Your watching experience on Toonami • Kanzenshuu (2024)

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 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.