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Forum - View topicHow an April Fools Day Joke Revived Toonami
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SaitoHajime101
 Posts: 283 |
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My pre-teen and teen years were definitely filled with late-90s + 00s Toonami and Adult Swim. Definitely part of the Nostalgic wave.
I was at Sakura-con in April of 2012, where I went to the Steve Blum panel. There he was promoting the hashtag to bring back Toonami. All of us in the audience went nuts with applause, showing our support. It was all anyone could talk about at the con. Did you see April 1st? I remember flipping on Toonami that April 1st and catching Tenchi in mid-episode. It was fantastic! I wish I had caught it sooner so I would've saw Bleach and the classic Asterisk opening, but stuff happens. These days, I catch Toonami when I can, but having a child of my own makes it difficult. I hope Toonami is around in 9 to 10 years when my kid is old enough to enjoy the shows airing on it. Pardon this post, bit nostalgic and appreciative of Toonami/Adult Swim for being what they are, the good and the bad. |
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Rob19ny
Posts: 1690 |
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At the time in 2012, I hardly watched tv anymore. The amount of channels I watched just happened to be anything related to sports, so ESPN was my main channel. I was watching that night, then I took a break to check twitter. I saw Gundam Wing and Toonami being talked about saying its on. I change the channel to CN to see if this was actually true, and Dragon Ball Z is on. Gohan vs Cell. My mind is blown. Trying to figure out what's going on because there was no news of this prior. Then I realized that this must be an April Fools joke and started laughing. Best April Fools joke ever. I checked back to see Gundam Wing since it's my favorite Gundam show. Just watching that, the memories that came back and seeing the cool Tom 2 hosting rather than that WTF version that was hosting when Toonami ended. I had stopped watching Toonami before that, so when I saw the video of Toonami's ending back in 2008, I knew Toonami had gone to ship (replace the p with t) when I saw that design (I knew the block was trash, which was another reason to no longer keep tabs).
I started with the Moltar years, but Toonami got better after that with Tom. Loved the special events like The Intruder. Seeing the transition from Tom 1 to Tom 2 was something. 10 years went by fast. |
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wing-zero-strike
Posts: 28 |
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Great article. I sadly missed the April Fools event, but was so excited to see the Twitter activity about Toonami the next morning. And when it came back, it was one of the first times I had a visible smile on my face watching live tv in a long time.
Toonami, and it’s unique blend of CGI and music and anime, shaped me as a person, especially creatively, and introduced me to so much in my formative years. I still love Toonami as it is exists today - a rare familiar face that hasn’t jumped the shark. I’m encouraged by more originals and premieres to stave off the feeling of riding streaming’s coattails. But more than anything, I wish Toonami could air nightly. As a kid, part of its influence came from it being part of my daily routine after school. Hard for that to happen once a week, especially when I’m often busy. If Toonami could air nightly, shows like One Piece would make a whole lot more sense for the block, and it could be something I look forward to at the end of the day, rather than something I have to remember to make happen when I can on Saturdays. |
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Aura Ichadora
 Posts: 2285 Location: In front of my computer |
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Honestly, my family didn't really watch CN very often from basically 2007-2012. Namely because of my mother, who liked to control the TV basically from the time she woke up until the time she went to bed, and her shows were namely on Nickelodeon, TLC, or Game Show Network. But a bit of it was because I was too busy with college and both my brother and I were usually involved with other activities versus watching TV. However, by some miracle, I saw a friend post on Facebook (wasn't too active on Twitter at that time) saying that Toonami was back and I instantly went "WHAT?". I remember yelling - albeit I shouldn't have done so with that late at night - in delight, with my mom and brother both in attendance, with neither of them believing me. My mom paused whatever show it was what she was watching at the time, turned it over to CN, and lo and behold, it was true. My brother and I were so excited for this, having both developed our love of anime thanks to it and Kids WB and having so many fond memories in middle school and early parts of high school coming home and instantly turning on the TV to watch Toonami. I actually remember my dad recording the block on VHS (lordy, that's a nostalgia trip on its own) because we were going to be gone that weekend for a vacation starting that Friday, and I was actually upset because it meant I'd miss the finale for Tenchi Universe, and soon as we go back home, we sat down and watched the tape. Truly, Toonami had a lot of memories for us in those earlier years, so to see it again in 2012, hearing and seeing TOM again and everything... it was amazing.
I didn't participate as much in watching the very early parts of the Toonami revival once it came back, but once I moved out from my parents' place and in with my then-boyfriend/now-husband, it's now become part of our Saturday night routine. Every Saturday night now, it's comes on and we stay up until about 2am every weekend to enjoy the block (usually not caring about Shippuden or the repeats), and I get very hyped when we get to the final few episodes of a show because then I wonder what Toonami will air next. The block introduced to me to a lot of shows that I likely wouldn't have watched due to streaming not being a most viable option for me (yay for poor internet connection...), and it still does that even now. I really hope the block will continue to thrive for many more years to come, although I know the viewing landscape is changing drastically. It'll be a sad day for the if and when the block comes to an end once again, but I think once it does, it'll go out in the way that it deserves to go out, and not in the whimper that it did back in 2008. |
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MoonPhase1
Posts: 492 |
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I became a Toonami fan in 1999. While I did sleep through the April Fools Prank, but I have been watching every second of Toonami since its revival each week. Toonami has played a huge part of my life with catching it every weeknight plus the Midnight Run, Rising Sun and Super Saturday to the point where Toonami is my life. Watching it just never grows old for me.
I know it has a difficult time competing with Streaming Services, but to me Toonami provides so much more experience that Streaming Services would never be able to provide. It’s probably why its revival has lasted for 10 years and still ongoing since those who watch it understand that it’s not just about catching up with your favorite Anime. Between game reviews, music videos, Toonami bumpers with amazing music, speeches, T.I.E.s, Toonami Originals like Fena Pirate Princess, Shenmue, FLCL sequels, etc. and whatever else they want to do, Toonami really is more of an experience. It even helps introduce newcomers to Anime and that’s always a good thing especially if it helps them get into watching more Anime. The only real problem I have that is it does lack movies other than just some Batman movies which are great but would love more variety of movies being shown like when they did the Month Of Movies in like 2013 or whenever that was. But I do understand that on a weekly basis showing movies is difficult unless they plan on airing it multiple times at no additional cost after paying for the license. Also would like to see Sailor Moon Classic on this Toonami along with some other classics. |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5120 |
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I have a question for everyone: How important is linear programming to the anime fandom at large? I ask because I am unable to watch Toonami / Adult Swim. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4442 |
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It was kind of wild seeing it play out in real time. I had adult swim on, as I usually did, but was about to do something else when The Room started for the third year in a row since the joke wasn't funny the second time. Then Toonami starts, and just seeing people catch wind of it and start live tweeting was exciting. It would have been a lot of work for a one off, and the short time before the revival since anime was effectively dead where the network was concerned. I went to a panel with Steve Blum maybe a year later, that at least for the April 1 part, he wasn't paid since there wasn't a real budget to speak of. It was just something fun that he didn't think would go anywhere.
It's kind of weird to think that now, Toonami is really the only thing I watch on regular TV anymore, and even that isn't going to be enough for me to stay subscribed. Revived Toonami has almost doubled its time on TV at this point, and it kind of feels like it's coming to the end of another good run. |
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