Toonami Has Two New Anime: Plus Four Returnees

Two anime new to broadcast in the U.S. were included in the Toonami block on Adult Swim that premiered last weekend. Deadman Wonderland aired at 12:30 a.m. ET and 3:30 ET Saturday. The U.S. anime rights are controlled by FUNimation ; home video has not yet been released. Tokyopop published five volumes of the manga.
Casshern Sins aired at 1:00 and 4:00 a.m. ET. The series was released by FUNimation in a complete set,  and in two parts.

Other shows airing in the block are Bleach; Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood; Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG; and Cowboy Bebop.

Toonami Returns to Adult Swim

Anime will return to Adult Swim on May 26th, when the Toonami programming block returns, the company announced. The block will run from midnight to 6 a.m. ET/PT Saturdays. The programming will be a mix of series previously seen on the Toonami block and new anime programming developed by Adult Swim.

Adult Swim Nabs 3 New Anime, Loses 2

The Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim announced on air via title cards that it had lost the rights to show the anime series Death Note and Blood+. The entire Death Note anime series was shown on Adult Swim at least three times, while Blood+ was shown just once in its entirety (50 episodes).

The Anime News Network is reporting that Adult Swim followed the news of the expiration of the rights to Death Note and Blood+ with a cryptic announcement indicating that on a recent visit to Tokyo “we think we bought three series (maybe).”

It should be interesting to see which new series that Adult Swim, which has been aggressive in producing its own animated series and has even added live action shows to its lineup, has picked up. Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, the sequel to the FMA series that had a very successful run on Adult Swim, is a likely candidate, as is Inuyasha: The Final Conflict, the finale to the long-running Inuyasha anime that has a rich history with the Cartoon Network that goes way back to the early days of Adult Swim.

Funimation, which handled the original Full Metal Alchemist anime, has acquired U.S. rights to FMA: Brotherhood . Viz Media distributes the Inuyasha manga and anime series as well as the Full Metal Alchemist manga in North America.

Venture Brotherrs Action Figures

Bif Bang Pow! will produce a line of action figures, bobble heads, and vehicles based the Adult Swim show The Venture Bros. First up is a line of 7” resin bobble heads due out this spring. Articulated action figures will follow in the summer, featuring Dr. Venture, The Monarch, Brock Samson, Hank & Dean Venture, and others.

The deal was reached between Bif Bang Pow! and Cartoon Network Enterprises, which handles licensing and merchandising for Adult Swim.

Bif Bang Pow! has produced other tv-based toy lines, including one based on the hit show Lost

Adult Swim Increases Anime Programming

Starting on November 8th the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim is revising its schedule once again with a 5-hour anime block that begins at 1am (ET, PT). In a major format change, the Adult Swim Saturday night schedule will not involve repeating shows broadcast earlier the same night. The Saturday night Adult Swim schedule begins with two hours of its original English language programming, which is followed by ten anime series including Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit and Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2, both of which had been banished to the “Milkman” hour of 5am (see “Adult Swim Cuts Back on Anime”) and Shin Chan, which had been dropped off the schedule entirely.

The anime portion of the new Adult Swim schedule begins with Bleach at 1am followed by Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit (1:30am), Code Geass (2am), and Shin Chan (2:30am). Then comes a parade of the Adult Swim's greatest anime hits--most of which will start with their first episodes—Fooly Cooly (FLCL, 3am), Death Note (3:30am), Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (4am), Cowboy Bebop (4:30am), Big O (5am), and Inuyasha (5:30am).
The new Adult Swim schedule represents an increase in the number of hours of anime programming from 6 hours to 8.5 hours per week and an even bigger expansion of the number of anime series, due largely to the ending of the practice of repeating the first 3 hours Adult Swim programming during the second late night 3 hour shift. Of course there is no telling how long Adult Swim will stick with this current schedule of anime programs.