Toonami

[Rynnec]

Ah yes, the season where Demon Slayer's pacing begins to suck.

[Avaitor]

Looks like a busy week for fans of the block. It's cool that we're actually getting notable updates to the lineup, but it would be nice to see another new series on here instead of their mostly mid originals (Ninja Kamui was decent and I'm hopeful for Uzumaki) and more Demon Slayer. Not that I necessarily think that getting Chainsaw Man or Spy x Family are good calls, but maybe something similar to Lycoris Recoil's change of pace.

[Daikun]

Arrivederci, Shippuden.

It only took 10 years (or 15 if you consider Disney XD), but it finally trudged at a snail's pace to air all 500 episodes.

[Daxdiv]

Heard they didn't even give it a send-off. I get that it's Shippuden, but you would think that something that was a staple of your block for 10 years would get a bye-bye. I mean, Family Guy got one when they lost the rights to it.

[Dr. Insomniac]

A little surprised seeing people mad that Toonami didn't do anything special. The episode originally came out 7 years ago, and the dub shortly after. I assume most people who care about Naruto have already watched the episode through a variety of other means. Can't imagine anybody who cared about the show to keep up with late-night Toonami airings, but not care enough to watch the rest on Crunchyroll or torrents.

Then again, I'm also surprised that people still have undashed expectations for modern Toonami.

[Daikun]

NOW they acknowledge Shippuden's run...a week late.

https://x.com/swimpedia/status/1832631375054209071

[Avaitor]

Someone clearly wasn't expecting any kind of backlash.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Still confused there was tbh. But I don't know. Maybe after all the issues like making bad FLCL sequels, running the wrong episode by accident on a regular basis, posting obvious fetish art that any intern would have recognized as unsuitable for TV, Toonami fans are finally getting restless. I noticed the TZ thread on Toonami is much more skeptical than it was a year ago.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I remember someone on TZ recently pointed out that DeMarco seemingly had no idea what Sentai owned even though they're the one anime licensor he's on friendly terms with, and now we know he doesn't know who animates his own original shows while being more than happy to boast about how he produced them.

[Daxdiv]

I sometimes wonder what that man does other than getting into slap fights on Twitter. It feels like he takes every thing a guy with 20 followers say get under his skin. Not knowing what Sentai even has considering that I can easily just look it up on a search engine and go "Ah, they can probably air this" while I'm pretty sure he could get a better list of what can air or not than I can from googling.

[Avaitor]

Sentai may not have as many potentially reliable shows as FuniRoll, but they have some things that would do well for the block, like Ushio and Tora. The problem is that they don't have a Jujutsu Kaisen or SpyxFamily-level name, and that's all DeMarco seems interested in. So now the block has to stall as long as possible before they can get the rights to seasons of Demon Slayer or MHA and put on their crappy originals or double up on decade-old One Piece eps in between. It's actually kind of astounding that they even still have a regular viewership.

And yeah, that recent Twitter spat is not a good look.

[Dr. Insomniac]

But that's an inherent failure, because it's hard to have it both ways, right? Wanting an extremely popular show, but also wanting to air it at a time when the target audience is asleep, especially in an era when they don't have to do that and can watch it whenever? Whether it's dubbed or subbed? Because I've said this before, why would Crunchyroll look at that and see it as beneficial to them? What are they gonna gain from letting Toonami air shows like Frieren or Blue Lock at graveyard slots? And pretending they're above airing some older or more obscure anime is pompous on their part. Which seems pretty hypocritical given how much DeMarco wants indie cred, but given he's keen on shitting on random directors for doing franchise work while he's more than happy to contribute in Marvel-izing LOTR, I'm just used to him outing himself as no better than any other WB executive. Like how he said he was quitting Twitter only to come back a few months later. He's not a guy who keeps his word, and if he's that erratic on social media, then it's no surprise he can't make deals with Crunchyroll.

It's actually kind of astounding that they even still have a regular viewership.

I've been wondering that too, since there was loud enough furor over the Naruto thing that they had to acknowledge that a week later. I assume the core audience is just the old guard who've been watching since the 2000s and are attached to Toonami via brand loyalty and habit, no matter if Toonami just aired dead air for hours, they'll still be watching. Because why would any zoomer think the best way to watch MHA is to watch it at 2:30 AM on cable when there are more accessible options?

[Dr. Insomniac]

They've lost Dragonball to Netflix.

[Daikun]

They've lost Dragonball to Netflix.

I'm honestly not bothered by that. Toonami aired way too much Dragon Ball anyway--both the old and new blocks. Also, Daima feels rather derivative of the disliked DBGT, and I don't think Toonami fans would be too happy seeing this after following up the conclusion of Super a few years back.

[Rynnec]

With any luck, this'll force them to think outside the box in terms of pickups and actually look through Viz, Sentai, and Discotek's catalogue. But I'm not holding my breath.