“This may seem like an evil spirit, but it’s far from it. Jotaro, this thing you believe has possessed you is actually a powerful vision created by your own life energy. This vision will always appear standing by your side, and because of it we call it…a stand.”

–          Joseph Joestar, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders (Ep. 01)

The Toonami Trending Rundown for July 28-29, 2017. Perhaps setting things up for more things to come, the better cartoon show saw a re-expansion of the block from 11pm-3:30am Eastern with every show moving up by 30 minutes. But of course, the main event of the night was the long awaited debut of part 3 of the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure series in Stardust Crusaders as well as the finale of the Resurrection F saga, among other great moments.

On Twitter, every show from #DragonBallSuper to #Shippuden would trend during their respective East Coast airings. Meanwhile, Dragon Ball Super, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Ghost in The Shell would also trend on tumblr.

Finally, Dragon Ball Super’s buzz would help get the show on Nielsen Social’s list of the top 5 most talked about shows on Twitter and Facebook on the day for the 15th time in the show’s present run, making it to the #2 spot. This is the 28th time a Toonami show has reached this list since we started recording this feat.

As mentioned during the season 1 retrospective, JoJo fans have had to have plenty of patience for this franchise to make it to US shores, much less the better cartoon show. Fortunately, the wait would be a lot shorter this time around with only a 13 week off-season between Battle Tendency and Stardust Crusaders. Now as JoJos begins what is considered to be the most recognized story arc in the series, these next 48 weeks for Jotaro in his quest to stop Dio from dominating the world should be a dandy one.

Some big programming news for those that haven’t heard. On Thursday, it was announced that Toonami will be bringing back a blast from the past as the anime classic Outlaw Star will be making a return to the better cartoon show beginning on August 19th at 2:30am Eastern, replacing Ghost in the Shell upon its completion.

Back when it originally aired on Toonami in 2001, Outlaw Star had become a very successful show during the block’s original golden age in the early 2000’s, later becoming among the first shows in the Adult Swim action lineup. To give an example of its success, many fans have had fond memories of the inspirational speech video “Broken Promises” that features the show, which is considered to be one of the block’s best creations. And of course, it was one of the featured shows during the April Fools revival back in 2012.

With many having fond memories of the series and still a high seller when it comes to DVD and Blu-Rays, it comes as no surprise that it was a well requested Toonami/Adult Swim classic to one day eventually make a return, much like Eureka 7 and Samurai Champloo before. This new run will be re-mastered in HD and mostly uncut, though Episode 23 will have to be edited for various issues regarding content. Regardless, it should be a fun walk through memory lane as Gene Starwind and the Outlaw Star crew makes their return in 2 weeks time.

Interesting news meanwhile in the anime business front, as it was announced that one of Toonami’s programing acquisition partners, FUNimation, will become a subsidiary of Sony Pictures as the latter has acquired a 95% stake in the company, with founder Gen Fukunaga controlling the remaining 5 percent. There’s been a lot of discussion around the anime community on what this will mean for Funimation, Toonami, and the anime industry as a whole in the long run, though from what we’ve been hearing from Funimation themselves, things will for the most part stay the same at least for the foreseeable future with Sony Pictures investing in the company much like Disney is to Marvel. One thing we know for sure at the moment is that despite being in the same overall corporate umbrella of Sony, its very unlikely that Aniplex, another one of Toonami’s acquisition partners, will be involved in this buyout, as the latter is under the Sony Music division.

 

Those watching Dragon Ball Super may know that the first two arcs are TV re-tellings of the Battle of Gods and Resurrection F films (Unlike Gundam Unicorn which was the OVAs converted to TV format, Super retold and redrew those arcs from scratch), which as of this week we have now just completed. Next week, Super will be trekking completely new ground (dub-wise) with the start of the Universe 6 saga, among other great moments. Until next time, 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 [#10]
  • #DragonBallSuper [#23]
  • #DBZKai [#22]
  • #JoJosBizarreAdventure [#15]
  • #TokyoGhoul [#19]
  • #HunterXHunter [#13]
  • #LupinThe3rd [#6]
  • #Shippuden [#14]

Tweet Counts:

  • #DragonBallSuper [3,644 tweets]
  • #LupinThe3rd [1,579 tweets]
  • #Shippuden [1,171 tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

  • #dragon ball super
  • #jojos bizarre adventure
  • #ghost in the shell

Notes and Other Statistics:

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

Dio With It. Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.