Just revealed on Toonami’s Facebook page, it has been announced that the anime classic Outlaw Star will be returning to the better cartoon show on August 19th at 2:30am Eastern. Outlaw Star will be replacing Ghost in the Shell on the lineup, as the latter will be wrapping up its rerun of the 1st GIG the week before.
Originally airing from January 8 to June 25, 1998 in Japan, Toonami aired Outlaw Star from January 15 to February 16, 2001 back when Toonami aired on weekday afternoons, with reruns also airing on Adult Swim during its launch later that year.
For those unfamiliar with the show, the synopsis is as follows (via Anime News Network):
“Gene Starwind and his partner Jim Hawking run a small business on the backwater planet of Sentinel III. But all that changes the day that Hilda hires them for a bodyguard job. Now, thrust into a mystery they don’t fully understand, they’re on the run from the cops, the pirates, an angry alien, and a mysterious assassin. But they’ve got one thing going in their favor-they have the galaxy’s most advanced ship, the Outlaw Star.”
Toonami will be airing the HD re-mastered version of the series by Sunrise, with the original English dub by Bandai Entertainment. Funimation, who now assumes the license for distribution in North America, has just recently released a Blu-Ray and DVD of this remaster back in June 13, 2017.
Jason DeMarco has mentioned that Toonami will be showcasing Outlaw Star mostly uncut this time around with the modern version of the block being more lenient in showcasing mature content compared to back when the show originally aired. However Episode 23, titled “Hot Springs Planet Tenrei”, will require some editing due to issues of nudity and other sexual content, though to what extent the censors will be is still yet to be known. Episode 23 was infamously known for being skipped over entirely from the original Toonami broadcast because of these issues.
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What do you think about Outlaw Star’s return? Let us know in the comments below.