The State of Toonami 2024 (Part 2 of 3)

Previously, I talked about how the anime marketplace has changed dramatically and limits what Toonami can and can't pick up. That's not to say they don't air newer shows. 

It's just a little harder to get, and sometimes, you have to pick up more reliable fare that fans already love. As much as people don't want to admit or accept it, nostalgia works for Toonami. The only thing about nostalgia is that you can't fully embrace it if you want to survive.

Toonami currently airs a small handful of shows from the major distributors, but they’re not as plentiful as they once were. They'll get a high-profile show every once in a blue moon like Lycoris Recoil, Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, or infrequent cycles of Demon Slayer (by the way, the Swordsman Village arc will premiere on Toonami on August 10), but they're already second-run shows by the time they hit the block, not US premieres. Again, that’s partially the fault of the marketplace limiting what they’re willing to offer outside of their walled gardens. Older shows like Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z Kai, Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, and One Piece are THE core foundations of both Toonami blocks. 

When I started writing these pieces, Shippuden was winding down on the weekend block, DBZ Kai is on parallel runs on both blocks, and One Piece is still a few years behind Japan, which is much better than the decade it was behind five years ago. 

Seriously, a block like Toonami Rewind was once considered UNTHINKABLE a year ago or even five years ago, let alone 12 years ago. And even some “fans” weren’t all that happy about the initial lineup because it wasn’t the older over-edited versions of Sailor Moon and DBZ that were originally syndicated nearly 30 years ago or Naruto from about 20 years ago. I get the nostalgia, but heavily edited standard definition versions are not fit for modern digital television broadcast standards. 

The owners/distributors of those shows feel it's best to have a more digital-friendly version of the series that's truer to the original Japanese versions or, in the case of DBZ Kai, a more faithful, condensed version of the story that's more faithful to Akira Toriyama's iconic manga series. You already had the older shows back then. You watched them, and you knew they weren’t the best versions of those shows even back then. 

The fact that Toonami even expanded to a Friday afternoon slot is proof that – GASPS – the network has confidence in the brand.

That seems like something that’s lost to a lot of online commentators and the constantly pessimistic “fans” who seem to hate-watch Toonami every week. The truth is, well, Toonami is doing fine. 

Granted, the Nielsen ratings aren’t as strong as they were 12 years ago, but in case you haven’t noticed, ratings on linear television for EVERYTHING that isn’t sports aren’t as strong as they used to be. 

Still, despite everything, Cartoon Network still believes in Toonami. 

Which is why they’ve thrown shows originally intended for the Cartoon Network brand into the Toonami block. Genndy Tartakovsky’s Unicorn: Warriors Unleashed and My Adventures with Superman were initially part of a plan to revitalize Cartoon Network. Cartoon Network was going to return to a more balanced outlet throughout its branded lineup with a greater variety of big original productions. ACME Night was slated to be the premiere home of big Hollywood flicks and family-friendly originals and specials for the network such as Merry Little Batmen, a Scoob Christmas special, Urkel Saves Christmas, a Charlotte’s Web miniseries, original films like Looney Tunes: The Day The Earth Blew Up and Driftwood, and several original series including Unicorn: Warriors Eternal, My Adventures with Superman, Invincible Fight Girl, and Batman: Caped Crusader. 

Then, thanks to a merger with Discovery, everything changed. The new management scrapped all of those plans for ACME Night, shelved most of the specials, sold the Batman projects to Amazon, split Cartoon Network Studios from Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, shifted Urkel to direct-to-streaming, sold distribution rights to the Looney Tunes flick to another company, and put Unicorn and Superman on Adult Swim instead

And they’re going to put Invincible Fight Girl on Adult Swim as well angering the usual vineyards who wanted it on Cartoon Network. 

Why? 

It’s what the network wants, why bother to complain? 

Honestly, there’s plenty of reasons to complain about the lack of variety on Cartoon Network and why so many originals are being pushed off the main brand and onto Adult Swim when there’s nothing “adult” about them. 

It’s a fair argument and shows that Cartoon Network the channel doesn’t have a lot of confidence in Cartoon Network the brand. Constantly moving the goal posts to make the Adult Swim brand look good has made the Cartoon Network brand look inferior in the public’s eyes, created a sense of fear about the future of CN not only as a brand but also a network. The usual vineyards are full of folks whining about Adult Swim taking more of Cartoon Network’s time slots, and the network really isn’t giving them much hope for anything in the future. 

Once again, another year has almost passed, and Cartoon Network hasn’t premiered a new original series in a calendar year. Total Drama Island was already more than a year old when the revival premiered in the summer. The animated revival of Totally Spies is still slated to premiere in the fall, but Cartoon Network hasn’t made any official announcements about the US premiere of the series. One series initially announced by Cartoon Network, Jade Armor, has already aired internationally and there's still no guarantee it'll even air in the United States on Cartoon Network. And as I mentioned before, Invincible Fight Girl, the one major show from Cartoon Network Studios that folks were anticipating for Cartoon Network, is Adult Swim-bound. There’s nothing truly original coming to Cartoon Network proper in the remainder of 2024 aside from the final episodes of Craig of the Creek and I guess more episodes of Teen Titans Go.  You'll have to wait until 2025 for something original on Cartoon Network proper, which is still slated to be Iyanu from Lion Forge Entertainment.

Even Cartoonito, the much-ballyhooed preschool block that is a worldwide brand, seems like it's on its last legs as a brand in the US. They're still producing new preschool shows (most of them based on preexisting franchises like Foster's and Adventure Time) and they have a new Barney animated series coming in the fall, but there's no guarantee it'll be part of a Cartoonito block. That says a lot more about the state of Cartoon Network than the state of Toonami, and I’ll talk about that another time. 

It should also be noted that when it comes to shows originally meant for CN and ending up on Adult Swim, I'm taking another perspective about it.

These shows could have easily been sold to another outlet (see Batman: Caped Crusader, which is on Prime Video), scrapped completely (the animated film Driftwood, which was announced the same time as Invincible Fight Girl, was canceled as it was in production, and Gross Girls, an animated series that was announced around 2019, is likely gone forever), or purged forever (Infinity Train, Victor & Valentino, Mao Mao, and OK KO fans are still inconsolable after the August 2022 purge).

Still, when it comes to the future of Toonami, originals will play a more prominent role in the years to come. And by originals, I mean shows made exclusively for the block, in-house originals produced by Cartoon Network Studios, co-productions with other producers, and in the case of Rick and Morty: The Anime, shows that will not actually premiere on the block exclusively.

I'll talk about that in full next time.