This week’s Toonami Trending Rundown is a double-feature for the nights of December 23-24 and 30-31, 2017, as Toonami took the night off from regular festivities for Christmas and New Years weekends as they encore ran episodes 1-11 of Cowboy Bebop and episodes 33-44 of Dragon Ball Super respectively.

During Christmas Week, Cowboy Bebop would trend in the US on Twitter during its East Coast airing, while #CowboyBebop also trended during its West Coast Airing. On Tumblr, Cowboy Bebop and Toonami would trend there. On New Years Week, #DragonBallSuper would briefly trend in the US on Twitter, while #Toonami also trended on Twitter and Tumblr as well.

This week, Toonami showcased a game review of Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus. It received a 9 out of 10 score.

2017 was quite a memorable year for the better cartoon show as the block celebrated its 20th anniversary, the successful airing of Countdown, as well as the successes of all the great shows to have aired on the block in the past year. We started off the year with the long awaited English dub premiere of the next adventures of Goku and the Z Fighters in Dragon Ball Super and the final chapters of DBZ Kai as the Buu Saga would be remastered. Gundam Unicorn would also join them as Banagher, wanting to stop the bloodshed seen during the Universal Century, learns the truth of Laplace’s Box.

In March, as Toonami celebrated its 20th anniversary in April, after an over 12 year long wait, Samurai Jack finally saw its long awaited conclusion as Jack had his final battle against Aku. On the other hand, things would go south for the Strawhats, as following Thriller Bark as flagging ratings and high costs to keep the show on the air would lead to the end of One Piece’s run as a Toonami show. It’s replacement would be Tokyo Ghoul and later its sequel in root A, as Kaneki is forced to endure and adapt to his new life as a Ghoul.

In May, Attack On Titan made its return to the block after a 3 year wait for season 2 as Eren and the scouts got one step closer to the truth of the Titans, but once again at the cost of many fine soldiers. And in June, after a 14 year hiatus, the world’s greatest thief in Arsène Lupin III and his team makes his grand return as Lupin the Third: Part 4 made its debut.

While the Joestars had to wait many years for their turn on the better cartoon show, we wouldn’t have to wait nearly as long this time around as JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure made a return in July with Stardust Crusaders as Dio is up to his dirty tricks once again and Jotaro is tasked to stop him. A few weeks later, August saw the return of Gene Starwind and the Outlaw Star crew, as the Toonami classic gets its long awaited (mostly uncut) encore run.

As the season turned to autumn, Mikazuki and the Tekkadan continued their fight for Martian Independence as Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans began its 2nd season. And following the latest Total Immersion Event in Countdown, we finished off the year with the debut of Black Clover as Shonen Jump’s two newest stars in Asta and Yuno fight their way to become the next Wizard King.

 

We’ll have plenty to look forward to in 2018 as Toonami will celebrate its 21st anniversary on Saturday March 17, and for the first time since the April Fools revival, April Fools Day will take place during Toonami’s timeslots, so it will be interesting to see what kind of joke or gift Jason and the crew have in store for us then. And of course, FLCL is set to return later this year for seasons 2 and 3, with the exact premiere dates still to be announced.

Some of the major story arcs to come in the near future (according to one of my readers in TheNextHokage) include Dragon Ball Super’s Goku Black arc, DBZ Kai’s Evil Buu saga, Black Clover’s Dungeon Exploration Arc, JoJo’s Battle in Egypt, Hunter x Hunter’s Chimera Ant arc, and Naruto Shippuden’s 5 Kage Summit arc. DBZ Kai, Iron Blooded Orphans, and Stardust Crusaders are also set to conclude sometime during the year, not to mention we only have 3 more episodes left of Lupin the Third Part IV left to go.

What new series and franchises will get to join this gateway to anime is to be determined in the year to come, whether it’ll be the next big hit or an underrated gem, but going by previous years, expect to see some big shows as well as some surprises as well. And with the likes of Attack on Titan, Naruto, One Punch Man, Tokyo Ghoul, and Sword Art Online among others all have sequels airing or in the works, they’ll be among those to watch for regarding a potential continuation on the better cartoon show in the near future. I’m personally pretty confident in their odds of returning, but we’ll see what happens. And as I’ve previously mentioned, if you really want to see a show make it to Toonami, let them and the appropriate distributors know you want to see it there at their request outlets (ex. Toonami’s Facebook and Tumblr message boxes, among other places).

It’s been 5 years since Toonami has returned, and this block continues to be strong and resilient even as critics have and continue to predict its demise with the TV landscape adapting to streaming and the issues of piracy and the difficulties of animation breaking in to adult mainstream audiences. On the contrary, it seems to have found its place as an anime gateway drug and had done its part in helping to bring a resurgence of interest in the anime medium. They’ll be plenty of problems the Toonami crew will have to solve going forward in terms of keeping fans interested and creating new anime fans, but we’ve seen this block achieve many great things before, so I’m pretty confident for what this block and the anime industry will accomplish in the future. How long this train will keep going, I’m not sure, but as long as Toonami has the support from Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, and Turner Broadcasting, the anime industry at large, and the fans, I don’t think the block is going anywhere anytime soon.

Finally, I just want to say thank you to all our readers and contributors to making this trending rundown what it is today. It’s been 5 years since I started this Toonami Trending Rundown and we’ve got to enjoy many great shows, and the social media buzz no doubt followed. I plan on upping up the notch in the future in several ways and contribute some more content to ToonamiFaithful.com and @ToonamiNews in the near future, but for now, all  I can say is that here’s to a great 2018 to come.

Tune in next week for the first Toonami of 2018, as we only have 3 episodes left of Lupin the Third Part IV left to go, while Asta and Yuno begin their attempt at the the Magic Knights Entrance Exam, among other great moments. Until then, have a Happy New Year and stay gold.

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.

December 23-24, 2017

United States Trends:

  • #CowboyBebop/Cowboy Bebop [#11]

Tweet Counts:

  • #CowboyBebop [3,202 tweets]
  • Cowboy Bebop [1,804 tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

  • #toonami
  • #cowboy bebop

Notes and Other Statistics:

December 30-31, 2017

United States Trends:

  • Toonami/#Toonami [#19]
  • #DragonBallSuper [#3]

Tweet Counts:

  • #DragonBallSuper [9,754 tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

  • #toonami

Notes and Other Statistics:

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

Hungry like a Wolf. Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.