Nostalgia Goggles: The Golden Age of Toonami Part 2

Its time to continue my reflection on Toonami. Two shows down four to go. Yeah I lied in my last post when I said we had three shows left. Well lets not waste anytime time. First up is the lone western cartoon in the lineup.

3. ReBoot

80s kids had Tron as their computer inspired science fiction story. 90s kids had ReBoot. ReBoot was the first fully CGI animated TV show. The producers, the Canadian based Mainframe Studios, would later create popular shows such as Transformers: Beast Wars. The show took place in a computer system called Mainframe and the plot followed how its citizens fended off viruses and games sent by The User who was basically God. I always pictured The User as some nerdy guy who is extremely frustrated by his constant computer trouble. The first season was lighthearted with a ton of great pop culture satire and humor. Things really kicked into high gear in season 2. ReBoot slowly turned in a dark epic which came in full force during season 3. They turned the obnoxious kid character, Enzo, into a grown up, gun toting anti-hero. Wow, this really was a 90s show. Luckily Rob Liefeld was not involved and the darker tone worked in the shows favor. While I liked the first season I became a hardcore fan during seasons 2 and 3.  ReBoot and great characters and a very creative setting. For example, they turned a web surfer in to a Silver Surfer homage. I always really enjoyed the game sequences. This games in the show were like video games in real life and the characters took the role of the computer player. Never thought I'd be rooting for the CPU. ReBoot is funny, inventive, and quite dramatic at times. It was so go I might just forgive Canada for giving us Nickelback. I like this show so much I'll give you the cliff notes of season 3 complete with the music of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Best opera EVAR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4. Ronin Warriors

Ronin Warriors tends to be forgotten during Toonami discussions, at least in my experience. That's a tragedy because Ronin Warriors was my favorite golden age show on Toonami. Yes I liked this show more than Dragon Ball Z. Come to think of it I might have liked ReBoot more than DBZ but I digress. Ronin Warriors or Yoroiden Samurai Troopers if you're Japanese, is essentially the male version of Sailor Moon. This show was even better because I could actually say I liked it in public. The Ronin Warriors had a lot of commonalities with the Sailor Scouts including cool character designs and over the top elemental attacks. Additionally, Ronin Warriors brought a surprisingly dark atmosphere to the table. There wasn't constant death or anything but the mood could be very bleak at times. One of Ronin Warriors greatest strengths was its villains led by the floating Japanese samurai demon head of ultimate evil. Talpa got a body eventually but I liked the floating head thing. Speaking of villains, the show had one the first instances of a Heel Face Turn in a cartoon that I watched. The redeemed evil doer became my favorite character for that reason. I loved this show because it was Power Rangers on steroids. I only wish we got more of it. There are only 39 episodes. If the OVA's were aired on Toonami I never saw them.

5. Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

Japan loves their giant robots. They also love their pretty boys. Put them together and you got Gundam Wing. Gundam Wing was my first real exposure to serious Military Sci-Fi. Toonami aired Robotech back in the Moltar days but I never really watched it. Gundam Wing caught on very quickly. However, I could never call myself a huge fan. Let me clarify, Gundam Wing is in no way a bad show I just didn't get into it as much as the other Toonami programs. I mentioned that Gundam Wing was a serious show but it may have been a bit too serious for my eight year old mind. A lot of redshirts got killed and I was never comfortable with that in my young age. Looking back , the show also got very political at points and it had a strong anti war message. I might grown to like the seriousness more but I couldn't watch the show regularly since it was shown at 5:30. I had homework, Wednesday night church, and Karate lessons in the late afternoon and evenings. When I did watch Gundam Wing I enjoyed myself. My favorite character was the team funny guy, Duo Maxwell. The Gundams themselves were all awesome looking and the action was superb. One of my regrets regarding my Toonami fandom is not watching Gundam Wing as much as I should have. I would probably love the show now that I''m older. You can expect a review of the Gundam Wing movie, Endless Waltz in the future. I'm told it can be enjoyed by people who aren't super familiar with the show's story and I'm hoping that's true.

6. Tenchi Muyo!

This show was... strange. Out of all of Toonami's golden age shows I watched this one the least. Thank you late time slot. It was about some guy who met a bunch of hot chicks from outer space. They moved in with the guy and the girls constantly fought each other because they all had crushes on Tenchi. I only saw one or two episodes of the show. Plus Toonami kept confusing me because there were actually three different Tenchi shows, Tenchi Muyo!, Tenchi Universe, and Tenchi in Tokyo. Each show was part of its own continuity and if I remember correctly, Toonami never explained that. I could be wrong though it was 13 years ago. I hate to disappoint the fans but I really don't have much to say about this show. I might check out the original OVA later on.

Toonami was one of the best parts of my childhood. I continued to watch throughout the 2000s. I'll probably talk about the shows which came after Tenchi Muyo! sometime. I see that era as the Silver Age of Toonami and I have a ton of fond memories of that time. However, these six shows represent the most influential and memorable period of Toonami's existence. If this post got you interested in some of these shows, check them out and see if they still hold up. Thanks for reading and stay gold. 

Nostalgia Goggles: The Golden Age of Toonami Part 1

Many people have fond memories of waking up on Saturday morning and watching cartoons. I'm not one of them. Don't get me wrong I love watching cartoons to this day but I never did on Saturday morning. I grew up in the 90s when Cartoon Network premiered and when 24-hours of cartoons was a new thing. Plus my parents wouldn't let me play video games on weekdays out of fear I wouldn't do my homework so weekend time was precious. While I never watched Saturday morning cartoons there is a particular programming block that holds a special place in the hearts of all 90s kids.

For those of you who are tragically unaware of this block, Toonami began as Cartoon Network's weekday action block. It was originally hosted by Moltar of Space Ghost fame and the block mostly consisted of reruns of 80s cartoons and The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest. Things began to change once Cartoon Network decided to start airing anime. Ok, they did show animes like Voltron and Robotech  but they were originally aired in the 80s. I'm talking about the stuff from my day. To say Toonami changed everything would be a massive understatement. The new anime content didn't just provide unique shows which challenged its young audiences, it helped quick of the anime boom of the late 90s/early 00s. This resulted in Toonami picked up a sizable Periphery Demograpic and anime has become one of the most popular form of geeky entertainment. Toonami was animation history making at its finest and I was there in its heyday.

Of course Toonami's been around for a long time a question remains. Which era of Toonami was the best? Personally, I find it pointless to name the best because its completely subjective. Instead, I'll talk about about my favorite and in my opinion the most influential era of the block. Two of Toonmai's heavy hitters started airing in 1998 but the Golden Age didn't truly begin until 1999. What I see as the Golden Age started with the introduction of TOM and the Ghost Planet Space Ship Absolution.

From left to right: TOM, TOM 2, TOM 3, The Abomination.

Man was TOM an awesome host. I had to adjust at first because I was used to Moltar but TOM grew on me quickly. He had a really cool design and was given a great voice by Sonny Strait. Its a shame he's been kind of forgotten since he was replaced by Steve Blum once TOM 2 came along. TOM didn't just announce the shows, he also liked to give motivational speeches to the kids. Moltar did too but TOM's were much more memorable.

Kids are bound to stop throwing temper tantrums if a nuclear powered robot tells them to.

While the host of the show was pretty awesome that isn't the reason Toonami was remembered  Its was the shows. The original TOM era had the most memorable shows Toonami ever aired and many of them  remain popular in geekdom today. I'll be introducing them in the order that they aired.

 1.Sailor Moon

Ahh yes the most girly action show of late 90s/early 00s television.... and I liked it. No it wasn't because of the skirts, I was genuinely engaged with the story and characters. I never would have admitted it to you at the time but I was a Salior Moon fan when I was a kid. I wasn't alone though. Sailor Moon has picked up a sizable male fanbase thanks to Toonami. The block was mostly aimed at boys after all. Sailor Moon is a combination of Japan's Sentai and Magical Girl genres. Basically, its Power Rangers for girls. Now I was a big Power Rangers fan growing up and that's probably why I was subconsciously drawn to the Sailor Scouts. I watched the first season on occasion but I really started getting into it when season 2, or Sailor Moon R rolled along. I watched a good chunk of Sailor Moon S (season 3) which I also really enjoyed, especially when the girl who would become Sailor Saturn showed up. I never got to see her in action though which was a shame. You know character will be awesome when their nickname is the "Sovereign of Silence." Sailor Moon Super S on the other hand was just lame. I still watched it regularly and I have no reason why. Why would they replace the awesome anti-heroic Outer Scouts with freaking Pegasus. Sailor Stars was never dubbed in English so I never saw it. I guess the fans of the Japanese version were given some mercy. From what I've been told the English dub butchered the original script. Of course without the dub we wouldn't have Sailor Moon Abridged. So yeah I liked a girl's show shoot me. If the Bronies can have their fun why can't I.

2. Dragon Ball Z

If you asked someone what they thought of Toonami, this is the first show that would pop up in their minds. Every boy I new loved Dragon Ball Z. DBZ is a martial arts/fantasy series and it wasn't like anything else on TV at that point. It has all of the over the top action you could ask for. Combine that with memorable characters and storylines better than most kids cartoons and you have the perfect show for an eight year old. I first caught DBZ in the middle of its second story arc or the Frieza Saga as fans would call it. I got into the show pretty quickly and I was able to watch the first arc through reruns. I had to watch DBZ everyday when I was a kid. Whenever Toonami announced new episodes its was major event in my house. I remained a hardcore fan until the final story arc. The show was moved to the last time slot of the block  and I couldn't watch that often due to things I had to do. I wasn't that disappointed because I think DBZ went slightly downhill during the Buu Saga. Unlike other anime aired by Toonami, Dragon Ball Z actually had two different dubs by Ocean and Funimation. They switched dubs at the halfway point of the Frieza saga. I remember both quite well and I think both dubs had pros and cons. I did miss the Ocean voices at first but I grew to love the Funimation ones. Of course the best DBZ dub is Dragon Ball Z Abridged. Dragon Ball Z brought a major narrative element not present in western cartoons at the time, character death. Sure I saw characters die in movies all the time but death in cartoons was revolutionary to me. Heck the main character died in the first few episodes and you get to see his adventures in the afterlife. The Dragon Balls were typically used to wish dead characters back. Dragon Ball Z played a huge role in my childhood entertainment its what got me hooked on Toonmai. So thank you DBZ for indirectly exposing me to other great shows.

Ok  this post is late as it is so I'll be breaking up into parts. Stay tuned for part 2 where I write about my experience with the other three shows of Toonami's golden age.