Toonami Revived?! Or is it just Adult Swim Action desperate for attention?!

 

What we wanted.

Back on April 1st, 2012 Adult Swim pulled the ultimate April Fools Day joke by pre-empting their entire Saturday night block (sans Bleach) with Toonami classics like DBZ, YuYu Hakusho, Outlaw Star, and Tenchi OAV (being the only time OAV 3 has ever been on CN). This was a prelude to Cartoon Network's plans to revive the Toonami block replacing Adult Swim Satuday Action block. The weeks leading up to Toonami's premiere was teased with commercial bumps hinting at what may end up on the block. Of course, given Adult Swim's sense of humor this could all be taken with a grain of salt. 

Days before the premiere people made theories on what was going to be on the block. Nostalgia nuts wanted Dragon Ball Z to return to the block (despite CN rerunning that show into the ground), others theorized newer anime like Tiger & Bunny, Panty & Stocking, and Inuyasha:Final Act would premiere on the block. I, personally, saw this as an opportunity for Naruto: Shippuden to air on the block, and possibly a revival of One Piece (since Funimation was about to release the newly dubbed Season Four). Then the block was revealed with two new anime series: Deadman Wonderland and Casshern Sins and the retirement of some of their older shows.

 Many fans had mixed reactions, quite a few people felt that these shows signified a positive change for the block, while other regretted that there wasn't more continuity with the Toonami of old. My reaction, while understanding that Toonami was reviving a "brand name" and not a specific set of shows, is did we really need to add the Toonami name just for CN getting two new anime shows? The last "new shows" on AS were FMA: Brotherhood and Durarara which premiered about a little over a year ago (Durarara coming about a year ago) and both shows had run their course so it makes sense that CN would announce new anime about this time. After seeing the content of these shows I have to wonder if their trying to go for a grittier darker Toonami. Deadman Wonderland alone had so many cussing blips that it was almost laughable.

Now it was revealed that Toonami had a smaller budget hence getting big names like Naruto, One Piece, and Tiger&Bunny were a no,no. Understandable, I guess what I'm getting at does slapping "Toonami" on the Saturday block make that much of a difference than if these shows were just regular AS premiere? AS' reactions to the ratings would suggest not very likely. But I know CN overall likes to operate on a learning curve so we'll see what the block brings in the upcoming weeks.

   

What we got!