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By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
“When did you first get into anime?” is the kind of question mostly reserved for middle-aged nerds. Anyone younger than that grew up in a culture completely steeped in Japanese animation along with Western cartoons clearly looking up to their eastern cousins. For many children of the 80s (myself included), the answer to that question was Toonami, Cartoon Network’s groundbreaking programming block that introduced many youngsters to legendary anime productions such as Dragon Ball Z a Sailor Moon. This year, the network brought back some of its original programming through a special Friday block called Toonami Rewind, but its recent cancellation has sent shockwaves through the nostalgic nerd community.
Toonami Rewind is Dead
The original Toonami died in 2008 and was resurrected (via a prank on April Fool’s Day, no less) in 2012, and continues to air programs every Saturday night. The idea behind Toonami Rewind was essentially to double this block of programming each week, with Saturday night focusing on newer shows and Friday being reserved for a throwback block featuring Dragon Ball Z Kai, Sailor Moona Naruto. The programming block intros and interstitial bumpers still featured the modern Toonami Tom and Sarah as hosts, and the short block intros often referred to nostalgic memories like coming home from school and putting off homework to watch awesome cartoons .
It’s fair to say that Toonami Rewind, like normal Toonami, always had a very specific audience in mind… not only did the audience have to have cable TV of some stripe (increasingly rare in the age of cord-cutting), but they would probably prefer to watch hours of full commercial programs rather than just binge watching their favorite shows streaming. The network clearly decided that not enough people were tuning in, which is why Toonami Rewind is being replaced with more True Past (including Cartoon Network originals). For this nostalgic fan, however, the death of Toonami Rewind is like watching an old friend die for the second time.
That doesn’t mean this block is perfect. From the beginning, I was disappointed that Toonami Rewind did not include new voice dubs for the older Tom and Sara animations. I would have loved to hear more of the sweet music from that era of Toonami promos, and it’s a bit sad that I had to resort to archival videos on YouTube for my fix rather than relying on Cartoon Network itself. Still, though, this programming block revealed many fond memories of falling in love with anime for the first time, and it was also a way to introduce younger otaku to these basic series.
Toonami Rewind was good and had the potential to be great, and I was still waiting for Cartoon Network to invest more in this nostalgic block. But it stayed put from the start, never straying from a small handful of intros and the same stable of interchangeable shows. Forget watching the block hug later beloved shows like Gundam Wing. Judging by the selection of shows, Toonami Rewind remained forever stuck in the ’90s.
Because of this, I’m sad to see the death of Toonami Rewind, but I’m not all that surprised. This block seems to have lacked solid network support from the start, and it’s a bit of a miracle that it made it to the air in the first place. All things considered, I’m thankful that the main Toonami block continues (gotta get my fix of both Invincible Fighting Girl a Mashle: Magic and Muscles) although Rewind aired its last broadcast on December 27.
Unfortunately, Toonami Rewind died with more of a whimper than a bang, and only a few of us witnessed the silent death of anime’s greatest celebration. Younger fans might not remember or even care, but we almost certainly wouldn’t have the release of Dragon Ball Z spin-offs and games (anyone else too bad for Sparking Zero?) if the original Toonami hadn’t been transformed into a worldwide sensation. Toonami Rewind was an imperfect but perfectly charming celebration of the good old days, and if anyone needs me, I’ll try to convince David Zaslav to collect the Dragon Balls and wish him back to life.
