Adult Swim has begun celebrating Toonami‘s 25th Anniversary with a series of classic promos re-released online! The Adult Swim anime block has been through a ton of changes ever since it first began in 1997 as a weekday block running action cartoons on Cartoon Network. It has since changed not only to its current home of Saturday evenings, but has helped to shape the anime entertainment world in general thanks to its packaging making each new show cooler than the last. With hosts TOM and SARA introducing fans to all sorts of new worlds, many anime fans owe Toonami with their current love of the medium.
The highlight of this packaging was a series of promo videos throughout the years that saw each of Toonami’s shows backed with cool music, and action-packed scenes were edited together to form all kinds of cool messages to fans (such as believing in yourself, allowing yourself to dream for the future, and more highly positive promos). Most of these had been lost to time, unfortunately, but fans have helped Adult Swim bring back these promos in cool new ways. Showcasing some of these promos, Adult Swim’s official Twitter account has given fans flashbacks with the return of some of these classics:
Toonami turns 25 this Thursday – day ones will remember these #toonami25 pic.twitter.com/DdOzC2oK7H
The official YouTube page even brought together a remastered version of the “Broken Promise” AMV promo (as saved by @SlimD716) to bring the whole experience to the next level:
Toonami has changed the course of anime entertainment in North America forever. It was not only one of the first ways many fans had been able to watch anime in the United States, but was the first prominent platform to feature anime programming. It wasn’t shying away from how anime was perceived back then, and it fact promos like this helped to make it all the cooler to catch live. The fact that the block was able to come back from the brink after being canceled for so many years is another major testament to its staying power as well.
The block is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon with not only original anime productions in the pipeline, but a schedule that is arguably stronger than ever with a slate of series that fans have been asking to see on Toonami for some time. The 25th Anniversary officially kicks in on Thursday, and Toonami will be having a new Total Immersion Event, The Return, to celebrate on the next Saturday broadcast so fans will definitely want to tune in.
What do you think? Where were you when you first saw Toonami in action? Did it help to introduce you to the world of anime too? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!
