The (Ho-hum) Return of Toonami

Toonami is back.


Sort of.



Not really.


Not fully, anyway.

We spent years grieving over the elimination of one of the best spots of all of television. Weekday afternoons were dedicated to that three hour block that gave American audiences one of their first good tastes of consistent anime and teenage/adult-aimed shows. Dragonball Z, Sailor Moon, Gundam Wing embedded themselves into the underground cartoon scene thanks to Toonami. And now that we have gotten the return, it doesn’t quite feel complete. Surely some Toonami is better than no Toonami at all (Especially with Adult Swim heading towards the shallow end in quality) but something is missing.

The Toonami spots in the weekday afternoons, late at night, and extremely early mornings were more than just great cartoons airing one after the other. Much more than that. It was like a subculture for all the kids involved to enjoy. It had a style and a marvelous personality about itself, manifesting with the excellent space bass music, excellent animated montages, and grand commercials about upcoming cartoons. Then there is the lead character Tom who would review video games, introduce new cartoons, and even once in a while throw in a music video. Toonami was more than a block of television, it became a hybrid of different mediums interacting with each other within that timeframe.

Now, Toonami is limited to just Saturday nights, just three hours every week overall. Long gone are the awesome montages, the great commercials advertising the animated series within the block, and we don’t even get the great long introductions that would hype us up before the cartoon even started. Hell, I don’t even see any potential in upcoming movies every once in a while invading Toonami like back in the day.

This might all be premature bickering, but at the same time it’s hard for me to truly believe its back. As of now it looks like a thrown in consolation prize for all the complaining. If Cartoon Network truly believes in Toonami like it did back in the day, they should turn it into a weekend event, or bring it back to the weekday afternoons, and actually put forth some effort in all the promos, commercials, and extra goodies that used to sprinkle the three hour block back in the day. Bring back some more of the classic animes we all grew up and loved, and perhaps bring them uncut since now you are turning Toonami into an Adult Swim staple. Try to throw in some more interactivity with the Facebook and Twitter pages, and lastly don’t be afraid to throw in some surprises.

I think it would be awesome to once in a while do another Month of Miyazaki or throw in some full-length Japanese animated movies like the Dragonball films, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Grave of the Fireflies, etc. They don’t even have to be Japanese, maybe pit the Batman movies, or other under-the-radar animated films like Iron Giant, Lord of the Rings, Hunchback of Notre Dame, etc.

I am more than happy to see Cartoon Network realizing its mistake for cancelling Toonami in the first place. But, now is the time to actually strengthen it to the level of quality we all remembered.


Cartoon Network, don’t squander this gem again. Please. 

New York Knicks: How to Destroy Your Own Momentum

New York Knicks, are you kidding me?


You are not going to sign Jeremy Lin?


You are not going to sign the biggest (good) news to happen to the organization since the 99 Knicks shocked the NBA world? On a business standpoint and on a quality standpoint, this was a dumbfounded stupid move to the utmost level.

The business side of me marvels at the fact that a player that has worldwide appeal just as well as stateside appeal isn’t being considered. The Knicks back in February were practically the biggest name in Taiwan, Vietnam, and China. The merchandise sales virtually exploded in the Far East coast when his name started dropping everywhere. Not signing him means someone else can ride the hype of the Linsanity and help their economic status in a league that has only 3-4 teams making legit money. The Rockets, Magic, Mavericks each can benefit greatly from a little extra positive exposure from Jeremy Lin. Quoting lightly another writer, isn’t it more than just coincidence that the one team with a heavy Asian market in the past (Yao Ming anyone?) ran after Lin with full fury?

And then let’s go to the quality standpoint. Jeremy Lin saved the Knicks’ season. They were on the ropes, down for the count. And then Carmelo Anthony goes down, and New York was practically waiting for baseball season. Jeremy Lin rises from out of nowhere and with his fast-paced energy, selfless style of play, and gambling style of point guard behavior transformed the Knicks into a legit playoff team. All in a span of a month. Basketball was exciting in the Big Apple for the first time in forever.

But they still want it to be Melo’s team, even though that has yet to work in their favor at any given moment. Even if it’s Melo’s team, Lin could have been an excellent bench player that can spark energy and life into the Knicks at any given moment. I don’t care how much he will be making on the third year, the Knicks actually looked fearful for the first time in ages—I would pay top dollar to continue this trend. Few players can influence and inspire a whole team and fanbase. Jeremy Lin accomplished this and who knows what could have happened if he had remained healthy at the start of the playoffs. For the record, you decided to sign an aging Jason Kidd over an emerging burst of energy known as the Linsanity.

I am beginning to believe you guys just don’t want to win.

Dark Knight Rises: 7/10

I wanted to truly enjoy Dark Knight Rises.

I honestly did. I wanted to appreciate the grand direction, the excellent acting performances, superb cinematography, obvious amount of effort, and excellent wrapping of a trilogy that revived Batman and DC Comics from the Quality Dead.

I wanted to appreciate the obvious (and subtle) nods to the classic Batman comics and other works of literature. I wanted to appreciate and truly adore the way they fleshed out the Batman arc with containing story lines of the other two installments. I wanted to truly engulf myself in all this and hail this as the ultimate chapter in arguably the greatest superhero trilogy in the history of film.

However…..

I can't get past the fact that the running time was zooming past 160 minutes, when 30 minutes could easily have been cut. I can't get past the fact that the appearance of Batman himself was reduced to just a couple appearances, getting far less screen time than many secondary characters (especially the villains Catwoman and Bane). I can't also get past the fact that Batman is contradicting some of his fiercest creeds. Rather ironic that two of our biggest criticisms of the 1989 version of Batman were happening here. I can't also get past the fact that within the first half hour, there were about four story lines rummaging around and we had to wait until the end of the entire first act to even get the Dark Knight.

What most strikes me about Dark Knight Rises is that the utter lack of catharsis. The trilogy has always suffered from this, replacing payoff moments with moment after moment of despair. The gloom and doom of Batman works as long we have smaller tuned moments to exhale and relax the nerves. Dark Knight Rises has absolutely none of this throughout the nearly-three hour affair. Yes Batman is the antithesis of your Marvel heroes, but a little humor and deviance from the main conflict couldn't hurt the movie. Even Spider-Man 2 in the midst of all Peter's dramas still had the escapades at the Daily Bugle to infuse some relief into the movie.

While the ending definitely redeems the preceding hour of tragedy and tension with plenty of twists and surprises (Thank goodness), and the final act was far better than the first two, I still can't help but miss the fun of the superhero subculture. Dark Knight Rises is definitely a well-crafted finale to the massive story arc, but it's not exactly a ride you'll want to experience over and over again.