Toonami

[LumRanmaYasha]

My problem with the Frieza arc really has to do with two characters. One really shouldn't be an issue, but Bulma was just a pain. She seriously ruined parts of the arc for me. Just annoying. So annoying. And I still have no idea why she was included. You could take her fully out of the arc and I don't think anything important would be lost.

I agree that some of Bulma's antics during Namek could be tiresome, but that's really only an issue with the anime. In the manga Bulma is pretty much sidelined right away and doesn't really appear or do much during the arc and all the hijinks they did with her in the anime, including the body-switch with Ginyu, was filler.

The other issue is interestingly Frieza. Not entirely why I don't care for Frieza, but I like a villain like Cell. I just was so bored during that whole final fight, where as I was never bored during Goku vs Cell and Gohan vs Cell. While its my least favorite arc, I wouldn't call it bad. There's a lot to like, I just like the other arcs more.

What is it about Cell that you like more than Freeza? While I do find him interesting in his imperfect forms, once he becomes perfect he essentially just becomes Freeza except with less personality and motivation imo. But I can understand being fatigued with the Freeza fight because it does go on for a long time, though it's personally up there as one of my favorite fights in the series.

Yes, you are right on my opinion of HxH. I felt similar, but I found myself more invested in Hunter's characters than Jojo's. But, I think a big difference, which may not be all that fair to Jojo, is how I watched the two series. For the most part I watched HxH at my own pace when I wanted too. Where as Jojo, its once a week. And I think that may have hurt my interest in Jojo. Mixing in with that hype you mentioned. Its hard not to let the hype affect my interest in a show. You hear good things, and if it doesn't live up to those expectations, it may make it feel worse overall. I'd say the same thing happened to me in regards to Madoka Magica. I saw so much praise for it, but ultimately walked away more annoyed than anything.

Of course, its definitely a possibility that I was never gonna like Jojo no matter what. And that happens. Its too bad, because the way its structured really interested me. A story spanning many generations of a family. Sounds great. Just hasn't clicked with me.

One other thing. I agree that you shouldn't judge a whole story on only part of it, but if that early part turns you off so much, its extremely difficult to want to continue or to even think it'll ever reach a high point.

Overall, if Toonami airs Stardust Crusaders, I'll watch it and hope for the best.

That's a fair way to look at things. Something not living up to your expectations despite the hype can really kill your enthusiasm for it and it's hard to get into a long-running work even if "it gets better" if the early parts don't appeal to you. And JoJo's definitely doesn't appeal to everyone. At least, not every part of it does. I certainly know people who only like one part of JoJo's and don't care about the rest of it. So I would recommend checking out other parts in the series if they do air on the block because they are all so different from each other, and there might be one that clicks with you.

I know the idea of airing movies has been disliked by fans, but maybe they could air the two Ghost in the Shell movies as a form of rebellion against the live-action film. Considering they're airing some live-action project by Mamoru Oshii, it would be further fitting to air something else he directed.

That would be awesome. Hopefully they'll consider doing that while the live-action film is still in theaters. The same weekend the movie comes out would be ideal, but then again Toonami falls on April 1st this year so they probably already have something planned for that.

Speaking of, what do you guys think they'll do for April Fools this year? My guess is that they'll rebrand the block as Miguzi for the night. 

[gunswordfist]

Meh, Imperfect Cell was just a slimeball and Semi-Perfect Cell was the dumbest one. The only thing he did smart was trick Vegeta. Besides that, he thought screaming and blowing up islands would help him find the androids and the dumbass repeatedly flew straight into Tien's Tri-Beam even though his Imperfect form was smart enough to burrow through the ground just minutes ago. He's a dumbass.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, personally I'm not a fan of the Cell character, unless we're talking about TFS's version of him in DBZA.

[Dreamer2]

I'm not entirely sure why I prefer Cell to Frieza. Maybe I just find him more entertaining.

When I was a kid, the Imperfect version really creeped me out though.

But, my favorite DBZ villain is probably Vegeta. When he was actually a villain of course.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Cell is my least favorite villain in all of DB. He doesn't have any charisma, his goals were boring and short-sighted, and the Cell Saga falls apart by the time he becomes whole.

Anyway, I do think JoJo as a franchise is a good fit for Toonami. I'm just not convinced Phantom Blood or Battle Tendency are. Unfortunately, this might be the only chance it gets.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Meh, Imperfect Cell was just a slimeball and Semi-Perfect Cell was the dumbest one. The only thing he did smart was trick Vegeta. Besides that, he thought screaming and blowing up islands would help him find the androids and the dumbass repeatedly flew straight into Tien's Tri-Beam even though his Imperfect form was smart enough to burrow through the ground just minutes ago. He's a dumbass.

Those are at least personalities, which is more than what Perfect Cell has. What makes Cell fundamentally interesting in his imperfect forms is that he has this innate, primal desire to become complete because that is what he was born to do and he is single-mindedly focused on that goal alone, willing to do anything and everything to achieve that end, no matter how sleazy, underhanded, or yes, even dumb and irrational.

But what is Cell after he becomes perfect? What does he want, what is his purpose after that? To defeat Goku like the other androids were designed to? If it was, he never seemed concerned about doing that specifically as a goal, otherwise he would have done that immediately instead of dicking around with his tournament nonsense. Basically, I don't think Toriyama actually had an idea of what Cell would want to do after he became perfect and just turned him into another power-obsessed bad guy who wants to prove he's got the biggest dick by fucking over the toughest guys around and then blowing up the world because...it gets him off? There's no reason why he is actually interested in doing that, other than he finds the idea fun I guess? You can have a villain that just does things because, but based on what we know of Cell's origins and seen of him in his Imperfect forms it doesn't make sense why he'd turn out like that other than the saiyan genetics argument which is still a really lame justification.

It's a shame, because Cell was a great idea conceptually, a literal culmination of all the heroes and villains in one single genetic package, but in execution his perfect form just has no motivation other than to be the bad guy because there needed to be one. He only exists, and was ever created to, to give the arc a villain who fans would buy as a believable and acceptable end-boss and had an admittedly iconic presence which is what the previous androids were lacking. I honestly don't think Perfect Cell wouldn't be as memorable or beloved as he is if his design wasn't so good and Norio Wakamoto and Dameon Clarke didn't do all the work of giving the character some semblance of personality and charisma through their performances. It's too bad that was all wasted on a character with such boring goals and no reason to be doing anything he does.

When I was a kid, the Imperfect version really creeped me out though.

But, my favorite DBZ villain is probably Vegeta. When he was actually a villain of course.

I felt the same, especially in the anime for sure. His introduction scene and the sequence in the hall of mirrors are still some really freaky stuff.

I also agree about Vegeta. IMO, he has the strongest and most dynamic character arc in the series, one that spans from the very beginning of Z to the end and now continues strongly beyond with Super. That's why he's my favorite character in the series.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I wonder how the Android Saga would have fared had Toriyama's editor not told him to replace Dr. Gero, then 17 and 18, and then Imperfect Cell. I know Toriyama writes the plot on the fly, but there did seem to be points in that arc where moments and plot developments (like Piccolo fusing back with Kami) were supposed to foreshadow and turn into something wholly different.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I wonder how the Android Saga would have fared had Toriyama's editor not told him to replace Dr. Gero, then 17 and 18, and then Imperfect Cell. I know Toriyama writes the plot on the fly, but there did seem to be points in that arc where moments and plot developments (like Piccolo fusing back with Kami) were supposed to foreshadow and turn into something wholly different.

"Editors," actually. Torishima (who was technically no longer Toriyama's editor at that time) still held a lot of influence over him and convinced him to change the villains of the arc twice, rejecting both sets of androids. His current editor at that point in time then made apparent his distaste for Cell's initial design, which then prompted Toriyama to bring back the concept of transformations and thus created and followed through with the concept of Perfect Cell.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I wonder how the Android Saga would have fared had Toriyama's editor not told him to replace Dr. Gero, then 17 and 18, and then Imperfect Cell. I know Toriyama writes the plot on the fly, but there did seem to be points in that arc where moments and plot developments (like Piccolo fusing back with Kami) were supposed to foreshadow and turn into something wholly different.

My guess is that if Toriyama went with his original plan to make #20 the big bad of the arc he would still turn out to be Dr. Gero, but he would have been stronger than Super Saiyan so Vegeta couldn't beat him immediately, and he would probably have more minions for the Z Fighters to fight and another plan outside of killing Goku.

With 16, 17 and 18, I think that 18 would've gotten some form of redemption because of Krillin's feelings for her, and maybe 17 would too, but 16 would turn out to be the real big threat and be way stronger than the two of them and despite his kind soul would take a more aggressive stance with the Z Fighters and be more proactive in hunting down and killing Goku.

If Toriyama never had Cell transform he would've probably still gained his power by absorbing the energy of others, so he would pick off the Z Fighters and Androids one by one and become stronger that way.

With all of these I think that Piccolo's fusion with Kami and Vegeta and Trunks' character arcs would've still progressed similarly, just responding to the different threats accordingly. Goku probably would've been out of commission longer if the Androids and their intent to kill him were still the focus of the arc, and Gohan may have still been forced to come into his own not because of Goku's prodding but because of necessity. But Goku might've still ended up the hero of the arc as the Toriyama formula dictates.

It's really fun to think about how different the arc would've turned out if Toriyama had not been guided the way he was. I'd love to see these particular what-ifs be tackled in the video games sometime.

[Avaitor]

Also, I really hope that we get season 2 of Iron-Blooded Orphans, and soon. Because frankly, Unicorn RE: 0096 isn't that good. I actually do like the OVAs, but the pacing is killed when they're converted into episodes, especially when they get padded with recaps. I'm surprised how that's holding on so well from Jojo in comparison to how it holds to DB.

We'll probably get IBO Season 2 once Unicorn RE: 0096 ends at the beginning of June.  I love the Unicorn OVAs, but it the TV version is definitely hurt by the abrupt endings and long recaps.  While it hasn't ruined my enjoyment so far, I understand how it's hurting other people's investment in the series.  I'm honestly surprised that Unicorn isn't doing worse on the block.  While the series is technically accessible to new viewers, a lot of people unfamiliar with UC tend to get overwhelmed/confused by the history of the UC timeline and its terminology.  To be fair, Hunter X Hunter is still performing better than it some weeks, so I really hope Unicorn and it switch timeslots when Tokyo Ghoul is added.

I've noticed that Unicorn's UC ties have been turning people off to the show, even though it's not the only reason. I don't think that it's references are too much for new viewers, but I guess that isn't a popular opinion.

But really, I think it's interesting that Unicorn's doing okay, since Gundam's another franchise that has struggled in the US. IBO did decently too, even though it wasn't a megahit. I actually think that a more action-packed series could be a fairly big hit for the block.

[Dreamer2]

Tokyo Ghoul will be on at 1 am. I'm a little surprised, as I thought they might move Jojo down.

[Daikun]

Nah. JoJo is too strong of a franchise to be brought down by a title whose popularity quickly waned after a couple years.

[Dreamer2]

Yeah, but as we've been discussing here, Jojo doesn't seem to be catching on with the Toonami crowd. And the ratings don't look too great at the moment.

Also, HxH is a pretty strong franchise as well and its down at 2 am now.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Nah. JoJo is too strong of a franchise to be brought down by a title whose popularity quickly waned after a couple years.

Idk about the anime, but the Tokyo Ghoul manga is actually ridiculously popular, and dominated the now defunct NYT Manga lists with sometimes half the list being taken up by volumes of the series, and is easily the biggest manga in terms of sales in the U.S. right now rivaled only by One-Punch Man. The JoJo's manga wasn't even close to having the same presence TG had on those lists back when we were reporting them on Manga Mavericks. I wouldn't be surprised if the anime actually does pretty well on Toonami.

I think the reason they didn't put TG at 12:30 is because they'll be done with JoJo's is a couple weeks and probably want to debut it's replacement, whether its SC or not, at that timeslot, and they don't want to have to shuffle down TG after only 5 weeks.

I'm more bummed that HXH is at 2am now. I was hoping it could keep 1:30 since it often does better than Unicorn. Then again, Unicorn will eventually end and they probably want to keep the 1:30 slot open for when they have a new show come in, and HXH could run stable at 2am without needing to be shuffled down again for the rest of it's run. Unless they replace Shippuden in the future and decide to push it back to 2:30, which would suck, but might be unavoidable in that circumstance unless HXH significantly outperforms the show before it.

[Daikun]

Idk about the anime, but the Tokyo Ghoul manga is actually ridiculously popular, and dominated the now defunct NYT Manga lists with sometimes half the list being taken up by volumes of the series, and is easily the biggest manga in terms of sales in the U.S. right now rivaled only by One-Punch Man.

The anime started out in 2015 with a lukewarm reception, then what little hype the show had petered out, and the second season was poorly received.

I'm hoping Toonami only got the first season. It's as good as it gets.