“You got it all wrong, Pops. I don’t give a damn about what happened in the past. This guy’s in my way, so I’m going to beat him.”

–          “Gearless” Joe, Megalo Box (Ep. 06)

The Toonami Trending Rundown for January 26-27, 2019. It’s a good night for anime as Joe has a bout against one of Pop’s old students in Aragaki, while Yukako visits a beauty salon in her attempt to get Koichi to like her more, and Asta tries to recover from his harsh injuries against Vetto, among other great moments.

On Twitter, #Toonami as well as every show from Mob Psycho 100 to Shippuden would successfully trend in the US. Character trends for JoJo’s and Black Clover with both Yukako and Koichi as well as Asta. On Tumblr, Toonami would trend alongside Naruto and #BNHA. The full list including statistics and tweet counts from the twitter app and Amr Rahmy’s analytics app can be seen below.

And of course, the big news of the week…

In a case of “it was a matter of not if, but when it was coming” unless you were one of those SAO haters who were praying that Netflix and Hulu would somehow get Aniplex to snake their way out of its contract with Toonami, Toonami and Aniplex have announced that Kirito and Asuna are returning to their US broadcast home as the highly successful Sword Art Online franchise will be making its return to the better cartoon show for its highly anticipated third season in Project Alicization.

Season 3 will make its debut on February 9 at 12:30 am Eastern/Pacific, taking over Mob Psycho 100 on the schedule as the dub for season 2 of the latter is not ready for release as of now (Kyle McCarley, during his most recent Unlocked stream as of this writing, had mentioned that he has still yet to be called in to reprise his role as Shigeo/Mob). As the first episode is an hour’s length, Megalo Box will have the night off to make way. Episode 16 just aired in Japan and on streaming subbed this week, so while this isn’t a simuldub like the ones we’re used to from Funimation, it’s a relatively quick one compared to what we usually see from Alex von David, Bang Zoom, and Aniplex.

In anticipation for Sword Art Online’s return to Toonami, we covered the Project Alicization premiere in Hollywood back in October and got the opportunity to interview Bryce Papenbrook, the voice of Kirito. For those who would like to know what to expect going into this new season, I recommend checking out those articles if you haven’t so already. And of course, for those who are late to the party or who just want to rewatch the previous two seasons and Ordinal Scale in anticipation, the show is available to binge on Netflix, Hulu, Funimation Now and Crunchyroll as well as available to purchase on iTunes, the Microsoft Store, and available on Blu-ray and DVD.

As previously mentioned, as Season 2 of Mob Psycho 100 isn’t ready to go just yet (when the dub will be ready and when Toonami will get to air it are both yet to be announced), the show will be going on an off-season after next week, so make sure to tune in for the season finale of season 1, among other great moments. Until next week, 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.

United States Trends:

  • #Toonami [#8]
  • #MobPsycho100 [#7]
  • #MegaloBox [#7]
  • #JoJosBizarreAdventure [#7]
  • Koichi (From JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure) [#8]
  • Yukako (From JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure) [#17]
  • #BlackClover [#9]
  • #HunterXHunter [#4]
  • #Shippuden [#6]
  • Temari (From Naruto Shippuden) [Trended with #Shippuden]

Tweet Counts:

  • #Toonami [4,825 tweets]
  • #Boruto [4,544 tweets]
  • #MyHeroAcademia [4,335 tweets]
  • #MobPsycho100 [3,086 tweets]
  • #MegaloBox [1,369 tweets]
  • #JoJosBizarreAdventure [3,075 tweets]
  • Koichi (From JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure) [3,299 tweets]
  • Yukako (From JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure) [1,296 tweets]
  • #BlackClover [1,345 tweets]
  • Asta (From Black Clover) [5,597 tweets]
  • #HunterXHunter [1,770 tweets]

Amr Rahmy Counts:

  • #DragonBallSuper [#7 with 1,856 tweets]
  • #Boruto [#17 with 1,423 tweets]
  • #MyHeroAcademia [#7 with 2382 tweets]
  • #MobPsycho100 [#12 with 1,467 tweets]
  • #MegaloBox [#18 with 816 tweets]
  • #JoJosBizarreAdventure [#18 with 924 tweets]
  • #BlackClover [#17 with 1,008 tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

  • #Toonami
  • #BNHA

Notes and Other Statistics:

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

Split it evenly, 50/50. Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.