General Adult Swim Discussion

[ToonDude]

I was just as shocked as Williams Street was. I mean it's not like people talked about bringing Toonami back on these forums, toon zone forums, cartoon forums , tv forums, anime forums, video game forums, scifi forums, music forums, nostalgia forums or emailed Cartoon Network, Williams Street, Time Warner etc. It's almost as if they could've just announced that they were brining it back but I guess without any indication that fans wanted it back it would've been risky doing so.

[Xelrog_T_Apocalypse]

Well, the end result came about due to positive feedback about the Toonami April Fool's prank. Unless you're asking why they decided to do that, in which case the question broadens a bit...

It does kind of make sense, since Williams Street were always the ones behind Toonami. They might have been just as disappointed with the way it fizzled out as the fans were, so they decided to bring it back for a night (which in my opinion was fantastic, the way they started off the night with the Room intro), and it just escalated from there.

[SourCherry]

We all yearned for it on the inside. Everyone wanted it back, we just didn't know it until [as] teased us with the possibility. It awakened the desire.

[Dark_Lord_Khrima]

All that is likely what prompted the initial April Fools prank, so it's not like they didn't realize there was a large fan base that wanted to see Toonami again. They just didn't know if it was large enough to warrant bringing it back.

[SpaceshipEDM]

You're kidding me man. There were plenty of people interested in toonami. Yes, there was a lack in forums and activity proposing toonami but it was really because no one felt like they could anything anymore. It just felt like toonami was going be gone forever and we'd never get another chance again. It had been 4 years of pleading for toonami to come back. It had been 4 years of some people claiming ratings would plummet if there was not a change in cartoonnetworks programs in general. It just finally felt like we had no power for toonami and that it was over. There were definitely people, at least in the years of 2008 and 2009 working actively for toonami by messaging and there are forums.

Even when you went on youtube you could probably find 100's of videos of people tributiing to toonami and begging for its return. Some of these videos had 200,000+ views. There was toonami aftermath and neo toonami (though that's not developed). Before April 1st, there were many people who wanted toonami back but there were few who felt they could anything about it. It was just a thought that sat in the back of my head and rarely came up every now and then.

Even bringing back Cartoon Planet caught me by surprise. I was totally shocked to see cartoonnetwork moving in the direction of nostalgia. I just thought they were going to disregard things like The 90's Are All That. So toonami completely caught me by surprise. I wasn't expecting it at all. I really do wonder who at CN and [as] has been proposing these things.

To me it's just stupid that williams street was honestly expecting to do something like this and then expect for AS ACTN to go back to what it regularly was. It was like lighting a building that had cooled down because no one was looking at it back on fire. That was just messing with a really dusty and forgotten but a really important concept. How could they mess with something that was important to people, even if it was old? The network was  finally giving its fans the chance to have some power and telling them that our pleading wasn't useless, even if it was made mostly a few years ago. Yes it's known that toonami isn't going to be nostalgia 24/7 but its revival should try and carry on its legacy of groundbreaking anime programs, I hope.

[FuryThree]

Recalibrate your sarcasm detector... The OP was kidding you, man.

On the other side of things, ASA was becoming extremely stale and lacking in identity. The bumps that air Saturday nights are meaningless and off-putting. There's no promotion or hyping of programming, nothing to lead viewers in or paraphrase the content. That's especially toxic when the shows being aired have a convoluted or complicated premise.

[funky_branca]

obvious sarcasm y'all

[ToonDude]

No way. I mean, if they hadn't done that April Fools Day joke I would never have known that other people still wanted Toonami back. I was expected to see one maybe two posts about it but the storm that came after was truly surprising.

[SpaceshipEDM]

Did toonami leave a huge legacy important to its viewers?

yes

Did toonami set an example for the way anime should be run?

yes

Right then and there, you should know people wanted it back.

[BJCHESTER]

My two cents, keep in mind these are mostly just my observations; I seem to remember around the last few years of Toonami's existence, that the general schedule of Cartoon Network seemed to be heavily filled by Anime and not just on Adult Swim, or at least American made animation with a Japanese aesthetic (see Anime Fantastic Four, Ben Ten, Beyblade, and Yu Gi-Oh). The way I see it, maybe folks like myself, who enjoyed Cowboy Bebop and Yu Yu Hakusho, but don't consider themselves devout Anime fans, felt that there was just an over-saturation, and what's more, it unneccesary to have an entire block dedicated to what seemed to be available elsewhere. That said, obviously CN isn't airing nearly as much, or at the same volume of Anime, or even action-oriented programming, as it once did, and hence a block for such programming seems more logical now. Personally, I'd like to see a variety of programs on the new Toonami, mixing American, European and Japanese animation. That's just me though. Oh, and I'm new to the boards.

[TheJenkemKhid]

I'm surprised no one found out sooner!

[KouTheMad]

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BJCHESTER wrote:

My two cents, keep in mind these are mostly just my observations; I seem to remember around the last few years of Toonami's existence, that the general schedule of Cartoon Network seemed to be heavily filled by Anime and not just on Adult Swim, or at least American made animation with a Japanese aesthetic (see Anime Fantastic Four, Ben Ten, Beyblade, and Yu Gi-Oh). The way I see it, maybe folks like myself, who enjoyed Cowboy Bebop and Yu Yu Hakusho, but don't consider themselves devout Anime fans, felt that there was just an over-saturation, and what's more, it unneccesary to have an entire block dedicated to what seemed to be available elsewhere. That said, obviously CN isn't airing nearly as much, or at the same volume of Anime, or even action-oriented programming, as it once did, and hence a block for such programming seems more logical now. Personally, I'd like to see a variety of programs on the new Toonami, mixing American, European and Japanese animation. That's just me though. Oh, and I'm new to the boards.

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i agree, i think more shows need a mix of different styles.

i mean look at Avatar, its a mix of Western Animation and Anime and look at what it's done for itself.

i wake up every morning to watch it, and i usually sleep until the afternoon.

there were a few shows that also did this like that Fantastic Four Cartoon you mentioned (which i liked) and Totally Spies (i'm gonna get made fun of for that one)

[Chambeo]

we all wanted it back

[animedreamer]

I've been jonsing for Toonami for a long time... 

[SaintCervixCancer]

We have Twitter to thank for bringing it back. So eat a ####, message forums and emails.