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Toonami Absolution
26-3 - Duel Masters: The Good, the Bad and the Bolshack
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Duel Masters: The Good, the Bad and the Bolshack is a special movie designed to promote the show Duel Masters. It combines the first four episodes of Duel Masters: "Playing with a Full Deck", "It's Not Easy Being Green", "Toru, Toru, Toru, Part 1" and "Toru, Toru, Toru, Part 2" into a single package.
While mostly forgotten today, Duel Masters has a fascinating history, as it was Wizards Of The Coast’s attempt to make a kid-friendly TCG to make up for them losing the licence to the Pokemon TCG. However, in a weird decision, they decided the best way to promote their new card game, was to give their new anime a Ghost Stories-esq gag dub.
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Toonami Absolution is a weekly podcast where Alyx, Jon, and Sam revisit the Toonami and Adult Swim shows that made them, and you, you.
From the block's early days with shows like Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and Transformers: Beast Wars to the imported anime that made Toonami and Adult Swim appointment television for a generation of kids, such as Cowboy Bebop, Sailor Moon, and Dragon Ball.
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See more Toonami Absolution stuff (including the video version of the podcast) by checking out our Linktree!
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28-3 - Transformers: Armada Premiere Movie
34:03|We return to the world of Transformers with the Transformers Armanda Premier Movie. This movie aired on Toonami on August 23rd, 2002. This isn’t a movie in the traditional sense, as it is just the first three episodes of the TV show "First Encounter", "Metamorphosis" and "Base" combined into one movie. Transformers Armanda is a fascinating show as the series has a confusing production history as the show was rushed to air, meaning that not only is the animation shoddy, but the English dub is a confused mess that often gets the plot outright wrong. However, in one small highlight, Optimus Prime and Megatron are voiced by the people who did Transformers Beast Wars!28-2 - YuYu Hakusho - Episodes 13-14
30:05|As one YuYu Hakusho story ends, another begins. Episode 13 “Yusuke vs. Rando: 99 Attacks” sees the battle between Yusuke and Rando come to a head, as Yusuke has to push himself to the limit to claim Genkai’s powers for himself. Episode 14 “The Beasts of Maze Castle” jumps ahead six months.Yusuke may have finished his training with Genkai, but that doesn’t mean he can relax as the Four Saint Beasts have an evil plan to take over the world, one only the Spirit Detective can stop.28-1 - Space Ghost: Coast To Coast - Season 2: Episodes 1-2
30:00|Space Ghost: Coast To Coast throws us right in at the deep end with two of the oddest episodes in the show’s history. First we have “President's Day Nightmare” (also known as “1st Annual World Premiere Toon-In”) which is actually a backdoor pilot for Cartoon Network’s What A Cartoon! With Space Ghost putting five cartoon directors (Craig McCracken, Pat Ventura, Van Partible, Eugene Mattos, and Genndy Tartakovsky), through their paces. Second we have “Story Book” (also called “Storybook House”) where Kirk The Storyteller tells us classic tales of Space Ghost (which amounts to him redrawing old episodes). It is going to be a weird week, but what do you expect with Space Ghost: Coast to Coast?27-3 - Digimon: The Movie
33:58|After doing Yu-Gi-Oh! And Pokémon, it only felt fitting to do the other main collectible anime craze of the 2000s: Digimon.Digimon: The Movie is a fascinating film, as its actually three Japanese films (Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure: Our War Game!, and Digimon Adventure 02: Hurricane Touchdown!!) squished into one film.Join as us we watch and react to this anime classic and dig into its weird production history, discussing exactly why Fox and Saban opted to Frankenstein three Digimon films together and talking about the weirdest bits of the film (including the infamous Angela Anaconda short that was glued to it)27-2 - YuYu Hakusho - Episodes 11-12
30:19|The Genaki arc of YuYu Hakusho continues with Hard Fights For Yusuke and Rando Rises, Kuwabara Falls. In a bid to secure Genkai’s powers for themselves, Yusuke and Kuwabara are forced to fight several powerful foes, while trying to work out which fighter is actually a demon in disguise! We also talk about how Genkai’s mere existence led to numerous problems when Yu Yu Hakusho made its way to Toonami, leading to some of the sloppiest edits ever seen on American television.27-1 - Super Friends - Episodes 11-12
28:52|We finish our first block of Toonami Super Friends (which is not actually Super Friends) with A Perfidious Pieman is Simon & Frozen Peril and Seeds of Disaster & Devil Of A Time.The highlight here is A Perfidious Pie Man is Simon, which introduces a brand-new Batman villain in the form of Simon The Pieman, a nursery rhyme-obsessed creep who somehow has enough cash to open up a theme park in the centre of Gotham. Its clear that The Adventures Of Batman writers thought they had something with this character, as they go our of their way to make him seem like Batman’s greatest foe (seriously, Batman struggles with him more than he does Joker in this series). We also get the weird sight of Superboy tricking some gangsters by pretending to the devil and Aquaman and Superman fighting a fish-alien who wants to flood the desert for reasons that are never made clear.26-1 - Super Friends - Episodes 9-10
19:00|This week, our adventure through Toonami’s Super Friends brings us to The Force Phantom and The Cool, Cruel Mr. Freeze.The Force Phantom sees Superman do battle with an alien energy monster that threatens to destroy rocket launch bases across the world, forcing Superman to fly into space to put a stop to the evil plan.The Cool, Cruel Mr. Freeze sees Batman take on Mr Freeze. However, this is 1960s Mr. Freeze, long before Batman: The Animated Series gave the character his now-beloved tragic backstory, meaning that Mr. Freeze is just a random bald dude who likes firing an ice gun at stuff.26-2 - YuYu Hakusho - Episodes 9-10
29:20|This episode, we discuss the 9th and 10th episodes of YuYu Hakusho.The Search Begins, YuYu Hakusho’s 9th episode starts a new arc, with Yusuke having to enter the Genkai tournament to learn the special energy wave attack known by Genkai. However, he’ll have to be on high alert, as the evil demon Rando has entered the tournament in disguise, meaning Yusuke has to work out who the demon is before it is too late.In episode 10, Kuwabara's Spirit Sword Genkai starts pitting the fighters against each other in a series of battles that take place in total darkness. Kuwabara is up first, and he quickly learns that if he hopes to get to the next part of the tournament, he’s going to have up his game.