“Lupin, i have one more thing to ask of you. Let me have your name. Let me be Mrs. Lupin. It’s not for the tabloids, I’m being serious. No matter how far away you are, all you have to do is hear the name Mrs. Lupin, and you’ll know it’s me. It’ll be our own secret code. I want you to see it, Lupin. To watch me grow into a…good woman. I need to grow up into someone you can’t live without.“

–          Rebecca Rossellini, Lupin the Third (Ep. 26)

The Toonami Trending Rundown for January 20-21, 2018. It’s a night of ends and new beginnings as among other moments, Dragon Ball Super begins the Future Trunks saga, while Asta gets recruited by the Black Bulls, and of course, we reach the thrilling conclusion of Lupin the Third: Part IV.

On Twitter, Toonami would trend as with every show during their respective East Coast airings, as well Hunter x Hunter and Outlaw Star as well during their respective West Coast airings. Lupin The Third in particular trended both US and Worldwide, making sure it completed its current run on a high note. Meanwhile on Tumblr, Toonami would also trend as with Dragon Ball Super, DBZ, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Hunter x Hunter.

This week’s feature was a game review of Animal Crossing Pocket Camp for the iOS and Android, as one of Nintendo’s first forays into conventional mobile devices. Interestingly enough, this was the first time Toonami has ever reviewed a game released on mobile devices, and was also reviewed by Dana Swanson, the voice of SARA, herself. It received a 7.5 out of 10 score.

As we begin seeing the English dub of the Future Trunks saga, those who watched ahead to where the sub is currently at will know that Toei has announced that the finale of the Universe Survival Saga, set to end in late March will serve as the series finale for Super. While this chapter of Dragon Ball will soon reach its conclusion, this most likely won’t be the end of the franchise, as Toei is presently hard at work producing the 20th feature film as well as mapping the franchise’s general path going forward, to say nothing about the manga, video games, and various other content for the future. Toei has hinted a potential continuation of the anime series down the line, so we’ll see what happens in the months and years ahead. Of course, we still have 84 episodes left to go until Toonami itself reaches that point, so this could allow the dub to catch up in time for the potential sequel, depending on how long this hiatus is among various other factors. Regardless of what happens, it’s been a great ride so far to see Dragon Ball continuing to shine both inside and outside Toonami’s scope, and I’m personally very confident on what the future of this great anime franchise is ahead.

And speaking of DBS, for those wanting to get more of your Dragon Ball fix, Arc System Works and Bandai Namco have just released the newest video game fighter to the franchise, Dragon Ball FighterZ, presently available on all major platforms except for the Switch.

And to commemorate Lupin’s finale, Jose Argumedo and Discotek had another Q&A periscope livestream with several of the show’s staff and voice actors including Richard Epcar (co-director and voice of Jigen), Ellyn Stern (co-director and voice of several minor characters), Lex Lang (the voice of Goemon), Michelle Ruff (the voice of Fujiko), and Doug Erholtz (the voice of Zenigata).

Ever since Monkey Punch began publishing the original manga in 1967, Lupin the Third has grown to be a very illustrious media franchise, with numerous manga, anime, anime films and OVAs and the like released over the decades. Back in 2003, Adult Swim in its early days aired 26 episodes of Part 2, though episode 3 was skipped over for content issues, and the remaining 129 episodes of part 2 never aired for various reasons. While Lupin’s legacy among long time Adult Swim viewers and Toonami Faithful isn’t as large as some of Toonami and Adult Swim’s other highly acclaimed and well requested classics, the series still is pretty well regarded among fans and the Toonami crew to this day, and it perhaps comes as no surprise that Lupin was looked into to make a comeback to the better cartoon show, especially with the series having a renaissance on the Japanese TV scene.

In 2016, Toonami attempted to bring Lupin back with The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, following the end of Michiko and Hatchin’s run (both series were directed by Sayo Yamamoto, whom would also go on to create Yuri on Ice) however issues regarding nudity (ie. too many boobies to censor) would have required Toonami to heavily chop the show’s content into bits barring objections from the network and advertisers, forcing them to choose an encore run of Samurai Champloo instead. While Toonami found a way to air the likes of Black Lagoon, Hellsing, Kill la Kill, and soon episode 23 of Outlaw Star with as little edits as they could to appease the network and advertisers in that regard, Toonami decided that that the amount of censoring needed that time around just wasn’t worth it.

But Toonami and Lupin fans would not give up, as over a year later, Lupin would eventually find its way back onto Adult Swim, as Toonami partnered up with Discotek to bring in the newest edition of the main Lupin series in part IV, the first acquisition for Toonami from Discotek and the first from TMS since 2003. While Discotek has been around since 2005, considering that they mainly focus on classic titles and underrated gems, including helping to bring IGPX DVDs back into production, and it wasn’t until 2016 with Lupin that they started producing dubs, its not a surprise that this company was under the radar from many fans and perhaps even the Toonami crew as an acquisition partner for so long. Then again, classics and underrated gems are sometimes just what Toonami needs.

One of the earliest hints that this was going to occur was when Jason released a poll to gauge interest on shorter shows like Tokyo Ghoul, Mob Psycho 100, and Lupin potentially airing on the block. While industry politics among other factors between Toonami and the distributors have unfortunately dashed Mob’s Toonami hopes for now, Tokyo Ghoul would get its shot on March, while Lupin would finally make its return on June 17, 2017 as Toonami premiered the English Dub premiere of Part IV.

26 episodes of Lupin and his crew doing what they do best and avoiding Zenigata to do so, finding love with Rebecca, and solving the mystery of Leonardo Di Vinci, and now this season is in the books. During Part IV’s run, the hashtag #LupinThe3rd trended in the US during all but 2 weeks of its run as well as worldwide during the season finale. The show did not produce any character trends or trended on tumblr during its run.

For those wanting to check out more Lupin in the interim, Discotek has been hard at work producing and re-releasing Blu-rays and DVDs of Lupin’s previous installments and several films, so feel free to check those out. And of course, this won’t be end of Lupin as TMS and Telecom Animation Film are presently working on a part V to the franchise, set to premiere in Japan this upcoming April as Lupin and the gang travel to France, the home of Lupin’s grandfather. The sub will be simulcasted on Crunchyroll and Hulu.

No word yet if and when Discotek will be tasked to dub the new season or if Toonami will pick up this new installment down the line, but we’ll see what happens. As I would say with every potential show and every successful Toonami show looking to return for a continuation, if you wish to see Lupin return for Part V and perhaps beyond, keep supporting the show by legal means and to send your show recommendations to Toonami’s Facebook and Tumblr message boxes as well as letting Discotek know in their respective outlets.

Regardless of what happens, Lupin’s return was quite a fun ride for both fans watching since Adult Swim’s early days (and perhaps even before then) and the new fans it gained along the way, and I’m sure I can speak for every fan that we’re all looking forward to what adventures Lupin and the crew will be taking in the future. So until then, Arrivederci, Lupin, and hope to see you again soon.

As previously mentioned, there was a show that was originally supposed to replace Lupin on the schedule, but unfortunately Toonami and the distributors ran into some legal issues preventing a broadcast, delaying the show announcement and premiere to a future date. We’ll keep you posted on when it does happen as well as any other incoming shows in the year to come, but in the meantime, Space Dandy will be having an encore run beginning tonight at 2:30 am, while Naruto Shippuden and Outlaw Star also move up to 1:30 and 2 am respectively in the interim. Until then, see you again next week and stay dandy, baby.

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/#Toonami [#6]
  • #DragonBallSuper [#8]
  • #DBZKai [#7]
  • #BlackClover [#9]
  • #JoJosBizarreAdventure [#8]
  • #GundamIBO [#8]
  • #HunterXHunter [#6]
  • #LupinThe3rd [#1]
  • #Shippuden [#9]
  • #OutlawStar [#8]
  • #CowboyBebop [#6]
  • #GhostInTheShell [#6]

Worldwide Trends:

  • #LupinThe3rd [#10]

Tweet Counts:

  • Toonami [8,616 tweets]
  • #Toonami [11.7k tweets]
  • #DragonBallSuper [12.8k tweets]
  • #DBZKai [10.5k tweets]
  • #BlackClover [9,102 tweets]
  • #JoJosBizarreAdventure [11.8k tweets]
  • #GundamIBO [10.3k tweets]
  • #HunterXHunter [11.1k tweets]
  • #LupinThe3rd [19.7k tweets]
  • #Shippuden [10.1k tweets]
  • #OutlawStar [10.9k tweets]
  • #CowboyBebop [12.2k tweets]
  • #GhostInTheShell [10.1k tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

  • #toonami
  • #dragon ball super
  • #dbz
  • #jojo’s bizarre adventure
  • #hunter x hunter

Notes and Other Statistics:

Special thanks to @JMB_70056, @mmorse1017, and others I forgot to mention for spotting some of the trends on this list.

The Grind is Real. Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.

 

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