Your watching experience on Toonami

[Tian]

Most of us were introduced to Dragon Ball through TV (I know some did through the manga or the games) and some of us did it through the Toonami block in our country's respective Cartoon Network channel.

In my case, I was introduced to both Dragon Ball and Toonami at the tender age of 5, thanks to my older brother.

I was lucky to get to know the block during its first run in Latin America (2002-2007) and man, the Toonami from that time was one of the most amazing things I've seen on TV, mostly because its programming: Dragon Ball Z, Saint Seiya, Rurouni Kenshin, among others.

And of course, the epic promos like this one from Dragon Ball Z:

https://youtu.be/H2d5ikKxBBc?si=cvni2ObEYZiB75qu

Even though, we, Latin Americans didn't have the chance to see Moltar (from SG2C2) running the block like in the U.S initially, we got to know TOM, in his second and third versions, and SARA:

https://youtu.be/T-jgkuS5U1A?si=jv8Fr0TRvruXAhfu

https://youtu.be/I7o6aHpUczg?si=MmMfNYqD8paCQY-2

He may not be Steve Blum, but I think the guy who dubbed TOM (Mario Arvizu) did a phenomenal job.

Maybe the only con of the block was the timeslot, because in 2005 (when I was introduced to the block), the timeslot was changed from afternoon (5pm-7pm) to midnight (12am-2am). So I had to stay up late to watch it but it was really worth it.

Now that I told my Toonami experience, I'd like to read yours because as much as we are from different parts of the world, I'm glad to know we shared a block and were introduced to Dragon Ball thanks to it.

[Hellspawn28]

I did watch Toonami as a kid, but I was still mostly into anime on VHS, Sci-Fi, or Starz at the time. I was there when Toonami was a brand new thing back in 1997 when they had American cartoons (Like The Fleischer Superman cartoons, Johnny Quest, etc). I think I stop paying attention to Toonami after 2005 or 2006 seeing that they didn't have anything that appeal to me. I did watch Naruto with my cousin since he never seen it and I was a fan during the 00s.

I already finish DB and DBZ before dubs aired their final episodes thanks to fan subs. I do feel like Toonami's line up of anime was hit or miss. You have great gems like Yu Yu Hakusho, Big O, Gundam 08th MS Team, Cyborg 009, Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. You did a pile of shit anime like D.I.C.E. and Transformers: Energon.

[JulieYBM]

I recall in my days as a younger girl first coming across Dragon Ball Z when it was airing on Toonami in either October or November of 1998. I specifically remember the first episode I watched being the one where Vegeta was killing the Namekians with the Reigun from Yuu Yuu Hakusho. At the time I was reorganizing my Pokemon cards with a neighbor friend, and she put my bedroom TV on to display it. At the time, Cartoon Network was Channel 34 (it is now Channel 42). I specifically remember this experience also being how I learned about Toonami airing the second season of Beast Wars, which I had been left on the terrible cliffhanger at the end of Season 1 on during the series' run on my local FOX affiliate's 6AM-ish block.

From there I remember catching the premier of the even more edited version of Movie #3 a little while later, and then was basically hooked from there. I still remember the endless, hellish repeating of Gokuu arriving on Namek, to Raditz arriving on Earth the very next day. Lord, I even recorded the later night airings of Dragon Ball Z that Toonami had, hoping against all hope that new episodes would be there, too, but no: it was always that motherfucker Raditz.

Then, in 1999, while waiting to get my teeth cleaned, I overheard another older girl at the office talking about the recently released Season 3 VHS tapes. From there I visited the local Suncoast and voila, came across the two 'Ginyu Saga' tapes. I bought the second tape, which had fuckin' four episodes on it! I couldn't believe it. Sure, I was behind on just what the hell was going on, but that was par for the course with how I got into not just Dragon Ball, but most fuckin' series back then.

It recall being flabbergasted by the appearance of gushing blood. Sure, a lot of it was purple or whatever, but goddamn! It was cool for a very sheltered elementary school girl to see! From then on out, I would either buy the occasional uncut VHS from Suncoast, or travel to the much closer local Target to buy the two new VHS released each month edited for only $10, instead of $20 for one uncut tape.

Between those shitty dub-only tapes and the broadcast on Toonami I was able to maintain and build my fandom beyond what I had known from simply the little information I could gleam off of 1990s fansites and the old Curtis Hoffman summaries.

Toonami was also where I came across other fandoms, particularly the Gundam franchise, which stoked the flames of a very strong imagination.

I kept watching Toonami on-and-off from then on, mostly dropping out around the latter half of the Majin Buu arc (probably because I had already seen it). My fandom in the early-to-mid 2000s was heavily Gundam influenced, since I really loved the worldbuilding of the Universal Century, the gritty tone, and I was totally not nursing crushes on the hot male characters, lol.

By the later 2000s I had high-speed internet and I knew how to read (well, I'd always known how to read, but it was in my teens that I learned to really love it in large part due to the internet and manga), so I'd left Toonami behind. Even when Toonami came back I never felt a need to watch it: I was watching anime unedited and The Way it Was Meant to Be Seen or whatever, and I was also not into the American cartoons airing on the block.

So, yeah. Toonami is dead to me, and I have no use for it.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Funnily enough while my experience watching Dragon Ball during the original UK broadcasts I first saw it when I lived in the States in late 1999, in both cases, like many people I have memories of watching on Toonami.

I was eight years old when my dad's job brought myself and my family to live in Arizona, I don't remember every episode I managed to catch on Toonami but the earliest I can recall is seeing the episode Goku defeated Freeza. I thought this show was incredibly unique, had amazing art and character designs and was curious to know more. I also have some scattered memories of the episodes when Goku fell off Snake Way during this time.

Of course when I returned to Ireland and saw promos for Dragon Ball Z premiering I was naturally very excited to catch it every day after school at 5pm. We didn't have the show on Toonami when it premiered in March 2000, just on regular Cartoon Network. I believe the Cartoon Network UK's Toonami block was launched because of the success of Dragon Ball Z as it was clearly a massive success as Cartoon Network milked it, not only by repeating the new episodes at 9pm, but on weekends they had a 'Dragon Ball Z Rewind' block which repeated that week's episodes twice and later marathons for those Saiyan and early Namek episodes.

Once Toonami launched around September 2000 it was full on as they aired the Freeza, Garlic Junior and Trunks sagas without breaks. There were still marathons, but also reruns on the weekdays, so much so that those first 107 episodes were rerun at least 2 or 3 times (excluding marathons) between the end of 2000 and April 2001. Even though there was no breaks I still remember a Garlic Junior saga promo, which was probably aired to keep people hyped.

From April 2001 when Dragon Ball Z continued after a break until October 2002 it was continuously shown on Cartoon Network UK's Toonami block, but things changed up from this point as before the channel was rerunning the series from the first episode but once Goku's Special Technique aired (which was of course the beginning of the Westwood dub) every saga was rerun from its first episode. I didn't have a lot of friends who were into Dragon Ball and I got bullied by one guy who did, but luckily we eventually patched things up. It didn't stop me from enjoying the show, and I was loving it even more when the Westwood dub came around because I loved the Tom Keenlyside, John Mitchell and David Iris tracks as well as the voicework from the Ocean Studios cast. There was also some point around this time my brother got into the series and watched a couple of episodes with me, although I don't think he remembers much about it. I got one good friend into the series around the time the Cell Games premiered in September 2001 and have lots of good memories from watching those episodes with him, although I think he fell out of it a bit when the Boo arc came around a few months later.

Toonami went on a hiatus here in late October 2002 due to the launch of CNX (which was an incredible channel in its own right) but returned as its own channel around September 2003. Toonami picked up all the content Cartoon Network and CNX had aired up to that point, which included Dragon Ball Z (including the remaining 37 episodes, which had been CNX exclusives) and Dragon Ball GT (which aired in its entirety on CNX) and premiered original Dragon Ball. In the early days of Toonami UK there was a period where every night they aired original Dragon Ball at 8.30pm, a double bill of Dragon Ball Z from 9:00-9:45pm followed by an episode of Dragon Ball GT, which was fun as it was great to see all three shows getting some attention, as well as being on late but not too late.

I managed to record a good few episodes of Dragon Ball Z from the the fight with Kid Boo, and I think some of GT. I showed my cousin the episodes I recorded while we were on a summer break in the south of Ireland in 2004 and got him into it for a while. I always appreciated that he took an interest in things I liked to have something to talk to me about. We even enjoyed watching the DVD my mam bought me for World's Strongest with the Big Green dub that appeared to be affiliated with Toonami (the channel was promoted on the cover). If only I had more foresight though I would have thought to record a lot more than just key episodes of Dragon Ball Z.

I especially wish I had recorded episodes of original Dragon Ball because so much of the existing recordings of the Blue Water dub are in poor quality and it got plenty of reruns after the premiers at 5.30pm Monday-Friday (which would be weekday mornings at 7:30am and further reruns Saturday at 10am and Sunday at 5:30pm) but sadly it got taken off the air a few months after it ended in November 2004. I still remember around October of that year seeing that promo saying "every story has an ending" and being sad that the series was coming to an end. I knew by this point the series ended in Japan a long time ago, so I mentally prepared myself for it and appreciated those episodes at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai and the Wedding Dress arc even more.

As I went into 2005 Toonami seemed to be gradually phasing out Dragon Ball, the original series was dropped in the spring, Dragon Ball Z was still being rerun but slowing down and although Dragon Ball GT was taken off the air before the original series ended it came back for one more run in spring 2005, which I believe ended in July 2005. At this time I'd been wishing I recorded more episodes.

The Big Green dubbed movies aired between May and October 2005, which was Dragon Ball Z movies 1-6, original Dragon Ball movies 1-3, the GT special, Dragon Ball Z movies 7-9 and the two Dragon Ball Z TV specials in that order. I don't remember how many of these I watched though, I feel like I did see the GT special as I have a lot of scattered memories from the special around that time, although the dub didn't stand out to me, so I forgot that specific detail. Rewatching it they all sounded better than the other Big Green movies, particularly the Z ones, so I guess I must have been let down it wasn't Ocean, Blue Water or Funimation. Toonami UK also had text marathons, which had people complaining about them showing "fake Dragon Ball Z movies", so although nowadays we see the fun side of the Big Green movies back when they were airing on Toonami they weren't well received. While this airing of the GT special was lost for some time I'm glad it was eventually found as for years people were wondering whether there was a Big Green dub for it.

Once all Dragon Ball content left Toonami in 2005 the channel went downhill pretty fast. I believe a lot of those text marathons also featured texts from viewers that wanted to know when Dragon Ball Z was coming back, saying Toonami was nothing without Dragon Ball Z, etc. Sky also apparently received lots of requests on the Q&A show on their information channel asking when Cartoon Network would air new episodes of Dragon Ball Z despite it being over. From what I heard Cartoon Network's license expired and they preferred to spend their money on original content, which explain how much they milked it with reruns, marathons, etc.

I wish Toonami would return to the UK and Ireland. It would be such a trip down memory lane to have it back, especially if they could reair those Canadian dubs. It was such a great time to be a kid and I'll always cherish it.

[MasenkoHA]

I became aware of the show's existence when the Ocean dub was running on Toonami, pretty sure the first episode I saw was Escape from Piccolo. I was a casual enough viewer I didn't even notice the 8 or so months it took for the show to finally progress onto episode 54. Heck I wasn't even aware the cast had changed, though I definitely noticed the music was different. I continued to be a pretty passive viewer up until the Goku and Frieza fight. A big reason why I never bought into the voice cast Ocean or Funimation or the Faulconer music had anything to do with Dragon Ball Z's appeal. It was the imagery of two titans locked into mortal combat on a planet going to hell that sold me. And I'm willing to bet Toriyama's visuals did a lot of the heavy lifting to get people invested in a series where it was hard to care about half the characters (why do I care about hair boy, three-eyed baldy, and little clown boy thing? What's the deal with this talking pig? Is this Bulma chick like Goku's son's teenage babysitter or something? Goku's niece*? ) I somehow missed the Garlic Jr arc until Toonami ran it all New Years Day 2001. I remember being super into Dragon Ball Z during the Cell saga which thankfully Toonami ran all 77 episodes in the fall of 2000 so there was no year long break in the middle.

By the time Toonami started running the Buu saga I was well aware of pretty much how the rest of Dragon Ball Z would play out and the existence of Dragon Ball GT thanks to websites like PlanetNamek and Dragon Ball Z Pojo.com. All this Afterlife tournament and Great Saiyaman and World Tournament shit was just killing time until the good stuff happened. Finally Majin Buu showed up. I was so ready for Gotenks and Super Buu and Mystic Gohan and Ultimate Buu and Vegetto and ....oh after Vegeta sacrified himself to destroy the fat Majin Buu the episodes looped right back to the first episode of the afterlife tournament. And we got those 43 episodes again and again for 10 months. By the time "season six" (the original season 6 not Funi's revisionist numbering).started I was still excited to see the stuff I've been reading about for roughly 2 years and then...

actually I don't remember the rest. I can't remember the exact reason (family didn't have cable for a while, maybe?) but I never did see the episodes that ran in 2003. Not just the rest of Z but original Dragon Ball and GT as well. I know I was definitely watching Cartoon Network again by 2004 because I remember getting into Teen Titans and watching Adulf Swim late weekend nights. But Dragon Ball? Just didn't care anymore. Even when Toonami advertised Dragon Ball Z Uncut in 2005 for their Midnight Run, I wasn't interested enough to check it out. I think I even assumed it was just the "uncut" episodes that had been available on home video forever and wasn't aware it was a complete redub of the "Another Dimension" era of the show


*and yes I thought Bulma was supposed to be a teenager in the Saiyan/Namek saga, I wasn't aware she was supposed to be older than Goku until I watched original Dragon Ball on Toonami

[Cure Dragon 255]

I may find Toonami hideously overrated, but GOD ITS RATINGS WERE AWESOME. And they SURE knew how to advertise a show. Only Nickelodeon built an empire solely on the quality of its advertising.

[Hellspawn28]

I knew about Dragon Ball before Toonami aired it. I saw the first few episodes of the Pilaf saga in 1997 and I saw A Black Day for Planet Earth on TV in early-mid 1998 by mistake (I was looking for Beast Wars to watch and I was like "What is this?"). Back when I hated the series, I was watching Ronin Warriors after school in 1999 which I like more than DBZ at the time.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Heck I wasn't even aware the cast had changed, though I definitely noticed the music was different. I continued to be a pretty passive viewer up until the Goku and Frieza fight. A big reason why I never bought into the voice cast Ocean or Funimation or the Faulconer music had anything to do with Dragon Ball Z's appeal.

I'm kinda similar, although the inhouse dub started straight after the Saban dub for us, and I'd already heard the Funimation cast from living in the States. Back then the Texas cast were doing imitations of the Vancouver cast so it all just kind of blended in for me. That said I did notice the music in certain parts of the series and the title cards to be rockier and more edgier than others, namely the Freeza saga and some time in the middle of the Boo saga (the latter unsurprising to many here as I'm sure they're aware of CNX briefly switching back to Funimation).

I do have fond memories of seeing a bit of the Goku vs Freeza fight on US TV and then watching it several times whenever it aired here, especially on the marathons where I could watch it all in one day, such as the Saga Sundays, which had one for Freeza on November 4, 2001. I also have a vague recollection of some Freeza saga marathons around summer 2004, which would have been on the Toonsmi channel. It seemed to be repeated constantly, likely because Dragon Ball Z was an expensive license so Cartoon Network and Toonami UK wanted to milk it as much as they could until they lost the rights to those episodes.

We also had that awkward edit in Episode 76 which had Dende's "Don't piss off the dragon god of love" line mute the swear. Kinda wish Cartoon Network UK used the "Don't tick off the god of love" from Ocean's TV edit of Funimation's dub as the Westwood dub was in production while this aired and deals were likely made for it to be distributed in Europe, but I guess AB Groupe got the Freeza, Garlic Junior and Trunks sagas in a batch to distribute to Cartoon Network UK and they saw no need to buy different edits of the same episode.

I may find Toonami hideously overrated, but GOD ITS RATINGS WERE AWESOME. And they SURE knew how to advertise a show. Only Nickelodeon built an empire solely on the quality of its advertising.

Fun fact, but when Dragon Ball Z aired on Cartoon Network UK's Toonami block it was consistently in the top 10 rated shows on that channel throughout 2001, pulling in an average of 170,000 viewers. And yes, their marketing was bang on, which no doubt contributed to the great ratings.

I don't think Toonami is overrated necessarily, its one of, if not the most iconic programming block for action shows worldwide but I don't agree with people who say Dragon Ball needed it to become a massive global success. As I mentioned with the UK it was the success of Dragon Ball Z that led to Toonami, not the other way around. Even in the US when the show was in its second season on syndication (so pre-Toonami) it got upgraded to a one-hour timeslot, which was unheard of at the time for anime before Pokemon came around. Cartoon Network picked the series up because it was a smash hit on the countless syndicates that ran it. Then of course you have YTV in Canada, Cheez TV in Australia, Club Dorothee in France, etc all having incredible success with the show. I'm sure Toonami helped, but Dragon Ball's success by no means depended on it.

[Tian]

I've read all the experiences posted so far and I enjoyed them. Thanks for sharing!

I don't think Toonami is overrated necessarily, its one of, if not the most iconic programming block for action shows worldwide but I don't agree with people who say Dragon Ball needed it to become a massive global success. As I mentioned with the UK it was the success of Dragon Ball Z that led to Toonami, not the other way around. Even in the US when the show was in its second season on syndication (so pre-Toonami) it got upgraded to a one-hour timeslot, which was unheard of at the time for anime before Pokemon came around. Cartoon Network picked the series up because it was a smash hit on the countless syndicates that ran it. Then of course you have YTV in Canada, Cheez TV in Australia, Club Dorothee in France, etc all having incredible success with the show. I'm sure Toonami helped, but Dragon Ball's success by no means depended on it.

I don't agree with them either. Toonami was a pretty darn good block but it wasn't what made Dragon Ball huge worldwide.

In fact, here, Dragon Ball already had icon status before Toonami was launched. So, unlike the U.S, where Toonami did help the anime series to get renewed for a "third season", here in Latin America, Toonami was just yet another broadcaster.

Besides, not every Toonami block in the world had DB in its programming:
Toonami CEE (Hungary, Romania and Poland) had a programming which was mostly composed of DC animated shows and some CN originals like Samurai Jack. The only anime shown in that Eastern European version of the block were Duel Masters, Battle B-Daman, Transformers Energon and Cybertron.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Besides, not every Toonami block in the world had DB in its programming:
Toonami CEE (Hungary, Romania and Poland) had a programming which was mostly composed of DC animated shows and some CN originals like Samurai Jack. The only anime shown in that Eastern European version of the block were Duel Masters, Battle B-Daman, Transformers Energon and Cybertron.

Our Toonami channel had those Transformers shows as well as Duel Masters and Battle B-Daman. I remember between late 2005 and early 2007 when the channel stopped airing Dragon Ball altogether it became sort of a dumping ground for shows Cartoon Network UK didn't want anymore like Beyblade, Michael Lucha, Xiaolin Showdown, Star Wars: Clone Wars, Code Lyoko, Static Shock and Teen Titans. Oddly enough it also started airing random live action shows like Life with Derek, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, Blue Water High and Backyard Science.

It boggles the mind because apparently Cartoon Network's reasoning for dropping Dragon Ball on their Toonami channel is they lost the license and preferred to spend their money on original content, but clearly they were willing to spend it on all that third party content, although I guess it was cheap and they were trying to make Toonami UK the new Nickelodeon. Toonami did begin airing Pokemon and One Piece around this time but I don't think the former helped as it started as reruns of older episodes people watched on RTÉ2, ITV and Sky One years prior, and the latter was the 4Kids dub, which from what I understand wasn't very good.

I don't follow live TV here anymore but I know Dragon Ball Super is still airing on Pop at midnight slots and seemingly some 8.33pm weekday slots (including tonight actually, just checked) even though the final episode aired over 3 years ago. That's longer than any of the three original anime stayed on reruns here after their respective conclusions (for reference Dragon Ball Z and GT were rerun on CNX and later Toonami for 2 years after both concluded in 2003 and original Dragon Ball only lasted a few months after its final episode) despite ratings being about one third what Z had.

Cure Dragon 255 informed me of this but apparently Super is still airing because Pop has partnerships with Smyths (major toy retailer) as well as Bandai Namco so they're able to keep pumping more money into the show. It's a smart business move because it's mutually beneficial for both the channel and the major toy/game/merchandising brand. I wish our Toonami channel could have done something similar, if they had done so it's possible the various Dragon Ball shows could have stayed on the air here a few more years. I believe Dragon Ball Z was airing on the US Toonami until 2008. There's no reason we couldn't have been the same.

Toonami UK used to have text marathons where they showed viewers texts onscreen and quite often many were asking for Dragon Ball and Z to be brought back and saying Toonami was nothing without them. I've no doubt Toonami's genius marketing helped Dragon Ball's ratings but I think the franchise did far more for the channel.

[TheGreatness25]

I originally watched Dragon Ball Z when it was airing in syndication. Caught it right on the very first episode. And then, I remember it shows at 6 AM on Sunday mornings. I had already been watching Cartoon Network all the time and when Dragon Ball Z moved to Cartoon Network, I was pretty excited. The most exciting part was that now, other kids in my school knew about it... Boy, did they know about it... Dragon Ball Z became a craze for a period of time.

As far as Toonami itself, it was cool. The presentation, the music, all that. From Moltar and then into TOM. It was really cool.

After Z finished airing, I stopped watching all the time. I watched GT here and there, but when that was over, I pretty much stopped watching. I did catch The Batman vs. Dracula airing on Toonami, but it was really weird. The look and feel changed a lot by then.

Overall, Toonami had some great stuff. Dragon Ball (and Z and GT), Reboot, Yu Yu Hakusho, Batman TAS, etc. It's always going to hold a very secure spot in my childhood.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I'd love to hear from fans in Asian territories that watched Dragon Ball on their Toonami (while it was around).

Their most notable airing was the Bang Zoom dub of Dragon Ball Super, which ran between January and November of 2017. Funimation's dub of Dragon Ball Z aired too (I believe the remastered version?) between 2013 and 2016 on a block called 'Anime Seige', which reportedly also aired Kai.

The one other airing, which to my knowledge no fan has been able to gather info on was when they aired the first 3 Dragon Ball movies in July 2016:



TheBalishChannel suggested they may have been the Big Green dubs because of the titles used, but sadly no recordings have surfaced or even reports from fans, but surely someone out there must have watched them as they aired?

[Majin Buu]

I had already discovered Dragon Ball through early morning syndication on the WB a few years prior so Toonami just gave me the opportunity to catch up on what I missed out on while waiting for the new stuff to come out, as well as the opportunity to tape it for home use.

It was after "Season 3" aired that I went on the internet and discovered how altered the show was from its original Japanese state and that I enjoyed that original version far more than what I was getting on TV. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford fansubs (In addition to not really knowing what fansubs were or how to get them to begin with) so for me it was either Toonami or no Dragon Ball at all. So I gritted my teeth and watched the entirety of the Funimation dub Cell arc on Toonami.

I saw the first third of the Buu arc through Funimation's VHS tapes so we only watched Toonami to continue from where the tapes left off. It was also around this time that we got digital cable which included The International Channel so I watched the tail-end of the Buu arc (from Goku's return to life onward) in raw Japanese and only checked out the Toonami airings of those episodes to spot check the differences.

I did watch Pre-Z Dragon Ball when it aired on Toonami too. I remember catching the last half of the 21st Budokai, some of the Red Ribbon arc, and some of the Piccolo arc. I don't recall watching it all the way through though so these are vague, fragmented memories at best. This might be because I had largely tuned out from watching Toonami at that point since there wasn't much else left airing that interested me outside of Dragon Ball stuff (The only other shows outside of Dragon Ball stuff I went out of my way to watch (and tape) on Toonami were ReBoot and the various Tenchi series') and stopped watching it entirely when I went off to college.

I specifically remember this experience also being how I learned about Toonami airing the second season of Beast Wars, which I had been left on the terrible cliffhanger at the end of Season 1 on during the series' run on my local FOX affiliate's 6AM-ish block.

This was more or less my experience as a Beast Wars fan: Watched Season 1 on UPN's "Power Block" then randomly discovered that Cartoon Network was airing Season 2 on Toonami. Then randomly discovering that it had jumped to the WB for Season 3 before landing on Fox Kids around the time Beast Machines started. I missed quite a few episodes on their original airings since the show kept jumping networks without me knowing about it.

[JulieYBM]

Ooh, yeah, I also watched the Afterlife Tournament arc on The International Channel and some of the Majin Buu arc. It was so surreal, because my actual first exposure was a shitty fansub download of the episode where Trunks fights that one dipshit in the Tenka-ichi Budoukai that I downloaded via Napster.

God, I haven't thought about Real Player in decades.

My neighbor's friend also had a VHS with fansubs of the Broli films and the Janember film, which I watched before their FUNimation releases. That was insanely hype lol.

This was more or less my experience as a Beast Wars fan: Watched Season 1 on UPN's "Power Block" then randomly discovered that Cartoon Network was airing Season 2 on Toonami. Then randomly discovering that it had jumped to the WB for Season 3 before landing on Fox Kids around the time Beast Machines started. I missed quite a few episodes on their original airings since the show kept jumping networks without me knowing about it.

Yeah, the broadcast was all over the place! It was awful. I recall being so out of sorts 'cause I suddenly caught the tail-end of the episode where you-know-who dies at like, six or seven in the morning one time and I was like, "What in the fuck?!"

[FoolsGil]

Getting cable as a youngun was an exciting time. My first experience with Cartoon Network was a Cow and Chicken marathon: Good times.

Anyways, Toonami. Discovered it on my own. Watched DBZ and Sailor Moon and ate microwaved pizza at my grandma's house instead of going outside and play. It was like the latter Freeza arc when I started watching. I did realize then I have seen portions of DBZ before, at a younger age, usually waking up, catching the last 5 minutes on regular television. Went on to watch other anime, didn't really get into Gundam or mecha in general except for Megas XLR, but Yu Yu Hakusho and Rurouni Kenshin was always a delight. As time went on I watched GT, but I don't really remember it. I remember watching OG Dragonball. I'm actually disappointed when I hear people say they didn't watch Dragonball if they had cable and were in the US. If anyone is reading this, and that is them, you missed out.

Sometime around High School I stopped watching: No Cable. Got back into it the last year it was around. 2007: I had graduated military basic training and was now in tech training. Nothing was more enjoyable after a week of dealing with tests and crap, then everyone in the dorms going to our lounge room and watching Naruto, Bo-Bobo, Zoids, Gundam SD, and a racing mecha show whose name eludes me. Nothing was more frustrating than the last episode of Toonami, it was the ultimate de-stressor. I remember for like a decade after there were attempts for fan revival, but nothing truly came of it. But the passion was still there, and now in some form, Toonami took over the Saturday Night Block on Cartoon Network, and has held on since. Deadman Wonderland was the first show on the Revival I watched. Still bums me out we never got a second season, I wish CN would fund another season like they did with Big O.

[WittyUsername]

I learned about the series through Toonami. Nothing fancy. I wasn’t remotely aware of all the changes that had been made to the show via the English dub, or even that the show was from Japan. I did notice that there seemed to be a change in the voices and presentation of the show after a certain point, but I didn’t bother to look any deeper into it at the time.

[VegettoEX]

Toonami didn't shape my personal fandom in any way, but it certainly shaped the general fandom at the time, and it was impossible to ignore its reach and impact.

As a quick recap, I got into the series with the second DBZ episode in syndication, so we're talking late September 1996 here. I started my site at the beginning of January 1998, so while the Toonami timeblock (barely) existed, DBZ had nothing to do with it yet -- we were still in season two of syndication.

It's kinda funny thinking back to how short a turnaround it was from the end of season two in syndication (May 1998) to the repeats going to Toonami (September 1998), but it felt like an uncertain eternity at the time. I was already well into the Japanese version by that point (and we even had our first official releases here with Pioneer's releases of the first three DBZ movies), so it was all novelty and hesitancy and excitedness and dread wrapped into one.

We eventually got the in-house production of DB movie 2 which then led into the in-house production of DBZ "season three"... but the VHS releases started first, so that was how I first saw the new in-house material. We got those two Ginyu tapes, and then we got two Freeza tapes before it started actually airing on TV, so we all knew what to expect for the most part and were already actively talking about / dissecting / sharing on our websites, newsgroups, etc.

So Toonami basically became Hate-Watch Central. I'm not proud to say it, but I'm not exactly ashamed of it either. It was an absolutely terrible product that I legitimately thought was going to be laughed out of Cartoon Network headquarters. I was a senior in high school throughout "season three" here, and the website was well into the heyday of "VegettoEX's Home Page" by this point. Fandom and online communications were taking wild turns.

I moved on to college in 2000, so I had A LOT going on as my life transitioned and I was really thinking about what my own fandom was and what the website was and should be. The fourth "season" of DBZ was something I occasionally checked in on, but I still hated everything I heard. The one exception was the actual can you fucking believe it SILENCE they used after Piccolo fused with God, and I said back then that I thought that was a good moment and good decision. If you weren't around at the time, you can't even BEGIN to believe the amount of backlash and abuse I started suffering after uttering one possibly backhanded compliment toward that dub!

Fandom was getting awful, and to be frank, you're still a kid when you're in college -- so I took my ball and went home. I "shut down" the site (not really; I still posted news on the home page lol), and took some time to refocus. Over the course of 2002 I recruited Julian and we rebuilt Daizenshuu EX for a January 2003 relaunch with a near-complete focus exclusively on the Japanese version that we both came to love so much. We certainly still posted about home video releases (because we were getting bilingual DVDs by that point), but taking the time away from both working on the site and hate-watching the (still terrible!) dub gave me the opportunity to reassess what I wanted to do and how we were going to be able to do it.

Following the end of the Cell arc, I really never checked back in on any sort of regular basis. I had the International Channel in college, so I fondly remember watching the Afterlife Tournament that way, continuing to watch my fansubs and the new bilingual DVDs as the came out, etc. "The dub" no longer had an effect on my own personal fandom, and by extension, neither did Toonami. I wasn't in middle school (or even high school) and coming home after school to watch cartoons on TV; I was dedicated to my site and reinventing myself and my fandom.

I suppose I still have some fond memories of Moltar doing introductions, and I certainly loved the Peter Cullen(?) commercials for the movies, but for the most part Toonami was a tangential part of my personal fandom experience, and not something that was formative in any real way. I'm glad it was there, I'm glad it provided the additional exposure it did, I'm glad so many people have such wonderful memories of it... but that wasn't necessarily me!

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

It was an absolutely terrible product that I legitimately thought was going to be laughed out of Cartoon Network headquarters.

I could imagine Cartoon Network simply saw the ratings blowing up and either thought "eh kids love Dragon Ball Z, they won't care" or they just didn't bother to watch the tapes and said "hey cool, more episodes".

As much as I do respect the Texas cast as they've improved immensely part of me wishes Funimation got an angry phone call and went back to Ocean Productions saying "We're sorry, we screwed up. Please record season 3 for us" as I vastly prefer the Vancouver cast and think they would have done an infinitely better job if their work on those original first 2 seasons was anything to go by.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Toonami didn't shape my personal fandom in any way, but it certainly shaped the general fandom at the time, and it was impossible to ignore its reach and impact.

As a quick recap, I got into the series with the second DBZ episode in syndication, so we're talking late September 1996 here. I started my site at the beginning of January 1998, so while the Toonami timeblock (barely) existed, DBZ had nothing to do with it yet -- we were still in season two of syndication.

It's kinda funny thinking back to how short a turnaround it was from the end of season two in syndication (May 1998) to the repeats going to Toonami (September 1998), but it felt like an uncertain eternity at the time. I was already well into the Japanese version by that point (and we even had our first official releases here with Pioneer's releases of the first three DBZ movies), so it was all novelty and hesitancy and excitedness and dread wrapped into one.

We eventually got the in-house production of DB movie 2 which then led into the in-house production of DBZ "season three"... but the VHS releases started first, so that was how I first saw the new in-house material. We got those two Ginyu tapes, and then we got two Freeza tapes before it started actually airing on TV, so we all knew what to expect for the most part and were already actively talking about / dissecting / sharing on our websites, newsgroups, etc.

So Toonami basically became Hate-Watch Central. I'm not proud to say it, but I'm not exactly ashamed of it either. It was an absolutely terrible product that I legitimately thought was going to be laughed out of Cartoon Network headquarters. I was a senior in high school throughout "season three" here, and the website was well into the heyday of "VegettoEX's Home Page" by this point. Fandom and online communications were taking wild turns.

I moved on to college in 2000, so I had A LOT going on as my life transitioned and I was really thinking about what my own fandom was and what the website was and should be. The fourth "season" of DBZ was something I occasionally checked in on, but I still hated everything I heard. The one exception was the actual can you fucking believe it SILENCE they used after Piccolo fused with God, and I said back then that I thought that was a good moment and good decision. If you weren't around at the time, you can't even BEGIN to believe the amount of backlash and abuse I started suffering after uttering one possibly backhanded compliment toward that dub!

Fandom was getting awful, and to be frank, you're still a kid when you're in college -- so I took my ball and went home. I "shut down" the site (not really; I still posted news on the home page lol), and took some time to refocus. Over the course of 2002 I recruited Julian and we rebuilt Daizenshuu EX for a January 2003 relaunch with a near-complete focus exclusively on the Japanese version that we both came to love so much. We certainly still posted about home video releases (because we were getting bilingual DVDs by that point), but taking the time away from both working on the site and hate-watching the (still terrible!) dub gave me the opportunity to reassess what I wanted to do and how we were going to be able to do it.

Following the end of the Cell arc, I really never checked back in on any sort of regular basis. I had the International Channel in college, so I fondly remember watching the Afterlife Tournament that way, continuing to watch my fansubs and the new bilingual DVDs as the came out, etc. "The dub" no longer had an effect on my own personal fandom, and by extension, neither did Toonami. I wasn't in middle school (or even high school) and coming home after school to watch cartoons on TV; I was dedicated to my site and reinventing myself and my fandom.

I suppose I still have some fond memories of Moltar doing introductions, and I certainly loved the Peter Cullen(?) commercials for the movies, but for the most part Toonami was a tangential part of my personal fandom experience, and not something that was formative in any real way. I'm glad it was there, I'm glad it provided the additional exposure it did, I'm glad so many people have such wonderful memories of it... but that wasn't necessarily me!

Ironically, the head of Cartoon Network went on record that Cartoon Network "Didnt need to Americanize anime to be a success"

[90sDBZ]

DBZ on Cartoon Network UK actually predated the Toonami block by several months, so I had already been watching for some time before Toonami UK first became a thing.

When the block did arrive in late 2000 DBZ was obviously the main show, with Batman of the Future (Beyond), Samurai Jack, Xmen Evolution, and Justice League also being part of it.

Unlike Toonami US, the UK version focused less on anime and more on American action cartoons funnily enough. We did get Gundam Wing and the Tenchi shows, but besides those and DBZ we didn't get much anime at the time. Sailor Moon actually aired on Fox Kids UK for about a season or so before being cancelled.

DBZ was my obsession back then (and still is), and it aired both as part of the Toonami block and outside it on regular Cartoon Network.

In 2002 after the Majin Buu Saga aired, Toonami UK was discontinued and all of its shows moved to the new 24 hour channel CNX. The Fusion and Kid Buu sagas would air on CNX, as would GT. It was a great channel but struggled to draw ratings due to being outside of the kids section. After 9 months it transformed into the Toonami UK 24 hour channel, which was moved back to the kids section.

The Toonami channel finally aired OG DB. Z and GT also continued to get regular reruns.

Anime wise they did air Rave Master and Outlaw Star, but still mostly focused on American action cartoons. Shows like Teen Titans, Megas XLR, and Static Shock were also added to the lineup.

After about 2 years it became clear they were struggling with ratings again, as they gradually stopped reruns of the DB shows and started airing random live action stuff that nobody liked.

By 2006 the best show on the channel was probably 4Kids One Piece. That certainly says a lot.

In early 2007 they would rebrand Toonami as Cartoon Network Too. Personally I consider 2005 to be the true death of Toonami UK, as that's when DB/Z/GT and all the other decent shows stopped airing.

It's still nice to look back on old promos from the better days. Personally I think I have more attachment to the old Cartoon Network days, as that's when I first became a DBZ fan, and that's also when the show first blew up in the UK. The Toonami block was nice, and the channel that came later was good fun too, although our version of Tom sucked compared to the US version.

By the time the Toonami Channel came around, Z itself had reached its end and was kept on for countless reruns. While I always enjoyed rewatching it, my fondest memories are seeing it for the first time back on Cartoon Network, and getting excited whenever promos for new episodes would air.