Anime Farewell Toonami

[Iruka Sensei]

[CENTER]As of September 20th of 2008 which happens to be a Saturday, Tom the robot from Toonami sadly announced the discontinuation of the Toonami block. Miserably, there are no reports on why it was cancelled but there has been speculation among the anime community that it was cancelled due to shows being butchered as much as they were and the rating where not high enough. This is very understandable because when something doesn’t do well it does get cancelled; however, in this case there was no way of knowing that Toonami was going to be cancelled due to poor rating if there were any.

I, myself, found this out Monday morning when reading a friend’s myotaku site. She had stated that Toonami had been cancelled for no reason at all. I do not entirely understand it either, nevertheless, I had a feeling I knew the reason and that is due to ratings. There were a few shows on there that I did not care to watch. To be honest, I only watched it to watch one of my favorite animes which happens to be Naruto. (I really do not care about your opinion on Naruto and this article has nothing to do with the dubbed version of it so please let’s stay on topic here.)

Nevertheless, over the last eleven years, when looking back at it, maybe there were signs that it was going to leave us eventually? If we were to take a look back at it, Toonami started in 1997 as a weekday afternoon action-animation block, which was hosted by Moltar from 1997-1999. Then in 1999 TOM was introduced to us, a small robot but very cool looking for that time. Over the years TOM evolved from a short chubby robot to a taller one with more muscle and more of a body frame. There has been exactly 4 different TOM’s which has ranged over many years. TOM 1 aired from July 10, 1999-September 22, 2000. TOM 2 aired from September 23, 2000-March 14, 2003. TOM 3 aired from March 17, 2003-March 10-2007. Lastly, was TOM 4 March 17, 2007-September 20, 2008. Sadly, the last TOM was the least desirable one due to his looks. From a rad looking robot that wore a visor that looked pretty powerful to a nimble, weak, and odd face looking robot I can see why fans did not enjoy the latest TOM. Many viewers stopped watching the new Toonami block in 2007 due to the so called upgrade of TOM and his new friends T and Flash. Steven Blum, the voice of TOM, over the last 8 years has been probably the best choice in the matter of who should TOM be voiced by, but sadly Cartoon Network or Steven Blum have not had any words about the cancellation of the Toonami block.

[img]http://media-worlds.theotaku.com/7936-502215-20080923203600.jpg[/img]

Do you remember way back when in the golden era when Toonami was on weekdays and it aired on weekdays nights as well? Ah yes, I do remember after school running home to watch some of my favorite animes such as[I] DragonBall Z, Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo, Gundams, Card Captor Sakura, and Rurouni Kenshin[/I]. Even at night I wasn’t able to sleep because if I missed the day time airing, most of the time, I could just catch it once again later that night. But over time, Adult Swim took over the night block for shows and then Toonami was kicked to the curve for Saturday mornings. Eventually, it was then later brought up to Saturday nights where it has resigned for the last 5-6 years. Slowly but surely, was Toonami telling us that this block was eventually suppose to up and disappear? I doubt it, though, I do recall many shows that Toonami discontinued or never really finished when it aired in the Toonami time slot such as Rurouni Kenshin and Yu Yu Hakusho. Maybe this was the part of the downfall?

Is Cartoon Network all about ratings now? Nonetheless, is this was the reason behind the cancellation of Toonami? Right now the answers are unclear and probably will be left that way for some time yet, however, we shall know the truth soon enough. Cartoon Network has gone downhill to say the least, if you were to compare the shows that we the old generations used to watch compared to today’s idiotic shows, you can see a difference between the cartoons and what was really expected from them. Cartoon Network’s policy used to be to air shows that would bring in all different types of audiences and because of that they were a favorite among the TV networks and at a time was doing better than Disney channel and Nick, on the other hand, I doubt that is the case now. I guess, the happiness of the viewers is not as important to them as the happiness of the money they receive each day.

Though I had missed the final airing of Toonami, I thought it was appropriate to at least point out some things I had watched when viewing it on YouTube and give you the touching words from TOM on that fateful night. I realize many may not agree with my opinions, however, I have enjoyed Toonami ever since I was 8 years old and next week I will be going on 20. I have enjoyed watching it ever since I could remember and because of Toonami I am an anime freak! There is no denying it nor are there any regrets for having Toonami be the one to get me involved with anime. I bet for many of you, the story is the same.

So in conclusion, we should all be thankful for all the good memories we shared with Toonami let be for better or for worse. Hopefully shows such as Naruto will continue to be aired on Cartoon Network in a different form. From his farewell speech Tom ends by saying “BANG!” which happens to be a famous quote from a character known as Spike Bebop from Cowboy Bebop since Steven Blum did the voice for him. I think that the way Tom ended the transmission and flying out into the world of nothingness was pretty neat, and hopefully from his words he might return. We can only hope. So thanks for the memories Toonami. The years were great and you shall never be forgotten, only missed. Live life to the fullest and stay gold everyone. Yes, stay gold until we meet again.

[YOUTUBE="Farewell Toonami"]gCAX4cgszCU[/YOUTUBE]

[I]“Well, this is the end Beautiful Friends! After more than 11 Years, this is Toonami’s final broadcast. It’s been a lot of fun. We would like to thank each every one of you who made this journey with us. Toonami wouldn’t have been anything without you. Hopefully we have left you with some good memories. So, until we meet again, stay gold! BANG!” [B]- Tom[/B][/I][/CENTER]

[Tsu-chan]

Aww...I used to watch Toonami all the time....though I stopped a while back...they seemed to start showing less and less anime for a while and I dunno what they've done as of late. I wasn't overly fond of the newest Tom either...liked the one just before the new one in that video clip.