Toonami Trolls the Audience: Sub Only Night

Last night, at midnight Eastern time, Adult Swim had Toonami pull off one of the best April Fool's stunts in years. You had to see it to appreciate its glorious brilliance.

At midnight, Toonami spent the rest of the night broadcasting all anime as well as all host segments in Japanese with English subtitles. It began with airing FLCL ALternative, then Mind Game, before returning to its usual schedule- but then only the Japanese versions. While I had a ball, I can only imagine what the dub-only anime watchers thought when this went down- and I bet most of them went "Fuck this shit, I'm out." and switched off. Maybe they complained online; I wasn't watching the hashtag on Twitter.

But man, the sheer balls. Toonami is the Casualcraft of North American anime fandom. Always in English. Always safe programming choices. Always safe programming schedule times. Crunchyroll and Funimation take more risks. To go full Sub Only Mode for most of a night, airing risky stuff like that, was something that can only be considered a troll move. We'll see soon enough how well this worked for Toonami and Adult Swim, but to whomever pitched this take a bow. Well played.

Side Note: I never heard the Japanese cast for Stand-Alone Complex before. Casting choices matter, people; they shape how the audience perceives a character and the Japanese Major is quite different from Mary Elizabeth McGlynn's take on her. Reminds me a lot of how she is in the manga.