, so they do have a fair share more substance. It's true.

So again. Don't see what's wrong with what he said.

Plus, DBSuper is what's coming and that series is literally only a cow-milking machine, making it even more of a braindead affair than DBZ.

DangerMouse · December 11, 2016

Hey, wait a minute... does this mean Toonami is technically leading off the block with a rerun?

Yeah, it's kinda weird that they are doing that again, though it is DBZ so "new" from earlier in the night will probably be fine.

Though it's weirder that Super is airing before Buu lol. Didn't expect them to air at the same time.

Raptorpat · December 11, 2016

Just got a report so I'm just giving a friendly reminder to make sure in this kind of conversation that you're expressing criticism for the shows, and not of each other.

ben0119 · December 11, 2016

Why do things always happen while I'm away? I should take sabbaticals from the Toonami community more often. It may lead to more blockbuster turn of events like this!

So, Demarco pulled a rabbit out of his beard and licensed both the Buu Saga and Super. So, one of my guesses for a possible option came true, and they're going to play both concurrently, like the did with Dragonball and DBZ back on the old Toonami. It makes sense to play Super as soon as possible, though certainly not striking while the iron is hot, as that ship sailed long ago. Likely due to Toei being Toei. It's obviously not because of dub turnaround delay in this day and age. At the same time, we know how much Toonami hates to "throw away episodes", so it makes sense to play Buu Saga, as well, if they can. I suppose anyone who hasn't seen the Buu Saga before will have spoilers from Super, but oh well.

ben0119 · December 11, 2016

I think it's quite funny that yesterday we were all speculating that DBZ was done on Toonami! I ALSO think it's quite funny that on the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor we're all raving about this!

Only you would think that.

ben0119 · December 11, 2016

Oh yeah, forgot to comment on that one little detail. Why is it premiering on regular Adult Swim? I assume this wasn't Toonami's choice. Did Adult Swim get greedy? Do they think it could benefit from a primetime airing? Will it do any better than the Kai encores did in primetime? And could it potentially sabotage Toonami's airing?

Don't know about anyone else, but I'm going to skip the AS airing and watch it first on Toonami. To me, this stinks of Adult Swim trying to parasite off Toonami's success. It's like right when Toonami reaches its pinnacle, all of a sudden they want a piece of the pie, when we saw how they ran anime and action programming into the ground there'd be none of it on Adult Swim if not for Toonami, and CN has divested itself all anime. It's like when some egghead boss doubts something all along the way, but when all of a sudden it starts to do well, they want to stick their noses in it and have some control over the reigns. All of a sudden they're on board! Feh.

Top Gun · December 11, 2016

Same block that airs One Piece.

Criticism invalid.

Toriyama founded his entire franchise on a literal deus ex machina. Even taking into account the long-form shounen given of "yeah they won't really die here," any sense of temporary drama or tension blissfully vanishes the moment one remembers that everything's just going to be undone as soon as the dragon's summoned. This works a lot better in the original Dragon Ball, which was light-hearted enough to almost cross into gag territory at times, but when DBZ rolls around and there are supposed to be these apocalyptic world-ending stakes being established, it just falls completely flat. Hell, even when Toriyama placed limits on the Dragon Balls' resurrection abilities, he then swiftly proceeded to emasculate them by creating a whole new set without those limits. Good news Krillin, you can keep getting offed indefinitely!

(And dear sweet lord, Cell's final resurrection there. "So yeah, I survived my own self-destruction by sheer luck. And now I'm stronger than ever. And now I have Goku's magic teleporting. Because reasons." I could feel my individual brain cells melting.)

As loath as I am to agree with moose, he raised an excellent point. Dragon Ball was an immensely influential series that made Toriyama a household name and spawned myriad descendants. But at least in the DBZ portion...it barely has what one could consider a plot. Everyone's either fighting the big baddie, or in some sort of contrived training to face the next big baddie. There's no meat whatsoever on the narrative skeleton. And yes, it does nail the rare moment of awesome that hits home for your inner 12-year-old, but beyond that there's really nothing to recommend it beyond nostalgia. Future shounen series took what Dragon Ball spawned and did so much more with it, providing actual world-building and long-form character development and a general sense of being able to sink your teeth into them. Whether it's One Piece or Hunter x Hunter or Naruto or...well maybe not Bleach, but you get the idea.

Sketch · December 11, 2016

Oh yeah, forgot to comment on that one little detail. Why is it premiering on regular Adult Swim? I assume this wasn't Toonami's choice. Did Adult Swim get greedy? Do they think it could benefit from a primetime airing? Will it do any better than the Kai encores did in primetime? And could it potentially sabotage Toonami's airing?

Don't know about anyone else, but I'm going to skip the AS airing and watch it first on Toonami. To me, this stinks of Adult Swim trying to parasite off Toonami's success. It's like right when Toonami reaches its pinnacle, all of a sudden they want a piece of the pie, when we saw how they ran anime and action programming into the ground there'd be none of it on Adult Swim if not for Toonami, and CN has divested itself all anime. It's like when some egghead boss doubts something all along the way, but when all of a sudden it starts to do well, they want to stick their noses in it and have some control over the reigns. All of a sudden they're on board! Feh.

You would think Adult Swim was trying to be greedy or screw over Toonami when they're on the same dang side to begin with. :

The 8pm airing was probably something Toei wanted in return for letting Toonami air it at 11:30pm. I have no doubt they wanted to market Super as broadly as possible and air it on a children's network but the options are so limited now that they settled for Adult Swim.

If you ever want to see action air before 11pm, I recommend we all watch the 8pm airing or both I suppose. If the 8pm airing gets no support it only proves that action can't succeed in prime time. Which is a sad statement considering Toonami was airing 7PM-11PM on Saturday nights for 3 years and airing in the early evenings for even longer than that.

ben0119 · December 11, 2016

Toriyama founded his entire franchise on a literal deus ex machina. Even taking into account the long-form shounen given of "yeah they won't really die here," any sense of temporary drama or tension blissfully vanishes the moment one remembers that everything's just going to be undone as soon as the dragon's summoned. This works a lot better in the original Dragon Ball, which was light-hearted enough to almost cross into gag territory at times, but when DBZ rolls around and there are supposed to be these apocalyptic world-ending stakes being established, it just falls completely flat. Hell, even when Toriyama placed limits on the Dragon Balls' resurrection abilities, he then swiftly proceeded to emasculate them by creating a whole new set without those limits. Good news Krillin, you can keep getting offed indefinitely!

(And dear sweet lord, Cell's final resurrection there. "So yeah, I survived my own self-destruction by sheer luck. And now I'm stronger than ever. And now I have Goku's magic teleporting. Because reasons." I could feel my individual brain cells melting.)

As loath as I am to agree with moose, he raised an excellent point. Dragon Ball was an immensely influential series that made Toriyama a household name and spawned myriad descendants. But at least in the DBZ portion...it barely has what one could consider a plot. Everyone's either fighting the big baddie, or in some sort of contrived training to face the next big baddie. There's no meat whatsoever on the narrative skeleton. And yes, it does nail the rare moment of awesome that hits home for your inner 12-year-old, but beyond that there's really nothing to recommend it beyond nostalgia. Future shounen series took what Dragon Ball spawned and did so much more with it, providing actual world-building and long-form character development and a general sense of being able to sink your teeth into them. Whether it's One Piece or Hunter x Hunter or Naruto or...well maybe not Bleach, but you get the idea.

Nobody watches DBZ for the plot. I'd think that should be obvious. I agree there isn't much of a world in DBZ. We barely see the regular people or the various towns, etc. but we did get a lot of that in Dragonball, at least. There was more of a story there, as well. A big part of why I prefer it over DBZ. But, I still enjoy DBZ. It's good for what it is, which is enjoyable character interactions, character growth and development, good fights, just fun. Nobody goes there for earth-shattering writing or plot. Hunter x Hunter's world is boring and nonsensical. Naruto's "world" is a forest and a bunch of villages that look exactly the same, with a handful of exceptions. Bleach's world and lore is awesome, though. And I'll grant you One Piece's world is neat. To me, One Piece is like an RPG in anime/manga form. Just a big, fun adventure, and awesome places and people the characters encounter on the way.

ben0119 · December 11, 2016

You would think Adult Swim was trying to be greedy or screw over Toonami when they're on the same dang side to begin with. :

The 8pm airing was probably something Toei wanted in return for letting Toonami air it at 11:30pm. I have no doubt they wanted to market Super as broadly as possible and air it on a children's network but the options are so limited now that they settled for Adult Swim.

If you ever want to see action air before 11pm, I recommend we all watch the 8pm airing or both I suppose. If the 8pm airing gets no support it only proves that action can't succeed in prime time. Which is a sad statement considering Toonami was airing 7PM-11PM on Saturday nights for 3 years and airing in the early evenings for even longer than that.

They may be in the same building, and Adult Swim may be Demarco's "day job", but his passion, the thing that makes him happy, is Toonami.

Perhaps that is possible. My question is why the hell wouldn't Toei shop Super to a kid's network like Disney or Nick? Air it to kids and slurp up those awesome toy and merch sales. I mean, surely they didn't already try that and get told to fuck off? Disney did take Pokemon off CN's hands, after all. Maybe I could leave it on the background on low volume. I'd rather my first viewing be on Toonami with my fellow Faithful. This totally screws up my whole routine of watching the shows with everyone on Toonami. They've thrown a massive wrench into things with this move!

And I'm concerned the 8pm airing could take the knees out of the 11:30 airing and in turn Toonami.

Sketch · December 11, 2016

The may be in the same building, and Adult Swim maybe Demarco's "day job", but his passion, the thing that makes him happy, is Toonami.

Perhaps that possible. My question is why the hell wouldn't Toei shop Super to a kid's network like Disney or Nick? Air it to kids and slurp up those awesome toy and merch sales. I mean, surely they didn't already try that and get told to fuck off? Disney did take Pokemon off CN's hands, after all. Maybe I could leave it on the background on low volume. I'd rather my first viewing be with on Toonami with my fellow Faithful. This totally screws up my whole routine of watching the shows with everyone on Toonami. They've thrown a massive wrench into things with this move!

Romantic as that statement was, the rest of Adult Swim isn't the enemy.

I would take Dragon Ball Super showing up on Adult Swim as a sign that Disney and Nicktoons didn't want it. The chances of Disney or Viacom not being able to outbid Turner are pretty slim. Saban's Vortexx block isn't around anymore and that was the last children's venue that had interest in Dragon Ball Z after Nicktoons unceremoniously kicked it to the curb after it did so well for the network. I thought DXD could have been interested but that was probably just wishful thinking.

Fine sure, just have it on in the background I guess but I would think this would offer you the rare opportunity to watch the show earlier and then be able to focus more on discussing it during the encore airing rather than just posting during the ad breaks. Though for that matter we could certainly discuss the show on here as it airs at 8pm. EST.

ben0119 · December 11, 2016

Romantic as that statement was, the rest of Adult Swim isn't the enemy.

I would take Dragon Ball Super showing up on Adult Swim as a sign that Disney and Nicktoons didn't want it. The chances of Disney or Viacom not being able to outbid Turner are pretty slim. Saban's Vortexx block isn't around anymore and that was the last children's venue that had interest in Dragon Ball Z after Nicktoons unceremoniously kicked it to the curb after it did so well for the network. I thought DXD could have been interested but that was probably just wishful thinking.

Fine sure, just have it on in the background I guess but I would think this would offer you the rare opportunity to watch the show earlier and then be able to focus more on discussing it during the encore airing rather than just posting during the ad breaks. Though for that matter we could certainly discuss the show on here as it airs at 8pm. EST.

You and I both know that Demarco slogs through the rest of day and rushes to Toonami, like a kid getting home from school to watch cartoons. Probably the only other thing he genuinely enjoys is the music stuff.

The rest of Adult Swim has been crap for years. They fucked over Metalocalypse. They didn't renew Titan Maximum even though it did well. Boondocks... not even sure what happened there. I lost track with ATHF and Robot Chicken. Maybe they were/are still good. Dunno, just lost track. They play live action garbage and continue to give comedy cancer like Tim & Eric and Eric Andre jobs. Even if that stuff was funny, I refuse to watch it on principle, because this channel is supposed to be a home for animation! And everyone says how these original comedies are "so cheap to produce", but the names on these shows get bigger and bigger. How much does it cost to pay Cabin Boy, Captain Janeway, or the bald guy from The Daily Show? Venture Brothers, one of the few good shows they have left that I keep up with, gets a new season about as often as a new volume of Hiatus is released! Their staple, Family Guy, jumped the shark and became an unfunny parody of itself eons ago! And I don't think we need to recount what happened with ASA again. So, enemy or not, Adult Swim overall, has fallen quite a ways. Toonami is one of the few shining beacons left, that exists in spite of Adult Swim's shittiness and poor direction.

I don't understand why Nick would do that if it did well enough for them. Maybe they wanted a cut of merch and toy sales or something? Probably can't get that with anime like you can with original, or at least, domestic productions. About all I can think of. But then one wonders why did they get it in the first place? And of course I vividly recall that not long after the last Saturday morning cartoon block died, and Kai's airing along with it, Toonami snatched it up. It is odd though that nobody, not even Disney, would want it! And it's not like you can't say it's not a sure bet. Was it simply not safe enough? I mean, some pretty hardcore shit goes down on Rebels. People die with regularity, and in general, other fucked-uppery. Not sure why Super would be so much more traumatic to young viewers' eyes. Maybe DBZ isn't as big as Pokemon, but it's still pretty damn big! Guess maybe Disney only wants the most toyetic stuff? Dunno. I mean, DBZ still had tons of toys and merch, even if it wasn't a show made to shill crap like Pokemon, or I guess what that Yokai Watch show is.

That is true. This is why I have to do my weekly re-watches. Even though I'll try to make sure to post during commercials, I'll sometimes slip up and post during a show, maybe if I don't get back to my recliner in time, or I'm pumped about something happening, or it's one of the show's I care less about. There's also the general buzz and excitement of the night, and jumping between chairs and screens (that are a mere two feet or so apart, but still), that I just don't feel I get a fully focused viewing of the shows on Saturday, hence my re-watches. Of course, as I announced earlier some weeks ago, I've abandoned this policy for Naruto and Hiatus and am only going to watch those shows once, because fuck those shows. Even my patience isn't infinite. So, what you say is... an option I could conceivably do. Maybe I could look at it like the old encore setup ASA and Toonami both had at different points. Though those encores were never really nothing more than background noise for me, if I even left them on. I could consider one my "viewing with discussion" airing and one my "focused viewing" airing. Unsure which one I would make which. Typically viewing and discussing comes first, but since the second airing is on Toonami, I don't know. Not sure how many people would show up for the 8:30pm airing. You see how some people only barely make it home in time for Toonami, just back from work, spending time out doing something, or whatever it might be. It would also break with years of precedence and tradition! I really can't stress enough how much this upsets everything! Yeah, it might be a good thing, if it does well, it could lead to more action in primetime. But... my routine.

And again, what if it doesn't do well? What it does about as well as the Kai encore? Was that due to it being a rerun of last week's ep? Was there that much of an overlap in viewers? Or did people just not know about it? Or was it simply that there is no interest of action animation outside of Toonami and the odd toyetic anime? I don't recall Adult Swim advertising that airing, either. I could be wrong. Adult Swim could just as stupidly throw it out there with no promotion, like the Kai encore.

And, let's say it does do well. What if then no one shows up for the Toonami airing? That could lead to bad ratings for Toonami's Super airing and then possibly the entire block. Could this lead to them moving Toonami to primetime, or at least expanding it that far, or do they see that all they need is Super and keep just that for Primetime and cancel Toonami or severely downsize it? Things are doing well enough now (as far as I know, I dropped the ratings thread because fuck that thread), but this is a tricky formula to get right, and for all we know what we have right now is a careful balancing act. We've already seen what damage has been caused just by moving the block up thirty minutes or airing a show people don't generally don't care for (IBO). Why fix what isn't broken? There's no telling what could happen from this level of meddling.

And since the 8pm thing has nothing to do with Toonami, I'm wary to call it a boon for Toonami, or even action animation. It's getting this treatment due it being new to American TV Dragonball. I again point to any number of the possible scenarios I highlighted above, many of them not good. As I said, this is a careful balancing act that we don't want to mess with too much.

And I do want Toonami to grow and improve. But how? When they moved the block forward, ratings went down. So, the only way you can expand is by adding time, adding days. But not moving shows. People are already set in their habit of watching the shows when they already come on. So they're kind of stuck since all the big shows come on, well, late at night on Saturday night. Perhaps they can add further airings, which would be quite welcome for Naruto and One Piece. Perhaps you might say the other long-runners are premieres or higher value, so they shouldn't air more than once a week. So maybe you encore them? Obviously if you do this, it couldn't be every night of the week, or rather, the weeknights plus Saturday, we know Sunday will always be Comedy's night. So, everywhere I look here, I'm really running into roadblocks. Demarco said the block could "expand as needed", but it seems limited in that. You move things up, you disrupt the viewers' routine. You add a show, it stays just as long as it gets VERY good ratings. They fucked up these previous chances by airing AoT reruns and the aforementioned move, and there's no telling if Super will do well with it being an encore airing. This, also, of course, takes away a Family Guy airing. Though, take note this didn't matter when they were airing premieres of AoT and Space Dandy - the error was airing reruns or moving something there.

But, I'm tired and babbling and going on tangents now. I should probably leave this for tomorrow. I'm just... concerned. This new development could potentially upset the careful balance Toonami has achieved, and we're looking at a block that is nothing but long-runners (of which they've just added another) and a permanent Gundam slot, which came to fruition just like I warned it would. Where do they put new shows? If you were to ask me, I'd say drop Hiatus and Shittuden, but of course, any one of us would have our least favorite long-runners we'd want to drop. The problem is, a good amount of people loyally watch all of them, and Demarco doesn't want to screw over loyal viewers. So, then, can Toonami realistically expand enough to add more shows, somehow breaking beyond its "cage?" That is, assuming of course, this Super encore doesn't throw everything into complete disarray.

CaptainStarwind · December 13, 2016

I plan to be watching the 8 PM airing when I can. I'll definitely be DVRing it to keep for my show archives.

So here's a question: if this 8 PM airing does well, do you think Toonami stands to be possibly moved earlier in the night? Or would they just write it off as Dragon Ball being Dragon Ball?

OwlChemist81 · December 13, 2016

I plan to be watching the 8 PM airing when I can. I'll definitely be DVRing it to keep for my show archives.

So here's a question: if this 8 PM airing does well, do you think Toonami stands to be possibly moved earlier in the night? Or would they just write it off as Dragon Ball being Dragon Ball?

Frankly, that's a good question! When DBZ Kai first got tried in that timeslot, it did well enough to attempt One Piece after that, but OP's ratings weren't good enough to hang on to its 8:30 PM timeslot. But Samurai Jack could succeed where Kai failed, and maybe also Hunter x Hunter? It's certainly tame enough for 8:30 right now!

But what WOULD an earlier Toonami look like? Would it even be possible for Toonami to eventually take over ALL of Saturday night, save for a double Family Guy at 10 or 11 PM??

I think maybe that's a bit ambitious, but if Super REALLY shoots the moon, a 2-hour Toonami Prime block might be in order before 2 hours of comedy someday. It would look something like this:

8 PM - DB Super

8:30 - Samurai Jack S5/DBZ Kai

9 PM - Hunter x Hunter

9:30 - Shippuden

12 AM - Midnight Run (JoJo and one mature short series)

1 AM - Gundam

1:30 - One Piece

2-4 AM Encores of 8-10 PM

Encoring the 12-2 AM from 4-6 AM would be cool, but probably wouldn't happen in this climate. One-Punch Man sort of proved same-night encores fail in the current climate. And yet they ARE trying just that wth DB Super, with the only real difference earlier timeslots for both and an extra hour between them! Maybe this time it WILL pan out?

ameakooo · December 13, 2016

8 PM - DB Super

8:30 - Samurai Jack S5/DBZ Kai

9 PM - Hunter x Hunter

9:30 - Shippuden

i'd watch the heck out of that lineup but i'm only one dude

MasqueradeOverture · December 15, 2016

New Buu Saga clip out:

Oddly enough, dub sounds a little more stilted than the original (weird considering the rest of Kai was a massive improvement upon the original, but at the same time the voice actors more or less came to their own by this time in the original DBZ).

Also, the picture is ASS. The Funimation Blu-rays of DBZ are infamous for looking like shit, but they still look better than whatever the hell hackjob of a remaster this is. This just looks like an HD version of the Orange Bricks.

BUU8800 · December 15, 2016

Oh wow. Well if you need any further proof that the Buu arc was recorded literally over a year ago Laura Bailey's still voicing Trunks there. She isn't coming back for Super. Also God I miss Tiffany Vollmer's Bulma. Monica Rial's great, but not who I grew up with. Ah well, I won't be watching Kai anyway, and Rial Bulma didn't bother me in the new movies so she probably won't in Super. Guess since it's all new material that I hadn't already heard before in my youth.

And yeah, I still love original Buu arc dub, a few things aside(Killa comes to mind) but then I still love the dub of Z in general, flaws and all.

mochi · December 15, 2016

New Buu Saga clip out:

Oddly enough, dub sounds a little more stilted than the original (weird considering the rest of Kai was a massive improvement upon the original, but at the same time the voice actors more or less came to their own by this time in the original DBZ).

Also, the picture is ASS. The Funimation Blu-rays of DBZ are infamous for looking like shit, but they still look better than whatever the hell hackjob of a remaster this is. This just looks like an HD version of the Orange Bricks.

3 things about this clip

1. the voice actors sound..........odd.....like they got a new voice director and were not yet used to them, they sound...not as good as they did in the rest of the series

2. there's evidence this dub was produced 3 years ago when DBZ Kai was airing on Nicktoons, but that Funimation was forbidden from admitting it was, Adult Gohan's voice actor posted a tweet saying he had begun recording for Gohan in Kai right after the Android Saga concluded on Nicktoons, then took it back, deleted the tweet, and denied making it (Goku's voice actor did the same thing), also Laura Bailey is doing Trunks voice in this, and she no longer works for funimation, as she moved to LA, and now only does voices in dubs by much higher paying companies such as Saban Brands or Disney

3. unless Eurobeat was a big thing in the 80's and very early 90's, the presense of that Eurobeat song at the end of the scene makes me think the Buu Saga replaced the music like the first half of Kai ALMOST did before the composer was sued for Plagiarism

MasqueradeOverture · December 15, 2016

^ The music for Kai Buu is by the same composer who does Super's / Battle Of Gods' / Resurrection F's music.

PokeNirvash · December 15, 2016

Who cares if they replaced the song or not, EUROBEAT IS AWESOME.

Sketch · December 16, 2016

Frankly, that's a good question! When DBZ Kai first got tried in that timeslot, it did well enough to attempt One Piece after that, but OP's ratings weren't good enough to hang on to its 8:30 PM timeslot. But Samurai Jack could succeed where Kai failed, and maybe also Hunter x Hunter? It's certainly tame enough for 8:30 right now!

But what WOULD an earlier Toonami look like? Would it even be possible for Toonami to eventually take over ALL of Saturday night, save for a double Family Guy at 10 or 11 PM??

I think maybe that's a bit ambitious, but if Super REALLY shoots the moon, a 2-hour Toonami Prime block might be in order before 2 hours of comedy someday. It would look something like this:

8 PM - DB Super

8:30 - Samurai Jack S5/DBZ Kai

9 PM - Hunter x Hunter

9:30 - Shippuden

12 AM - Midnight Run (JoJo and one mature short series)

1 AM - Gundam

1:30 - One Piece

2-4 AM Encores of 8-10 PM

Encoring the 12-2 AM from 4-6 AM would be cool, but probably wouldn't happen in this climate. One-Punch Man sort of proved same-night encores fail in the current climate. And yet they ARE trying just that wth DB Super, with the only real difference earlier timeslots for both and an extra hour between them! Maybe this time it WILL pan out?

Hunter's violence is probably too much for 9pm TBH, better off airing One Piece in prime time since it's much tamer overall.

Sketch · December 16, 2016

You and I both know that Demarco slogs through the rest of day and rushes to Toonami, like a kid getting home from school to watch cartoons. Probably the only other thing he genuinely enjoys is the music stuff.

The rest of Adult Swim has been crap for years. They fucked over Metalocalypse. They didn't renew Titan Maximum even though it did well. Boondocks... not even sure what happened there. I lost track with ATHF and Robot Chicken. Maybe they were/are still good. Dunno, just lost track. They play live action garbage and continue to give comedy cancer like Tim & Eric and Eric Andre jobs. Even if that stuff was funny, I refuse to watch it on principle, because this channel is supposed to be a home for animation! And everyone says how these original comedies are "so cheap to produce", but the names on these shows get bigger and bigger. How much does it cost to pay Cabin Boy, Captain Janeway, or the bald guy from The Daily Show? Venture Brothers, one of the few good shows they have left that I keep up with, gets a new season about as often as a new volume of Hiatus is released! Their staple, Family Guy, jumped the shark and became an unfunny parody of itself eons ago! And I don't think we need to recount what happened with ASA again. So, enemy or not, Adult Swim overall, has fallen quite a ways. Toonami is one of the few shining beacons left, that exists in spite of Adult Swim's shittiness and poor direction.

I don't understand why Nick would do that if it did well enough for them. Maybe they wanted a cut of merch and toy sales or something? Probably can't get that with anime like you can with original, or at least, domestic productions. About all I can think of. But then one wonders why did they get it in the first place? And of course I vividly recall that not long after the last Saturday morning cartoon block died, and Kai's airing along with it, Toonami snatched it up. It is odd though that nobody, not even Disney, would want it! And it's not like you can't say it's not a sure bet. Was it simply not safe enough? I mean, some pretty hardcore shit goes down on Rebels. People die with regularity, and in general, other fucked-uppery. Not sure why Super would be so much more traumatic to young viewers' eyes. Maybe DBZ isn't as big as Pokemon, but it's still pretty damn big! Guess maybe Disney only wants the most toyetic stuff? Dunno. I mean, DBZ still had tons of toys and merch, even if it wasn't a show made to shill crap like Pokemon, or I guess what that Yokai Watch show is.

That is true. This is why I have to do my weekly re-watches. Even though I'll try to make sure to post during commercials, I'll sometimes slip up and post during a show, maybe if I don't get back to my recliner in time, or I'm pumped about something happening, or it's one of the show's I care less about. There's also the general buzz and excitement of the night, and jumping between chairs and screens (that are a mere two feet or so apart, but still), that I just don't feel I get a fully focused viewing of the shows on Saturday, hence my re-watches. Of course, as I announced earlier some weeks ago, I've abandoned this policy for Naruto and Hiatus and am only going to watch those shows once, because fuck those shows. Even my patience isn't infinite. So, what you say is... an option I could conceivably do. Maybe I could look at it like the old encore setup ASA and Toonami both had at different points. Though those encores were never really nothing more than background noise for me, if I even left them on. I could consider one my "viewing with discussion" airing and one my "focused viewing" airing. Unsure which one I would make which. Typically viewing and discussing comes first, but since the second airing is on Toonami, I don't know. Not sure how many people would show up for the 8:30pm airing. You see how some people only barely make it home in time for Toonami, just back from work, spending time out doing something, or whatever it might be. It would also break with years of precedence and tradition! I really can't stress enough how much this upsets everything! Yeah, it might be a good thing, if it does well, it could lead to more action in primetime. But... my routine.

And again, what if it doesn't do well? What it does about as well as the Kai encore? Was that due to it being a rerun of last week's ep? Was there that much of an overlap in viewers? Or did people just not know about it? Or was it simply that there is no interest of action animation outside of Toonami and the odd toyetic anime? I don't recall Adult Swim advertising that airing, either. I could be wrong. Adult Swim could just as stupidly throw it out there with no promotion, like the Kai encore.

And, let's say it does do well. What if then no one shows up for the Toonami airing? That could lead to bad ratings for Toonami's Super airing and then possibly the entire block. Could this lead to them moving Toonami to primetime, or at least expanding it that far, or do they see that all they need is Super and keep just that for Primetime and cancel Toonami or severely downsize it? Things are doing well enough now (as far as I know, I dropped the ratings thread because fuck that thread), but this is a tricky formula to get right, and for all we know what we have right now is a careful balancing act. We've already seen what damage has been caused just by moving the block up thirty minutes or airing a show people don't generally don't care for (IBO). Why fix what isn't broken? There's no telling what could happen from this level of meddling.

And since the 8pm thing has nothing to do with Toonami, I'm wary to call it a boon for Toonami, or even action animation. It's getting this treatment due it being new to American TV Dragonball. I again point to any number of the possible scenarios I highlighted above, many of them not good. As I said, this is a careful balancing act that we don't want to mess with too much.

And I do want Toonami to grow and improve. But how? When they moved the block forward, ratings went down. So, the only way you can expand is by adding time, adding days. But not moving shows. People are already set in their habit of watching the shows when they already come on. So they're kind of stuck since all the big shows come on, well, late at night on Saturday night. Perhaps they can add further airings, which would be quite welcome for Naruto and One Piece. Perhaps you might say the other long-runners are premieres or higher value, so they shouldn't air more than once a week. So maybe you encore them? Obviously if you do this, it couldn't be every night of the week, or rather, the weeknights plus Saturday, we know Sunday will always be Comedy's night. So, everywhere I look here, I'm really running into roadblocks. Demarco said the block could "expand as needed", but it seems limited in that. You move things up, you disrupt the viewers' routine. You add a show, it stays just as long as it gets VERY good ratings. They fucked up these previous chances by airing AoT reruns and the aforementioned move, and there's no telling if Super will do well with it being an encore airing. This, also, of course, takes away a Family Guy airing. Though, take note this didn't matter when they were airing premieres of AoT and Space Dandy - the error was airing reruns or moving something there.

But, I'm tired and babbling and going on tangents now. I should probably leave this for tomorrow. I'm just... concerned. This new development could potentially upset the careful balance Toonami has achieved, and we're looking at a block that is nothing but long-runners (of which they've just added another) and a permanent Gundam slot, which came to fruition just like I warned it would. Where do they put new shows? If you were to ask me, I'd say drop Hiatus and Shittuden, but of course, any one of us would have our least favorite long-runners we'd want to drop. The problem is, a good amount of people loyally watch all of them, and Demarco doesn't want to screw over loyal viewers. So, then, can Toonami realistically expand enough to add more shows, somehow breaking beyond its "cage?" That is, assuming of course, this Super encore doesn't throw everything into complete disarray.

Well that was quite a rant about Adult Swim. Aqua Teen ended but Robot Chicken is still in production IIRC.

Just how much do you think those actors get paid? Animation for a single episode of Venture Bros. costs roughly 300,000 dollars. The 26th highest paid actor on US television per episode is Peter Dinklage on Game of Thrones. He gets 150,000 per episode. http://www.bingewatched.com/15-highest-per-episode-paid-tv-actors-time/ I'd have to figure the actors on Adult Swim live action shows get paid quite a bit less than the 26th highest paid actor. So while it's nowhere near as cheap as using talent with little to no notoriety it's still considerably more affordable than animation.

In all likelihood Super's 8pm airing wont be able to do better than a 0.4 18-49 and something around 1 million total viewers. The 11:30pm airing which more people are likely to tune in for, that will also have the benefit of a Family Guy lead-in, is sure to manage 0.5 18-49 and 1.2 million at the lowest but more likely to get around 0.6 18-49 and above 1.3 million. DBZ Kai following that may actually crack 0.7 18-49 and 1.5 million due to less competition and the fact that it's the only airing once a night. And don't worry about losing a Family Guy, they'll still have double Family Guy as a lead-in. 10:30-11:30.

Keeping DBZ Kai at midnight is likely the insurance policy for any kind of problematic Super viewership split. If they were following Super with pretty much anything else then I'd be a bit concerned but they are taking back 11:30pm the right way this time. They're letting people know a month in advance and they're adding a slot, not just shifting earlier so DBZ isn't leaving midnight where people expect to see it.

If Super's 8pm airings choke, they will most likely switch to 11:30 premieres and 8pm encores like they had with Kai. Or they may stick with it as long as the Toonami airings don't look to be negatively affected by the 8pm premieres if that's what it takes to appease Toei.

I honestly don't think the shift earlier this year caused their ratings to decline, I think that decline was going to happen either way because all of Adult Swim declined this year and so did the rest of cable. The timing merely made it seem like it was because Toonami tried to air earlier and added Gundam. That sort of thing only should have tripped up the audience a few weeks at most but it wasn't until One-Punch Man came along that things got back on track. Now that it ended things are down again despite moving back to midnight.

I very much believe they can sustain 11:30 and even 11pm. They have enough huge titles to do it once they can secure Attack on Titan season 2. However, maintaining momentum from 11pm to 1am will prove difficult if the audience doesn't take a liking to JoJo or they get another series that can keep the DBZ viewers but the expectations for 1am-3:30 seem to be relatively low.

Unfortunately airing earlier than 11pm puts Toonami up against a lot more sports and cable premieres but if it cannot hold it's own against all that then it's strength seems rather artificial. Though the same can be argued for most of what Adult Swim airs after 11pm, FOX reruns are very reliable for those hours anything else they try tends to be short lived. If Super does well at 8pm they might even try One Piece and/or Shippuden premieres in those hours that'd be a good way to open up some space on Toonami without pulling those series off the air.

mochi · December 16, 2016

^ The music for Kai Buu is by the same composer who does Super's / Battle Of Gods' / Resurrection F's music.

Ahhhh, explains it

edit: I love that little Trunks thinks his dad is awesome, he's probably the only person in series that does and it's sweet

CaptainStarwind · December 17, 2016

New Buu Saga clip out:

Oddly enough, dub sounds a little more stilted than the original (weird considering the rest of Kai was a massive improvement upon the original, but at the same time the voice actors more or less came to their own by this time in the original DBZ).

Also, the picture is ASS. The Funimation Blu-rays of DBZ are infamous for looking like shit, but they still look better than whatever the hell hackjob of a remaster this is. This just looks like an HD version of the Orange Bricks.

Oh wow, that picture really is terrible. It seems really washed out. The music sounds pretty good, at least. I'm glad we aren't gonna be hearing the DBZ Japanese tracks anymore.

I think the only one that sounds really stilted is Gohan. I can hear it a little in Bulma, but not too bad. Gohan sounds like he's reading off a cue card.

OwlChemist81 · December 17, 2016

Wait, what!? Is this from the first episode? Is the Other World tournament really complete filler!?

As for picture quality, well, no worse than original DBZ Kai if you ask me!

In a weird way, I'm actually kinda gonna miss the Kikuchi track. You might even say it grew on me!

mochi · December 17, 2016

evidently from what I understand, dispite being canon, Super is operating on an ALTERED canon, meaning some minor details are different, things that could possibly be different include

1. Vegeta's age, in the old Canon he was 5 when the saiyans were killed, making him one year older than Bulma, apperently Dragonball Minus retconned him as being 7 when they were genocided, making him 3 years older than her

(granted in super he explains that Saiyans do not leave their Prime (I.e. their 20's to 30's) until they are around 50, so he's actually younger than her in Super physically, he also explained this in the Buu saga but not in as intricate detail)

, Goku's age was also changed, which created a plot hole, and has been ignored by Super's canon as far as I know

2. the events of the Buu Saga, officially the Buu Saga still happened, but Toriyama said he is unhappy with it, and I forget if it was said pre-Super or Post super, but he once said that while the saga still happened, the actual events in the Buu saga happened "differently" than they originally did in current canon

Beerus and Whis may exist just to explain away the plot holes the Minus retcon caused

MasqueradeOverture · December 17, 2016

Wait, what!? Is this from the first episode? Is the Other World tournament really complete filler!?

Other World Tournament and most of Great Saiyaman is filler, yes. Sad part is I really like those filler eps.

I don't think this is the first episode (at least I hope it isn't).

ben0119 · December 21, 2016

Other World Tournament and most of Great Saiyaman is filler, yes. Sad part is I really like those filler eps.

I don't think this is the first episode (at least I hope it isn't).

Me too. DBZ filler is actually good. Unlike the lazy anime filler we have today. *sigh*

ben0119 · December 21, 2016