05) The DC Animated Universe
You could call this cheating but if various long running shounen anime and their spin-offs can reasonably be lumped together then why not every series in the DCAU? Granted Toonami did not ever play Static Shock here much less The Zeta Project but it did house the majority of the series in the DCAU continuity. Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Justice League and Justice League Unlimited each aired for about the same amount of time on the block and all did their part in maintaining the presence of outstanding American action animation in nearly every line-up of Toonami from late 2000 until mid-2006.
Batman aired on Cartoon Network outside of Toonami a long time before it was added to the block and Justice League premiered on Cartoon Network outside of Toonami but Batman Beyond made its network premiere within Toonami and Justice League Unlimited had its entire run within Toonami as well. Out of all of those, Batman Beyond’s time on the block might be the most memorable as a singular entity. It was a series that fully embodied the combination of Eastern and Western animation styles presented on Toonami and possibly aired the most times on the block.
However, Batman: The Animated Series was the first to join the block and delightful treats like a Joker themed April Fool’s stunt. Another one of the more memorable programming stunts in Toonami’s history used Superman: TAS and Batman: TAS to pit the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel against each other and allowed the viewers to choose the victor. Surprisingly enough, Superman won the vote. A small victory for the series that is so often overshadowed by the ground-breaking animated Batman. The DCAU certainly did not begin on Toonami but it saw its conclusion on Toonami and was an important piece of the block’s history.
04) Naruto
In 2005, Toonami needed a new flagship with several of their more popular shows getting phased out or ending. Adult Swim seemed to be stealing a lot of Toonami’s thunder getting premieres like InuYasha, Fullmetal Alchemist and Case Closed. ShoPro, soon to be merged with Viz Media, had just landed the license for Naruto and hopes were high that Toonami was a viable option to air it. Just days later, Cartoon Network had their yearly upfront presentation and announced that Naruto would be joining Toonami that year.
I remember the elation at the news like it was yesterday and I also remember the sudden fear that Naruto would get massacred by content edits to make it pass Cartoon Network’s standards and practices. It turns out those fears were never warranted. Right out of the gate, Naruto became the first show on Toonami to air with a TV-PG-V rating in the daytime hours and the content edits only loosened up more as time went on. This helped broaden Toonami’s content standards to allow films such as Hellboy: Blood and Iron and Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke to air unscathed.
Naruto was a phenomenal success. Its impressive performance lead to Viz Media teaming up with Turner to create Toonami’s second video on-demand service that was ahead of it’s time: Toonami Jetstream. That in turn brought a handful more of Viz Media’s shows to the block. At one point Naruto practically was Toonami. It ended up being the last show still premiering episodes on Toonami when the block was cancelled. Though some are under the false-impression that Naruto ushered in Toonami’s demise it should be clear by now that despite all of Cartoon Network’s bone-head moves, Naruto was the reason that Toonami lasted as long as it did. Like any good captain, it went down with the ship.
03) Sailor Moon
Toonami was a quite a boys club before the Sailor Scouts came to town to shake up the status quo but Sailor Moon’s contributions only began there. Upon the initial run, Sailor Moon re-aired the episodes that had previously been seen on US television through syndicated broadcasts much like Voltron and Robotech before it. However, Sailor Moon had something neither of those shows had: a whole lot more episodes.
Sailor Moon became the first anime acquisition on Toonami to actually premiere episodes on the block. That began with the US premiere of a batch of episodes that had previously aired in Canada but never made it to US syndication. Following that, additional seasons were dubbed so that Toonami could air them.
The decision to acquire new episodes of Sailor Moon changed Toonami from a glorified rerun block, into the destination for new episodes of some of the best action cartoons around. The Powerpuff Girls, Card Captors, KILL la KILL and Michiko & Hatchin continued Sailor Moon’s tradition of shaking up the boy’s club but none can compare to the impact of Sailor Moon.
02) Gundam Wing
In 2000, Toonami had found some success in premiering new episodes of shows they saved from the pits of syndication but it was not until Gundam Wing made a flashy entrance that Toonami was able to premiere a series that was new to the US. Gundam had been a sensation in Japan for years but had never broken out in the west. Gundam Wing airing on Toonami changed that practically overnight. Along with that, the series greatly pushed the envelope with a Y7-FV cut that was still full of guns and violence and an uncut TV-PG airing for Toonami’s Midnight Run.
Gundam Wing was the first of many anime premieres from Bandai as other anime distributors. The success of the uncut run on The Midnight Run lead to bolder programming being shown exclusively on TMR and subsequently lead to the establishment of action programming on Adult Swim. In that sense, it not only changed Toonami’s programming scope dramatically but it secured the future home for Toonami. The series actually did not air for that many years but its significance is undeniable.