Surprise, surprise! Toonami, late during the night, announced a new Total Immersion Event! It was posted earlier on their website, but there wasn’t an on-air showcase of what’s to come till much of Toonami’s audience went to bed. But an event called “The Return” will kick off starting next week, and fans are excited since this may be the last TIE for quite some time. We are also partnering with Rightstuf during this week for a huge sale they are having on all kinds of Toonami series, and Toei Animation was hacked! There’s a ton of news and fan projects to get to, so join us for This Week From Toonami!
Late into Toonami’s broadcast, Adult Swim announced a brand new Total Immersion Event titled, “The Return“. It will be a two-part event that will begin next Saturday at midnight. According to Jason DeMarco, this looks to be the last TIE for quite some time, so hopefully, Toonami fans will be ready to see what will be coming to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the iconic block. We saw others mention this when a video popped up on Adult Swim’s website. And thankfully, this event was confirmed to be happening once it aired on the block, and DeMarco tweeted about it the following morning. Many are curious about what will happen, and theories are flying fast. The only way to find out is to tune into Toonami to learn more!
Toonami Faithful and Rightstuf are teaming up this week to help bring all the Toonami series you know and love to your doorstep. For this week to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Toonami, the store has a massive sale going on for any series they have that have been on Toonami! Throughout the week, we will be highlighting series that are currently on sale so you can finish off your collection or possibly find something for a loved one who enjoys Toonami! Make sure you keep an eye on our social feeds to avoid missing out on all the savings!
The Japanese cast for Shenmue the Animation has been revealed to debut this April! The cast list announcement included M.A.O as Joy, Osamu Taira as Ren Wuying, Shouta Hayama as Wong, and Takahiro Sumi as Dou Niu. Fans of the series already got a taste of these characters in English on Toonami this past week, but it’s nice that fans over in Japan will be getting to hear some of their favorite characters come to life in an all-new experience! Hopefully, fans are happy in both areas and give Shenmue more love as time moves forward.
Toei Animation announced this week that a third party hacked them. The unauthorized access to their network caused their systems to shut down, thus affecting the broadcast of many of their series, including One Piece. The matter is still being investigated, and so far, no new information besides that initial hack has been reported. We will keep you up to date if anything else comes out from this story that might continue to affect One Piece.
Sentai Filmworks published a new dub clip and a cast list for the fifth season of Food Wars! While this season hasn’t been announced to air on Toonami, one should feel confident that this will happen at some point (considering how Toonami likes to finish what they start). In the link below, you can check out a fun little clip to showcase the new season, and you can see all of returning and newly joined voice actors who will be enrolling in Tลtsuki Culinary Academy! Sentai Filmworks also shows what the standard home media release for the fifth season will look like for consumers! We are almost at the finish line for the iconic battle-chef series, and you’ll need to get your hands on this title if you’re a fan of Food Wars!
Hot of the presses, we have a defined year for when the Black Clover film will premiere. In a new P.V. to celebrate the manga’s seventh anniversary, we see Asta and the rest of the Black Bulls look battle-ready as he announces that in 2023, the new movie will happen! It’s an exciting development since the anime wrapped up both in Japan and Toonami. Now fans of Black Clover have to only wait one more year for the next installment on their favorite magic knight!
And that’s not the only reason for Black Clover to be in the news as a couple of new trailers to the mobile game was published! And the good news is that this game will get a global release, according to Weekly Shonen Jump. Are you as excited as we are about this latest development? We cannot wait to see more info about this mobile game when it becomes available, and we will be checking it out once you can play it on global servers!
During Sony’s State of Play stream this week, it was announced that JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle will be getting a remake this year! The game allows players to fight with any character in the JoJo world for those unfamiliar with this title. So not only can you reimagine the Jotaro Kujo fight against DIO, but you could have Joylene Cujoh duke it out with Joseph Joestar as well! It’s a fun arena fighting game that includes all the powers you come to know and love in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and will have the added cast of multiple series that were recently animated (since the first game debuted in 2013)! JoJo fans will want to stay tuned for more details as they become available.
More cast members of the One Piece live-action series were announced this week on Twitter. We now know who will be staring as Koby (Morgan Davies), Alvida (Ilia Isorelรฝs Paulino), Helmeppo (Aidan Scott), Buggy (Jeff Ward), Arlong (McKinley Belcher III), and Garp (Vincent Regan) rounding out a very fun cast for the project! We cannot wait to see how this live-action adaptation will look, considering the track record with Netflix and live-action anime adaptations. However, there is always a chance for something to work out despite fans’ feelings about the attempt.
And there’s more One Piece news for fans to check out as it was announced that the beloved anime would be getting a trading card game. The game will be released in July of 2022 in Japan, with an English release to follow after. Anime News Network has all the details on what fans can expect with the debut of this new card game!
The TCG will feature elements of the One Piece series from the past 25 years. The game will launch with four starter decks themed after the Straw Hats, the Worst Generation, Animal Kingdom Pirates, and the Seven Warlords of the Sea. There will also be a starter deck themed after characters from the anime films. The first booster pack series will be named “Romance Dawn,” which is the title of the first chapter of the One Piece manga, as well as the name of Oda’s one-shots that served as early versions of his current ongoing manga. The game will also get official card sleeves.
If you’re a collector of trading cards, and a fan of One Piece, this will be something you’ll want to look into when it is available.
GKids announced they had acquired the North American rights to four films from director Makoto Shinkai, including the movie Children Who Chase Lost Voices. That title should sound familiar to you because it aired on Toonami! Initially licensed by Sentai Filmworks, this film will now find GKids as its new home as the company plans to make a home media release for all four films!
The folks over at r/Toonami commissioned a wonderful illustration to commemorate the AMA’s they held in 2021. We wanted to spotlight it because two staff members and one former staff member were featured! In the artwork done by Neebles, you can see Editor-in-Chief CJ Maffris, Video Archiver and Graphics expect Junior, and former staff writer Alien Renagade alongside Bryson Baugus, Robb Moreria, and Max Simonet. You should check out their AMA’s on the r/Toonami page, and we can’t wait to see what new ones they have in store for the future.
With how popular this meme format has been for March, we decided to force fans’ hands to make their own Toonami lineup with a budget of $20. We only had room for 25 series, so we apologize for not putting down every series ever on the block (still cries in Black Clover being left out). However, we’d like to note that the dollar amount was not a ranking of the best shows. We wanted to place things in spots that could make for some exciting lineups and allow a bit more diversity than just everyone picking the same ones over and over. We hope you had as much fun as we did, and make sure to check out all the replies people made with their “Ultimate Toonami lineups!”
This week, a YouTube page titled HatsOffMedia published a video talking about the hit series Megas XLR. The host dives in about what made this series so special, all of the cool things Megas XLR had in it, and how it ended. Overall, the video does a great job telling the origin story of Megas XLR, highlighting all of the fantastic inspirations in the series and what led to Cartoon Network ultimately wrote off the series as a tax off that makes it impossible for more episodes to be made in the U.S. It’s a lengthy piece, but one that the host did a ton of research for, and we recommend you check it out when you have the chance!
On the latest episode of The Toonami Faithful Podcast, host Andrew “Sketch” Hingson is joined by Paul Pescrillo, Varun “VLordGTZ” Gupta, and Bryan “Laser Kid” Jonshon to talk about the merger between FUNimation and Crunchyroll. While this isn’t something Adult Swim related, the move could impact how easy (or difficult) it is for Toonami to grab new anime licensed by the company. So the group talks about it to give their thoughts on this significant change. But it was solely about this topic, as the group talked about the last two episodes of Shenmu the Animation, Cosmo Samurai, and began their celebration for the 25th anniversary of Toonami! It’s a jam-packed episode and one you’ll want to listen to when you have the chance.
Shenmue the Animation just wrapped up the main story of the first game on the latest episode! Staff writer Laser Kid breaks down how rewarding he felt this episode was and mentioned how much he enjoyed seeing other minor characters assist Ryo, despite not being as proficient in fighting. While veterans of the games might have wanted a bit more time to spend among the first game’s content, Laser Kid does think anyone who is a Shenmue fan will love watching this series. Plus, he figures that it can create new fans to try out the cult classic video games when they have the chance. Curious about all his thoughts about the latest episode? You’ll have to read his review here to find out!
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C.J Maffris is the Editor-in-Chief at Toonamifaithful.com. He also produced and directed the Toonami documentary, What Toonami Means To Me. Feel free to follow CJ on Twitter @SeaJayMaffris