Nawet poza Uzumaki, historia anime Toonami zasługuje na szacunek

In 2024, you can’t throw a stone without hitting an anime fan — not literally, of course. But what erstwhile felt like an exclusive club has become a mainstream, global phenomenon, appearing on everything from major streaming services to giant movie screens. And millions of today’s anime fans have the same place to thank for their introduction to the medium: Toonami, Cartoon Network’s beloved late-’90s/early-aughts after-school programming block.

Considering its popularity, it makes sense that the lineup, which now airs on Adult Swim, began producing first anime of its own. But as an American-owned and -operated sub-brand, Toonami’s first anime are special: They’re not only high-quality, they’re authentic, too. After nearly 30 years on the air, and a twelve exclusive anime produced by major studios, Toonami remains 1 of the lone non-Japanese brands regularly creating genuine nipponese shows. In that time, it’s nailed down a expression that no 1 else has managed to replicate: 1 of authenticity, self-promotion, and capturing the zeitgeist.

Launching in 1997, Toonami’s programming was a unique bedrock for Cartoon Network in the late ’90s and early aughts. While another American channels aired popular anime — like Kids’ WB and Fox Kids, homes to Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, the infamous 4Kids dub of One Piece, and more — Cartoon Network’s Toonami had the most robust collection of series. all afternoon, kids could come home and watch everything from classics like Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon to fan favorites like the Gundam franchise and Outlaw Star. (The channel’s Toonami block besides boasted shows like Hamtaro, which was possibly besides cutesy for action anime-lovers, but iconic to this writer.) As broadcast networks and English-dubbed home videos made these shows more accessible to mainstream audiences — not to mention the Pokémon craze — anime’s stateside popularity grew. With its diverse programming, Toonami developed an identity as a purveyor of high-quality goods.

But it’s 1 thing to showcase large shows, which Cartoon Network did both during Toonami’s daytime hours and weekend slot as part of Adult Swim (how many Western audiences were first traumatized by Neon Genesis Evangelion). It’s another to make them, which the network did for the first time in 2003 — and continued to do for the next 20-plus years.

The large O aired on Toonami in 2001, rapidly gaining acclaim for its spin on the popular mecha genre. Stylistically, it was a mashup of nipponese and Western artistic and storytelling sensibilities: The main character was named Roger Smith, a highest American name. Smith is embroiled in a noir-inspired mystery involving the demolition of both the planet and its survivors’ memories, calling upon a giant robot erstwhile necessary.

Produced by acclaimed studio Sunrise, which besides helmed Toonami/Adult Swim smash Cowboy Bebop and the Gundam franchise, The large O became an early success communicative for the block. But the series only ran for 1 period and 13 episodes — akin to a show like Bebop, but unlike the large hits that it felt primed to be. Not only that, but The large O ended on a cliffhanger, an intentional decision to bait a studio into ordering a period 2.

In January 2003, Cartoon Network took Sunrise up on it, teaming up to make a second period of The large O: The large O II, which aired exclusively on Adult Swim in the States. By hooking back up with the first studio and creative team, the American network aimed to recapture and honor The large O’s spirit. It reportedly had little intervention in the production, another than backing and offering 2 notes on its story. (One of them: Solve the mystery.) And while its ratings weren’t adequate to warrant a period 3, it established Cartoon Network’s anime bona fides in spectacular fashion: Here was a company unafraid to not just licence kid-friendly, toy-ready series, but besides willing to spend money on satisfying audiences by keeping those shows going.

Only 2 years later, the company proved that The large O II project wasn’t a one-off. Cartoon Network (and Williams Street, the subsidiary that runs Adult Swim) teamed up with Production I.G, a storied studio that had worked on everything from Ghost in the Shell to Kill Bill, to turn a series of 5 animated shorts into an exclusive anime for Toonami. In a press release, Production I.G touted IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix as “the first instance of a U.S.A. cable network working straight with a nipponese animation studio to make an first series.” (The announcement besides refers to Cartoon Network as “the biggest animation channel in the world.” Oh, how the mighty have fallen.) Toonami rigorously publicized the show, asserting how large of a deal it was: It had capitalized upon a close decade of dominance as TV’s most diverse anime block, especially with its crossover hits in the mecha subgenre, to authentically enter the field.

As far as mecha anime go, IGPX is mostly fresh for being a Toonami first series exclusive to the block, which was unprecedented for its time. It blended 2D and CGI animation for its futuristic communicative about a athletics where giant, human-piloted mechs race each other. If you came for the mechs, you wouldn’t leave displeased, but this was more of a racing drama than a Gundam-style giant-robot show. Viewers were cold on the series upon its first airing, Toonami co-creator Jason DeMarco noted in a later interview: “On message boards after the [episodes] aired, it seemed like we were always getting ripped a fresh one,” he said, due to its less-straightforward approach to the genre. Still, it managed to run for 26 episodes over 2 seasons, with DeMarco and co-creator Sean Akins publicly stating their intentions for IGPX to kick off a long line of Toonami’s anime co-productions.

IGPX marked a turning point for Toonami, but not in the way that DeMarco and Akins hoped. In 2008, 2 years after IGPX’s final episode aired, the block went off the air. Despite the continued popularity of shows like Naruto and One part (even with that infernal 4Kids dub), anime’s stateside popularity was no longer at its Dragon Ball Z-era height. The once-booming home video market, which was a immense part of anime’s global success, was on the decline — in part due to the small thing called the large Recession going on at the time, though any discouraged anime fans argued that the average itself was besides in a creative rut. Toonami saw falling ratings, and after a control from weekdays to Saturday night and a dwindling amount of fresh programming, Cartoon Network sunsetted it entirely. DeMarco would later say in an interview that Toonami’s cancellation was likely due to, among another things, “a cross between the wider cultural consciousness moving distant from anime and our network having different priorities.” After a decade of trendsetting content, Toonami went out with a whimper.

Toonami took a four-year break from the air, until it returned as part of Adult Swim in 2012. The block was met with much fanfare, as it committed to recapturing a mature audience — no more kiddy shows like Yu-Gi-Oh GX and Bakugan conflict Brawlers. Old favorites like Cowboy Bebop returned to air, alongside newer hits like Bleach and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Adult Swim’s Toonami redux was curated in a way that appealed to nostalgic viewers who grew up with the block and those dipping their toe into the anime waters. And this only became more aggressive erstwhile the network one more time dove into first anime production.

First, the fresh Toonami had a coup of a premiere to tempt old-school viewers: 2014’s Space Dandy, the fresh anime from the creator of Cowboy Bebop. It locked down the world-exclusive premiere of the show, capitalizing on the continued love and acclaim for Bebop to bolster the block’s image. And it surrounded Space Dandy with another massive hits: Gurren Lagann, Attack on Titan, and Dragon Ball Z Kai, a filler-free recut of the first series. Toonami had reasserted itself as an anime hotspot by giving its first fans the chance to rewatch shows like Dragon Ball Z, like the good old days, while introducing them to the action anime’s heir apparents, from Soul Eater to One-Punch Man. Just as Toonami helped anime fans stay hip in the aughts by showing the best-known series, its Adult Swim revival helped viewers stay on top of the internationally renowned Dragon Ball Zs of present — a crash course in anime coolness.

Nostalgia seemed to be a guiding force for Adult Swim’s version of Toonami, both on a programming level and a production one. The most overt indicator that the network’s fresh MO was tantalizing viewers with the promise of the past was the network’s biggest commitment to exclusive anime yet: the return of FLCL, co-produced by Adult Swim.

Produced by Evangelion studio Gainax, FLCL aired on Adult Swim’s late-night anime block in 2003. It garnered a cult audience for its frantic pacing, absurd characters, and wholly first storytelling; it’s a show that promotes marathon-viewing, the kind that repertory theaters will screen at midnight to a not-so-sober crowd. FLCL’s six episodes became legendary, and it reran frequently upon Toonami’s return in the 2010s. Yet it was inactive something of a shock when, in 2016, Adult Swim announced it was co-producing 2 fresh seasons of the series to air on Toonami.

FLCL Progressive and FLCL Alternative (each named after a stone subgenre, befitting the series’ punk ethos) aired between June and October 2018, a punchy, 12-episode run that deviated from the first series. Frequent partner Production I.G, which besides worked on the first series, returned; so did the Pillows, the J-rock band behind period 1’s iconic subject and soundtrack. And the pink-haired, guitar-playing agent of chaos Haruko returned as the show’s lead. another than that, the fresh FLCL was its own beast, expanding upon whatever there was of the first series’ lore. The action was inactive zany, but the endearingly frantic animation was more muted. Ultimately, no of the seasons — including 2 more in 2023, the prequel FLCL: Grunge and sequel FLCL: Shoegaze, in which Haruko was absent — received the same level of fanaticism and praise as Gainax’s original.

Even if they’re usually not as good as they hoped for, fans clamor for reboots of beloved, short-lived series like FLCL. Adult Swim doubled down on its renewed commitment to anime by bringing 1 of its hit acquisitions back in a way that was mostly authentic, even if it was imperfect. But “mostly” is crucial for a show as stylistically singular as this one. The company’s ability to resurrect the series — for 4 additional seasons, no little — was limited by the available staff to work on it, which mostly did not include the series’ first creators, like manager Kazuya Tsurumaki or screenwriter Yōji Enokido. The first season’s absurd scrappiness was a immense part of the charm — something that a highly touted reboot could not replicate. Adult Swim successfully threw its weight around here, but the muted reception underscored that the specified act of throwing money behind a beloved anime property may not always be enough.

Still, the effort pushed open a door to way more originally produced anime than always before. In 2018, Adult Swim announced that it had hooked up with Western anime power-player Crunchyroll to bring 3 series to the network. The streaming service had amassed a dedicated viewer base since its 2006 launch, thanks to its immense library of dubbed and subbed anime; at the time, it boasted 1 million subscribers and was increasing quickly. (Today, it has 15 million.) Released in 2021 and 2022, 2 were one more time based on existing properties popular with the typical adult Toonami viewer: Blade Runner: Black Lotus and, somewhat more surprisingly, Shenmue. (The other, Fena: Pirate Princess, was an first seafaring fantasy.) This partnership ended reasonably abruptly after Warner Bros.-owned Crunchyroll was acquired by Sony, a competitor. But considering Toonami erstwhile took a low-ratings-induced hiatus, healthy competition is simply a good thing: Major companies see a reason to spend large bucks on anime again.

In 2024, Adult Swim returned undeterred and with plans for 3 more first anime. First came February’s Ninja Kamui, an action-heavy series co-produced by newer studios E&H Production and Sola Entertainment. But it’s this fall’s 2 entries into the Adult Swim/Toonami anime canon that are most intriguing: a Rick and Morty anime, a surreal take based on the sci-fi comedy, and an adaptation of horror masterpiece Uzumaki. Both propose an interesting way forward for the network as it carves out its anime-powered future, 1 that is self-referential and experimental.

Rick and Morty: The Anime is simply a full-length take on popular shorts commissioned by the network in 2020 and 2021. Like those shorts, the endeavor gives professional anime manager and self-proclaimed superfan Takashi Sano the chance to play with the show’s planet and the medium. It besides fills the Rick and Morty-sized gap in Adult Swim’s fall schedule, with period 8 inactive in production. That dual intent works in Adult Swim’s favor, even if the show itself hasn’t rather gelled with fans. Based on the show thus far, it seems the network is willing to be flexible with its own properties, and not only that, but that it will get weird with them.

Uzumaki, meanwhile, appears to be what all of this work has been leading up to all along. The long-awaited adaptation of Junji Ito’s acclaimed manga was first announced in 2019 for a 2020 launch. Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened, and repeated delays ensued. The show is yet due out in September of this year, barring any last-minute changes. But the prolonged wait for the adaptation, pacified with stellar teasers that highlighted how dedicated the network and animation studio Drive were to getting it right, exploded the hype. What was most compelling about Uzumaki’s teasers was how closely they paid attention to detail, recapturing Ito’s art kind to a T. Unfolding in black and white, it even uses the manga as a storyboard, with many shots taken straight from the mangaka’s work. Between the awesome animation and the popularity of the Uzumaki manga, this is simply a major coup for Adult Swim’s Toonami lineup — it request only stick the landing for this four-episode miniseries in order to strike gold with fans.

It’s not just a large deal that a seeming labour of love like Uzumaki exists at all. It’s besides a large deal that Toonami is where it will air — due to the fact that Toonami is no longer the biggest, let alone only, game in town. Twenty-one years after The large O II, Adult Swim’s Toonami block is now 1 of respective Western programmers investing in the nipponese anime game. But while Netflix and Crunchyroll have followed in its footsteps, it’s crucial to note just that: Toonami led the charge. That it continues to pursuit these projects, and interesting ones at that, is simply a testament to decades of fannish passion for the average — not just chasing trends. And after decades building toward producing a big-deal show like Uzumaki, Toonami has more than earned the bragging rights that come with it.