“Everyone who is listening to this broadcast, please discern the truth with your own eyes. And then, just as people did a century ago, I ‘d like you to usher in the next century with goodwill in your hearts. Believing in the God called “possibility” that lies dormant within us all.”

–          Mineva Lao Zabi, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn RE:0096 (Ep.22)

The Toonami Trending Rundown for June 10-11, 2017. Pandora’s…or in this case, Laplace’s Box is opened as Gundam Unicorn completes its run with a bang.

It was a bit of a rough night on Twitter, as only 4 shows (DBZ Kai, Attack on Titan, Hunter x Hunter and to finish its run with a bang, Gundam Unicorn) managed to trend in the US. Meanwhile on Tumblr, Toonami would trend in addition to Dragon Ball Super, Attack on Titan, and Tokyo Ghoul.

Both Dragon Ball shows did produce a pair of character trends with Gohan, as he leads the Z Fighters to defend against Frieza’s army until Goku and Vegeta arrive, as well as Vegeta, as Babidi takes advantage of his anger by possessing him to become one of his minions.

Since the original debut of the first episode of the OVA in 2010 and through its final episode in 2015, Gundam Unicorn has become a well regarded and acclaimed addition to the Universal Century era Gundam series. When Toonami was revived, Unicorn was among the highly requested Gundam series for Toonami to pick up at the time. While airing the original OVAs may have been a consideration for the block as with Hellsing when it aired in 2014, Sunrise would convert the 7 episode OVA series into a 22 episode TVseries (titled RE:0096) fit for broadcast which aired in Japan from April to September 2016.

And with a successful return of the Gundam franchise to Toonami after a 12 year hiatus with Iron Blooded Orphans, more Gundam was to be craved as IBO went to its offseason, and thus RE:0096 was brought in alongside Dragon Ball Super and DBZ Kai: The Final Chapters on January 7, 2017. (Incidentally, both the Battle of Gods and Resurrection F storylines were converted to the first two story arcs of Super in a similar fashion, though the animation was drawn from scratch rather than converted.)

22 weeks of Banagher, Audrey/Mineva and the crew searching for LaPlace’s Box, and Gundam Unicorn’s run is now in the books. During the show’s run, the hashtag #GundamUnicorn successfully trended on Twitter in the US during all 22 weeks the show has aired, 7 of those times the show also trended worldwide. Unfortunately, the show did not produce a character trend.

With the new season of Iron Blooded Orphans apparently not ready to go just yet (we haven’t heard anything from Sunrise or Toonami regarding a dub or Toonami renewal as of now), and no other Gundams coming in the interm, the franchise will be going on a hiatus from Toonami for now.

Although ratings could have admittedly been better (though that could be said for all shows), the Gundam franchise has played a notable role in Toonami’s history, and as long as there is interest amongst the Toonami crew and the fans, I’m pretty confident we’ll be seeing a lot more Gundam down the line. With the continued support of the fans and its creators, the Gundam franchise will no doubt be one that continues to amaze anime fans for years if not decades to come. What form it will take, we’ll just have to continue our support and believe in that possibility.

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 [#25]
  • #DBZKai [#24]
  • Gohan (From Dragon Ball) [#13]
  • Vegeta (From Dragon Ball) [#18]
  • #AttackOnTitan [#25]
  • #HunterXHunter [#23]
  • #GundamUnicorn [#24]

Tweet Counts:

  • Toonami [5,772 tweets]
  • #Toonami [2,672 tweets]
  • #DragonBallSuper [4,627 tweets]
  • #DBZKai [1,297 tweets]
  • Gohan (From Dragon Ball) [8,695 tweets]
  • Vegeta (From Dragon Ball) [4,627 tweets]
  • #AttackOnTitan [6,224 tweets]
  • #TokyoGhoul [2,127 tweets]
  • #HunterXHunter [1,565 tweets]
  • #GundamUnicorn [1,051 tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

  • #toonami
  • #dragon ball super
  • #attack on titan
  • #tokyo ghoul

Notes and Other Statistics:

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

Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.