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Toonami

Type	Action-animation programming block
Country	United States
Availability	Cartoon Network (Adult Swim)
Motto	"Building you a better cartoon show"
Slogan	"The revolution will be televised"
Key people	Gill Austin Jason DeMarco Kim Manning Mike Lazzo Steve Blum Sean Akins (1997-2008) C. Martin Croker (1997-1999) Peter Cullen (1999-2007) Joe Boyd Vigil (1997-2007)
Launch date	March 17, 1997 (Original) May 27, 2012 (Revived)
Dissolved	September 20, 2008 (Original)
Official website	Official page

Toonami (a portmanteau of the words cartoon and tsunami suggesting a "tidal wave" of animated cartoons) is a brand of Cartoon Network, used initially for action-oriented programming blocks on Cartoon Network television channels worldwide, mostly showing American cartoons and Japanese anime, originating in the United States on March 17, 1997, and ended on September 20, 2008. It was revived on May 26, 2012 as a Saturday night anime block on Cartoon Network, reclaiming Adult Swim's Saturday anime block, similar to it's previous mature-geared "Midnight Run" incarnation which was that block's forerunner.

The Toonami brand name was subsequently used in the United Kingdom as the name of an action-oriented animation channel replacing a former Cartoon Network-owned channel, CNX, which had been a Toonami/live-action hybrid network.^[1] It has been hosted by two CGI hosts.

History[link]

Toonami was Cartoon Network's primary action-animation block. The block, which made its world premiere on Monday, March 17, 1997, initially replaced Power Zone, Cartoon Network's most recent incarnation of the Super Adventures block which had been a staple on the network since October 1, 1992. Toonami was originally a weekday afternoon cartoon and anime block hosted by Space Ghost villain-turned-producer Moltar at the Ghost Planet Industries building from 1997 to July 9, 1999.

On Saturday, July 10, 1999, Cartoon Network relaunched Toonami with a new environment, the Ghost Planet Spaceship Absolution, and a new host named T.O.M.. The night also introduced the Toonami Midnight Run late night block which was originally a five-hour Saturday night block (technically Sunday) at midnight EST until March 2000, when it moved to weeknights in an hour-long format until January 2003.

In 2005, Toonami was added to the TV and video on demand kids' package for VNL's HomeChoice (now TalkTalk TV). Broadcasting for the channel involved using advanced MPEG-4 compression technology, the first TV channel in the world to do so.^[2]

On Saturday, April 17, 2004, Toonami was moved from weekday afternoons to a Saturday evening slot, where it aired regularly for five hours starting at 7 p.m. EST.^[3] Beginning October 27, 2007, it was cut back to two hours starting at 9 p.m. EST. On September 20, 2008 Toonami ended, with its final broadcast that same day.^[4]

Total Immersion Events[link]

Starting in September 2000, Toonami presented special interactive events known as Total Immersion Events or TIEs. These TIEs took place both on-air during Toonami and online at the official site, Toonami.com, and always occurred the week that the block's most popular series, Dragon Ball Z,^[5] returned for a new season. The very first TIE was The Intruder, which introduced T.O.M.'s companion, an AI matrix known as S.A.R.A.. The Intruder was an eight episode mini-series that aired during Toonami from September 18, 2000 up until September 27, 2000. It results in the rebirth of T.O.M., upgrading from a short Bomberman-esque character (voiced by Sonny Strait) to a taller, stronger, darker, deeper-voiced incarnation temporarily dubbed as T.O.M. 2.0 (voiced by Steven Blum), though it was the same T.O.M. who still hosted the block.

The following TIE, Lockdown, aired between September 17, 2001 until September 21, 2001, and included the introduction of CartoonNetwork.com's first MORPG as well as a record-breaking amount of page views and ratings for the network.^[6] In Lockdown T.O.M. fights to save the Absolution from an attack by a giant trash compactor.^[7] Trapped in Hyperspace, the next TIE, ran for the week of September 16-20, 2002. The ship's computer, S.A.R.A. is infected by a computer virus and T.O.M. is trapped in hyperspace. His race eventually destroys it before the absolution hits Earth.^[8] The Intruder and Lockdown aired in the UK, but did not achieve the same amount of success as their American airings.

The TIE in September 2003 was a diversion from the T.O.M. and S.A.R.A. adventures and introduced a new, 2D universe. Immortal Grand Prix (IGPX), created by Toonami producers Sean Akins and Jason DeMarco and produced by anime studio Production I.G, aired in five short installments and served as a pilot for the second Toonami original series, which premiered in November 2005^[9] (a brief note: although Megas XLR was the first original American-made franchise to actually debut on the block, it was initially a Cartoon Network original that was planned to air on Friday nights; other Cartoon Network action properties, namely Samurai Jack, Teen Titans, and Justice League, aired on Toonami but weren't exclusive to the block until their final seasons).

Midnight Run[link]

The Midnight Run was a Toonami block that ran from 1999-2003 beginning daily at 12:00 a.m. EST. It consisted of anime such as Sailor Moon, Voltron, Robotech, Dragon Ball Z, Gundam Wing, G Gundam, Gundam 08th MS Team, and Outlaw Star. Midnight Run tended to have slightly more blood and violence than its day-time counterpart, at one point even running an uncut version of Gundam Wing.^[10] One special edition that started on Friday, August 31, 2001, featured music videos from Gorillaz, including "Clint Eastwood", Kenna's "Hellbent", and from Daft Punk's Interstella 5555.^[11] Another event was Dragon Ball Z taking over the Midnight Run for a week starting on March 26-30, 2001; the time was midnight to 1:00 a.m. for five days.^{[citation needed]}

Rising Sun[link]

A Saturday morning incarnation, Toonami Rising Sun typically ran from 9:00 a.m. to noon. This block was somewhat hampered to avoid competing with sister network Kids' WB.

Kids' WB's Toonami[link]

From July 30, 2001 until June 30, 2002, Kids WB aired a Toonami block that was, more or less, the Kids' WB lineup with the Toonami name. It was critically panned by industry observers, who noticed the action branding of the block didn't translate content wise, which had added shows like Scooby-Doo and "The Nightmare Room", a live-action series created by Goosebumps author R. L. Stine. In spring 2002, Kids' WB announced that they would drop the Toonami name from their weekday lineup, once again making the Toonami brand exclusive to Cartoon Network.

Giant Robot Week[link]

During the week of February 24-28, 2003, Cartoon Network aired on Toonami Giant Robot Week, a five-day special based on mecha series, which were licensed by A.D. Vision. The series shown were Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gigantor, Robotech, Martian Successor Nadesico and Dai-Guard. In the evening of the final day, the channel finished its salute to giant robots with the film The Iron Giant.^[12]

Toonami Rules Saturday Nights[link]

On April 17, 2004, Cartoon Network moved Toonami from weekday afternoons to Saturday evenings with a new demographic of preteen and teen audiences while adding a new lighter-toned action franchise, Miguzi, to weekdays in its place.^[3]

Toonami also replaced the block known as Saturday Video Entertainment System or SVES. One big reason for the move from weekdays to Saturday nights was because some of the shows on the weekday lineup (such as YuYu Hakusho, Cyborg 009, and Rurouni Kenshin) became too violent for a weekday broadcast on the network (although reruns of the TV-PG-rated Naruto aired throughout early 2007 on weekday afternoons at 5:30 p.m. EST, though CN stopped all Miguzi promos before the show started^{[citation needed]}). The new Toonami line-up showcased anime like Naruto, Rave Master, Duel Masters, Gundam SEED, One Piece, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Zatch Bell, and Pokémon Chronicles, as well as premiered North American productions like Teen Titans, Megas XLR, Justice League Unlimited, and IGPX, Toonami's first and only original production co-produced by Production I.G and Bandai Entertainment.

A Month of Miyazaki[link]

On Saturday, March 18, 2006,^[13] just past the block's ninth anniversary, Toonami began airing A Month of Miyazaki, a four-week celebration of the works of acclaimed anime director Hayao Miyazaki. Like sibling station TCM's similar marathon in January 2006, Toonami aired a different movie every week between Toonami anniversaries (the marathon began on the weekend of the ninth anniversary of the block and ended the week before the second anniversary of the block's move to Saturday nights). The films scheduled for A Month of Miyazaki (which all aired uncut and unedited as per Miyazaki's policy not to have his films altered). However, there were many complaints due to the large number of commercial interruptions during the films, with commercial breaks cutting in about every 20 minutes. The movies were as follows:

• Spirited Away
• Princess Mononoke
• Castle in the Sky
• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

3.17.07 (Toonami's 10th anniversary)[link]

On January 27, 2007, a teaser commercial aired during the Xiaolin Showdown marathon on Cartoon Network featuring close up shots of larger Clydes (the remote robot explorers that have been a fixture of Toonami since the beginning) along with the date 3/17/07 and T.O.M.'s chest emblem glowing blue.

On March 17, 2007, Toonami celebrated its tenth anniversary with a new packaging and numerous montages celebrating the block. T.O.M. was revamped into a shorter robot who was a commander of a jungle control room with a trio of new robots.

The montages included a look at past hosts, former logos, and a decade's worth of clips and voiceovers from shows that aired on Toonami. There were a total of 4 montages, all of them having different clips. Three of them were one minute long.

As part of the anniversary (and to coincide with Cartoon Network's March Movie Madness event), Toonami planned another month of movies:

• March 3 - The Invincible Iron Man
• March 10 - Mosaic
• March 17 - Hellboy: Blood and Iron
• March 24 - Stan Lee Presents: The Condor
• March 31 - Spirited Away and Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo

Cancellation[link]

On Saturday September 20, 2008,^[14] Cartoon Network ended Toonami. Employees who worked on the block moved to other parts of the channel. Toonami Jetstream remained with the Toonami name until January 30, 2009. At the end of Toonami's final airing, the host, T.O.M. (voiced by Steven Blum), ended the block with a brief, final monologue:

April Fools' Day 2012 and revival[link]

On midnight of April 1, 2012, just past Toonami's 15th anniversary, Adult Swim, which generally changes its programming for April Fools' Day, began to play The Room (as they had done the past several years).^[16] The scene then switched to T.O.M. (in his third incarnation) aboard the Absolution, greeting the viewers while commenting that it is April Fools' Day, before introducing that week's scheduled episode of Bleach. The Toonami-related programming and bumpers continued throughout the night, featuring Dragon Ball Z, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki, Outlaw Star, The Big O season 1, YuYu Hakusho, Blue Submarine No. 6, Trigun, Astro Boy, and Gigantor. T.O.M. also presented a review of Mass Effect 3 and promoted the recent DVD releases of the series featured.^[17][18]

The following day, Adult Swim posted a message to their Twitter page, simply stating, "Want it back? Let us know. #BringBackToonami".^[19] On April 4, Adult Swim followed up this tweet with one stating, "#BringBackToonami We've heard you. Thank you for your passion and interest - stay tuned."^[20] On April 8, Adult Swim aired 2 bumpers about the Toonami tweets and answered with "[we're listening]" and "[we're looking into it]".^[21]

On May 16, 2012, Adult Swim posted a message on Facebook announcing that Toonami would return on May 26, with a similar message on Twitter, ending with #ToonamisBackBitches.^[22] The network issued a press release later that day confirming the block's revival as a Saturday late night anime block.^[23] Toonami made its return with all new bumpers and updated animation of TOM's third incarnation. The new midnight timeslot of the block has more mature themes than its predecessors. The current lineup imports Adult Swim's anime and adds two new shows, Deadman Wonderland and Casshern Sins.

Latin America[link]

In December 2002, Toonami premiered on Cartoon Network Latin America, replacing a similarly themed block, Talisman. Toonami aired shows that were already on the lineup such as Dragon Ball Z, Gundam Wing, and Pokémon as well as served as the home of Inuyasha. Over the years, Toonami added shows like YuYu Hakusho and Saint Seiya, as well as the revamped versions of Cyborg 009 and Astro Boy. However, the block had to move to the late-night slots on CN Latin America due to protests of violent scenes on the block. Mexico moved Toonami to midnight in October 2003 while the rest of Latin America moved the block in November 2004.

In 2005, Toonami had short-lived weekend schedules, which were later replaced by the premiere of Adult Swim in Latin America.

In March 2006, Toonami revamped their lineup to include more adult-oriented series, such as Love Hina, taking advantage of the schedule and the refusal of anime on Adult Swim, as well as to compete against the anime channel Animax (now Sony Spin) for new anime series. In June 2006, Toonami premiered anime movies in two monthly variations: Dragon Ball Theatricals (which had 17 different Dragon Ball movies), and Toonami Movies (general animated action movies).

In January 2007, Cartoon Network cut Toonami completely. The movies were no longer aired, save those of Dragon Ball Z. After its cancellation in Latin America, the anime programming of the channel gradually vanished, currently the only anime which air on CN LA are Pokémon, Dragon Ball Z Kai, and Bakugan. In January 2010 the block Animaction was created, showing on Wednesday evenings. This block broadcast both action programing and anime programming. This block was removed in April 2011.

Music and games[link]

Toonami always proved a haven for techno/electronica music throughout its history, using original compositions; first by skater/artist Tommy Guerrero from 1997 to 1999, and then by Atlanta-based composer Joe Boyd Vigil from 1999 to 2002, many of which were compiled in the CD Toonami: Deep Space Bass in 2001, which is now out of print. In 2003, DJ Clarknova took Toonami's beats (both old and new) and mixed them with sound bites from recent Toonami and Adult Swim shows. This resulted in an hour-long compilation of Toonami remixes, called the Toonami: Black Hole Megamix, but for unknown reasons was never published. However, the Megamix recently was hosted by Toonami Digital Arsenal, a popular unofficial Toonami multimedia site.

From 2003 through 2008, Toonami relied on original and library tracks from various artists from publisher Ninja Tune. On rare occasions, videos from musicians such as Daft Punk, Linkin Park, The White Stripes, Beck, and Gorillaz aired on the block.

Infrequently, Toonami aired reviews of video games. The reviews, delivered by T.O.M. and occasionally S.A.R.A., were fairly short and ran during commercial breaks. The hosts scored games on a 1 - 10 system: 10 signifying an excellent game, 1 signifying a very poor game. (The score system was originally 1 - 5 until 2001.)

Online video services[link]

On March 26, 2001, Cartoon Network launched Toonami Reactor, their first online streaming video service.^[24] The three-month service featured streaming episodes from Dragon Ball Z and Star Blazers, the latter of which was an online-exclusive series. Editorial content was provided by the now-defunct Animerica Magazine, published by VIZ Media. After the three-month "trial run" was over, Cartoon Network took it offline and completely revamped it.

On November 14, 2001, Cartoon Network relaunched Toonami Reactor with all online-exclusive programs such as Star Blazers, Patlabor, The Harlock Saga, and Record of Lodoss War as well as videos from Daft Punk and Toonami-themed games. In the summer of 2002, Toonami Reactor was revamped again under the Adult Swim aegis and, with a joint venture with VIZ's Weekly Shonen Jump, programmed it as "Adult Swim Pipeline."

On April 25, 2006, a little over five years since the launch of the now-defunct Toonami Reactor, Cartoon Network and VIZ Media announced plans^[25] to launch Toonami Jetstream [1], a new ad-supported streaming video service featuring Toonami series like Naruto, Samurai Jack, Megas XLR and IGPX and the internet webcast premieres of Hikaru no Go, MÄR, Eyeshield 21, The Prince of Tennis, MegaMan Star Force, Kiba, MegaMan NT Warrior, & Zoids: Genesis, the latter two of which never ended up being streamed.

Toonami Jetstream launched on July 17, 2006 ^[26] (after a brief unofficial sneak preview that began on July 14), and offered episodes of Naruto, Hikaru no Go, MÄR, Zatch Bell!, Pokémon, Blue Dragon, Samurai Jack, Kiba, Storm Hawks and Transformers: Animated.

On January 30, 2009, Toonami Jetstream ended its run.^[27] Since then, many of the shows aired until cancellation now currently air on Cartoon Network Video on its main web site.

Toonami series and movies[link]

1997

• ThunderCats
• Cartoon Roulette (composed of Space Ghost, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, The Herculoids, Mightor, Shazzan, Teen Force, The Impossibles, and the 1940s Superman)
• Voltron
• The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest

1998

• Robotech
• Beast Wars: Transformers
• Sailor Moon
• Dragon Ball Z
• Superfriends

1999

• ReBoot
• The Powerpuff Girls
• Ronin Warriors

2000

• G-Force: Guardians of Space
• Gundam Wing
• Tenchi Muyo!
• Batman: The Animated Series
• Tenchi Universe
• Tenchi in Tokyo
• Blue Submarine No. 6
• Superman: The Animated Series

2001

• Outlaw Star
• The Big O
• Cardcaptors
• Mobile Suit Gundam
• Gundam 08th MS Team
• Dragon Ball
• Batman Beyond
• Zoids
• Gundam 0080

2002

• Hamtaro
• Classic Zoids
• G Gundam
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
• Transformers: Armada
• G.I. Joe
• Samurai Jack

2003

• .hack//Sign
• Martian Successor Nadesico
• Gigantor
• Neon Genesis Evangelion
• Dai-Guard
• YuYu Hakusho
• Rurouni Kenshin
• Justice League
• Cyborg 009
• Superior Defender Gundam Force
• IGPX: Micro Series
• Dragon Ball GT
• Star Wars: Clone Wars

2004

• Duel Masters
• Astro Boy (2003)
• Transformers: Energon
• Jackie Chan Adventures
• Gundam Seed
• Megas XLR
• Rave Master
• Teen Titans
• Justice League Unlimited

2005

• D.I.C.E.
• Zatch Bell!
• The Batman
• One Piece
• Transformers: Cybertron
• Yu-Gi-Oh!
• Naruto
• Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
• IGPX

2006

• Wulin Warriors
• Pokémon Chronicles
• Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes
• Pokémon: Battle Frontier
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
• MÄR
• The Prince of Tennis

2007

• Storm Hawks
• Mega Man Star Force

2008

• Bakugan Battle Brawlers
• Blue Dragon
• Ben 10: Alien Force

2012 ^[28]

• Bleach
• Casshern Sins
• Cowboy Bebop
• Deadman Wonderland
• Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
• Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2nd GIG

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official page
• A Toonami video page at CartoonNetwork.com

Unofficial websites

• Absolution NeXt - A database of Toonami US programming past and present.
• Toonami Infolink - US Toonami news and forums.
• Toonami Digital Arsenal - Downloads of US Toonami promos, intros, interstitials, and music.
• Toonami Fan - Repository of community-created interviews, editorials, and retrospectives.