What will the schedule be? This is the question on every Toonami fan's mind, and the subject of many opinion threads. Well, here is what we know and what we don't know.
Adult Swim has not released an official schedule as of today, May 17, 2012.
Toonami will be broadcast from Midnight to 6:00AM on Saturday night/Sunday morning.
Some of the old Toonami shows will be included.
Some anime new to both Toonami and Adult Swim will be included.
ยท TOONAMI - Beginning Saturday, May 26, Adult Swim brings back Toonami, the network's popular block of anime programming. Airing weekly from midnight to 6 a.m. (ET/PT), in addition to the return of previous series featured in Toonami, Adult Swim is also developing new original anime programming for fans.
There is much controversy around the statement "developing new original anime programming." Some say that this means they are doing join production ventures, as they have done in the past with The Big O II and IGPX. Others say that this is just PR speak for licensing new anime for broadcast. Perhaps it means they are funding the dub for some newly licensed anime which was previously only subtitled. Another theory is that they are producing American cartoons that are anime inspired. Whatever it is, I think a mix of old school and totally new is exactly what they need.
The only bad bit of news here is that time slot... but I'll get into that in another article.
I never thought this day would come until Adult Swim so recently started letting on that it was in consideration, but they announced today that Toonami is officially coming back to Cartoon Network as a part of Adult Swim. The announcement is on the adult swim website. Today is the upfront for Adult Swim, so there was talk of an announcement on Twitter, but it was all rumor. Steve Blum tweeted out that something "juicy" was going to drop around 6PM EDT. Then around 5PM EDT, the news was out, and again, the Internet exploded.
On April 4, 2012 at 5:32PM Easter Standard Time, Adult Swim (@adultswim) posted on their Twitter feed the response that we have been waiting for since Monday:
#BringBackToonami We've heard you. Thank you for your passion and interest - stay tuned.
Does this mean that Toonami's return is official? Not yet. They purposefully did not commit themselves, but what this does mean is that they heard, and they heard it loud and clear. They know how many of us want Toonami back and how strongly we feel about that. What's even better? I now believe that we are going to get it. Even though they did not commit themselves, they got a clear response, and they indicated that we can expect some kind of clear response out of them in the future. Even though I was so skeptical before about April 1st's special broadcast from the Absolution being anything more than a one-time treat, I see now that it would not make sense to put so much time and effort into that night if it was not a pilot for more to come. I think its clear that they animated new sequences, and there is no doubt that they recorded new audio for TOM from Steve Blum (@blumspew). That takes money and time, and Adult Swim does not seem to have a huge budget. I think we can rest assured now that it was a pilot, and I don't see anything standing in the way after the response we gave them this week.
Could network executives can it? Sure. That would not be the first atrocious decision they had ever made. Ahem.. CN Real... Ahem. If the executives were dead set against this, however, I'm sure it would not have made it this far. I think we are golden at this point. Commence getting your hopes up, comrades.
For all those Toonami faithful out there, this is a historic event. This is the first time that there was ever a real chance to get Toonami back in our lives and on our televisions. For years there has been a fervent fandom bemoaning the loss of the most beloved segment of Cartoon Network's programming; a segment that featured epic action cartoons such as Dragonball Z and Batman: The Animated Series, hosted by artificial life forms TOM and SARA aboard the Absolution somewhere in space. Since its cancellation many of those fans have sought out ways, such as signing petitions, to try and convince Cartoon Network to put Toonami back on the air. I am one of the most fervent fans of ancillary animated segments with the crew of the Absolution that tied the block together and gave it that super cool atmosphere, but alas, I never had much hope for it returning. I had lost faith in Cartoon Network, and certainly did not think that they would listen to us... but then yesterday everything changed.
