Gephyrophillia | Watch This Space #46

Originally Posted on 03/13/2003 by Jeff Harris

Tomorrow is the last day we're going to see pipes on Toonami.

There is nothing more that could be said after that, but I'll try my damnedest.

Tomorrow is the final day we're going to see everything we've come to know as the standard look of Toonami for a total facelift starting on Toonami's birthday, Monday March 17 (the block's turning six). As a present to the fans that have stood by the block through the good times and the bad times, Cartoon Network is giving Toonami a fresh new look.

New lineup with Rurouni Kenshin joining at 6:30 PM EST/PST and the final cycle of Dragonball Z beginning at 5:30 PM (oh, a little sidenote: a week after it premieres on Toonami, ADV Films releases Samurai X: Reflections, the final installment of the Kenshin saga [if you want to see the beginning, check out Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal, also from ADV).

A brand new graphical interface/look. For the first time since September 2000's Intruder event, Cartoon Network is changing the look of the graphics on Toonami, and the pipes (which replaced the popular scrolling kanji, binary code, and just plan Japanese-looking graphics) are finally going the way of the dodo.

A brand new TOM and Absolution. If you've seen the comics on the official site, you know that both TOM and the Absolution met their end courtesy of a diabolical madman named Orcelot Rex, but we already know they're not going down like that. Now, considering that the origins of TOM's new look won't be complete until March 31 on the official site (I really want to know exactly how he gets his new body considering, um, well, remember The Intruder backstory and read the comic to see what I mean), the new TOM and the brand new Absolution makes his full-fledged Toonami debut on Monday. Same voice courtesy of Steven Jay Blum. New shell. Same old TOM.

I'm all for the new look and new settings, but there's something that kind of irks me . . . the new logo/font. It's a neo-Gothic design which conjures up a futuristic/gothic world, kind of like Escaflowne (you know, the show that got away [gives evil eye to Fox/ABC Family Worldwide]?) or Slayers, or shows in that vein. The logo isn't ugly, persay, but it seems to lack the certain "umph" that Toonami logos tend to have. The very first logo was big and chunky, very funky yet very popular. The Toonami '98 logo was jagged, but it had an edge to it. The first logo of Toonami 1999 was a wireframe which was both futuristic and technical. It evolved into a wireframe that was coated with a red shell. Then the TOM era began that year with the cyber-oriented Doomed font. A couple of months after that look was introduced, Toonami adapted its current Transformersesque font, which became the standard. Maybe this new logo will grow on me like the new TOM design did.

Until we are one, later.
Jeff Harris
CNX Creator/Webmaster
March 13, 2003