“Recently, I came from Mars to negotiate with the Former Prime Minister Makanai. And I’m here now because he’s graciously allowed me this time. During the course of my long journey here, Gjallarhorn interfered several times with lethal intent. And now, my comrades are fighting that same interference outside of these very walls. There’s a great injustice taking place, and that’s the inequality between Earth and Mars. I tried to fix it, but now I realize that there’s an even greater disparity. This Parliament, a place where I thought everything could be resolved, is actually no different. However, those of you that are assembled here today, you have the power to oppose and right this disproportionate wrong. It’s your choice. So I beg you, please choose hope.”
– Kudelia Aina Bernstein, Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans (Ep. 25)
The Toonami Trending Rundown for December 10-11, 2016. Season 1 of Iron Blooded Orphans ends with a bang as every show had successfully trended in the US in addition to Hunter x Hunter during the West Coast airing.
Both DBZ and One Piece also produced character trends in Goku (as Gohan and the Z Fighters remember his contributions and sacrifice, being unable to revive him at least until they can collect the New Namek Dragon Balls to summon Porunga as Shenron is not powerful enough to revive Goku twice) and in Luffy (as he in his “Nightmare” form arrives to bring the pain on Oars and Moriah).
This week’s feature was a review of the video game Jotun. It received a 8 out of 10 score.
In addition, Funimation also showcased a sneak preview of the upcoming One Piece Film Gold. The film will be showcased in select theaters on January 10-17. Click here for more information and to check your local listings.
On Wednesday, after months, if not years of speculation on the future of Dragon Ball Z in US shores as well as as Toonami’s role in it, it has been announced that on January 7, not only Toonami be showcasing the Buu Saga (titled as “DBZ Kai: The Final Chapters”) at Midnight Eastern, but Toonami will also be expanding back to 11:30pm to showcase the long awaited dub premiere of Dragon Ball Super. In addition, Adult Swim will also be showcasing Super at 8pm, but unlike the “Encore presentation” we saw with DBZ Kai, this time both the 8pm and 11:30pm slots will be showcasing that week’s episode, so viewers that may not be able to stay up for Toonami (especially the younger ones) will be able to get their Super fix as well. In terms of trending, Toonami trended on Facebook as a result of the announcement.
In Attack on Titan news, it has been announced that the new season is scheduled to begin airing on April 2017, with Funimation also announcing that they received the English dubbing and distribution rights to the series. No word as of yet regarding the dub production or a potential Toonami run at this time, but we’ll keep a close eye on the developments in the months ahead.
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Ever since Toonami’s revival in 2012, one of the constant requests for the Toonami crew was to eventually start airing a Gundam series on the block again. Indeed the Gundam franchise has been a very notable staple for the better cartoon show, with entries achieving varying degrees of success back during the previous Golden Age for Toonami in the early 2000’s. However, due to various factors, Gundam eventually left Toonami after Gundam Seed in 2004, with events such as Toonami’s cancellation in 2008, and the closure of Bandai Entertainment in 2012 shortly after Toonami’s return all but dashed hopes of a return of the franchise. But Toonami and Gundam fans never gave up, and eventually Toonami partnered up directly with Sunrise to bring Gundam back to US television, culminating with the premiere of Iron Blooded Orphans on June 4th.
25 weeks of Kudelia and the Tekkadan contributing to the Martian revolution and fending off the Gjallarhorn to do so, and this season of Iron Blooded Orphans is now in the history books. During Season 1’s run, #GundamIBO successfully trended in some capacity with the exception of week 22, but did trend as well during the Halloween marathon. In addition, #IronBloodedOrphans also trended during week 1. On the other hand, Gundam was not able to produce a character or in-show content trend this season.
Now the wait begins for season 2, which is presently airing in Japan. If you wish to check out the sub, new episodes are available right now on Crunchyroll and Daisuki. There’s no official word as of yet on when the dub will be ready, not to mention whether Toonami decides to renew the series for the new season is yet to be known, but we’ll keep you posted. While the odds look pretty good that it will happen, as with all shows, sending Toonami your requests on their Facebook and Tumblr message boxes does help the show’s cause.
In the meantime, we still have more Gundam coming our way as Gundam Unicorn RE:0096 joins in on the action in the new year, on January 7 at 1am.
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Tune in next week for the final regular scheduled Toonami of the year, which will feature among other moments, the finale of the Cell Saga along with the conclusion of JoJo’s Phantom Blood story arc. In addition, as Gundam Unicorn isn’t ready to start just yet, Toonami will be showcasing a doubleheader of JoJo’s, so we’ll also see the start of the Battle Tendency story arc next week at 1am as well.
Until next week, congratulations to the Seattle Sounders on winning the MLS Cup and stay gold as always.
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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 [#2]
- #DBZKai [#1]
- Goku (From DBZ Kai) [#8]
- #JojosBizarreAdventure [#1]
- #GundamIBO [#1]
- #HunterXHunter (Also during the West Coast airing) [#1]
- #Shippuden [#7]
- #OnePiece [#4]
- Luffy (From One Piece) [#9]
- #OnePunchMan [#3]
Tweet Counts:
- Toonami [7,288 tweets]
- #Toonami [3,647 tweets]
- #DBZKai [2,414 tweets]
- #JojosBizarreAdventure [2,815 tweets]
- #GundamIBO [3,040 tweets]
- #HunterXHunter [4,078 tweets]
- #Shippuden [1,171 tweets]
- Luffy (From One Piece) [6,358 tweets]
Tumblr Trends:
- #toonami
Special thanks to @JMB_70056, @myanimewaifu, @TheNextHokage, and others I forgot to mention for spotting some of the trends on this list.
Edit 12/13 @ 1:30pm PST: Added tweet count of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Thanks to @myanimewaifu for this.
Bravery Never Dies. Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.