By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
“When did you first get into anime?” is the kind of question reserved mostly for middle-aged nerds. Anyone younger than that grew up in a culture completely infused with Japanese animation along with Western cartoons clearly aping their Eastern cousins. For many ’80s kids (myself included), the answer to that question was Toonami, Cartoon Network’s seminal programming block that introduced countless young people to legendary anime productions such as Dragon Ball Z and 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 a shockwave through the nostalgic nerd community.
Toonami Rewind Dies
The original Toonami died in 2008 and was resurrected (via an April Fool’s Day prank, no less) in 2012, and it continues to air programming every Saturday night. The idea behind Toonami Rewind was to essentially double up this programming block each week, with Saturday night focusing on newer shows and Friday being reserved for a throwback block consisting of Dragon Ball Z Kai, Sailor Moon, and Naruto. The programming block’s intros and interstitial bumpers still featured the modern Toonami Tom and Sarah as hosts, and the brief block intros would often reference nostalgic memories such as coming home from school and putting off homework to watch killer cartoons.
It’s fair to say that Toonami Rewind, like the regular 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 era of cord-cutting), but they would have to prefer to watch hours of commercial-laden programming rather than just binge-watching their favorite shows on streaming. The network clearly decided that not enough people were tuning in, which is why Toonami Rewind is getting replaced with more Checkered Past (featuring original Cartoon Network). For this nostalgic fan, though, the death of Toonami Rewind is like watching an old friend die for the second time.
That doesn’t mean this block was perfect. From the beginning, I was disappointed that Toonami Rewind didn’t feature new voice dubs over 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 little sad that I have had to turn to archival videos on YouTube for my fix rather than relying on Cartoon Network itself. Still, though, this programming block unlocked plenty of pleasant memories about falling in love with anime for the first time, and it also served as a way to introduce younger otaku to these foundational series.
Toonami Rewind was good and had the potential to be great, and I just kept waiting for Cartoon Network to invest more in this nostalgic block. But it stayed static from the beginning, never really straying from a tiny handful of intros and the same relatable stable of shows. Forget watching the block embrace later beloved shows like Gundam Wing. To judge by the selection of shows, Toonami Rewind remained eternally stuck in the ‘90s.
Because of this, I am saddened to see the death of Toonami Rewind, but I’m not all that surprised. This block has seemingly lacked robust network support from the beginning, and it’s a bit of a miracle it made it to the air in the first place. All things considered, I’m just thankful that the main Toonami block lives on (gotta get my fix of both Invincible Fight Girl and Mashle: Magic and Muscles) despite Rewind airing its last broadcast on December 27.
Sadly, Toonami Rewind died with more of a whimper than a bang, and only a few of us bore witness to the quiet death of anime’s greatest celebration. Younger fans may not remember or even care, but we would almost certainly not have the glut of Dragon Ball Z spinoffs and games (anyone else just really bad at Sparking Zero?) if the original Toonami hadn’t transformed it 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 be trying to convince David Zaslav to gather the Dragon Balls and wish it back to life.
