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Last night during the January 1-2 edition of Toonami, the block revealed a surprise announcement that Assassination Classroom will make its return to the lineup for Season 2 beginning next Saturday, January 9, at 12:30 a.m. Eastern/Pacific.
Assassination Classroom’s first season ran on Toonami from August 30, 2020 to February 21, 2021. The second and final season will be 25 episodes in length.
Anime News Network summarizes season 2 of Assassination Classroom as follows:
“Class 3E is about to begin their second semester. And while some things have changed, the class assignment is still the same: kill their teacher before the end of the year. Easier said than done since Koro Sensei’s made it clear he won’t go down without a fight.”
The New Year’s Day edition of Toonami featured the premiere of Episode 8 of Blade Runner: Black Lotus, followed by the re-scheduled season 1 finale of Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon, and a marathon of the first 6 episodes of Cowboy Bebop. The season finale of Yashahime, episode 24, was supposed to be aired on December 11-12 as part of a tripleheader, but the final episode was accidentally replaced with a re-airing of Episode 21. Toonami has yet to reveal if and when Yashahime will return for its second season at this time.
The night was dedicated to screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto, who passed away last month at the age of 57. Nobumoto is best known among Toonami viewers for writing the scripts for the likes of Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Space Dandy, and Wolf’s Rain.
The full schedule for the January 8-9, 2022 edition of Toonami (outside of the first hour) is yet to be revealed at this time. Over the past two months, Toonami has had issues acquiring new shows to the lineup as shows have ended or gone on hiatus. As previously mentioned, on November 24, Jason DeMarco tweeted that “Frankly, we’ve had some unforeseen issues getting the shows we had lined up (issues out of our control). Once we are in the new year, we’ll launch some new ongoing series & things will settle down!”
One issue that may be playing a role in the current scheduling situation is the block’s negotiation issues with the Sony-Funimation group over bringing back Demon Slayer for season 2, along with possible other new and returning shows. On December 6, when sharing the article by Screen Rant titled “10 Classic Sci-Fi Films That Deserve The Anime Treatment After Blade Runner: Black Lotus,” he mentioned that he would love to make a ROBOCOP anime series happen. However later in the discussion thread, he mentioned that “Sony’s busy freezing us out of Demon Slayer and who knows what else, I don’t see them letting me make ROBOCOP! Ha.” More recently, in an AMA on New Years Eve, when asked if Demon Slayer will return, Jason simply answered: “We might not have it at all, sorry.” Whether the Toonami crew are dealing with Sony just playing hardball in the negotiations to bring back Demon Slayer, or is it a sign of deteriorating relationships with Aniplex and Funimation since their acquisition of Crunchyroll, is anyone’s guess.
What are your thoughts on the recent news? Are you looking forward to Assassination Classroom’s return? Let us know by commenting below or directly on our social media.
