The Depressing Yet Unsurprising Demise of a Biweekly Toonami
Back in May, Adult Swim surprisingly returned the Toonami block to Friday afternoons/early-evenings with Toonami Rewind. It was a block dominated by Dragon Ball Z Kai (which was already on the Saturday block) and original Naruto but also marked the return of Sailor Moon to linear television for the first time in decades with the premiere of the Viz dubbed episodes, and fans were totally normal about the block's return and had no complaints about the lineup whatsoever.
Of course, I'm lying. This IS Toonami, after all, and when it comes to that block, there will ALWAYS be complaints about it. It's been a tradition since 1997.
As I've mentioned back in May, Toonami Rewind was always an experimental block, so when it ended at the end of 2024 (which was literally a week ago by the time this article is published), there was little fanfare, and the world moved on. But in the grand tradition of the block, we, as fans, have to ask an age-old question.
Was Toonami Rewind a failed experiment?
Absolutely, yes.
But let's talk where the block went right:
- The return of Sailor Moon to linear television. Sailor Moon had never had a full run on American television. The DIC dub skipped numerous episodes in syndication and Toonami. And I'm not talking about Sailor Moon R, Sailor Moon S, and Sailor Moon Super S. The original series skipped several episodes, and Toonami Rewind was the home of the US television premiere of the complete version of the original Sailor Moon series. No episodes were skipped, and I feel Viz did a fantastic job in presenting the original series to modern audiences.
The negatives that the block had were pretty glaring ones. When it comes to content, the block's offerings were pretty limited, but that was to be expected in a media landscape that has one distributor/localizer all but monopolizing the anime industry.
The block only had three shows across four half-hour slots, one of which was already on the main Toonami block. While it would have been nice to see older favorites from the past, realistically, that wasn't going to happen because those shows would have been too costly for a weekly afternoon block on linear television.
And watching the nearly 30-year-old censored dubs in standard definition on older non-digital formats would have sucked as well. Why look at an over-edited version meant for little kids on Adult Swim especially when the owners of those shows have completely taken them out of circulation because a more faithful version and more mature was available for public consumption?
Speaking of a weekly late-afternoon block, who was Toonami Rewind for? If they wanted to attract fans of the original block who are getting home from work as the promos targeted, maybe they should have put it on a little later in the evening, perhaps at 7 PM E/P rather than 5 PM E/P. We know it wasn't aimed toward younger viewers because the current direction of Adult Swim/Cartoon Network is, to put it bluntly, "F Those Kids."
The Toonami experience was also very limited. No game reviews, no music videos, no familiar Toonami elements like the "Now/Next/Later" cards. It was basically TOM and SARA within the bumpers. Some folks wanted an earlier incarnation of the pair exclusively on Rewind. I get that, but, at least continuity-wise, those versions are no more.
I feel the nostalgic crew wanted more out of Toonami Rewind than what Adult Swim offered them. Understandably, I get their frustration. Still, you need to acknowledge the limitations the block had. And the writing was on the wall when they purposely skipped an entire arc of Naruto and filled the entire block with Dragon Ball Z Kai reruns from mid-November all the way to the end of December after Sailor Moon ended. Because of that, the final regular lineup of Toonami Rewind ended just like the final regular lineup of weekday Toonami.
With a Dragon Ball Z rerun, only this one was Kai-flavored.
And what's worse? They probably could have used one of those slots to air encores of My Adventures with Superman and Invincible Fight Girl, literally being a "Toonami rewind" of those lighter shows in a time period better than a weekly midnight slot. The latter really could have used a boost especially since Adult Swim only reran IFG on Thursday nights outside of its regular Toonami slot.
They really did Invincible Fight Girl dirty at Adult Swim and Cartoon Network, but that's a conversation for another time.
Maybe it's because I knew going in that it really wasn't going to amount to much. Maybe it's because I don't have traditional linear cable anymore and largely missed the last of the block's run. Regardless, I feel that Toonami Rewind was just a bittersweet reminder that we can't really and truly go back to the way it used to be. The era of afternoon Toonami is gone. It was kind of nice to be reminded of what once was. Having Sailor Moon in any capacity on Toonami in the modern era was a HUGE draw for Rewind. Having DBZ Kai in multiple slots, especially given how it just came back to the regular Toonami block months earlier and having it doubled up at launch eventually catching up to the Saturday block and closing out as the lone show there just felt limited and regressive.
Regression, unfortunately, is the Modis Operandi of Adult Swim these days. Days before news of Toonami Rewind's end came out, Adult Swim reacquired rights to Family Guy with plans to air it every night at 10 PM E/P. Since they're non-exclusive rights, the series will be on three different channels at the same time for most of the week. With that show's return, Adult Swim pushed out an hour of the Checkered Past and added reruns of King of the Hill, meaning from 6 PM to 11:30 PM on weeknights, Adult Swim is dominated by Disney-owned FOX animation, often competing with many of the same reruns on other stations. Not only is it regressive, but it's stupid, but, again, that's a whole other conversation.
In the end, we wanted the Toonami experience (complimentary), and we got the Toonami experience (derogatory). Toonami Rewind was a noble experiment, but in the end, it was a failed experiment. Too many factors doomed it, some of it beyond its control. It was at least nice to see them try to bring back the past.
I believe it was The Buggles who sang it best.
We can't rewind. We've gone too far.
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