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After ten long years, Naruto Shippuden has concluded its run on Toonami. It surprises me that Naruto managed to last this long considering it has been running consistently since it first premiered on the block in January of 2014. After a long journey starting with the original Naruto premiering on Cartoon Network’s Toonami in 2005, the sequel premiered on Disney XD in 2009, airing for 98 episodes before being removed. For it to land back on Toonami’s Adult Swim incarnation and then airing completely over the span of a decade was nothing short of amazing. However, even though fans had been willing to celebrate the finale, Toonami opted to do nothing. No acknowledgements, no promos, not even a farewell music video for it on the day it ended. The following week they did do a special intro acknowledging Shippuden was over. A little late, but the gesture is appreciated, yet it still feels like an afterthought. Regardless of how you felt about Naruto Shippuden, you cannot ignore that it was a reliable show throughout those ten years. When Toonami picked up new long-running shows, and even Shippuden’s own franchise continuation, Boruto, Shippuden was the sturdy rock in the Toonami lineup to hold its timeslot. To not give it any kind of proper send-off is both sad and disappointing. I remember back in 2014, when Bleach was coming to a close, they gave it a proper finale promo, and when One Piece was leaving the block originally, the Toonami crew gave it a final send off, while later celebrating its return with multiple promos when they brought it back in 2022.
It’s not just the Shippuden finale alone that has gotten me bothered. It feels like Toonami has lost itself and has become more corporate and cold opposed to the feel of a passionate group of people inside of Williams Street who wanted to revive the block as a place to showcase cool cartoons. Back in 2012 it was basically the DIY low budget experiment, asking themselves and the audience “what can we get away with for very little money?” The answer to that came by calling in favors from various licensors, convincing them to strike deals for titles.
However, as time has gone on and Toonami has grown, so has its reach inside of Warner itself. As 2024 crawls to its end, it feels like we are getting less from the block each passing week. We get topical promos for some shows, but not more than a couple at a time. We may get a game review if they have one made, or an inspirational speech if they have something in mind, but a new TOM speech hasn’t been produced in a long while. Meanwhile, the bumps tend to stay the same for months on end and they’ve stopped doing lineup promos. I would say the only consistently neat things they have done as of late are ID bumps, which are made up of fun little animation projects that showcase TOM and SARA in various art styles. They’re cool but they shouldn’t be the only thing that makes Toonami what it is. I understand that there is a small team who work on these for free. This is added work on top of their normal day to day operations at Adult Swim. Yet, it feels like that small team is limited in what they can do. Be it manpower or just their bosses telling them to strip back. Whatever it may be, bumps aren’t the reason why Toonami has lasted this long.
The reason why Toonami has persisted for over twenty-five years is not just because it was a block that showed foreign cartoons. Toonami did not invent that, as there were other blocks before it that aired anime. But none of those had the reach that Toonami had, and certainly none had the same impact as what it managed to accomplish. Its success came down to its vibe, host, and extra goodies that kept the audience interested. Toonami’s vibe has and always will be about chilling out and enjoying some quality animation. It felt very inclusive, you don’t have to be into anime to enjoy Toonami and while the community can often be a lot to deal with, the good apples made interacting and celebrating the block every week enjoyable, from having open discussions on the lineup itself, to predicting what series may come next, to interacting as shows ran on it every Saturday night. The hosts had a lot to do with this too. Starting off with Moltar, the block quickly pivoted away from existing Warner characters to create their own original character, TOM. TOM was a brilliant move to introduce a new look but also bring out a friendlier face, something that looked new-aged for Y2K but still timeless enough that TOM could age with the block’s audience. Aside from TOM 4 in the final years of Toonami’s Cartoon Network run, every new iteration of TOM, even through its Adult Swim revival, sees evolution of the character, beginning with the “atomic belly” of TOM 1 and following through to the current badass look of TOM 6. Toonami aged the character, but in a subtle way that still makes him look fresh and new to both a new audience and long-time viewers alike. As a host, TOM never talked down or acted condescending to the viewer and that’s still true to this day. He’s the laid-back host who is here to show off cool things and exciting shows, so grab a seat and stay if you like. If something doesn’t appeal to you, that’s no big deal, maybe the next show will be interesting to your tastes. Retaining the longtime voice of TOM, Steve Blum, also helps sell that vibe, especially as the block continues to age.
The extra goodies they made also brought everything together to make Toonami what it is. Lineup promos used to be commonplace at least for the Adult Swim era, showcasing the new additions to the block and advertising them to people who may have missed initial promos, but it seems like they don’t think it’s worth the time or investment to do those anymore. They stopped doing “menus”, best known as the infamous “Now, Next, Later” bumps, in 2016. I understand why they decided to gut them, as they are a network packaging thing which were originally made at a time where looking up what would be coming up next on a network wasn’t all too common, but they did bring extra personality to Toonami through seeing these menu bumps show up with unique music a look at the current show in a custom short, cut of a scene that gives the viewer a good idea of the tone of a show. Seeing those along with a list of what was on deck to finish the block was always a highlight of the night for me. It’s sad, but I understand why they aren’t doing it anymore for the main block or Toonami Rewind. They also used to air music videos but they stopped doing those because it seems the network needs more ad time space, and what’s the first thing to gut out? Those music videos cost money. We’ll occasionally get something like a new variant of the classic “Criminal Threats” promo, but it really feels more like an afterthought. While they made one this year, I don’t remember anything specific about it and I couldn’t tell you if anything stands out about it.
These days it feels more and more like Toonami is on autopilot. While I’m glad that Warner is keeping the block around, it feels like there’s a caveat with that that says “yes, Toonami can continue but don’t expect a ton of investment outside of producing originals for the block”, and those originals are largely supported because it feeds back into their platform, the streaming service known as MAX (formerly known as HBO Max). It feels like, for the most part, Warner Brothers Discovery doesn’t care if Toonami sinks or swims with the limited resources it has at hand and instead only cares that they get content to fill Max that’ll appeal to the anime audience. But at that point, that isn’t Toonami or what makes it special. Just giving them limited space to do fun things or grab new series limits the appeal and as I mentioned before, Toonami isn’t just a block, it’s an experience; one that’s unique and that you can’t get through streaming or even FAST channels.
While it’s cool to have Toonami on during primetime hours on Fridays with Rewind, that feels like it is just a giant ad for the main block at the end of the day. It’s great they kept the retro packaging (without menus) along with the current look of the block, but it still lacks that “special sauce” that makes Toonami feel special. Rewind doesn’t do anything more than just show anime and run bumps, and at this point, they haven’t pulled out old promos from the past to rerun. They did that for Toonami’s 25th anniversary and even still have the remasters fans did. Running goodies like those as a fun little thing for Rewind would incur little-to-no cost to them, but even still, that’s probably not what the corporation wants or what Adult Swim is looking for. They treat Toonami Rewind the same as the Checkered Past block, except Checkered Past has been growing its reach and has even brought back recognizable aspects like the “text-to-speech” voice they used for early Adult Swim promos. You know you screwed up somewhere when more effort is being placed into a “freebie” block that’s rerunning older Cartoon Network shows that CN itself doesn’t want to air anymore. Granted, Toonami Rewind is still fairly new, but it began in May, and we still haven’t seen much in terms of other packaging yet.
This also extends a bit into their presence at conventions. Since the pandemic, Toonami has not gone back to Momocon, one of their local-to-Atlanta anime conventions. Momocon was always that convention they would show up at, and it was one of the highlights of the year with new show announcements, behind the scenes info, and Q&A with the audience. Even this year, when Toonami had enough announcements to host their own panel at San Diego Comic Con, they just opted to drop all the anime news for the block during the Rick and Morty Anime panel. To me, it feels like a giant slap in the face to the fans when you need to lump in all these announcements with one of the biggest IPs that Adult Swim ever greenlit. I understand some things needed to be cut back after the pandemic, especially because marketing has changed so much in ten years, but it really feels like Toonami has lost the connection with its fans it used to have.
I remember when they operated their own Tumblr as their primary way to engage with fans, but they don’t use it anymore, and the Tumblr hasn’t been updated in years. While they did shift over to a Facebook page, it too might as well be abandoned at this point. Yes, they put out promos and lineup announcements, but the Facebook page isn’t used for announcing upcoming originals or other general engagement. Instead, that’s all handled by Adult Swim’s social media channels and/or a press release. I remember them making huge splashes when they announced Samurai Jack Season Five on Tumblr, and the same thing happened when they announced FLCL Progressive and Alternative on its Facebook page. Now? Nothing. They didn’t even acknowledge Rooster Fighter or post anything on it at this moment in time.
It frustrates me as someone who has been a fan of Toonami for a very long time to see the block in this anemic state. I’m not at any point thinking the block is dying or that the sky is falling or whatever (despite what some might think based on previous editorials). I simply believe that what made Toonami great isn’t there anymore and it’s disappointing to think about. As the years go on, Warner Brothers Discovery has slowly but surely sanded off the rough edges of the block, and even though they’ll do something here and there, it isn’t the same. Not what it once was anyways. This was in no means meant to be a downer to the people who are working hard inside of Adult Swim to deliver the best block they can but it’s obvious their hands are tied. I’m sure regardless of what us fans think, the block will march forward but the state that Toonami was in, what made it so unique just feels like it is no longer there. Instead, it has become like any other block that came before it: “Come for the shows or leave, we don’t care.” The shows are certainly why people come to Toonami, but it’s everything else that made people stay and have a strong connection with the block. If only Warner could see that for itself.
