“Never turn your back on family, even when they hurt you. Never let life get the better of you. And if you remember nothing else, remember to find time to eat together as a family. Even when times are rough; especially when times are rough. There’s no lack of painful things in this world, but hunger and loneliness must surely be two of the worst. Thanks to you, my precious family, I didn’t know a moment of either of those the last ninety years.”

– Sakae Jinnouchi, Summer Wars

KOI KOI!! So glad everyone is loving on #SummerWars!

– Brina Palencia, the voice of Natsuki.

The Toonami Trending Rundown for November 14-15, 2013. Week 2 of movie night is in the books, and the critically acclaimed film Summer Wars lives up to the hype, as Summer Wars trends both in the US and Worldwide and FMA Brotherhood, Ghost In The Shell, and InuYasha also trend in the US. And something that came out of left field, FLCL and Fooly Cooly also trended in the US…which was only spotted after it’s west coast airing. Both Summer Wars and FMA Brotherhood also trended in the US after their west coast airings as well. In addition, Love Machine also managed to hack his way into the US and Worldwide lists. Not bad, though something tells me that he tried to keep Kazma, Natsuki, and Kenji off of the list as well…

If you haven’t heard last week’s Toonami Faithful podcast, Jason DeMarco made an announcement to what is going to replace FLCL: Samurai Jack, the show that ended Toonami’s original run with a bang will be making it’s grand return. As I mentioned last week, I can’t give you an exact date to when the premiere will happen due to the uncertainty of the schedule with movie night (though according to the schedule as of present, FLCL will air next week but it’s still uncertain if FLCL will air during Trigun night Edit 12:15 @ 7:30pm PST: Toonami will have a Cowboy Bebop marathon after Trigun ends as a “preparation” for Space Dandy), but judging by my estimates, the premiere should be by February 1st. The actual timeslot, however, is yet to be determined. It will most likely air around 2:30am, but there might be some schedule shuffling depending on how things go during the next month.

Of course this is a good time to remind you (and Jason mentions this on last week’s podcast as well) that while most of the titles on the block are anime, Toonami by all intents and purposes is classified as a mature animated action cartoon block, meaning that if said animated show has “some” action in it, it has a shot on making the block. It also means that unless they have action in it, Slice of Life, Romantic Comedy, or the so-called “Moe” and “Otaku Pandering” programming will never be considered for the block. If you remember the situation regarding Hamtaro back in the day, there’s a good reason why they haven’t shown another since. And no offense to Toonami fans that like Slice of Life (I personally have no qualms against it), but unless you want the block to undergo a “Network Decay” fiasco like regular Cartoon Network and [adult swim] had a few years ago, I’m gonna warn you now that you’re going to be very disappointed if you’re expecting such content to join the block eventually.

Speaking of CN’s Network Decay, fans of Cartoon Network as a whole has had much to cheer about since those days, and Adult Swim in particular achieved it’s most watched year ever in terms of viewership ratings. Toonami in particular “grew average delivery of all targeted demos by remarkable double digits, ranging between 39% and 44%” in comparison to when AS Action bit the dust and Toonami had it’s grand return last year. And while it’s not mentioned, I’m sure the weekly social media efforts have helped as well. While I’m sure we all still have our qualms with some of Cartoon Network’s present controversial decisions (such as the fiasco with DC Nation, among others), I’m sure we can all agree that the channel is much more enjoyable than when Toonami was gone and CN Real was running amock.

If you’re attending Otakon Vegas on January 4th, Funimation will be hosting a launch event for Space Dandy, which will include Ian Sinclair, the voice of Dandy and ADR director Zach Bolton as guests, and will also showcase Episode 1 mere hours before it airs on Toonami. If you’re attending the con, go check it out and represent the faithful. But even if you aren’t, get psyched anyways for January 4th as we all could be witnessing the beginning of something special. And it’s all only just 3 weeks away.

In the meantime, tune in next week as Toonami airs FMA: The Conqueror of Shambala for part 3 of it’s month of movies. I should probably mention that Shambala follows the continuity of the original FMA anime (not Brotherhood or the manga), so keep that in mind for next week. Other than that, Rest in Peace Nelson Mandela, for those affected by the tragedy at Arapahoe High, our thoughts and prayers go out to you.

Legend: The number next to the listed trend represents the highest it trended on the list (not counting the promoted trend), judging only by the images placed in the rundown. For the mobile app trends, the listed number of tweets are also sorely based on the highest number shown based on the images on the rundown.

US Trends:

Toonami (During Summer Wars, FMA Brotherhood, Ghost In The Shell, IGPX, and InuYasha) [#4]

#SummerWars (Also trended during it’s west coast airing) [#1]

Love Machine (From Summer Wars) [#5]

#FLCL (Trended during it’s west coast airing) [#5]

Fooly Cooly (Trended during it’s west coast airing) [#9]

#FMABrotherhood (Also trended during it’s west coast airing) [#2]

#GhostInTheShell [#2]

#InuYasha [#3]

Worldwide Trends:

Toonami (During Summer Wars) [#5]

#SummerWars [#3]

Love Machine (From Summer Wars) [#4]

Mobile App Trends:

Toonami (During FMA Brotherhood) [#7 with 11.3k Tweets]

#SummerWars [#1 with 18.9k Tweets]

#FMABrotherhood [#2. Tweet Number Unknown]

Special thanks to @Andy_Salcedo, @Darkcyberwolf, @DatDamnPR, @JacquelineMay3, @JMB_70056, @kencon06, @MisterADRaveN, @musicdrummer01, @MykeJinX89, @spiritrealms, @YonkouProdHD, and others I forgot to mention for spotting some of the trends on this list.

Brothers in Arms. Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.