One year ago, the band that refused to yield was run over by a steamroller.
It's hard to believe Toonami finished a year ago. It feels like it still died yesterday. And none of its shows remain on the air at Cartoon Network, except for sporadic Teen Titans reruns and Ben 10: Alien Force, and the latter won't last forever, it'll be done before the year is out.
The final remnants of Toonami will be gone by 2010. Sad, just very, very sad. They've wasted no time on removing all traces of it.
I think it finally hit me 100% that Toonami will not return was when Disney XD picked up Naruto Shippuden. More than DBZ, Naruto was Toonami to me. For some reason, as long as I knew that Naruto was still languishing on CN Video, that maybe someone would tell the executives how hot of a property Naruto still was, that they are rejecting a surefire ratings winner. But now the executives will have no chance to correct their mistake on the matter. It will most likely bite them in the ass for the next several years until they are fired or Shippuden wraps up on DXD.
There's still action programming on the network but the vast majority of them are toygetic in nature, which is something that Cartoon Network didn't really go for until the last couple of years. It really shows how much the culture of Cartoon Network has changed, particular in the last year as nearly every action show besides Clone Wars is built to sell merch first and tell a story second.
Japan hasn't really cranked out anything truly awesome other than Eden of the East recently, but there are some truly quality shows that's coming out, such as Soul Eater and SGT. Frog, that Cartoon Network would be foolish to pass on. But apparently, they are. Heck, it's possible that even Bleach won't run past season 7, as there's no hint seasons 8 or beyond have been picked up.