A Small Update

Happy Holidays, everyone! On be hath of myself and The Toonami Blog, I hope all my readers are having a nice, safe, and enjoyable holiday season.

Let me just start out this post by apologizing for the lack of updates to the blog as of late. I know a lot has been going on in the Toonami-verse lately, and I unfortunately haven't been able to keep up with updates here as of late (don't panic though! The blog will still continue!). I won't go into much detail about why I haven't been able to keep up with updating the blog, but I will say that I've been under a lot of stress lately (and hopefully the Holidays will help me to recuperate from it). Again, I sincerely apologize to my loyal readers for not being able to keep you guys informed about the latest Toonami news.

To make up for this, however, I'd like to present a small Christmas gift to all of you that I started a while ago (and still working on at of this writing). As some of you may know, I got my start at a site called Nick and More, where, for the most part, I covered Toonami news for them. Around March 2015, Bryan (the owner of the site) announced the closure of the site (which is how this blog came to be). Thankfully, the site's content was kept intact in an archived state for a good while. However, Bryan has recently pulled off Nick and More's contents due to an forthcoming expiration in both hosting and the domain of the website. While I respect Bryan's decision to pull off the content rather than pay for an archived site, it is sad that most of the content on the site will not be able to be seen again for the most part...

...until now. Thanks to some backups I made in March 2015 in Word documents, I can re-present (or perhaps present for the first time) my Nick and More article archive, featuring articles that were written by me for the site between 2013-2015. The archive will soon be available on this very blog in its entirety (there are currently a few articles from my Nick and More days up, with more being published soon!) for your reading enjoyment (excluding one article that doesn't fit the context of the blog). I am very excited to share these articles again to all of my loyal readers out there and I hope that this will at least partially make up for my absence here as of late.

If that's not enough for you, I also plan to have a Toonami Roundup article up within the next few days. This will cover the Parasyte -the maxim- and Dragon Ball Z Kai marathons that occurred on November 28th, 2015 and December 19th, 2015, respectively, as well as the upcoming One Piece marathon this Saturday (December 26th, 2015) and news about the acquisition of Samurai Champloo and the brand-new episodes of Samurai Jack coming to Toonami next year. In addition to that, the Toonami Marathon Stream pages will be updated soon (for those who can't wait, this week's show is Attack on Titan).

No matter what you celebrate, I hope you all have a happy and festive holiday season and I hope you'll stick with our Toonami articles into the foreseeable future!

Stay gold, everyone!

Bang.

"Dragon Ball Z Kai" Re-Runs Pulled From Adult Swim Schedule

 

Prime-time anime, unfortunately, seems not long for this world. Starting this Saturday (October 31st), Dragon Ball Z Kai will no longer air re-runs at the beginning of the Adult Swim block. This sudden change is not, however, due to low ratings with the re-run slot (the re-run slot on October 17th gained 714,000 viewers), but rather Adult Swim itself is losing the entire 8pm ET hour starting tonight (October 26th). As of this writing, Cartoon Network has regained the 8pm hour through at least the week of November 16th, airing rarely seen original shows Adventure Time and Regular Show (the former of which will be airing a week of new episodes starting November 2nd) as well as the mini-series Over The Garden Wall during the week of October 26th. 

It is currently unknown whether or not Adult Swim will regain the 8pm hour back in the near future or if Cartoon Network has truly regained these time slots, which it lost to Adult Swim way back on March 31st, 2014. The timeslot change could be a way to better segue way into the Adult Swim timeslots, with programs that attract a higher adult audience than other Cartoon Network originals, yet still are targeted towards children.

Dragon Ball Z Kai will continue to air new episodes on Toonami every Saturday night at Midnight ET/PT. 

"Akame Ga Kill" Marathon October 31st on Toonami

Night Raid has decided to go on a Halloween mass-murder spree. On October 31st, Toonami will be running an Akame ga Kill marathon, re-running Episodes 3-11 of the series from 12:00am ET/PT - 3:30am ET/PT. As an added bonus, Daylight Savings Time falls that night (which would be November 1st at 2:00am ET/PT), which means Toonami will run for 4 and a 1/2 hours instead of the usual 3 and a 1/2 hours. This marks the first time since the block was downsized back in February that Toonami has run longer than 3 and a 1/2 hours.

This move is slightly unexpected, as another Toonami marathon was not supposed to happen until November. This is not only the first time a Sentai Filmworks show has been re-run, but it is also the first year that Toonami won't be doing anything out of the ordinary for its extra Daylight Savings Time hour (although arguably, a marathon could count, but Toonami show marathons have been shown many times this year).

The schedule for the marathon on October 31st can be found below (all times Eastern/Pacific time):
12:00am Akame ga Kill - Episode 3
12:30am Akame ga Kill - Episode 4
1:00am Akame ga Kill - Episode 5
1:30am Akame ga Kill - Episode 6
2:00am Akame ga Kill - Episode 7
2:30am Akame ga Kill - Episode 8
2:00am DST Akame ga Kill - Episode 9
2:30am DST Akame ga Kill - Episode 10
3:00am  Akame ga Kill - Episode 11 

All news in this article courtesy of the official Toonami Tumblr page.

"Kill La Kill" Re-Runs To Replace "Attack on Titan" Re-Runs

Ryuko and Senketsu aren't done fighting clothing yet. Originally posted by Toonami Faithful on their Facebook page, Jason DeMarco has confirmed that Aniplex's Kill La Kill re-runs will replace Attack on Titan re-runs when that show finishes its run. This marks the first time that an Aniplex series has been given a second run on Toonami, outside of marathons. Before this announcement, the only Kill La Kill episodes to get a second run were Episodes 10-15, which were broadcast during Toonami's Kill La Kill Marathon this past Memorial Day. While not formally announced, the show is expected to return on October 3rd, as Attack on Titan will finish its run on September 26th.

While it's certainly a surprising, yet welcome choice (considering it managed to hit over 1 million total views throughout most of its run), in a way it's not so surprising, as Aniplex has allowed Toonami to keep streaming rights to all of its programs that have run on Toonami (with the exception of the original Sword Art Online). This could possibly mean that Aniplex has allowed Toonami to keep broadcasting rights for the show for a long period of time or its allowing Toonami to run the show again for a low price.

Toonami at Dragon Con: "Intruder 2," "Toonami Comic," "Toonami App," Etc.

At the last moment, Toonami did a panel at a convention called Dragon Con. Unlike the Momocon panel however, this went largely under the radar. Thankfully, Toonami Faithful was there and managed to report on some news Toonami announced at the panel.

The major news is that a premiere date for the long awaited Intruder 2 TIE (Total Immersion Event) has finally been announced. The first episode will debut on November 7th at Midnight ET/PT (right at the beginning of the block before that night's Dragon Ball Z Kai). The premiere date is a slight surprise, as it was originally announced at Momocon that Intruder 2 would debut sometime in October. Also, Intruder 2 will last for 7 weeks, rather than 5 weeks as originally stated at the Toonami panel at Momocon.

Second, the Toonami comic being made as a tie-in for Intruder 2 also has a release date. The comic will debut on Toonami.com on November 7th, the same day Intruder 2 debuts itself. The comic will be downloadable for offline viewing, which is good news for those who collect Toonami content.

In addition to the release dates of Intruder 2 and the Toonami comic, the official Toonami app now has a release date as well. The app will be released on November 2nd and will be available completely free of charge. While it wasn't announced what platforms the app would be available on, considering the official Adult Swim app is available on iOS and Android systems, it can be assumed that the Toonami app will also be available on both platforms as well.

Along with the other announcements, the Toonami panel at Dragon Con has also announced a premiere date for the latest Toonami series Parasyte -the maxim-. The series will debut on October 3rd, replacing Sword Art Online II. However, the series will be airing at 1am ET/PT, so the series will really be going into Michiko and Hatchin's current time slot, with that show moving down to 1:30am ET/PT.

Other news updates from outside of Dragon Con include two more show marathons (airing November 28th and December 19th; shows TBD), and Toonami: Pre-Flight episodes are now being put up on Adult Swim's official website (only the two latest episodes will be on Adult Swim's website however, according to Toonami Faithful).

UPDATE: "Toonami" Launches 24/7 Streaming Channel on "Adult Swim" Website

Ever dreamed of being able to watch Toonami 24/7? Well, now you can! As announced on Toonami's official Facebook page, Toonami has launched a 24/7 stream of Toonami programs on their Toonami livestream channel on Adult Swim's official website (previously only used for Toonami Pre-Flight and the live-stream of Toonami's Momocon 2015 panel). While officially announced on their Facebook page, a commercial showcasing Adult Swim's live-streaming channels (including Toonami) ran on Adult Swim as recently as early morning August 25th, but did not mention the addition of Toonami programming to the live-stream.

The stream is currently only available to residents of the United States, as mentioned in the official description of the stream. Also, those anticipating openings and endings from their favorite shows to run uncut will be disappointed. The masters are exactly the same ones used on Toonami's television broadcasts, with shortened openings and endings (although there will likely be some exceptions to this, such as the occasional editing slip or full openings being retained on master copies aired on TV, in the case of Dragon Ball Z Kai and occasionally Attack on Titan re-runs).

As of this writing, only episodes of Attack on Titan and re-runs of the latest episode of Toonami: Pre-Flight are being broadcast. However, with the description stating that Toonami programs from the past and present will air, we expect shows from the current Toonami lineup (Dragon Ball Z Kai, Akame ga Kill, etc.) will run, as well as past Toonami shows that are still on Adult Swim's website (Kill La Kill, Gurren Lagann, Blue Exorcist, Cowboy Bebop, Space Dandy, and Ghost in the Shell) to run as well. Other possibilities include running shows Toonami owns broadcast rights to, but are not currently featured on Adult Swim's website (Samurai Jack, FLCL, The Big O, and IGPX) or running full Toonami broadcasts from the past week (which was planned to happen back in March, as reported on Toonami Faithful, but never occurred).

We'll update this post if any new information regarding broadcasts of old and new programming surface.

UPDATE 8/31/15: It looks like we finally have a good grasp on how the Toonami stream will work. According to Toonami Faithful, an entire series will run each week on the stream, with a new series beginning sometime during the day on Mondays. Shows will run interruption free, outside of small 1-minute intermission bumpers in-between programming and broadcasts of the latest episode of Toonami Pre-Flight. According to an Adult Swim bumper that aired during last night's comedy broadcasts, Kill La Kill will be airing this week! We'll be keeping tabs on the line-up on our new Toonami Marathon Stream Line-Up page, as well as archiving previous weeks on a Line-Up Archive page.

"Michiko and Hatchin" Marathon September 5th on Toonami

Things have been marathon-crazy over at Toonami lately. In celebration of Labor Day, Toonami will be re-running Episodes 4-10 of Michiko and Hatchin on September 5th from 12:00am ET/PT - 3:30am ET/PT, as announced on Toonami's official Tumblr page. This marks the first time one show has taken over the entire block since Toonami's return in 2012. This move is likely the result of impressive ratings for the show, and the fact that Toonami has a tendency to run marathons of popular shows during national holidays, as seen this year by Memorial Day's Kill La Kill marathon and the Fourth of July Dragon Ball Z Kai marathon, as well as last year's Attack on Titan Labor Day marathon.

The schedule for September 5th can be found below (all times ET/PT):

12:00am - Michiko and Hatchin - Episode 4
12:30am - Michiko and Hatchin - Episode 5
1:00am - Michiko and Hatchin - Episode 6
1:30am - Michiko and Hatchin - Episode 7
2:00am - Michiko and Hatchin - Episode 8
2:30am - Michiko and Hatchin - Episode 9
3:00am - Michiko and Hatchin - Episode 10

"Parasyte -the maxim-" Joins Toonami This Fall

A new show for Toonami was announced in an unusual way. A bus was spotted at Anime Expo with an advertisement stating that Parasyte -the maxim- will be joining the Toonami lineup this Fall. Jason DeMarco, head of Toonami, has officially confirmed this development via Twitter. Sentai Filmworks (the licensee of the show), however, is still keeping this a secret, telling fans to stay tuned for their panel at Anime Expo later today (July 2nd) (Sentai has also, as of this writing, covered up the part of the advertisement on the bus announcing the Toonami run).

This will be Toonami's second Sentai Filmworks series, following Akame ga Kill's debut on August 8th. No announcement yet on what show will be replaced, but bets are on Sword Art Online II, since that will likely be done sometime this fall.

"Dragon Ball Z Kai" Marathon July 4th on Toonami

Goku and company will be showing off their own fireworks display this Fourth of July. As announced via Adult Swim's official schedule under the "By Show" section, Toonami will be re-running Episodes 25-30 of Dragon Ball Z Kai from 12:00am ET/PT - 3am ET/PT (Attack on Titan will be keeping it's timeslot that night). In addition, Adult Swim will be re-running Episode 30 the same night in it's regular Adult Swim timeslot of 8pm ET/PT. This is the first time since Toonami's revival in 2012 that the block has been composed purely of re-runs. This move should come as no surprise, as the show has been pulling in great ratings in it's Adult Swim timeslot as well as being the top ratings performer on Toonami week after week.

The schedule for July 4th can be seen below (all times ET/PT):

12:00am - Dragon Ball Z Kai - Episode 25
12:30am - Dragon Ball Z Kai - Episode 26
1:00am - Dragon Ball Z Kai - Episode 27
1:30am - Dragon Ball Z Kai - Episode 28
2:00am - Dragon Ball Z Kai - Episode 29
2:30am - Dragon Ball Z Kai - Episode 30
3:00am - Attack on Titan

Toonami at Momocon: TIE Update, Michiko & Hatchin, Akame ga Kill, Etc.

Toonami was back at Momocon on Saturday (May 30th), with lots of exciting announcements to go around. Here's the rundown on what Toonami has announced as of this writing:

First off, Toonami started off their panel with an official release date for their latest TIE (Total Immersion Event), Intruder 2. The event will begin sometime in October, with 20-25 minutes of footage spread over 5 weeks. A Toonami comic will debut sometime in September, leading up to the events of Intruder 2. And just like with past TIE events, audience participation will indeed happen, but in what manner remains to be seen.

Second, Toonami announced not one, but two brand new shows to the block, those being Michiko & Hatchin and Akame ga Kill. Michiko & Hatchin will be joining the lineup June 20th, replacing InuYasha: The Final Act. Akame ga Kill, however, will be coming to the block a little later, with a start date of August 8th, replacing Kill La Kill. In the case of Akame ga Kill, this is Toonami's first show from Sentai Filmworks and the Toonami broadcast of the show will be the English Dub premiere of the series.

Lastly, a Toonami app for mobile devices will be launching this Fall, with various features such as posting about Toonami on Twitter, an alarm clock featuring the voices of TOM and SARA, access to the latest Toonami schedule, downloads, and more. The backstory behind the app is that TOM has essentially given the user control to certain aspects of The Absolution, and is thus themed around such.

Other interesting tibits include no immediate plans for TOM 6 (although the crew hints that Toonami will never be the same again after Intruder 2, so stay tuned) and Discotek Media's upcoming release of IGPX: The Complete Series will feature a remaster of the Toonami version of the show (with the alternate soundtrack heard in that version) as well as interviews with the Toonami crew about the show.

All news in this article courtesy of the official Toonami Pre-Flight livestream of the Toonami Momocon panel (for those who missed it, the panel will be replayed on the Toonami Pre-Flight channel on adultswim.com, likely until the next episode of Toonami Pre-Flight streams on Tuesday).

UPDATE: "Kill La Kill" Marathon May 23rd on Toonami

In celebration of Memorial Day, Toonami is giving us a Kill La Kill bash! Following a new-to-Toonami episode of Dragon Ball Z Kai, Toonami will be re-running Episodes 10-15 of Kill La Kill from 12:30am ET/PT - 3:30am ET/PT, as announced on their Tumblr page. This is the first time Kill La Kill will be re-ran on Toonami, as all episodes aired to date have been brand new. This move likely is the result of the show garnering excellent ratings during the show's run.

The schedule for May 23rd can be seen below (all times ET/PT):

12:00am Dragon Ball Z Kai
12:30am Kill La Kill - Episode 10
1:00am Kill La Kill - Episode 11
1:30am Kill La Kill - Episode 12
2:00am Kill La Kill - Episode 13
2:30am Kill La Kill - Episode 14
3:00am Kill La Kill - Episode 15

In other Kill La Kill related news, Toonami's broadcast of Episode 12 last Saturday unfortunately cut out a post-credits scene. However, thanks to Toonami themselves, you can watch it here!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep5TyOH9u90

UPDATE May 29th, 2015: During the marathon this previous Saturday, Toonami broadcasted the full intro to Kill La Kill during Episode 10, as well as restoring the post-credit scene to Episode 12.

"One Piece" Re-Runs Pulled From Adult Swim Schedule

It was fun while it lasted. As noted on the official Adult Swim schedule, re-runs of the shonen anime One Piece will be coming to an end on March 28th, after only four weeks in the timeslot. The former time slot held by One Piece will now belong to long time Adult Swim staple King of the Hill. This change could be the result of a steady decrease in the re-run slot's ratings, going from 707 thousand viewers to 568 thousand viewers in one week.

While fans of the series looking forward to a prime-time slot with their favorite crew of pirates will be disappointed by this change, new episodes of the series will continue to air on Toonami every Saturday night/early Sunday morning at 2:30am ET/PT.

"Attack on Titan" Re-Runs Replace "Deadman Wonderland"

It's been a re-run frenzy lately with Toonami. As announced on Toonami's new podcast on the Adult Swim website (Toonami: Pre-Flight) and Anime News Network, Toonami staple Attack on Titan will be replacing Deadman Wonderland on March 28th at 3am ET/PT. Despite the show's second run being cut off due to massive schedule changes, the show will restart from the beginning, according to Jason DeMarco on Twitter.

This will be the fourth run for the first 11 episodes of the series (shown during the original run, the Attack on Titan Marathon during Labor Day weekend, and the cut-off second run), the third run for Episode 12 (also shown during the Attack on Titan Marathon as well as the original run), and the second run for Episodes 13-25 (meaning that half of the series will be re-ran for the first time during this run).

We're Building You A Better Cartoon Blog

Hello there! Whether your a former NickandMore reader or just someone who found this while browsing Google or where ever, welcome. I know there are a lot of fan sites out there with Toonami as a subject, but nevertheless I hope to bring a unique experience here unlike no other.

After NickandMore's closure on March 7th, 2015, I was left without a place to post Toonami articles. While to others it might seem like a good time to pack things up, I was not ready to stop writing. I still remember to this day being very excited to be contributing to one of my favorite sites of all time (that was, surprisingly, a little more than a year ago). I will definitely miss contributing and viewing the site, but I understand Bryan's decision fully and wish him great success with his other venues in the future.

Now then, let's look into the future.

What will this blog be all about? Well, of course, I will still post all Toonami news I find. I may also expand my horizons to other Toonami-related articles in the future. We'll just have to see how things go, this blog is still freshly made after all. I'll be working out the kinks and updating a few things here and there as we go along.

All in all, I would like to thank Bryan for allowing me to write on NickandMore starting way back in 2013. It was a dream come true and I'll always be thankful for it. I had a blast contributing there. As TOM would say, stay gold.

Bang.

"Sword Art Online II" Joins Toonami March 28th

As expected, the second season to the previously on Toonami series, Sword Art Online, will be debuting on the block on March 28th at 1am ET/PT, as announced on Toonami’s Tumblr and Anime News Network. The show will be replacing fellow Aniplex series, Gurren Lagann. Also starting the same day, Naruto: Shippuden and InuYasha: The Final Act will be bumped down a timeslot, the former now at 1:30am ET/PT and the latter at 2am ET/PT.

This broadcast will be the English World Premiere of the series, similar to Space Dandy (although excluding the simul-dub aspect of that show).

In other Toonami news, it is currently unknown what series will replace Deadman Wonderland, which will be ending the same day as Gurren Lagann. However, a possible candidate may be the return of Adult Swim and Toonami staple Cowboy Bebop, since the show’s first HD run was cut short due to the shortening of Toonami’s schedule earlier this month.

“Kill La Kill” Joins Toonami February 7th

Toonami’s first new show of 2015 is certainly a surprise. Studio Trigger’s Kill La Kill will be joining the lineup starting February 7th at 11:30pm ET. The show’s English dub is produced by Aniplex of America. This will be the first time that two Aniplex animes are running simultaneously on Toonami (the other being Gurren Lagann).

This acquisition brings some questions on how the schedule will look, as Toonami has yet to release the new schedule for February 7th. Since 11:30pm ET is the timeslot for Attack on Titan re-runs, one could infer that it will be either pushed down to a later timeslot, or removed entirely from the lineup (the latter is not likely, considering the purpose for another run in the first place was to “get their money’s worth” out of the high-profile show).

This also leads to questioning over what will replace Gurren Lagann. Normally, Toonami replaces Aniplex shows with other Aniplex shows (as seen with Sword Art Online, Blue Exorcist, and Gurren Lagann itself). The 2nd season of Sword Art Online (SAO II) wrapped up its Japanese run on December 20th, 2014, so an English dub will take a while to produce.

With Kill La Kill joining Toonami, the possibilities on what’s to come now are endless…