Adult Swim Vs. Crunchyroll: Toonami Co-Creator Talks Difficulty In Broadcasting Anime

While the future of anime seems to be locked into the streaming world at this point, with platforms like Crunchyroll, Hulu, HBO Max, and more looking to pick up major exclusives in the medium, the anime world still has a place on cable television. Toonami, on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, still airs anime weekly and routinely will air new and classic series much to the delight of fans worldwide. Recently, Toonami co-creator Jason DeMarco discussed the current difficulties in bringing anime to Adult Swim and how Crunchyroll can often have an easier time in airing series and movies for the masses.

In chatting with the podcast Toonami Faithful, DeMarco “The way the system works now is Japanese rights holders have way more rights for how their properties are marketed, what you’re allowed to do with it, what clips you’re allowed to use, what your promos look like. That all is fine when you’re Crunchyroll because you don’t have a television network, you don’t have to chop up lots of tiny clips and get approval for every single one. You don’t have to do a “next episode promo.” For something like Toonami, that’s a tv network, there are multiple promos and trailers to promote an anime. There’s a way that anime is marketed for the industry and the rights’ holders are all a part of those decisions. They want to be able to see it and that slows everything down.”

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The Toonami co-creator went into detail regarding how the programming block works hand-in-hand with Japan for some of your favorite anime releases, “This can make everything cost more and its challenging to get these approvals sometimes. Also, Toonami isn’t necessarily offering as much money as Netflix or whoever, so ‘we’re not going to give you as much money and we want more control over your clips. Sound good??’ From that perspective, it makes it harder to make deals with more protective owners, but honestly, that’s good for them. They understand the value of what they’re making and their value in the global marketplace.”

DeMarco also explained that the anime creators do have respect for Toonami to this day, “They also respect Toonami and they know what Toonami is. They also don’t want to let weird stuff happen with their property that they’re not a part of, in respecting the creators and the industry. This is all good but it makes it really challenging for all of our teams, while we’re also dealing with fans who might say, ‘Well why don’t they have Dandadan yet?’ There’re a lot of reasons! I say all that to say these facts don’t slow Toonami down, but sometimes there are roadblocks and there’s always a plan.”

Want to see what the future holds for anime on cable television? Follow along with Team Anime on ComicBook.com for the latest updates on Toonami and hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime or hit us up in the comments.