The many hosts of Toonami, in charge of building you a better cartoon show. note From left to right, top to bottom: Moltar (C. Martin Croker, 1997-1999), TOM 1.0 (Sonny Strait, 1999-2000) The rest are voiced by Steve Blum: TOM 2.0 (2000-2003), TOM 3.0 (2003-2007, 2012), TOM 4.0 (2007-2008), TOM 3.5 (2012-2013), and TOM 5, (2013-Onward).
What's up Toonami Faithful, time to describe Toonami here. If you're new to the show, welcome. If you've been down from the beginning, all I can say is: Thanks. Time to push the button.Toonami is an influential programming block on Cartoon Network consisting primarily of Western action-adventure cartoons and anime, airing on weekday afternoons from 1997 to 2004, and later Saturday nights from 2004 to 2008 and beginning again in 2012.The block features incredibly high production values for its commercial bumpers, advertisements, and ARG campaigns, which included high-end 3D graphics, a soundtrack consisting of then-uncharacteristic (for a children's block) drum-and-bass and ambient music, and a consistent setting and narrative. Toonami had a hand in uncancelling several syndicated series (Dragon Ball Z, ReBoot, and Sailor Moon), and it premiered several series on its own, both anime (Gundam Wing, Outlaw Star, all three of the original Tenchi Muyo! series) and Western animation (the 2002 version of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and Megas XLR). In regards to anime, fans and historians both credit Toonami for single-handedly ushering in the mainstream Japanophilia boom of the early-to-mid 2000s.Toonami began life as a spinoff of Space Ghost Coast To Coast, with Moltar broadcasting action cartoons from the Ghost Planet. Cartoon Network later retooled the block with an original host character, TOM (standing for Toonami Operations Module), broadcasting from the Cool StarshipAbsolution (with Spaceship GirlSARA joining the cast later). The network also created story-based events and online games associated with TOM and the Absolution (the first of those events, The Intruder, resulted in the upgrade of TOM to TOM II). The tenth anniversary of the block brought yet another Re Tool, relocating the Framing Device to a jungle planet with a new incarnation of TOM and several other new Robot Buddies; fans widely think of this version's cast as Replacement Scrappies.Cartoon Network exported Toonami to other nations' versions of the network; it even became an entire network thanks to a revamp of the spinoff channel CNX (before degrading into "CN Too"). The Kids' WB! weekday afternoon block also tried to adopt Toonami's brand for about a year from 2001-2002, but the programming didn't fit the block's image, and the Toonami branding soon went away. Turner is planning on reviving the Toonami channel in Asia in 2013. Hopefully, they'll learn from past mistakes.Fans of Toonami recognize the block — or, more accurately, Toonami's "Midnight Run" — as the Spiritual Ancestor of [adult swim]. Several anime series that aired on Toonami ended up airing on [as] during the latter block's first year.Cartoon Network eventually cancelled Toonami due to flagging ratings—a direct result of moving the block to Saturdays only and filling it with reruns, then-flagship show Naruto working through the now-infamous pre-ShippuudenFiller Arc (ironically, Toonami was mere weeks away from the last filler episode at the time), and the higher-ups' need to retool the network itself. The final edition of Toonami aired on September 20, 2008 (surprising fans who had no knowledge the network had cancelled Toonami), and the "Toonami Jetstream" streaming video site subsequently went offline in January of 2009.Toonami was shut down...for a while, at least.On April Fools' Day 2012, [adult swim] "revived" Toonami for one night; while it mainly reused clips from the past — and showed episodes of classic Toonami shows — it also featured new lines recorded for a special Bleach bumper and an all-new review of Mass Effect 3.note Click this link to watch everything that happened, sans the shows. At its 2012 upfront on May 16th, [as] officially announced the return of Toonami after the resounding success of the April Fools special; the block would rise again on May 26th, with a mix of old and new programming.The new Toonami runs on a limited budget, screening some [as] anime favorites (such as Bleach, Cowboy Bebop and so on) and a few new shows (the biggest hits of that lot so far being Soul Eater and Deadman Wonderland... the latter of which unfortunately only has one season because it flopped in Japan). Overall, things are going fairly well for the revived block, which was expanded into a full six hours (with returning CN original favorites Sym-Bionic Titan and the new Thunder Cats 2011 cartoon).As of November 4th, 2012, during the Daylight Savings hour, Toonami confirmed that TOM 4.0 is still around. 3.5 and 4.0 are two different robots altogether. TOM 3.5 was seen chatting with TOM 4.0, asking how the latter was enjoying his extra hour. TOM 3.5 says at the end that they'll have to explain 4.0's story someday sooner or later. On March 10th, a TOM 5.0 was confirmed to be coming in April. With a online comic that will tie him and all of the TOMs together.TOM 5.0 and the new Absolution officially debuted on April 27th, and brought SARA back as well. TOM says it's been a long time since they last talked.The Adult Swim block has now opened an official Tumblr site answering questions, presenting videos and pictures of the offices at Adult Swim where they work. Aside from TOM's messages on TV and William Street's phone and email, they state this is the only place online where fans can contact them and where they actually reply back!Stay Gold.
Toonami plays - or has played - the following series:
Narutonote survived following Toonami's shutdown in '08 with a late-night timeslot on Saturdays, but pulled from Cartoon Network seven episodes short of its finale and transition to Shippuden.
Narutonote survived following Toonami's shutdown in '08 with a late-night timeslot on Saturdays, but pulled from Cartoon Network seven episodes short of its finale and transition to Shippuden.
One Piecenote All of the Four Kids version with a Channel Hop to Toonami after Fox Box went belly up. Eventually premiered the Funimation dub in 2007. The Toonami crew confirmed at Momocon 2013 that the series will return later this year.
Deadman Wonderlandnote Only 12 episodes (and an OVA) were adapted from the manga and the story is far from complete- if the anime expands past one season, it could return someday.
Art Evolution: Toonami has kept on the cutting edge of CGI since it began, but state-of-the-art graphics in 1997 and in 2012 are very different things, so it stands to reason that this trope is in play. The fact that its characters and sets are almost entirely shiny metal, something CGI does very well, has certainly helped.
The Artifact: "We won't be intimidated by criminal threats!" comes from one of the Superman Theatrical Cartoons, which completely disappeared from the line-up around 2000 and never came back. Regardless, the quote never really disappeared from the promos.
As stated, the block was dusted off for a one night stand on April 1st 2012 on Adult Swim! The fandom rejoiced so much, it's become known as the night no 90's kids slept◊, and the movement afterwards has come to be known as The Toonami Renaissance.
Ten years prior to the 2012 revival, The Joker sent a computer virus into the Absolution. It forced the computer monitors to display Joker's image, and it played four episodes of Batman The Animated Series back-to-back. TOM eventually removed the virus, and the block ran as normal.
Arc Number: For a few weeks in the end of July/beginning of August 2012, the twitter accounts of assorted Toonami staff (eg. Steve Blum, and especially Jason DeMarco) mentioned a couple things having to do with the number seven, and the latter revealed seven new things were coming down the pipeline. It was even mentioned in the "Life" speech (see below). All of this turned out to be a buildup to the premiere of Samurai Seven and Eureka Seven on the block.
Ascended Fanboy: During the fan campaign following the April Fools' Day revival, Nerd Core rapper Richie Branson released a single called "Bring Back Toonami", which quickly got the attention of [adult swim], who put the song on a few bumpers prior to the official Toonami return announcement. On the night of the return of Toonami, Richie released another single, "#ToonamisBackBitches", which was used during the intro to Toonami for the first few nights. Branson has since said that more songs from him are to come for Toonami in the future.
And of course, the makers of Toonami are ascended anime fans, having created the gateway to the fandom and even getting to have a hand in series like The Big O and IGPX.
Audience Shift / Growing With The Audience: The original Toonami aired during the daytime with programs aimed at kids and pre-teens, then when it was moved to Saturdays and it’s fan base grew up, it’s programs aged with it. Finally, when Toonami was uncanceled, not surprisingly it was placed in the [adult swim]watershed hours as the fanbase that demanded it’s return were now young adults or older.
Bowdlerization: A good number of the anime series Toonami got its hands on suffered through this to get to air. A few shows got a reprieve from the censorship thanks to the Midnight Run (Gundam Wing, most notably). YuYu Hakusho made an interesting jump from [adult swim] for some 26 episodes before being transported to Toonami for the remainder of it's run, and as such fans got to see the unedited version first. However, as of the new [adult swim] revival, censorship, while still present (mostly to censor nudity and heavy swears like "shit" or "fuck"), is much more of a non-issue.
Broke The Rating Scale/Hilarity Ensues: When TOM did video game reviews (usually during commercial breaks) one game received a "?" rating, Dropship: United Peace Force for the PlayStation 2, as TOM had no idea how to rate the game since he could never get past the sixth level. This was accompanied by repeated footage of TOM losing on that level. The synopsis on Toonami Digital Arsenal reads "A robot loses his mind over a video game. Hilarity ensues." And you know what's even more hilarious? To this date, they still didn't beat Dropship.
Amusingly, this trend would be repeated on the 7/22/12 broadcast when TOM saw fit to reviewSlender, he gave it a ?.?/10 because he was too scared to rate it properly.
DON'T LOOK! GAH!!
Reviewing the Skyrim expansion pack Dawnguard, TOM plays with this trope.
Toonami gives Skyrim One Hundred out of Ten, and Dawnguard an 8.
Call Back: The new Toonami's "Building a Better Cartoon Show" promo is a direct update of several Moltar- and TOM 1.0/2.0-era promos. It even uses the same audio clip every similar promo shared, a line from the Superman Theatrical Cartoons: "We won't be intimidated by criminal threats!"
When Bleach started rerunning again in December 2012, TOM lifted a line from when he referred to Dragon Ball Z in the original Toonami run: "If you squint hard enough, they almost look new."
TOM 3.5's Reruns promo is a line-for-line recreation(or perhaps rerun?) of the same exact speech given by Moltar over ten years prior.
The Cameo: TOM 1.0 appears in Cartoon Network's 20th anniversary music video.
Canon Discontinuity: When Toonami came back on the air, TOM went from his fourth iteration to an HD version of his third incarnation (known as TOM 3.5). No explanation was given for the switchback from the decidedly TOM 4 era different aesthetic, leading to this trope being assumed by the fans. However, the whole issue was completely flipped on it's side when a conversation between TOM 3.5 and TOM 4.0 discussed the matter that the latter's story would have to be told sooner or later. In other words: 4.0 IS STILL AROUND.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Toonami was pretty good at averting this, and seeing as most blocks don't bother with continuity at all, that's fairly impressive. However, the 2007 season dropped all pretenses of keeping the plot straight - TOM v.4 replaced v.3, and SARA and the Absolution both disappeared entirely for no apparent reason.Sometime over the course of 2013, Toonami plans on explaining what happened to SARA and the Clydes.
SARA's absence was due to her VA Sally Timms being unavailable. As of April 27 2013, that is no longer the case.
As for Tom's sidekicks, Flash and D in the 4.0 era, they've basically been tossed to the wayside, because the fanbase believes they're best left forgotteninvoked and the current Toonami asthetic is back to TOM 3. There's a very slim chance that they might be acknowledged if the staff gets the chance to explain what happened to TOM 4, which has just become much more likely.
The team states this is the case for the April 27, 2013 revamp with TOM 5, due to the low budget. No explanation will be televised for how TOM 3.5 is replaced with TOM 5, or the new Absolution.
Content Warnings: The new Toonami begins with displaying one of these.
Toonami may contain mature material some viewers may not find suitable.
Darker and Edgier: The 2012 revival, compared to the original run. TOM mildly swears, the shows are more mature, and the games reviewed are usually M-rated.
To put it into deeper perspective, we're talking about a block that censored most of its mature viewer-oriented programming because it used to be on when the youngsters were still awake—and parents could get pissy about the content. Let's say the content warning is more of an excuse to avoid a Lighter and Softer image.
The "Version 5" revamp is looking this way as well, with a darker color palette, a slimmer and angrier-looking TOM, and a smaller Absolution.
Deadpan Snarker: TOM and SARA were both very prone to snark during the story arcs.
TOM's also very snarky when pointing out low points in his game reviews. He sums up the plot of Deadlight with a wry "Yawn."
Fan Vid: Toonami created several Fan Vid-styled montages of scenes from their shows, often revolving around dramatic monologues either from the shows themselves or written especially for the video (and read by Peter Cullen). For example, "Advanced Robotics."
Four-Fingered Hands: TOM 2 and TOM 4 both had four fingers on each hand. TOM 1 had only 3 fingers, while TOM 3 and TOM 5 have all five.
Four Point Scale: Out of all the video game reviews done on the show, it was rare for anything to get a score below 7 out of 10. No games ever received a 5 or lower on that scale either. In fact, the majority of the games tend to receive a similar rating, either 8 or 8.5. When questioned about this, the creators have said that they just don't review games they don't like, because they prefer not to inject negativity into what they air. It doesn't help that they don't have a dedicated game reviewer since they aren't mainly a video gaming program, so they have to be selective on what they review.
The Hero: TOM was always portrayed to be one through the years, especially during the story arcs.
Hey, It's That Voice!: Peter Cullen was the voice for many a Toonami promo whenever TOM or SARA weren't speaking. That alone made you not want to skip the commercials.
History Repeats: Toonami began its earliest days with a limited budget and lineup strictly limited to shows whose licenses were cheap to pick up. Over ten years later, in 2012 during the re-launch? Well....
Early Toonami ran a "Rerun" promo with Moltar stating how reruns are inevitable but they hate them as much as the fans do, and they try their best to get new stuff as possible. ... the new 2012 Toonami made a revival of that same promo with TOM 3.5 and footage of their current shows, but with the same script!
The original, Moltar-hosted Toonami had the original Thundercats cartoon as part of its lineup. Take a random guess as to what was added to the revived block.
Jump Scare: TOM nearly jumped out of his own chair during his review of Slender... before he even showed any game footage. It just got worse for him from there.
Killer App: Toonami itself is cited as one, since its popular and acclaimed programming introduced the west to the anime phenomenon. As far as the programs themselves are concerned, Toonami had three of these during its golden age.
Sailor Moon, the Trope Codifier for Magical Girl Warrior, was the first anime that aired on the block. It had enough of a following that Sailor Moon got two more seasons and all three of its movies dubbed as a result of the newfound popularity. It paved the way for Toonami's airing of several other anime programs, including the ones below.
Dragon Ball Z, widely considered the pioneer of the Shonen (Demographic), was a smash hit, garnering some of the best ratings Cartoon Network had ever seen. While it was already well-liked in Japan, Toonami's airing of this series, along with the one below it, helped popularize manga and anime all throughout the west.
Gundam Wing, aired back to back with DBZ, introduced the Gundam franchise and the Humongous Mecha genre to the Western mainstream. It was one of the first "serious" anime to premiere largely uncut on a mainstream western network, and its inclusion on the "Midnight Run" block indirectly led to the creation of [adult swim] as we know it today. Its success, alongside that of DBZ, is cited as the source of the major anime boom of the 2000s. Its airing of the OVA special "Endless Waltz" is, to this day, the second highest rated program ever in the history of Cartoon Network.
During the TOM 3.0 and TOM 4.0 eras, Naruto was the block's biggest hit, garnering spectacular ratings (even during the filler arcs) and becoming a pop-cultural phenomenon throughout the entire United States for quite some time. They weren't shy about milking it for all it was worth, either, and it's still doing well in the revival.
Following the revival of the block, Bleach has been pulling most of the weight as far as ratings go. It's the first program to air on the block, straight at midnight, and it's used to anchor the other shows. Naruto, Soul Eater, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Thunder Cats 2011 have been doing impressively as well.
Leaning on the Fourth Wall: TOM's intro to a 2013 Momocon panel jokingly invites the audience to "guess which one's [TOM]." Of course, Steve Blum is actually attending.
Level Grinding: TOM's only (fairly minor) complaint about Ni No Kuni is that there is a lot of grinding involved. Once the game picks up though, it feels like you're part of a Studio Ghibli film just as you should, as they did develop the game, so it's really easy to overlook such a minor flaw. All in all, a 9.0/10
Lucky Seven: How TOM describes Samurai 7 and Eureka Seven.
Milestone Celebration: Back when the block turned 10 years old, they aired a montage of old clips from over the years. What was thought to have suffered from Chuck Cunningham Syndrome was shown. TOM 4.0 even recalls taking over the Absolution after the Intruder.
The 15th Anniversary gave a special airing of Evangelion 1.11.
When TOM introduces the Lucky 7 duo, the sad music from the first run's final night plays as he says once more "Well, this is the end, beautiful friends." After a Record Scratch, TOM assures us that Toonami isn't ending this time, just Deadman Wonderland.
TOM describes the new line-up as the "Midnight Run".note For those not in the know, the original Midnight Run ran from 1999-2000 (before the weekday strip) on Saturday nights from midnight-5AM.
Never Say "Die": Much of its programs thankfully averted this, which contributed to its edgy factor. Gundam Wing received this for its daytime airings, but was fortunately allowed to say "kill" and "die" during Toonami's Midnight Run block.
One of the rare and unfortunate examples of this trope played straight, however, was Gundam SEED. Granted, it was Bandai Entertainment, NOT Cartoon Network, who requested this to sell more toys. However, this forced American fans to wait for the Gundam SEED DVDs to hear the words "kill" and "die", since [adult swim] (which replaced the Midnight Run) had no interest in showing the uncut version of Gundam SEED.
Noodle Incident: When Moltar hosted the show, he mentioned that he used to date Sailor Jupiter, but something happened that caused them to break up.
The Nth Doctor: The Clydes are the most prevalent example—the 49 was a single statillite unit during Moltar's reign. Once TOM stepped in, Clyde 49 became Clyde 50s (floating security cameras around the Absolution). The DOKs, unoffically Clyde 51s, added limbs to the design (amongst other things). The Clyde 52s were basically floating, solar-powered emoticons. The Clyde 53s were complex beetle-like structures with elements from each of their predecessors. The singular Clyde 54 vaguely resembled the Clyde 50s, but with a humanoid face (much like TOM v.4).
TOM was destroyed and rebuilt twice. The presence of the fourth version was never explained.
SARA also changed from a face on a screen to a full-on hologram (to better defend the Absolution), and even the Absolution was replaced once.
One of Us: In-Universe wise, TOM is a huge fan of Mario games, Mass Effect, LEGO, and Star Wars. His other game reviews also shed some light on everything he's a fan of. He even gave a real review of the fake game "Fix-It Felix Jr." from Wreck It Ralph, giving it an 8.5 while describing the various features and objectives of the game.
The Toonami Tumblr recently gave out a TV Tropes link as well, making them "One of Us" in terms of being Tropers as well. However a recent answer had them confirm they were not tropers but they admitted the wiki is a great resource for information. Which they acknowledged by linking this page in the FAQ.
SARA's absence all these years was attributed to Sally Timms being unavailable to voice her. She is now voiced by Dana Swanson, a full-fledged member of Toonami's crew.
This broadcast is intended solely for the enjoyment of our audience. Any rebroadcast or retransmission without the expressed written consent of Toonami and Cartoon Network is strictly prohibited.
His review of Halo 4, he mentions the new enemy of the series, the Promethians.
They. Are. A. BITCH. In the best Halo way.
Real Song Theme Tune: A variation. While Toonami has used a lot of music composed specifically for the block (by such artists as Joe Boyd Vigil, Chris Devoe, Danger Mouse aka Brian Burton, and Pelican City), starting in 2003 Toonami started using songs by artists attached to the Ninja Tune label a lot for promos, bumpers, and intros. For the 2012 revival, Toonami seems to be mostly pulling from electronic labels Ghostly International and Warp Records along with using some classic tracks by Pelican City, Burton, and Devoe.
There's "#ToonamisBackBitches" by Richie Branson, a Filk Song that became a Real Song Theme Tune by playing over the opening the first two nights of the revival.
Record Needle Scratch: One Toonami bumper begins playing "Cascade" by Tycho, the music infamous for playing during TOM's farewell speech during Toonami's initial cancellation. Then he says "Well, all good things come to an end." Cue the scratch! TOM then reassures the audience that it isn't Toonami this time, and that Deadman Wonderland has run out of episodes, so they're bringing in Eureka Seven and Samurai 7. Doubles as a Fake Out Opening.
Retcon: The Easter Egg/TOM 4 TRANSMITTING promo would seem to indicate that TOMs 2-3.5 and TOM 4 are not and never were the same person. This is a direct contradiction of TOM 4's reminiscing about the TOM 2 era during the tail end of the original run, but many fans think it's for the best.
The official Tumblr stated that they were more or less twin brothers - the same AI in more than one body. Therefore, it stands to reason that based off of when TOM 4.0 was made, he'd have some of the other's memories as well as his own.
Retraux: The 2012 April Fool's run recreated the TOM 3 era visually, but survived purely off recycled footage.
Robot Buddy: TOM will always be ours. Also the CLYDEs and Flash & D.
During the final intro, TOM psychs himself up by chanting "Pagua Sanpha, Pagua Sanpha!", the chant used by the Kei Pirates in Outlaw Star, which TOM repeatedly mentioned was his favorite showcased series.
The "Bang" quote above is also the last line uttered by TOM during the "final" broadcast.
TOM starts off his review of X-COM: Enemy Unknown 2012 by quoting (and mimicking in a monotonous voice) the famously overused ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US! meme.
Spaceship Girl: SARA is the Absolution's AI and also has a holographic body.
Stock Footage: Due to the revivals much more limited budget, a fair amount of things have to be recycled. A lot of the off-Absolution-themed bumpers are the ones from the original Tom 3.0 era, and most of the talking animation is variations on this. Thankfully, good editing and shifting camera angles make it not too glaring. As such, it becomes easy for Youtube users to do this.
Story Arc: Had three of them; a first for a what was essentially framing devices for the shows. These were usually considered special events and allowed audience participation.
The Intruder: The first and considered a Wham Episode by many fans. A red blob attaches itself to the Absolution and slowly eats at the engine. TOM goes to fight it but ultimately fails and is his body devoured. This releases his new body, TOM-2, who manages to jettison the engine and the blob out into space. Viewers were then allowed to pick the new engine for the ship.
Lockdown: The Absolution comes upon a distress signal that leads them to a spaceship graveyard. Their controls are locked down, trapping them there. TOM and SARA find that the problem is coming from a nearby ship and an entity whose signal is keeping the ships trapped. As TOM and SARA are stuck on the Absolution, they send their probes (controlled by their viewers) to destroy the entity and free them.
Trapped in Hyperspace: TOM tries out a new hyperspace function but a computer virus attacks the ship during so, leaving the Absolution stuck hurling through hyperspace. The only way to free themselves is for TOM to plug his mind into the computer grid and confront the virus directly. The confrontations were part of a flash game the Toonami site was holding.
There were also two web-exclusive comics: Swarm and Endgame. Swarm was TOM's Origin Story, while Endgame was TOM 3.0's Origin Story and the Absolution Mk. 2's creation. A third comic is in the works that will explain the TOM 4.0-era, its connection to TOM 3.5, what happened to Sara and the Clydes, and it will lead into TOM 5.0 and the Absolution Mk. 3.
A mini story arc happened during the commercials during the 04-06-13 Toonami airing, having TOM slowly unscramble a garbled visual feed that apparently originated from Earth. He says that he'll have it finally ready to show for next week's airing. Unlike the other story arcs, this was actually promotion for Oblivion. All the commercials of the story arc end with Adult Swim advertising "#Oblivion" at the end and next week's airing had TOM showing off the unscrambled visual feed: a clip from the movie, evidently the Toonami Faithful's award for getting the #Oblivion hashtag trending during the miniarc's broadcast.
TOM can't beat the sixth level of Dropship: United Peace Force.
TOM said that he usually beats a game before he reviews it, but decided that Catherine was worth reviewing while he was still playing. Giving the game a score of 7.0/10, he describes the puzzles as painfully annoying and the mechanics as super-cheap - a fairly obvious way of saying that he hasn't been able to beat it.... yet.
TOM finds himself unable to beat Slender due to, well...
Trailers: Toonami was famous for putting together professionally well-made trailers for the programs it aired. The pre-debut trailer for Gundam Wing was so good that Bandai asked for—and received—permission to start using the Toonami trailer instead of its own to advertise the show's DVD release.
Sadly, although Toonami is back, Peter Cullen isn't. He's pretty much gone lax on his voice-acting gig in his veteran age, save for anything Transformers related.
Unnecessarily Large Vessel: The Absolution is incredibly huge, but it only has one operator (TOM) and a handful of assistants (The Clydes). Considering it’s only used as a broadcast center, who knows what they need all that space for.
Averted for the TOM 5 Absolution. It's much more compact.
Watershed: For a while, Toonami aired specials after the watershed hour as a special block called the "Midnight Run". Among other things, they aired episodes of Gundam Wing uncut, as opposed to the slightly-edited versions that aired during the day. As noted above, Midnight Run was essentially an early version of [adult swim].
Webcomics: Toonami had two of them. The first called Swarm explained the origins of TOM 1, while the next one called Endgame explained how Tom 2 became Tom 3.
The first was the end of the initial run. The beloved block's cancellation had received little fanfare and was not widely known when it happened. So it took many people (even 4chan) totally by surprise.
The second, much less depressing example, was the totally unexpected April Fools' Day revival. Most people expected [as] to air The Room as it had for the past few years, instead? We got TOM.
In the more traditional sense, there was The Intruder miniseries, for two reasons:
Story arcs in Toonami, while common now, were quite unusual at the time.
But what really gives it Wham status is Episodes 4 & 5: where TOM dies and then gets reborn as TOM 2.0.
in Asia in 2013. Hopefully, they'll learn from past mistakes.Fans of Toonami recognize the block — or, more accurately, Toonami's "Midnight Run" — as the Spiritual Ancestor of [adult swim]. Several anime series that aired on Toonami ended up airing on [as] during the latter block's first year.Cartoon Network eventually cancelled Toonami due to flagging ratings—a direct result of moving the block to Saturdays only and filling it with reruns, then-flagship show Naruto working through the now-infamous pre-Shippuuden Filler Arc (ironically, Toonami was mere weeks away from the last filler episode at the time), and the higher-ups' need to retool the network itself. The final edition of Toonami aired on September 20, 2008 (surprising fans who had no knowledge the network had cancelled Toonami), and the "Toonami Jetstream" streaming video site subsequently went offline in January of 2009.Toonami was shut down...for a while, at least.On April Fools' Day 2012, [adult swim] "revived" Toonami for one night; while it mainly reused clips from the past — and showed episodes of classic Toonami shows — it also featured new lines recorded for a special Bleach bumper and an all-new review of Mass Effect 3.note At its 2012 upfront on May 16th, [as] officially announced the return of Toonami after the resounding success of the April Fools special; the block would rise again on May 26th, with a mix of old and new programming.The new Toonami runs on a limited budget, screening some [as] anime favorites (such as Bleach, Cowboy Bebop and so on) and a few new shows (the biggest hits of that lot so far being Soul Eater and Deadman Wonderland... the latter of which unfortunately only has one season because it flopped in Japan). Overall, things are going fairly well for the revived block, which was expanded into a full six hours (with returning CN original favorites Sym-Bionic Titan and the new Thunder Cats 2011 cartoon).As of November 4th, 2012, during the Daylight Savings hour, Toonami confirmed that TOM 4.0 is still around. 3.5 and 4.0 are two different robots altogether. TOM 3.5 was seen chatting with TOM 4.0, asking how the latter was enjoying his extra hour. TOM 3.5 says at the end that they'll have to explain 4.0's story someday sooner or later. On March 10th, a TOM 5.0 was confirmed to be coming in April.
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