A question that's been asked ever since the site started using this as a slogan. A question that's been asked ever since Toonami started using it in their promos. Well, what exactly IS the Revolution?

The Revolution was actually began by Cartoon Network's promotional department. They paraphrased Gil-Scott Heron's poem entitled The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (read it sometimes, it's pretty good) by saying that "The Revolution WILL Be Televised!" Toonami: The Unofficial and this site took the motto as a rallying call and used the motto as our own. The Revolution, as we used it, is an ideal to let animation fans, both old and new, anime fans, and fans of good television to take a look at this block we call Toonami and the attitude that it empasses. It's not a Revolution of force, but rather a Revolution of ideals that established media outlets had accepted as the norm. The Revolution is the thing that drives fans to create their own Toonami fan sites and the thing that gives people a choice from the regular lineups seen on outlets like Nickelodeon and Disney. Television doesn't have to be boring after school or late nights. Television doesn't have to be limited to shows about school. This is the Revolution that Cartoon Network began and something that this site adapts as its own.

This was the first block to actually create a unified vision of "old-school" action-animation and a closeted art form called anime. When it premiered in 1997, no one knew what to make of it. They were confused. All the critics knew was anime, which wasn't as prominent as it is today, was full of sex and violence and should be limited to early morning hours. When Cartoon Network started getting the ratings away from the juggernaut of kids entertainment, Nickelodeon, people noticed how popular these shows could be. One of the distributors of a Toonami show, World Events, brought Voltron back to broadcast television in fall 1997 in addition to it's Toonami run.

In fall 1998, anime was starting to come to American broadcast outlets in decent timeslots. Pokemon was the first, and the kids ate it up! Poke-clones like Digimon and Monster Rancher followed, gaining slots on broadcast networks, not just in syndication. Monster Rancher has the unique distinction of being on two cable networks (Sci-Fi and Fox Family Channel), a broadcast network (Fox Kids), and in syndication. Toonami remained strong and it's influence was seen everywhere. Encore Action showcases anime movies and series on a weekly basis every Saturday night. Kids WB's and Fox Kids have been showing Toonami-esque lineups since Fall 1999. And this fall's lineups is no exception. Fox Kids is showing a lot of anime like DinoZoars, Detective Conan (oops, they didn't have that one -jh), and MAYBE Vision of Escaflowne (they did have that one -jh) while Kids WB is bringing CardCaptor Sakura to the masses. Anime isn't as closeted as it was in the 80's and the early part of the 90's.

Toonami brought it out of the closet (literally in some cases) and most of the public is welcoming it with open arms while others are fearful of it. Not sure why. Maybe they're afraid that their beloved art form would be bastardized and overcommercialized. They're afraid that the Japanese language that was present in the orignal cuts as well as the original story would be gone forever. Some have gone this route, but one excellent example of how the integrity a dubbed anime series could be saved is Gundam Wing. No artificial titles, no comedic moments to break the drama, no goofy dialogue, and no overt cuts. The show is very Japanese, and nothing was changed severely. This is THE perfect Toonami show, and Bandai has done an EXCELLENT job producing it and Cartoon Network did an EXCELLENT job editing it for daytime broadcast. It's not watered down nor is it overblown hype. It's animation perfection, and it's currently the best show on the lineup.