“Everything, every word, every thought that you know is wrong! Aku…Aku is the one that has laid waste to the beauty of this world. He has destroyed mother nature. Where do you think we are? Aku has unleashed these monstrosities upon our world and they feed off his carnage. Believe what you may, but if you open your eyes and let go of the hate, you [Ashi] will see the truth.”

–          Jack, Samurai Jack, (Season 5, Ep. 04)

The Toonami Trending Rundown for April 8-9, 2017. Following the events of last week, it’s back to business as usual for the better cartoon show, as Jack tries to convince Ashi, the last surviving daughter of Aku, that Aku’s ways are not the righteous ones, while JoJo saves Lisa Lisa from falling to her death, and Kars undergoes a transformation putting on the stone mask and conbining it with the Red Stone and the ultraviolet beams, and Marida is found to be brainwashed by the Vist Foundation and Banagher tries to snap her out of it, among other great moments.

On Twitter, every show from Samurai Jack to Gundam Unicorn (with the exception of Sand Whale and Me) successfully trended in the US during their respective East Coast airings, and Samurai Jack briefly trended worldwide. In addition, both Samurai Jack and Dragon Ball Super would also trend on Tumblr.

This week’s feature was another set of throwback bumpers, including a promotion for Robotech which aired back in 1998, as well as a rerun of the classic reruns speech by Moltar.

The Naruto franchise has played a pivotal role in the growth of Toonami and the anime industry overall over the years, and those keeping up with the latest simulcasts might know that the next chapter to the Naruto series, Boruto has begun its run in Japan. I can’t say much about this series here due to obvious spoiler reasons, though depending on how things go, we could likely see this down the line on the better cartoon show. Of course, unlike many of the shows lately that we’ve been keeping an eye on for a potential Toonami run of their sequels, we still have several more years of Shippuden left to go, so unless they air Boruto and Shippuden at the same time (much like for DBZ), or if Shippuden is pulled in favor of airing Boruto, we could be waiting a while for this one to occur. As we’ve seen with One Piece’s cancellation among other things, things can easily change and anything can happen, so it’s pretty hard to predict what could happen regarding the future of Naruto’s Toonami presence ahead. All I can really recommend for those that want Boruto at some point is to keep supporting Toonami and Naruto overall and as with all potential shows, let Toonami know you want it. In the meantime, if you are caught up with Naruto and you wish to check out the sub now, it’s available on legal streams such as Hulu and Crunchyroll.

In Ghost in the Shell news, it was announced on Friday by Production IG & Kodansha that a new Ghost In The Shell anime is in the works. Kenji Kamiyama, who previously directed Stand Alone Complex, and Shinji Aramaki, who previously directed Appleseed, will serve as the new show’s co-directors. No further details have been released as of yet. With Stand Alone Complex being a Toonami classic along with Toonami’s good relations with Production IG, no doubt this will also be one to watch out for depending on how things go ahead.

Next week, JoJo’s will be completing the Battle Tendency story arc with a bang as Toonami will be showcasing the final two episodes from 12:30-1:30am Eastern. As this move is made in part to fast tracking the Attack on Titan season 2 dub premiere in 2 weeks, Tokyo Ghoul will have the night off to make way. In addition, next week will also showcase the finale of Super’s Battle of Gods arc while Samurai Jack will reach the halfway point of season 5, among other great moments. Until next week, we wish all those celebrating a Happy Holy Week and a blessed Passover, and we’ll see you again next week for another round of the better cartoon show.

Legend: The shows listed are ordered based on their appearance on the schedule. Show trends are listed in bold. The number next to the listed trend represents the highest it trended on the list (not counting the promoted trend), judging only by the images placed in the rundown. For the Twitter tweet counts, the listed number of tweets are also sorely based on the highest number shown based on the images on the rundown.

United States Trends:

  • #Toonami [#8]
  • #SamuraiJack [#2]
  • #DragonBallSuper [#24]
  • #DBZKai [#9]
  • #JoJosBizarreAdventure [#10]
  • #TokyoGhoul [#7]
  • #HunterXHunter [#8]
  • #GundamUnicorn [#4]

Worldwide Trends:

  • #SamuraiJack [#19]

Tweet Counts:

  • Toonami [8,147 tweets]
  • #Toonami [4,915 tweets]
  • #SamuraiJack [7,523 tweets]
  • #DragonBallSuper [4,149 tweets]
  • #DBZKai [1,848 tweets]
  • #JoJosBizarreAdventure [1,960 tweets]
  • #TokyoGhoul [2,257 tweets]
  • #HunterXHunter [1,812 tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

  • #samurai jack
  • #dragon ball super

Notes and Other Statistics:

Special thanks to @myanimewaifu and others I forgot to mention for spotting some of the trends on this list.

Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.