Will Toonami survive without new Dragon Ball Content?

[Cure Dragon 255]

I really fear this could be it for the block. I really hope Super continues soon... or else.

[KBABZ]

Did it ever NEED Dragon Ball to begin with? While DBZ was certainly the main event, there were plenty of other anime like Yu-Gi-Oh, Beyblade, Zoids, Full Metal Alchemist and more on the block, and the same is true today I feel. I think it would have a bigger impact if several of its core shows left/ended

[MasenkoHA]

Didn’t Toonami’s revival start pre-obtaining the syndication rights to Dragon Ball Kai?

Did it ever NEED Dragon Ball to begin with? While DBZ was certainly the main event, there were plenty of other anime like Yu-Gi-Oh, Beyblade, Zoids, Full Metal Alchemist and more on the block, and the same is true today I feel. I think it would have a bigger impact if several of its core shows left/ended

Weren’t Yugioh and Beyblade on KidsWB?

[GreatSaiyaJeff]

Toonami will be fine, heck when it started back up in 2012, it didn't have DB until 2 or 3 years later. Far as I can tell it is was doing well.

[Yuli Ban]

I mean, they could always start airing Dragon Ball. Just run through the OG series to hold them off until something comes up.

"But Yuli Ban, that's not new content."

It is for a distressingly large number of people.

[WittyUsername]

Didn’t Toonami’s revival start pre-obtaining the syndication rights to Dragon Ball Kai?

Yes, but cable television was in a much better state back then compared to how it is now. Still, I think that as long as anime remains popular in the U.S., there will continue to be a market for Toonami.

Weren’t Yugioh and Beyblade on KidsWB?

I think Beyblade was on ABC Family or something, but Yu-Gi-Oh was indeed a Kids WB vehicle, though there was a period when reruns would air on Cartoon Network.

[PremiumSalt]

I think it'll be fine. If nothing else, they may just end up running through Kai and/or Super again, but who knows.

I mean, they could always start airing Dragon Ball. Just run through the OG series to hold them off until something comes up.

"But Yuli Ban, that's not new content."

It is for a distressingly large number of people.

I mean, that would be a good excuse for FUNi to re-dub it (which is something I feel needs to happen) but that'll never happen.

[ABED]

Does it really matter in the age of streaming?

[Super Sonic]

It should survive. Especially with My Hero Academia season 4 set to premiere soon.

[Kunzait_83]

"Will Toonami survive without new Dragon Ball Content?"

Here's my question: why in god's name does anyone even CARE at this stage?

Does it really matter in the age of streaming?

No. Not in the slightest. Demographically, its an ever older and older audience that still clings to broadcast television. While there are still some young people who still watch regular broadcast TV, its an increasingly dwindling amount. More and more, we're looking at the distinct possibility of a future where the only real things that broadcast TV is still used for are 24 hour cable news and sports.

For regular shows, more and more its coming down to streaming services. People in general, at least beneath an increasingly geriatric age group, stopped doing "appointment TV" a LONG-ass time ago. Crap, I myself dropped out of more than 90% of broadcast TV just about almost entirely by the late 90s/early 2000s (right smack during Toonami's heyday, ironically).

Here's the thing though: even if all of that WASN'T the case, even if broadcast TV were still going stronger than ever and streaming wasn't looking increasingly like its inevitable replacement... my first question up top would STILL stand here. Why in fuck's name should ANYONE care about what happens to something like Toonami in 2019?

I get that for a certain (and VERY vocal) generation, it was their initial gateway into anime: but you've all LONG had that cherry popped by now. You all more than know damn well what anime is and where/how to find it on your own. You don't NEED something like Toonami to spoonfeed you this stuff, and you haven't needed it for DECADES now.

Is there literally ANY reason why the fate of this antiquated (and grotesquely overrated and over-obsessed over) programming block is still relevant in the minds of so many people apart from just pure, raw nostalgia? Why the hell does something like Toonami matter AT ALL to anyone in 2019? Hell, why did it matter even back in 2012 when it first relaunched, or in the back half of the 2000s long after its "heyday" so to speak?

Anyone who didn't already know what anime was by 1999, they DAMN sure know it exists now, and moreover there are AMPLE places for just about any schmuck with an internet connection or halfway decent streaming package to get almost damn near any kind of anime they like. Hell, the selection in numerous outlets is infinitely more robust and superior to Toonami's at ANY point in its entire history.

The necessity for something like Toonami to "get the word on anime out to the masses" (the "masses" in this context here really meaning mostly just grade school children with hyper-protective parents who over-police their media intake to comically absurd lengths) hasn't been needed probably since the early-most 2000s. People know what anime is, and if they're into it then they damn well know where to get it.

The only thing I can really figure here is that there's this utterly insane longing need for people of a certain age, persuasion, and mindset to have Toonami around so they can infinitely relive being 7 to 12 years old back in the late 90s/early 2000s watching this stuff on this specific channel under that specific heading. Almost like some perverse kind of surrogate/vicarious mental form of time travel back to one's childhood or something.

Cause beyond that kind of reason (which is beyond sad and pathetic enough as it is)... I see ZERO reason why something like Toonami is still a thing that anyone is concerned about or devotes even a speck of mental energy towards in 2019. Even setting aside the fact that streaming is completely stone cold murdering 90% of the need for broadcast TV of ANY kind outside of sports bars, retirement homes, and hospices: if anime wasn't somehow "mainstream" enough for people at the initial turn of the millennium, it DAMN sure unmistakably is more than mainstream today and HAS been for roughly 20 years now. Its out there, everyone everywhere knows that its out there, and they all know where and how they can find it.

So why is this stupid and long-since antiquated children's cartoon block still relevant to anyone at this stage beyond just raw "mental time travel" nostalgia? And how sad is it that anyone is THAT hung up on watching shitty cartoons as a child to the point that they fetishize - as grown-ass adults mind you - a fucking TV channel and a specific brand of bumpers/advertisements for it?

Cause this kind of shit right here?

This shouldn't exist. At all. And that it does is just baffling (and on some level, dispiriting) to no end.

By this same token, I'm also more than acutely aware that Toonami also embodies the promoting/celebrating of a certain specific "type" of anime (i.e. "Shonen action" schlock). But anyone who's read more than a post or two of mine on here knows where I stand on those kinds of anime as a broader, overall subset: which is all the more reason why I harbor the degree of utter contempt that I do for Toonami and the continued desperate clinginess towards it in the broader fandom zeitgeist.

It has always embodied, and on some level continues to emobdy, literally almost damn near EVERYTHING (outside of the Moe/Ecchi realm at least) that's been wrongheaded and creatively bankrupt with anime fan culture's conception for anime as a broader medium in the West/Egnlish language territories (particularly the U.S.) for almost the past 20 years now. It embodies not only a stiflingly narrow as all hell view of what anime is and can be, but also a stubborn resistance by the broader Western fanbase towards seeing it in virtually almost ANY other light.

Hell, Toonami represents a LARGE majority of the reason as to why a GREAT majority of mainstream English-speaking Western anime fans (outside of a still depressingly small and heavily online sliver) still need to be told, in 2019, that there are in fact OTHER kinds of anime that exist out there (and have ALWAYS existed out there) apart from Shonen or Shonen-esque action shlock (and Moe/Ecchi stuff, but that's neither here nor there), and in quite large quantities.

And lastly: yes, I'm also aware that Toonami HAS on rare occasions played some actually legit and worthwhile non-Shonen shlock anime here and there (FAR more so in its most current incarnation though than in its "classic" incarnation): which is of course fantastic in itself, but is also hardly nearly enough to offset the FAR infinitely stronger emphasis and mass fan-fixation on Shonen fluff. In much the same way that a bite of an occasional celery stick here or there isn't going to do nearly enough to offset or outweigh someone otherwise binging 24/7 on Ben & Jerry's ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

To give the devil its due though (and to show that I'm being as fair as I can be here): helping to get that Uzumaki anime off the ground is pretty damned awesome, and BY FAR EASILY the single coolest thing Toonami's ever been involved in doing for anime on a creative end in its entire history as near as I can tell. Never in my life would I ever have thought that I'd associate something like Toonami in a positive light with the work of someone as seminal and indispensable (and as FAR the fuck removed from Toonami's overall "brand" and "image" as can be) as Junji Ito, and yet here we are. So credit where due in this lone, specific case.

[mecha3000]

"Will Toonami survive without new Dragon Ball Content?"

Here's my question: why in god's name does anyone even CARE at this stage?

Does it really matter in the age of streaming?

Is there literally ANY reason why the fate of this antiquated (and grotesquely overrated and over-obsessed over) programming block is still relevant in the minds of so many people apart from just pure, raw nostalgia? Why the hell does something like Toonami matter AT ALL to anyone in 2019? Hell, why did it matter even back in 2012 when it first relaunched, or in the back half of the 2000s long after its "heyday" so to speak?

Well in 2019, I agree with you - especially because Super belongs on a Disney XD imo anyway. However, in the mid-late 2000s, streaming wasn't as big as it is now and I needed Toonami to get my Naruto fix as a ten-year old. So, I'd say post 2010s - Yeah, no need for a Toonami in the age of streaming.

If anything, Toonami should become a digital service that partners with dub companies to run dubbed anime like fans were trying to do back in the day. Even then though, Funi has FuniNow and Viz kinda has Hulu so it is hard for it to really be relevant now.

Honestly, DBS dubbed episodes should just simuldub or premiere on FuniNow from now on anyway like My Hero Academia.

[MyVisionity]

I'm guessing there is some kind of audience for the latest incarnation of Toonami that still airs on Cartoon Network and is not necessarily connected in any way to the old weekday block from the early 2000s.

[MasenkoHA]

Does it really matter in the age of streaming?

To be blunt no. I’m pretty sure more people watched Dragon Ball Super on Crunchyroll or somewhere else online than watched it on Toonami. I haven’t had cable or watched broadcast television in yeeeeaaars.

[MasenkoHA]

"Will Toonami survive without new Dragon Ball Content?"

Here's my question: why in god's name does anyone even CARE at this stage?

Does it really matter in the age of streaming?

Is there literally ANY reason why the fate of this antiquated (and grotesquely overrated and over-obsessed over) programming block is still relevant in the minds of so many people apart from just pure, raw nostalgia? Why the hell does something like Toonami matter AT ALL to anyone in 2019? Hell, why did it matter even back in 2012 when it first relaunched, or in the back half of the 2000s long after its "heyday" so to speak?

Well in 2019, I agree with you - especially because Super belongs on a Disney XD imo anyway. However, in the mid-late 2000s, streaming wasn't as big as it is now and I needed Toonami to get my Naruto fix as a ten-year old. So, I'd say post 2010s - Yeah, no need for a Toonami in the age of streaming.

If anything, Toonami should become a digital service that partners with dub companies to run dubbed anime like fans were trying to do back in the day. Even then though, Funi has FuniNow and Viz kinda has Hulu so it is hard for it to really be relevant now.

Honestly, DBS dubbed episodes should just simuldub or premiere on FuniNow from now on anyway like My Hero Academia.

What would be the point of a Toonami streaming service? Crunchyroll exclusively streams anime. Netflix and Hulu have significant anime content. Funimation has their own (crappy) streaming service.

Toonami has nothing to add but nostalgic appeal of “‘my favorite programming block when I was 8 is back on tv”

[ABED]

Funimation has their own (crappy) streaming service.

I haven't used their service, not even the free trial period. I was going to somewhere down the road. What's terrible about it?

[MasenkoHA]

Funimation has their own (crappy) streaming service.

I haven't used their service, not even the free trial period. I was going to somewhere down the road. What's terrible about it?

It kept lagging for me. Something I never had an issue with with Netflix or Hulu.

[Hellspawn28]

Does it really matter in the age of streaming?

To be blunt no. I’m pretty sure more people watched Dragon Ball Super on Crunchyroll or somewhere else online than watched it on Toonami. I haven’t had cable or watched broadcast television in yeeeeaaars.

You have a lot of casual people who still watch anime on TV. You still also have people that are dub only DB fans that will watch it dub on TV.

[TheBigBoy]

Does it really matter in the age of streaming?

To be blunt no. I’m pretty sure more people watched Dragon Ball Super on Crunchyroll or somewhere else online than watched it on Toonami. I haven’t had cable or watched broadcast television in yeeeeaaars.

You have a lot of casual people who still watch anime on TV. You still also have people that are dub only DB fans that will watch it dub on TV.

Yep. You might not feel like you know anyone who does this, but people who casually watch DB on TV aren't posting on message boards or Reddit or anything.

[Super Sonic]

The Toonami broadcast was how I watched Kill la Kill. Also Aniplex charging an arm and a leg led to that. (Which is why I wanted Funimation to get it first, but now I'm ok as while I like the guys who are usually in Funimation series, can't picture anyone else doing the voices than the cast now).

[ABED]

Yep. You might not feel like you know anyone who does this, but people who casually watch DB on TV aren't posting on message boards or Reddit or anything.

This isn't an issue of hardcore fans vs. mainstream fans. Streaming is mainstream. People would not be going out of their way to watch DB via a streaming service rather than thought cable.