Greetings people of the internet, this week I'm going to talk about something near and dear to the hearts of American anime fans, Toonami. For those of you who don't know Toonami is a TV block on Cartoon Network and Adult Swim that is best known for airing classic anime such as Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon.
Toonami premiered on March 17th 1997 and was hosted by Moltar the Space Ghost villain. It replaced the previous afternoon airing block and showed american cartoons such as Johnny Quest and Thundercats. In July of 1999 Toonami changed host to T.O.M. aboard the Absolution.
At this time the Toonami Midnight Run block also began on Saturday night starting at midnight. This block was mostly made up of anime such as Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z and various Gundam series. About a year later this block shifted to weeknights and ran for an hour with similar content.
On April 17 2004 Toonami moved from a weekday block to a Saturday evening block running from 7pm to 11. The move was partially motivated by concerns about airing some of the current shows like Dragon Ball Z and YuYu Hakusho on weekdays. This time slot featured a combination of anime and American made TV as well as IGPX the Toonami original series.
During the Saturday evening block Toonami held 2 month long movie events. The first was the Month of Miyazaki in March 2006 which featured 4 of Hayao Miyazaki's movies. This also celebrated Toonami's 9th anniversary and ended the weekend before the second anniversary of the move to Saturday night. On Toonami's tenth anniversary the block received a revamp and showed a series of 5 animated movies.
Sadly Toonami was cancelled on Saturday September 20, 2008 with a final speech from T.O.M. thanking viewers for making the block what it was.
On April Fools Day 2012 Adult Swim aired random episodes of classic anime, ran Toonami clips during commercials and the evening was hosted by T.O.M.. The next day Adult Swim tweeted "Want it back? Let us know. #BringBackToonami". On April 4th acknowledged the response and made further non-commital comments on the 8th.
On May 26th 2012 Toonami returned starting a midnight, airing a mix of new and old anime. Since then they have regularly updated their lineup to include popular anime such as Sword Art Online and Attack on Titan and incorporated shows from cartoon network such as Samurai Jack and the reboot of Thundercats.
Well I hope you all enjoyed this history lesson about the most iconic American TV block ever created. Next week I'll be back with a new topic which will hopefully be a bit less long winded.
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