This was Toonami’s best week since its return and there is lots to celebrate about. We already talked about it during the podcast last week but here is one more look at Adult Swim Toonami’s best week yet. As always we appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Ambient Virus’ Assessment:

Toonami came back something fierce. Multiple records broken and all-time high overall with nothing going under 812k total viewers. Publicly, a massive win for all and an end to the slow weeks at last. I’m not sure if this will last but I’ll guess that it’ll level out next week with possible triple million again.

Per slot: Bleach starts out strong with a massive 1.4 million finally reaching it’s (personal) max cap. Naruto took a slight dip at only 69k with One Piece taking the max loss at 209k. At this point I think it’s back to my original idea that the 1am slot is the worst spot for a show since many people tend to leave at that point. I was hoping that it would have gone down by an hour letting the earlier slot get higher ratings more often but you can’t change people I guess. Naruto managed to pull a 1.3 (again a personal max cap) as well as a 1.0 HH along with Bleach. This is a rather key thing really since HH is more important than Total Viewers, if you’re interested in how HH (household) ratings work you can read more here. After that it was the standard slow burn with good gains and losses. Given this week, it does not really matter what was lost as the high start with Bleach ended up benefiting everyone as nothing went under 800k and even InuYasha at 5am  gained 78k from Bebop.

Per Week: Massive gains in most areas at over 200k baring Bleach and the mid hours of 2-3. Nice to see the later hours gaining so much especially since you’d normally see 600k averages most of the time. I’m not sure how long this will last but hopefully it’ll bring a higher average.

Per year: Again, massive gains. Naruto took the high score with a gain of 528k from Deadman Wonderland’s ratings last year but given last year’s ratings, that was not surprising. The main rush of Toonami’s return had ended and people were either staying to watch or leaving when they realized it was not what they wanted. So seeing the gains in this areas was to be expected since we have a full 6 hours as well as enough shounen to fill a truck. Next week will probably be the same as well.

Overall: Basically a giant fanfare for Toonami with a lot of fireworks. Never really expected Bleach to reach a 1.4 million and a 1.0HH but I guess there’s a first time for everything. I don’t think we’ll reach the same next week, only because I feel that this was more of a lucky fluke than a real event. Assuming Bleach can hold a 1.4 it’ll be good tidings for future potential but I’ll just be happy if we can keep IGPX above 900k. While the first two hours are key, we need to push beyond those first two hours and raise the ratings later in the block if we want expansion.

Sketch’s Assessment:

Toonami killed it this week. Last week Bleach lost big from The Boondocks but this week it was The Boondocks who lost big from Cleveland Show and Bleach kept all but about 100k from The Boondocks. Bleach, Naruto and One Piece had their best AS Toonami ratings to date, those three and Soul Eater won their key demographics and had over 1 million total viewers and IGPX also had its best ratings thus far nearly reaching 1 million. The nights average was just under 1 million at 997,167. Nothing below 812k is amazing in of itself but that night of Toonami made some shows on Sunday, Thursday and even other nights look like chumps, at least in HH ratings and total viewers.

It is relatively unheard of for anime at 1:30am on Saturday to beat 1:30 airings of American Dad but this week Soul Eater beat American Dad twice and Cleveland Show on Sunday, IGPX beat both as well. One Piece and Naruto had many slot to slot wins on top of beating 1:30 airings of American Dad and Cleveland Show. Bleach did even better than that but lost to the other shows at midnight throughout the week.

Naruto 12:30 AM on Saturday beat the following:
– Squidbillies on Monday at 12:45
– Aqua Teen on Tuesday at 12:30
– Squidbillies on Wednesday at 12:45
– Squidbillies on Tuesday at 12:45
– Greatest Event in TV History 2 on Sunday at 12:30 by 0.3 HH
– Greatest Event in TV History 1 on Thursday at 12:30 by 0.4 HH
– Your Pretty Face on Thursday at 12:45 by 0.4 HH

One Piece 1:00 AM on Saturday beat the following:
– Squidbillies on Wednesday at 1:00
– Aqua Teen on Wednesday at 1:15
– Squidbillies on Tuesday at 1:00
– Loiter Squad on Sunday at 1:15 by 0.2 HH
– Greatest Event in TV History 1 on Sunday at 1:00 by 0.2 HH
– Aqua Teen on Tuesday at 1:15 by 0.2 HH
– Aqua Teen on Thursday at 1:15 by 0.3 HH
– Squidbillies on Thursday at 1:00 by 0.3 HH

Soul Eater 1:30 AM on Saturday beat the following:
– American Dad on Thursday at 1:30
– American Dad on Tuesday at 1:30
– Cleveland Show on Sunday at 1:30

IGPX 2:00 AM on Saturday narrowly lost to a 2AM airing of Family Guy on Sunday but, as previously mentioned, beat some 1:30 American Dad’s as well as the 1:30 Cleveland Show on Sunday.

Bleach 12:00 AM on Saturday only narrowly lost to Thursday’s premiere of the 2nd Greatest Event in TV History and had the same HH rating of 1.0 and got the same HH as Venture Bros. on Sunday and of course it also beat all the shows that lost to Naruto, One Piece, Soul Eater and IGPX. If Bleach had Family Guy leading it like Robot Chicken, Venture and Greatest 2 did, it likely would have beat the other two a compared well to Robot Chicken on weeknights.

I realize that was a huge data dump but wins like this are rare enough to warrant mentioning them. However, this is just one week and while I believe it is possible to get these kinds of ratings again, I do not anticipate ratings of this caliber to be the new norm. This week looks like a fluke but who knows? Let’s keep telling people about Toonami and bringing more viewers into the fold. Staying above 800,000 total viewers is entirely do-able with enough casual interested and dedicated viewership every week.

Overall : Toonami proved its potential against the rest of the highly successful Adult Swim block this past week and if we can keep that from being a rare occasion, then Toonami can become a ratings powerhouse and expand beyond six hours a week. It is amazing how far we’ve come but we can’t be complacent because Toonami has to fight for the viewership that comes so easily to comedy. At the very least, I am no longer concerned about One Piece and IGPX nor any other shows on the block. Toonami turned more than a few heads this week and it may be just the beginning. You can’t stop a revolution.