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With the completion of both FLCL Grunge and Shoegaze, Toonami has reveled some of their moves for the lineup for the next few weeks. During the Halloween break, the October 21 edition of Toonami featured a marathon of all 3 episodes of FLCL Grunge, while October 28 saw a FLCL Shoegaze marathon. Among some of the plans going forward in the short term, Toonami will be bringing in a remastered airing of their first original production, IGPX, in addition to the return of Dr. Stone for the second half of Season 3, the New World, and the return of Demon Slayer with the Mugen Train arc.
According to Jason DeMarco, the head of Toonami, the FLCL sequels have been ratings successes despite that critical acclaim has been a mixed bag. However, Toonami won’t be making more seasons of FLCL, as the block wants to focus their efforts on different projects going forward with their limited amount of money and resources. Such projects that are in production include an adaptation of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki and original IPs including Ninja Kamui by Sunghoo Park, and Lazarus by Shinichiro Watanabe. Production I.G on the other hand could still be open to creating additional seasons of FLCL in the future, with Maki Terashima-Furuta, the president of Production I.G USA saying “Never say never.”
This Saturday, November 4, will see back-to-back encore runs of Attack on Titan: The Final Chapters Part 1. The night will also see the end of daylight savings, which will mean that Toonami will get an “extra 2:00 a.m. hour”. And following the second re-airing of Attack on Titan, Toonami will be airing the first two episodes of IGPX in its remastered HD format.
It’s unprecedented that there would be a holiday marathon night for three straight weeks, thought it should be noted that Part 2 of The Final Chapters will be airing in Japan on the same day. For those wanting to watch the simulcast, Crunchyroll will have it available for streaming internationally on November 4 at 8:00p.m. EDT/5:00 p.m. PDT. No word yet on when the dub of Part 2 will air on Toonami, but the rerun can beneficial for viewers who want to watch Part 1 (again) in anticipation.
For IGPX, Discotek is presently working on a Blu-ray release for the show which originally aired on Toonami back in 2005 as the block’s first original series. Unfortunately, the show did not reach the network’s expectations, and was ultimately canceled and written off for tax purposes by Cartoon Network, meaning that the show was legally barred from airing on the network (which includes Adult Swim and Toonami) again. However, in 2013, Toonami did manage to get the write off reversed thanks to the complex structure of IGPX’s production committee, and had a full run on the revived block from April 27, 2013 to April 26, 2014. Discotek has yet to reveal when the IGPX Blu-ray will be released at this time.
Jose Argumedo, IGPX fan and a former colleague of mine at ToonamiFaithful.com, is actually the one in charge at Discotek with remastering the show.
https://twitter.com/MakiTerashima/status/1714491981211344949
Originally, Toonami was only planning to air the first two episodes for daylight savings, as the remastering of IGPX is still a work in progress. According to Jose Argumedo, “It’s not a simple matter of just taking the Blu-ray master and slapping it on TV. The workflows are completely different and I’m doing both at the same time.” But not long after, Toonami decided that they would still go ahead with a full run of IGPX beginning on November 11 at 2:30 a.m. In response, Jose tweeted: “Haha, I’m finding out IGPX is becoming a regular addition to the block alongside all of you. I was told they were just going to do a marathon. And no, the whole series hasn’t been turned in yet. Hopefully, it will be and it won’t interrupt the run.”
arguingmeadows.com on BlueSky on Twitter: “Can’t wait to see this on-air. It was a massive effort to get IGPX this far. https://t.co/joUuOswrzw / Twitter”
Can’t wait to see this on-air. It was a massive effort to get IGPX this far. https://t.co/joUuOswrzw
The regular schedule will return on November 11, with the premiere of the second cour of Dr Stone: New World. Dr. Stone resumed its run of Season 3 in Japan on October 12, 2023, with Crunchyroll even releasing the dub on their service at the same day as the sub. The first half of Dr Stone: New World aired earlier this year from April 6 to June 15, 2023.
https://twitter.com/tmsanime/status/1715850450287935517
The full schedule for that night wasn’t revealed during the original announcement, suggesting that Toonami wasn’t ready to reveal the schedule for when the Halloween breaks were over and/or they had another surprise in store. And indeed, Toonami did have another surprise in store. On the morning of September 28, Toonami revealed the schedule for the night of November 11, announcing that Demon Slayer would be making its long-awaited return to the better cartoon show to continue on where they left off with the Mugen Train arc.
adult swim on Twitter: “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Mugen Train Arc – coming to Toonami @ midnight 11/11 pic.twitter.com/TAOyDSARD2 / Twitter”
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Mugen Train Arc – coming to Toonami @ midnight 11/11 pic.twitter.com/TAOyDSARD2
The first night of Demon Slayer will see a doubleheader of the first two episodes at midnight, followed by Dr. Stone at 1 a.m., One Piece at 1:30, Naruto Shippuden at 2 a.m., and IGPX at 2:30. For the following week on November 18, Demon Slayer will continue to lead the lineup at midnight (albeit with an episode weekly), while Dr. Stone will move up to 12:30 a.m. and we’ll see a doubleheader of One Piece at the 1 a.m. hour.
Despite that Toonami premiered the dub of season 1 from October 13, 2019 to May 3, 2020, Toonami was unable to renew Demon Slayer to premiere both season 2 when it was released in 2021 and Season 3 in 2023. This was thanks to Sony “freezing” Toonami from renewing the series in part due to Aniplex and Crunchyroll’s asking price far exceeded what Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, and WarnerMedia (now Warner Bros. Discovery) were willing to pay. This was followed with Sony ultimately severing Aniplex, Crunchyroll, and Funimation’s long standing relationships with Toonami shortly after their purchase of Crunchyroll and merging the companies to what is now Crunchyroll LLC. Back in July 2022, Jason DeMarco even went as far as saying “Anything Sony has the rights to is looking unlikely for the foreseeable future, but I never say never.”
Crunchyroll’s severing of Toonami relations has been one of several controversies the now Sony owned company has been a part of since its merger. This also includes, but is not limited to, the low pay of their cast and production crews combined with the company’s union-busting efforts as seen with the recasting of Mob Psycho 100 and the Tower of God video game, and its purchase of the popular online anime store Rightstuf and effective dissolution by shutting down the company’s website and absorbing its operations into the Crunchyroll Store.
However, since My Hero Academia returned to Toonami for season 6 last year, Crunchyroll and Sony have decided to lighten up in regards to partnering up with Toonami again. This brought the return of additional shows to the lineup, which so far has included Attack on Titan for The Final Chapters, Dr. Stone: New World, Food Wars: The Fifth Plate, and the One Piece crossover with Dragon Ball Super and Toriko. This lead to the return of Demon Slayer to Toonami for season 2.
As I mentioned in my editorial “Is Toonami’s “No Movies” Policy Coming Back to Haunt Its Viewers?” published back in 2021, Mugen Train originally being a movie arc posed a conundrum for Toonami viewers and perhaps the Toonami crew themselves. Unless the block aired the film or a television adaption of the film could be made, television viewers would be “disenfranchised” from the show’s continuity unless they were able to see the film (in theaters or otherwise) or seen that part of the storyline through another method. And unfortunately, this would be the case with Sword Art Online with Ordinal Scale (and potentially the Progressive films in the future), Made in Abyss with Dawn of the Deep Soul and Dr. Stone with the Ryusui OVA, as the block was unable to pick up the TV rights for the previously mentioned films/OVAs. Fortunately Demon Slayer fans need not to worry, as Studio Ufotable and Aniplex did realize this problem and thus a television adaptation of Mugen Train was made.
What are your thoughts on the news? Did you enjoy the FLCL sequels? Are you looking forward to seeing the IGPX remaster? Are you excited for the return of Dr. Stone and Demon Slayer? Let us know by commenting below or directly on our social media.
