Anime Highlight: The Return of Toonami!! (Or Something Very Close to It…)

That's right, pick those jaws up from the floor: Toonami's back, b******…
(Background image: From official site)

Hi, this is HD again from HardDoor. I last posted in here at TeddyChanTastical! in February with a review of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time for Valentine's Day, so this time, Teddy-chan asked if I'd contribute something regarding the revival of the Cartoon Network's beloved Toonami anime block, which made its surprising return this past Saturday night on Adult Swim after taking an even more-surprising bow in 2008. Originally a trip down memory lane for the channel's annual April Fool's Day celebration, the massive amount of positive buzz and nostalgia generated by the one-night-only event gave AS honcho (and former Toonami producer) Jason DeMarco enough of an impetus less than two months later to resurrect the block in place of AS' mainstay anime timeslot--at least for a test run (or is that a "Midnight Test Run"?).

Now sporting updated HD graphics for its robotic TOM mascot/host and a new lease on life, as well as two new titles, is this the same Toonami (or as Teddy-chan called it, "TWOnami") that everyone remembered and loved on April 1st and from bygone days (albeit with the added benefit of late night's looser censorship)?

Well, yes and no.
Yes, it certainly is Toonami, in spirit and in form. That renegade feel and cool factor is there, as exemplified by the graphics and bumps, as well as that familiar Toonami "attitude". The most important part of the block--the action-centric shows--is there, too, but one look at the lineup will tell you otherwise. Outside of BLEACH and the two debuting anime, all of the other titles present are Adult Swim mainstays. Even then, in spite of its more "mature" timeslot (the aforementioned two being too much for, only BLEACH seems like the most "Toonami"-like show on the schedule (and ironically, it never aired on the original block). In essence, this "Toonami" feels like nothing more than Adult Swim with "Toonami" painted onto its veneer. One might have expected a few legacy titles like Gundam Wing, Outlaw Star, and Tenchi Muyo! to at least be mixed in with the AS titles, but that does not appear to be the case, at least, for now.

Regardless, the block's producers did a good job, at least in selecting its two newest entries: Deadman Wonderland and Casshern Sins. Deadman Wonderland, animated by the relatively young studio manglobe (Samurai Champloo, Ergo Proxy), follows the tale of an average high school boy who is wrongfully accused and sentenced for the gory massacre of his entire class, of which he was the sole survivor of and witness to the strange, true killer of the group. He is left to fend for himself at the titular privately-owned prison/sadistic amusement park, where he is encountered by a bizarre-looking girl and discovers an equally-strange power of his own.

Between the two series, DW is perhaps the most well-equipped for success, featuring impressive animation and attractive designs, not to mention shock value and, yes, all that violence. The first episode did well in painting a warped picture of the young boy's ordeal, but some of the plot's more sensational aspects, like that of the amusement park, seemed a little hard-to-swallow and the whip-neck movement of the story in the episode's second half made the whole thing feel rushed as a whole. However, the real problem with it lied in its dub, whose voices were suitable, yet unremarkable, and whose script, in particular, tried too hard to be "gritty" and "hip" without much added substance. The screenwriter, J. Michael Tatum, is a very good voice actor, but not very good at his given position here, as his penchant for overwriting things, adding heavy profanity to sound "cool", and punching lines up with ill-fitting slang made the dialogue sound awkward and the lines artificial and lacking credibility when coming out of the characters' mouths. On the flip side, those sort of things were among those that got many people buzzing on Twitter, at least, and based on the positive words and attention there, perhaps DW is poised to be a big hit already (though social media indexes should be taken with a grain of salt…).

Given the kind of show it is, Deadman Wonderland's success is perhaps a given, but Casshern Sins' potential is a little more difficult to pin. It has very stylish and brutal robot-on-robot fighting (and killing), a distinct and attractive old-school aesthetic, and a rather interesting tale of a powerful, yet amnesic, android wandering a decaying Earth and contending with both fractured memory and scores of robots hoping to eat him to gain immortality and be saved from "the ruin". It, too, has the makings of a big hit, but there is another aspect to CS to contend with: it is a depressing (and sometimes very depressing) show. Having already seen the whole series, it is a great one, but it is certainly a downer, as well, so one's mileage may vary. Adult Swim/Toonami rarely post such shows, and while it has the action and style going for it, it remains to be seen how audiences receive the consistently-dour events of future episodes to come, especially when there aren't ones with Casshern lithely tearing a robot apart. Despite its crowd-pleasing positives, I wasn't sure how people were going to react to the show, but it appears to have struck the right chord with most viewers and created curiosity in where it will all go. That in of itself is worthy of curiosity as the show continues on…

It is perhaps better to say that Toonami--the brand--returned last Saturday and not the Toonami of many a youth--or even of this past April Fool's. As disappointing as was to see predominately the same lineup as the former Adult Swim-branded lineup (AS' presence wasn't lost, by any means), at least they got the aura of it right. Deadman Wonderland and Casshern Sins would never have shown up on the original afternoon version of Toonami, but on this more mature, late-night rendition, both titles fit right at home and appear to have promising runs. In a certain respect, Toonami's a bit more "grown-up" now, alongside much of the fanbase that grew up watching it as young teens and tweeners. There's no need to censor things as much (including the older Toonami shows), for example, you can watch stuff like DW now, and you won't get into too much trouble for it, either. That paves the way now for a lot more shows, and with the "Toonami" brand attachment, it should hopefully bring in older block aficionados and perhaps even some newer viewers not normally accustomed to anime, based on increased word of mouth.

Last Saturday proved promising, but this Saturday will prove most important. Will those same viewers, so enthusiastic before, return for the second episodes of Deadman Wonderland and Casshern Sins (and, perhaps, spread that all-important word about the block and those titles)? Even so, will they be buzzing during it and afterwords again? And how about down the line: what will Toonami do to bolster its cause? New show selection is key, but what about those titles that led to Toonami being resurrected in the first place? Good ratings will determine Toonami's continual existence, and though the signs appear to be somewhat positive, the rest truly remains to be seen…