Wasn't it weird when Cartoon Network-era Toonami aired adult Seinen anime?

[Zorak Masaki]

I wonder if LTS got the PG rating because some episodes showed guns being used, and I dont mean fantasy guns like on Outlaw Star or Big O.

 

[Golden Geek]

Blue Submarine No. 6 was one of the most surprising ones. Not just based on content (they got away with a lot, including some confusing edits - editing "go to hell" to "suck on this" and erasing the nipples on some still clearly topless mermaids), but it was clearly a mature war story that would be unlikely to hold the interest of young children. (The original 1967 manga was a shonen, but the 1997 manga, made right before the OVA came out, was a seinen.)

 

[FantasyAlchemist]

Let's not turn this thread into yet another attempt to defend Goblin Slayer and belittle those who dislike it in the process. That discussion has already caused enough trouble for one day and it's off-topic with this thread anyway.

My bad, I wasn't aware that the subject had come up before.

 

[wonderfly]

Definitely agree on this.

The early 2000's was definitely a period where networks were trying to figure out how to capitalize on the anime boom after Sailor Moon and DBZ finally found an audience via Toonami and shows like Pokemon and Digimon were among big Saturday morning titles. As such, while William Street had a good idea of the types of show that would appeal to American viewers, there's still the problem that:

1. Standards are much different between Japan and America;
2. Some of the more interesting titles that appealed to them were geared more towards adults.

On top of that, I always thought that Cartoon Network was trying to pick up the mantle left by the Sci-Fi Channel of the 90's - back when Sci-Fi was airing Anime Film Festivals and "Saturday Anime".



Sci-Fi had stopped airing anime by early 2000, and Cartoon Network was testing more adult stuff. Again, Cartoon Network of 2000 and 2001 was paving the way for Adult Swim Action in 2002:




Meanwhile, in 2002, look at how Toonami reverted to airing "He-Man", "Transformers: Armada", "Zoids" and "Hamtaro" (on top of Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball) that year:



All of which was rather jarring for some Toonami fans, who questioned "Why don't we get weekday afternoon shows like Tenchi Muyo, Outlaw Star and Big O anymore?" The answer: They were never supposed to get them in the afternoons in the first place, and they got lucky to have aired them in 2000 and 2001.

 

[ZZenigundam]

Honestly though, that didn't feel weird at all now that I think back on it. It really just felt like new shows that were following their modern anime Toonami predecessors such as Gundam Wing, Dragon Ball Z, and the like. I personally hated Wing and was on summer vacation when MSG started and missed all but a handful of episodes when it was on Toonami because I was on my middle school basketball team and never got home in time for its initial run, but I was ecstatic when I discovered Adult Swim and MSG was there. But yeah Mobile Suit Gundam and 0083 got me into Gundam. The funny thing is that ASA wasn't even THAT mature back then like Animidnight on Encore would be. They didn't get seinen in mass until the mid 2000s with GiTS, Champloo, Evangelion, Paranoia Agent, etc, but I was 12 back then and just the ASA presentation alone could make a show like Yu Yu Hakusho look like Elfen Lied compared to what weeekday Toonami showed.

Nah, I was a kid, but I think the 2000-2001 Toonami was just normal to most people except for older anime fans who knew what those shows looked like in their uncut forma via laserdiscs or previous exposure to uncut seinen. As far as I feel, Outlaw Star didn't feel any different from say Pokemon.

 

[Zorak Masaki]

Another issue was availability. Even in the anime boom of the early 2000s, most of the big names like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, etc were either acquired by other companies and/or aired on other networks. Therefore they had to take what they could get, and thankfully that meant stuff like Tenchi and Outlaw Star.

 

[RDG]

The Looney Tunes Show did NOT deserve a PG rating. It was Y7 on its worst day. It just happened to debut in an era where CN was rating all of their shows PG.

PG OR Y7-FV

 

[chocolate]

They had to do what they had to do.