The Toonami Thread

Always thought my favorite shows were:

DBZ
Yu Yu Hakusho
Kenshin
IGPX - "Let's kick their ass!"
G Gundam
The many Transformer series

.... Man, I could go on. Point is, I did love following it since '03 and it sucked when CN pulled the crap they did. But hey, gotta remember the good times right?
 
So much to say about Toonami... This was a block that not only changed my life forever, but might very well have saved it (not going to go into the depressing details, but I assure you that is no exaggeration). Needless to say, I'd be a much different person if it were not for Toonami. I would not have most of the friends I have today, I would not be majoring in Television and Digital Media Production, and I would not have spent the last 6 years of my life writing stories for my own action cartoons.

I remember when I started watching Toonami. The year was 2000 (yeah, you could say I was a latecomer.) and I decided to try watching this show that all of my friends in school were talking about like it was the upside of buttered bread. The show was Dragonball Z. I was 11 years old then, and let me tell you, I was hooked. And not just on that show. I loved the unique way in which it was packaged: from the giant starship and robot dude to the catchy beats. I watched this show every day, and eventually got into other Toonami shows (Tenchi Muyo became an almost instant favorite).

I kept watching this wonderful block, and by 2003, I was not only a Toonami fan, I was an anime fan. One of the major occurences for me of that year was that I began taking an interest in other shows that came out of Japan, and liked most of what I was seeing. The second occurence, which was even bigger for me, was that after watching a lot of Samurai Jack and Rurouni Kenshin, I started writing a story of my own wandering warrior. (Six years later, Black Ninja is still a work in progress). Eventually Toonami moved to Saturday nights, and I just kept on watching. Megas, Justice League Unlimited, and Yuyu Hakusho were among my favorites. Of course, I was a complete outcast in high school for spending all my Saturday nights watching cartoons, but I look at that as a blessing. Toonami kept me out of peer pressure and all the negative influences that come with it.

When I saw TOM's farewell message on TV, I felt sad, but I didn't cry. (I did, however, salute my TV set. Silly, perhaps, but I meant it.) Toonami lives to this day, in our hearts, our memories, and in many cases our DVD collections. So here's to Toonami, that wonderful block that inspired a generation of nerds!
 
That's something that actually quite disappointed me.
Beast Wars only had a limited one or two week run on Toonami way back in the day, and there was an Energon marathon on one night, I think.

Otherwise what Transformers that were shown outside of a Saturday morning premiere were stuck in the 6 AM wake-up slot that never got any promotion. For the life of me I can't figure out why CN didn't strip all the Transformers shows on weekday afternoons, Toonami or not! It seems like a no-brainer, which is as good an explanation as any.
 
Energon was on Toonami afternoons in early 2004, Cybertron got a weekly slot in 2006 or 2007, and Animated was on Toonami Jetstream. So pretty much every modern Transformers, sans RiD and Beast Machines, aired on Toonami.
 
I kind of remember Toonami when Moltar was the host, but not too much. The only shows I remember watching were Thunder Cats and Sailor Moon on the Midnight Run. They were interesting, but I honestly didn't watch that much of Toonami. I was more into watching Kids' WB when Toonami had its weekday slot and I normally watched it when they aired some of the old Pokemon movies or any other movie that interested me. I believe I watched the Transformers Armada series on Toonami as well.

I didn't mind so much that Toonami moved to Saturdays, especially since that's when I started watching more of the block. It helps that I wasn't a huge fan of it to begin with. It had some really enjoyable shows when it moved to Saturdays, such as Funimation's One Piece and IGPX. It was too bad that the last few years didn't have too many good schedules.

I pretty much stopped watching it after they took off One Piece since the only show I was interested in watching on the block was a repeat of Alien Force. I did see TOM's farewell and it was kind of sad, but not something extremely depressing for me. The block lasted a long time and it provided some nice memories for many people.

If Cartoon Network had done more work on it, I think that You Are Here could have lasted longer than it did, that is if they don't have any plans to bring it back. It might not have lasted as long as Toonami did since there aren't that many blocks that can last over ten years, but it definitely could have last for a good couple of years if they played their cards right.
 
I had a lot of trouble following those shows for some reason and blocked them from my memory. The move to Saturday night didn't help my ability to follow Toonami at all anyway.
 
I made most of those. I actually find it somewhat amusing they saved some of the "fantasy schedule" images in that mix for shows that never actually aired on Toonami.
 
Rest in peace Toonami, without you CN may have not been nearly as good as it has been during your term on the network, I just wish you were still around today and could air Shippuden instead of XD and maybe some other anime hit's like Guin Saga and 07 Ghost :sad:. Thank you for the memories and thank you for helping anime gain a major presence in the United States, that was huge of you.

I hope we get a great action block or a great anime block in it's place someday, but I doubt we ever will, damn shame when you think about it.
 
I've been watching Toonami since 1999 and always enjoyed what I saw. No matter if it was Hamtaro or Zoids, I would love whatever came on. But things die eventually, that's just how it goes. Toonami lived it's time and it eventually had to end, it's as simple as that. Do I wish for it to come back? Of course, but I find that to be unlikely and it's best to move on and enjoy what we got, even if it that is simply Syfy or Crunchyroll.
 
Aah, Toonami. It gave me a reason to watch Cartoon Network after I came home from school. It expose me to the world of anime with Robotech, Outlaw Star, Tenchi Muyo, Sailor Moon, and Gundam Wing. :D I even have the Deep Space Bass soundtrack which I thought was good to listen. ;) I also love it's video game reviews and it's mini web comic of Falcon & Dynomutt.

I even did an art piece at my high school computer arts class which was a tribute to Toonami. :anime:
 
Anyone remember the Saturday night Midnight Run? Painfully amazing. I was tired every Sunday because I'd watch as much of it as I could every week.

If it came back, some combination of Lupin, Naruto, Gundam, Transformers, and He-Man would be perfect.
 
I watched practically from Day One, but I missed some shows due to confusion over the schedule and competing shows. (Basically, Toonami was up against Batman: The Animated Series and Babylon 5. I sort of missed Robotech as a result. Voltron's weird TBS-style timeslot didn't help either. I didn't find this out until years later.)

I always appreciated that there were relatively few commercial breaks within a program. It's quite jarring to compare it to a station like the Sci-Fi Channel.
 
If it's alright, can I upload a montage of Toonami bumpers to Megaupload and post the link here? I have mostly from 1997-2006 bumpers. I stoped VCR-ing in 2005 so I don't have anything from.... I'd say Feburary 15th 2006. The last day I offically stopped recording Toonami, Random CN Broadcasts, and anything else (even the 12am - 6am block during the city era on Friday). My brother recorded the 1997-2000 airings of anything on CN. I took his place of VCR archiver from there.

Anyway, I have about 491 tapes to count (still more to count, compiling from basement) here with me. I have everything from Moltar airings, to TOM airings.

I even actually have a foolish tape of me changing to CN on 9/11...... I actually changed the channel from the NBC live broadcast of the incident, to CN. My mind was more focused on CN those days. I was so addicted, I faked sick from school way too often.

Well, going off topic :p, can I upload a montage of Toonami to Megaupload? It will be about 30-35 minutes consisting of almost every bumper I have. Is this legit? Thank you!
 
As Raidon Makoto mentioned, people have uploaded bumpers for shows and it has been acceptable. Considering that these are bumpers for a block, I don't believe that there's a problem with uploading them.
 
You know the Toonami page is still on Cartoon Network's website. I found it by typing in Toonami on google and it was the first page that showed up.
 
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