Toonami Is Already Thinking About Its Future Lineup

By Evan Valentine

Toonami has been one of the best places to catch anime on cable television, and online, for quite some time, with the Adult Swim programming block rotating its schedule among numerous anime series. In a recent question and answer session, the co-creator of Toonami, Jason DeMarco, went into details regarding the future of the platform, the original anime series that it is working on, some old favorites making a comeback, and why Demon Slayer's second season wouldn't be showing up on Cartoon Network any time soon.

In the recent Q&A session, one of the major things that Jason DeMarco noted was that Demon Slayer's second season wouldn't be appearing on Toonami, as the recent success of Mugen Train made it "too expensive" to be a part of Cartoon Network's platform. Demon Slayer: Mugen Train was the first film in the Shonen franchise and also became the most popular anime movie of all time, seemingly affecting how much it would cost for the second season to make its way to Toonami, even though the first adventures of Tanjiro and his demon-slaying comrades aired originally. 

DeMarco also mentioned that Toonami might be moving more away from "Shonen anime," following the clarification that Demon Slayer was no longer a part of the programming block. When asked about anime that is streaming on Netflix, it seems that said series will be locked down for around "twenty-five years," so seeing them hit Cartoon Network seems unlikely at this point. The co-creator of Toonami also took the opportunity to state that there were more anime series being added to the block and will be announced in the near future.

On the originals front, Toonami has another series in the works that will arrive this year, alongside Shenmue The Animation and Junji Ito's Uzumaki, while also noting that there are three planned original series for next year as well. Though Toonami might not be able to rely on Shonen franchises as much as they once had, thanks in part to how popular anime has become in general, it seems that they're moving full steam ahead when it comes to their original content.

What do you think of Toonami's future? Do you foresee it remaining a part of Cartoon Network in the near and far future? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of Toonami. 

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