FOUR REASONS ADULT SWIM’S RELAUNCH OF ‘TOONAMI’ WILL/WON’T WORK IN 2012

Toonami is what got me into anime a long, long time ago.  Dragon Ball Z, Gundam Wing, G-Gundam, they were all my shit.  DBZ is the reason why I did so shitty my sophomore year in high school.  Instead of doing my homework, I would be glued to my TV each day, watching the latest episodes of Goku kicking the shit out of Frieza, Ginyu, and so on.  Hell.  Skinnier, sophomore me actually wore DBZ shirts.  I would show you to prove it, but my most recent ex has my last one.  God speed, DBZ shirt.

Then, as I grew up, my tastes changed.  Toonami was getting diluted with crap.  Hamtaro was on it.  I had no vested interest .hack, Cardcaptors had potential to ride the Yugioh wave, but that failed as well.  I was only watching it for DBZ (which after time, parlayed to Naruto) the DC Comics shows, and the occasional run of Neon Genesis Evangelion.  But I digress…

Toonami is back.  Before I go off on a tangent for a while, let me get something clear first.  Toonami hinges on whether you actually watch it or not.  Watching something like Toonami Aftermath is awesome, because it brings stuff to the table that we missed.  But now that Toonami (proper) is back, at least on Saturday nights, you need to watch, or you lose your rights to bitch that they took away your Toonami.  The more people who watch, the more money Cartoon Network can give out to get shows and voices like (by the way,Sara, the voice of the Absolution, is absent.  No money, no voices. /sad):

 

Inuyasha: The Final Act

One Piece

Gundam 00

Fairytail

More Big O

Soul Eater

And the list goes on…

Anyone who can read the title can see the correlation between me, and Toonami.  This block of shows has been with me since damn near middle school.  Why?   The block had relevance for most of the 10+ years it was around.  Again, why?  The shows.

The shows, at first, were a little…whack.  It started with Thundercats, Cartoon Roulette (which is just a bunch of rotating old cartoons (side note: two of them got repurposed into Adult Swim shows when that came off the ground.  They are Space Ghost and Harvey Birdman.))

1998, this is when the magic happened.  Relevance, and the start of the anime boom, is what propelled Toonami into the favorite people remember it to be.  DBZ, Sailor Moon, Robotech, and Beast Wars: Transformers joined the Superfriends on the block.

You know what?  Let’s take a look at the list of shows that Toonami brought to the masses.  This is roughly in chronological order after 1998:

 

Reboot

Ronin Warriors

6 Gundam series

3 Tenchi Muyo series

Blue Sub 6

Outlaw Star

Big O (Oh, by the way, season 1 was so popular here, CN commissioned season 2.  Apparently Japan wanted nothing to do with this.)

Cardcaptors (after Kids WB apparently dropped the ball…)

Dragon Ball

Zoids

Hamtaro (how this came to America, I don’t know…)

The 2002 He-Man

Old G.I. Joe

Motherfucking Samurai Jack (Yes.  He was so badass, he got the motherfucking.)

.hack

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Yu Yu Hakusho

Rurouni Kenshin

Justice League and JL: Unlimited

A try at One Piece (Another bad dub, more on this later.)

Star Wars Clone Wars (The Genndy Tartakovsky hand drawn one)

Teen Titans

The Batman

Naruto (Sorry, Disney.  If CN didn’t bring this out, you wouldn’t have Shippuuden.  Somehow, this stayed on the air, again, with a bad dub.  More on this later.)

2 Yugioh shows.

 

This is just a short list.  I’m sure, if you’re reading this, you’re probably going, “Dude!  Where the fuck is my favorite show, Cybertron?”  Hate to break the news, either your favorite show was famous somewhere else first, or it sucked.  Sorry, Zatch Bell fans.

A lot of these shows were phenomenal.  Even with their flaws, they were good enough to get a ¼ of a 2 hour block, or a 1/6 of a 3 hour block.  Toonami pushed the limits of what can be put on tv.  Hell, apparently the whole final season of Yu-gi-oh GX was so fucked up, the distributor wanted nothing to do with it.  Fuck them, by the way. I never got to see the end of it when Yugi whooped some Jaden ass.

Now you have the history.  10+ years of fucking awesome in about a page and a ½, gift wrapped, and all for you.  I was going to wait til after the premiere of Toonami to write this, but fuck it.  CN execs read this fairly frequently, and they are going to not understand what I am about to say.

I have 4 reasons why this Toonami could succeed.  I also have 5 reasons why this Toonami could fail.

Successes

1.       Nostalgic Value

Initially, when I saw that Toonami was coming back, I was so stoked.  Memories of old Toonami danced around in my head.  Memories of hurrying home just to watch Goku fight Jace and Burter flashed into my head.  Oh my god, I was so happy.  I was happy to watch Megas XLR.  Shit, my proper introduction to Neon Genesis Evangelion was from Toonami.  And yes, I’ll man up, and I’ll admit I watched Sailor Moon.  Get off my back.

People remember this, and automatically went back to their childhood.  They were smart in this aspect to put it back on Adult Swim…on Saturday Nights…when they already do anime.  So, a lot of people will watch it.

2.       Established User Base

Toonami will inherit Adult Swim’s viewers by proxy.  It’s taking over an already established anime block, loosely called Adult Swim: Action.  There was enough of a viewer base, mostly from Bleach and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, to keep the shows coming.  So, if Toonami at least keeps the viewer base steady, they should be able to keep the shows streaming for a bit.  So, I guess this isn’t really a point to success as much as it is a way to keep the status quo.

3.       Show Rotation

They have a habit of repeating the same shows and use them until the servers they’re stored on blow up.  I watched the entire run of Death Note 6 times.  Toonami usually had series run its course, replace it, and then bring it back when people “forgot” about it.  So this could be both a blessing and a curse.  Hopefully, Adult Swim will keep the Toonami type of rotation.  Again, for that to happen, we need people to actually watch.  Otherwise we will be getting meh anime, and recycled animations for Tom when he does his breaks.  (Can anyone see the hint yet?)

4.       The Anime Itself

I just got done talking to one of my anime loving friends, Jason Hinkle, and he shed some light on the new anime, Deadman Wonderland and Casshern Sins.  They are both exceedingly violent.  Most male anime fans love violence.  So, that works.  A lot of the anime that has been shown is violent, to varying degrees.  From DBZ, to Sailor Moon (hey, it was, at least the Japanese version) to Yu Yu Hakusho, to Naruto, all were violent.  Mind you, they were watered down due to being on either an afternoon or a Saturday Night primetime spot, but it was there.  Being on at Midnight, it will give the localizers a time to relax, and air it as it was supposed to be.

So…those are 4 reasons why Toonami could succeed.  I have 4 reasons why it could fail.  Here we go…

Fail

1.       Awful Product

So, while we had popular dubbed versions of shows like Naruto, One Piece and DBZ, the dubs for them, at least Naruto and One Piece(DBZ was passable…), was downright deplorable.  This shit was the absolute worst dubbing I have heard.  Yes, this includes most of the anime porn I watched in my teenage years.  I swear if I hear the dub, and I hear Naruto say the phrase “believe it!” one more god damn time, I will sink Japan. Side note: I caused the Tsunami. Oh my fucking god…this is why anime failed to keep relevancy last decade.

Let’s not even get into One Piece.  At least Naruto made it to the end of that series before getting das boot from Cartoon Network.  This dub was so bad; it barely made it to episode 50 before getting cancelled.  It stopped, and actually took it getting acquired by Funimation to get it started again.  The one glaring problem with this is, now everytime I see Usopp, I think he’s god damn Krillin.  Sonny Strait does the voice for both characters.  Monkey D. Luffy is Gohan, Sanji is Teen Trunks, and Zoro is Vegeta.  This part itself is more of a gripe about the lazy effort of the voice actors and Funimation.  But at least Sanji sounds like a person who doesn’t need a cancer kazoo to speak (Here’s looking at you, Naruto.).

2.       The Lack of Funds

Like I said before, the budget for Toonami is microscopic.  Toonami’s Jason Demarco stated that the budget is so small; there will be no new Tom animations, just the recycled, remastered, old animations.  There were no big name acquisitions, show wise, and 4/6 of the shows that will be on, were shows that have been on Adult Swim for a while.  Once I found this out, I was a little dejected.

Now, also according to Jason, one of the new shows, Casshern Sins, was a continuation of the original show (Not a reboot, like some sites have been reporting…) that will just breed confusion.  Confusion, I say?  Yes.  You will get so confused, because all of these characters and conflicts were introduced in, oh I don’t know…1973?  So…in the almost 40 years since, I’m sure something will get lost.  Again, this can be fixed with an astronomical amount of viewers watching every week.

3.       The Time Slot

Hate to break the news to the Toonami faithful, but this is nothing more than a rebranding of Adult Swim: Action.  They never came out to say it, but think about it.  They are showing more adult oriented anime…from 12-6 on Saturday nights, when they already show anime.  Not to mention it’s only 3 hours of actual fucking programming!  Do you mean to tell me that you go from about 6 hours of programming, down to 3 hours, and you just hit the repeat button after Cowboy Bebop?  Get the fuck out of here.

So, you have the time slot to show different, more violent anime.  Awesome.  Who, besides the Toonami faithful would stay up to watch it?  Mind you this is the same Toonami faithful who stopped watching in 2008, relegating it to Saturday nights at 8 for 2 straight hours of Naruto, which Toonami only kept around so Naruto had a home.  After a while, they cut loose Toonami.   So, this Saturday night experiment failed once, let’s try it again, when we can’t get viewers as it is.  Way to fucking go, Cartoon Network.

4.       The Anime Itself

Listen, I’m going to level with you.  The anime is what drives Toonami.  From DBZ to Naruto, everyone had a reason to watch Toonami.  Now, no one has a reason to.  The English dubs of Bleach, One Piece, and just about every other anime out right now, are so far behind their Japanese counterparts.  Furthermore, fans of anime would rather watch the subs anyway.  Let’s just point over at fucking Naruto and his throat cancer-ish “Believe it.”  There is no point for people to watch anime on Toonami.  It’s readily available, and further along than what Toonami is offering.   This shit will not fly anymore.

The reasons why Toonami Aftermath stuck around for so long, is that the streamer still kept the feel of Toonami, as well as bringing new stuff to it.  Freakazoid, The Tick, Digimon, Dragonball Z Abridged, Rifftrax, as well as a block of the original Cartoon Cartoon lineup, are just a part of the lineup. This entity knows what the people want, and proves it on a daily basis.  He has the feel of it, down to broadcasting old Gundam Wing toy commercials and the Tom breaks when he was on the Absolution.

So, there you have it, the fors and againsts for Toonami 2012.  As for my opinion?  Here is how I see it playing out:

Toonami will be here for a while.  Initially, the people are going to watch, intrigued by what it brings.  The casual Toonami viewer will be happy to see it back, but once they watch the 3 hour block (HNNGH!!!!!!), noticing no staples like a DBZ or Naruto (Before you ask, they don’t have the rights to them anymore.  Who knew that they would be bringing back Toonami 4 years later?), recycled Tom footage, and the overall feel and mystique of it gone.  It will be like seeing your friend for the first time in years, but because of  years upon years upon years of drug abuse, he is a twitchy, hallow shell of himself.  Tom, I’m sorry they brought you back for this, The Absolution, or the jungle tree house you were in when Toonami got cancelled, should have stayed in Space.

People stopped watching Toonami for a reason.  Whether it was that they grew up, or Saturday night really is the nethervoid of TV ratings, (kinda shows why they put the anime block on when no one is home…)or whatever, there is a reason why.

This is my final plea to anyone who watches.  Please, just stick with it.  If people watch this new Toonami, and rough it out for the first few months, maybe a year, then new shows will come our way.  We may get to see the redub of One Piece, Fairytail, or Inuyasha: The Final Act.  If not, your twitchy shell of a friend will never get better.  And I know you want your friend to get better.  SO WATCH THE FUCKING SHIT!

If you hear ,”Well, this is the end, beautiful friends. After more than 11 years, this is Toonami’s final broadcast. It’s been a lot of fun, and we’d like to thank each and every one of us. Toonami wouldn’t have been anything without you. Hopefully we’ve left you with some good memories. So, until we meet again, stay gold, Bang.” again, this is only your fault.