Goku: “Ow, purple Vegeta does fight like real Vegeta.”

Vegeta: “Why are you surprised? He literally drained all the power and fighting skills right out of me.”

Goku: “Wow, wish I saw that. But if that’s true, that means I have to approach him like I’m fighting you at your usual strength. Ok, real Vegeta. Do I officially have your permission to beat up fake Vegeta.”

Vegeta: “Of course you do. But whether you actually can defeat me is something I’m much less sure of.”

Goku: “An all out fight with [Fake] Vegeta with both our lives at stake? Now that I’m healthy again, this sounds like a ton of fun.”

Fake Vegeta: “Oh yes, I couldn’t agree more.”

–          Dragon Ball Super (Ep. 45)

The Toonami Trending Rundown for January 6-7, 2018. It’s the beginning of what hopefully will be another big year for the better cartoon show, as Buu battles Gotenks, Asta and Yuno begin taking the Magic Knights Exam, and Kakyoin has to deal with a baby stand user haunting his dreams, among other moments.

On Twitter, every show would successfully trend in some capacity in the US during the East Coast airing, in addition to Dragon Ball Super trending after its West Coast airing. On Tumblr, Toonami would trend as with Dragon Ball Super, JoJo’s, and Hunter x Hunter.

Super’s buzz also produced a character trend in Vegeta as the “copied blob” Vegeta, voiced by Brian Drummond from the Ocean Dub days, takes his powers and attempts to wipe off Vegeta from the face of the universe until Goku intervened. This had some assistance from recent events pertaining to the DBS sub, which you’ll see on Toonami in a year or so, but our policy regarding these situations are that if the Toonami Faithful contributed to making it trend, it counts.

Finally after being off the list for 6 weeks, Dragon Ball Super once again reaches Nielsen Social’s list for the top 5 most talked about shows on the day, reaching the #3 spot with a estimated combined 60,000 total interactions between users on Twitter and Facebook. This is the 42th time a Toonami show has made onto this list since we started recording this feat, and the 28th for the Dragon Ball franchise.

This week’s feature was a new “Criminal Threats/Building You a Better Cartoon Show” themed music video. You can check it out below.

With the penultimate episode of Lupin the Third Part IV set to air next week, fans have been wondering what the next show for Toonami will be. Unfortunately due to some legal issues and other unforeseen circumstances preventing things from being finalized, the announcement and premiere of that new show has been delayed to a later date. There will still be some changes in the interim however, as Space Dandy has been called back for another run beginning January 27 at 2:30am Eastern. Naruto Shippuden and Outlaw Star will be moved up by 30 minutes to 1:30 and 2 am respectively.

Other news of interest for the Toonami community released during the week include:

  • Long time Toonami fans may remember the show CardCaptors, the localized version of the hit anime and manga series CardCaptor Sakura, which aired on Toonami and on its sister block Kids WB back in 2001. I mentions this because as of last week, a new sequel to the series, “Clear Card” has just began running in Japanese airwaves and on streaming sites. Some Toonami fans have wondered if this new series could be in consideration to air at some point, and personally i’d be for it, but could it realistically occur? Hard to say, while the Toonami and Kids WB runs did get people interested who eventually saw the series uncut through other means as well as the manga, and Toonami has been open to airing shoujo series, the fact that it’s been 16 years since the show last aired here, the series lack of legal venues to view the anime during its hiatus including a lack of an uncut dub for viewers to catch up, and its lack of prestige compared to other Toonami classics (including the fact its run on Toonami proper only lasted few a weeks and Kids WB never even got to finish the series), among other issues, can make this a tough sell to the Toonami crew much less new viewers to consider. Then again, we have been surprised numerous times before, so anything can happen in this regard. All I can really say is if you think there is something Toonami should look into potentially airing, (including this or any of the below mentioned shows), let Toonami and the respective distributors know. But for those interested, the new series is available to view weekly on FUNimation Now and Crunchyroll.
  • 2018 is expected to be a big year regarding the Sword Art Online franchise with the series set to return to Japanese television after a 3 year hiatus as it has been announced that the Alternative Gun Gale Online side-story will be premiering in April. No word yet on what Aniplex’s plans will be regarding a simulcast or dub among other things, but we’ll keep you posted. Further news regarding season 3 of the main series on the other hand is still to be announced.
  • JoJo fans have noticed that Shueisha has filed a trademark for “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Golden Wind“, leading to speculation that an animated version of part 5 of the JoJo’s franchise, which is titled “Vento Aure” or “Golden Wind” will soon be announced. Of course, we’re still a ways away from catching up to where Japan is at with the anime, with Toonami not far from the halfway point of Stardust Crusaders, and part 4: Diamond Is Unbreakable still yet to be dubbed, but this could be one to look out for in the distant future.
  • Attack on Titan fans meanwhile won’t have to wait long for the new season this time around, as season 3 is set to make its premiere in Japanese television in July. A new visual was released on Saturday featuring Levi and a new character to the series named Kenny. Plans regarding a simulcast and simuldub from FUNimation are still to be announced.

  • And prior to last week’s Toonami, DBZ fans may have noticed that there was a bit of a friendly feud between Chris Sabat, the voice of Vegeta and Sean Schemmel, the voice of Goku, over who is the better Super Saiyan. This eventually escalated to the two challenging each other to a “Super Saiyan Showdown” as the two will playing some rounds of the upcoming game Dragon Ball Fighter Z against each other. FUNimation plans to host this event on January 25.

Tune in next week as Lupin showcases the penultimate episode of part IV, among other moments. Until next week, congratulations to Alabama on winning the National Championship, 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.

United States Trends:

  • Toonami/#Toonami [#6]
  • #DragonBallSuper [#8]
  • Vegeta (From Dragon Ball Super) [#7]
  • #DBZKai [#]
  • #BlackClover [#7]
  • #JoJosBizarreAdventure [#6]
  • #GundamIBO [#8]
  • #HunterXHunter [#6]
  • #LupinThe3rd [#6]
  • #Shippuden [#8]
  • #OutlawStar [#2]
  • #CowboyBebop [#5]
  • #GhostInTheShell [#3]

Tweet Counts:

  • Toonami [7,499 tweets]
  • #Toonami [3,054 tweets]
  • #DragonBallSuper [9,077 tweets]
  • Vegeta (From Dragon Ball Super) [29.1k tweets]
  • #DBZKai [1,088 tweets]
  • #BlackClover [1,836 tweets]
  • #JoJosBizarreAdventure [2,545 tweets]
  • #GundamIBO [1,259 tweets]
  • #HunterXHunter [1,560 tweets]
  • #LupinThe3rd [1,127 tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

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

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.

We Won’t Be Intimidated by Criminal Threats. Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.