Adult Swim Exec Comments On Toonami Lineup Shrinking

We reported the other day about Adult Swim shrinking the Toonami action-toon lineup, the once six-plus hour lineup coming down to three hours, and fans are mixed. On one hand, longtime Toonami fans are looking at this as Adult Swim waving the white flag on the lineup once-and-for-all, on the other hand, this is 2020, and there are a litany of streaming options for anime. In fact, most of Toonami’s acquired lineup can be found on Funimation, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HiDive, or Crunchyroll.

For what it’s worth, Adult Swim VP Jason DeMarco recently released a lengthy statement about the lineup shrink that you can see below. Our analysis follows:

Attention #Toonami fans! A note about the lineup shrinkage. In an effort to keep rumors and speculation under control, here’s a little context: a couple months back, our programming department came to us and asked how we felt about shaving some time off of the Toonami broadcast.

— SPIRAL CURSE DEMARCO (@Clarknova1) February 7, 2020

Our Take

I’m in 100% agreement with the shrinking of Toonami lineup, especially if it means that the block will be more for original/first-run programming instead of something like Food Wars Season Three which has been available on DVD for several months, now. Jason notes that six original series are on the way including Blade Runner and Uzumaki, the latter of which is to premiere sometime this year for the network. If we have to cut-off some lineup to put more funds into original programming like first-run English dubbed content that isn’t made available on a streaming service or home release, or straight-up originals, I’m all for it.