Toonami Absolution

Nappa plants six Saibamen in the ground. Tien dominates his immediately. Yamcha decides he wants a go and prepares to fight. This is a mistake.This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover Ocean Dub Episodes 16 and 17: "The Battle Begins... Goku Where Are You?" and "The Saibamen Strike,” the moment the Saiyan Saga decides that we need less characters.In "The Battle Begins" Piccolo, Gohan, Yamcha, Krillin, and Tien finally come face-to-face with the Saiyans. However, problems quickly arise as Nappa decides to have some fun destroying helicopters while Ocean furiously adds lines to suggest the pilots parachuted to safety (they clearly did not). However, just when you think the battle is about to start, Nappa pulls out six Saibamen pods and plants them group, offering the Z Fighters the little green men as a warm-up round.Then "The Saibamen Strike" delivers one of the franchise’s most iconic shots, Krillin wants to fight but Yamcha cuts in. Yamcha fights a Saibaman, appears to win, turns to challenge the remaining four simultaneously, only for the fallen Saibaman to grab him and blow itself up, leading to the most iconic pose in Dragon Ball Z (and likely anime) history.We talk about what makes the Saibamen arc so effective as a structural device, the Ocean dub's increasingly creative attempts to paper over mass death with reassurances that everyone had a parachute, and what Yamcha's death means for the stakes of everything that follows.🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing watch-through of Dragon Ball Z in the Ocean Dub!📌 Topics covered: – DBZ Ocean Dub Episode 16 "The Battle Begins... Goku Where Are You?" recap & review – DBZ Ocean Dub Episode 17 "The Saibamen Strike" recap & review

Mayor Hill publicly compares Batman to the Joker. The Joker takes this personally and infiltrates his son's birthday party in response, which is a proportionate and measured reaction. Then, Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face in one of Batman: TAS’ most famous episodes.This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover "Be a Clown" and "Two-Face, Part 1," and this pairing is doing a lot of heavy lifting for the season."Be a Clown" triggers when Mayor Hill, mid-speech, calls Batman just as dangerous as the Joker. Insulted at being compared to a vigilante, the Joker disguises himself as "Jekko the Clown" and infiltrates Hill's son Jordan's birthday party. However, Jordan, feeling unloved and ignored by his politically obsessed father, stows away in Jekko's van thinking he's found a genuine mentor, only to find himself in the Joker’s abandoned amusement park hideout (because of course Gotham has an abandoned amusement park)."Two-Face, Part 1" is the series operating at its full dramatic height: Harvey Dent, Bruce Wayne's oldest friend and Gotham's most promising DA, is revealed to have been carrying a violent alter ego called "Big Bad Harv" since childhood, held in check through therapy and sheer willpower. However, when crime boss Rupert Thorne gets hold of Dent's psychiatric records and tries to blackmail him, Big Bad Harv surfaces and starts causing chaos. Batman arrives to help, only to make thing much worse, leading to the birth of Two-Face.We discuss "Be a Clown" and its inherent weirdness and talk about "Two-Face, Part 1" and why Harvey Dent's origin is one of the most carefully constructed villain backstories in the whole series.🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing episode-by-episode watch-through of Batman: The Animated Series!📌 Topics covered: – Batman: TAS Episode 9 "Be a Clown" recap & review – Batman: TAS Episode 10 "Two-Face, Part 1" recap & review

Paragus lands on Earth and invites Vegeta to rule New Planet Vegeta. Vegeta, like an idiot doesn’t question this and immediately agrees. Turns out Paragus son, Broly, is the legendary Super Saiyan and wants to crush Goku because they were in adjoining cribs as newborns and Goku cried too damn much. Way to keep a grudge.This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan (1993), the eighth DBZ film and the one that introduced one of the franchise's most enduring non-canon characters.The setup involves Paragus, one of numerous Saiyans who happened to miss the whole “destruction of Planet Vegeta” thing flattering Vegeta into becoming the figurehead king of a new Saiyan colony, hoping to take Vegeta out so he can later invade Earth and make it his new kingdom.Alas, the moment Goku shows up, Paragus' son Broly starts acting weird. It turns out they were born on the same day; Goku cried constantly as an infant, keeping Broly awake, and the infant-level grudge has apparently only intensified over the decades.Broly eventually snaps and this film ends with a legendary battle between Broly's Legendary Super Saiyan form against Goku, Gohan, Trunks, Vegeta, and Piccolo look like noise. Though Piccolo has to literally drag Vegeta into the fight as the mere sight of Broly is enough to make the legendary Saiyan prince give up all hope.We discuss Broly's enduring popularity despite his non-canon status, where this film sits in our wider DBZ movie ranking, and how the different dubs handled this beloved Dragon Ball Z film.🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing watch-through of Toonami and Adult Swim's most iconic anime films!

King Kai just neglected to calculate the return trip. Goku has two days to get back. Nappa just destroyed East City. But according to Ocean, everything is fine because that half of city was abandoned.This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover Ocean Dub Episodes 14 and 15: "The Legend of the Saiyans" and "A Black Day for Planet Earth,” the end of Goku's training and the moment the Saiyan Saga finally actually [kinda] starts."The Legend of the Saiyans" wraps up Goku's time on King Kai's planet with his second and final training exercise: chasing Gregory, King Kai's lightning-fast grasshopper, around the planet with a sledgehammer. During this King Kai, decides to tell Goku the history of the Saiyan race, though this only happens in the anime, so enjoy the totally non-cannon history of the Tuffles, and the fact that King Kai things Vegeta and Nappa are the strongest warriors in the universe.Then "A Black Day for Planet Earth" things take a dark turn, as King Kai finishes the lesson, checks his math, and realizes with genuine horror that he forgot to factor in the time it would take Goku to run back down Snake Way. The Saiyans will arrive a full day before Goku can reach Earth. Master Roshi uses the Dragon Balls to wish Goku back to life immediately, throwing Goku into a race against time to get back before Vegeta and Nappa can destroy everything. The Saiyans' pods land in the middle of East City and Nappa destroys a several-block radius just to announce they've arrived. Unless you’re watching the Ocean dub, which tries to explain away a citywide massacre by insisting the district was "evacuated" in the space of about 20 seconds, or that East City has an abandoned warehouse district.We laugh at King Kai's totally wrong Saiyan history, question if Ocean dub's censorship choices actually works, and what it feels like when Dragon Ball Z finally stops clearing its throat and actually begins.🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing watch-through of Dragon Ball Z in the Ocean Dub!📌 Topics covered: – DBZ Ocean Dub Episode 14 "The Legend of the Saiyans" recap & review – DBZ Ocean Dub Episode 15 "A Black Day for Planet Earth" recap & review

A Rashomon homage about three cops with wildly different accounts of the same evening. A story that asks what is Bruce Wayne without his memory, his gadgets, his costume, or his memories? This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover "P.O.V." and "The Forgotten.""P.O.V." opens in the aftermath of a blown sting operation. Lieutenant Hackle from Internal Affairs has Bullock, Officer Montoya, and rookie Officer Wilkes explain what happens, but their accounts of the evening contradict each other.Naturally, Renee Montoya doesn’t take the order to go home and wait for the investigation to end seriously, and tracks the suspects to the docks, where she ends up having to save Batman. This episode is very important, as its one of the early voice roles of Ron Perlman, who appears as one of the gang's thugs.Then "The Forgotten" finds Bruce Wayne going undercover to investigate disappearing homeless men, only for a bonk on the head to give him amnesia, leading to him getting kidnapped and shipped to a remote mining camp. Thankfully, Alfred decides to jump into the action and hunt Bruce down, giving us a rare moment of Alfred out of the Batcave, though that doesn’t mean the episode is any less weird.We talk about these two weird one-offs, question why fans rarely bring them up, and debate if "The Forgotten", a fan-acknowledged weaker entry, is more interesting to talk about than it is to watch.🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing episode-by-episode watch-through of Batman: The Animated Series!📌 Topics covered: – Batman: TAS Episode 7 "P.O.V." recap & review – Batman: TAS Episode 8 "The Forgotten" recap & review

Goku finally reaches the end of a road that has taken him several episodes to walk. His reward is a tiny planet and a monkey he mistakes for his new master.This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover Ocean Dub Episodes 12 and 13: "The End of Snake Way" and "A Fight Against Gravity... Catch Bubbles!""The End of Snake Way" finally delivers Goku to King Kai's tiny planet after his agonisingly long journey. However, King Kai’s training not what anyone is expecting: before he'll train Goku at all, Goku has to make him laugh, and then catch King Kai's pet monkey, Bubbles, while crushed under ten times Earth's gravity.Meanwhile, back on Earth, Gohan's tail grows back and he transforms into a Great Ape for the second time after spotting an artificial "moon" projected from Goku's old crashed space pod, yep, the filler really be fillerin this week!We get into why King Kai's is one of Goku’s best mentors, why King Kai presented a genuine problem for the dubbers, and if this early filler was the right choice.🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing watch-through of Dragon Ball Z in the Ocean Dub!📌 Topics covered this episode: – DBZ Ocean Dub Episode 12 "The End of Snake Way" recap & review – DBZ Ocean Dub Episode 13 "A Fight Against Gravity... Catch Bubbles!" recap & review

Poison Ivy tries to end Harvey Dent with a kiss. A homeless army of children living in the sewers, is controlled by a man who calls himself a king. One of these episodes of Batman: TAS is better remembered than the other, can you guess which?This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover Episodes 5 and 6: "Pretty Poison" and "The Underdwellers.""Pretty Poison" introduces Poison Ivy via a dinner date gone wrong: District Attorney Harvey Dent collapses after a meal with his new fiancée, botanist Pamela Isley. However, as Batman digs deeper, he finds that Pamela Isley is Poison Ivy, a supervillain who won’t stop until she gets revenge for an endangered rose. Written by Paul Dini, this episode combines fun classic detective action with modern Batman action, really showing that Batman: TAS was drawing inspiration from all eras of Batman.Then comes "The Underdwellers," one of the show’s most forgotten episodes. A string of weird crimes leads Batman into Gotham's sewer system, where he discovers an entire community of homeless children captured and commanded by the tyrannical Sewer King. This episode is genuinely weird, feeling like a rare misstep in an otherwise perfect series, especially as the plot doesn’t make sense when you step back and think about it.We talk about Poison Ivy's introduction as one of the show's better rogues debuts, and how "The Underdwellers" is likely best left forgotten.🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing episode-by-episode watch-through of Batman: The Animated Series!📌 Topics covered this episode: – Batman: TAS Episode 5 "Pretty Poison" recap & review – Batman: TAS Episode 6 "The Underdwellers" recap & review

A 17-year-old math prodigy gets roped into pretending to be his crush's fiancé at her great-grandmother's 90th birthday party. Then he accidentally cracks an encryption code on his phone, a rogue AI takes over the world's most popular social network, and tries to end the world via meteor. This is, somehow, one of the most emotionally grounded films Mamoru Hosoda has ever made.This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover Summer Wars (2009), the Madhouse-produced film that cemented Hosoda as one of the defining voices in modern anime.Kenji Koiso moonlights as a low-level moderator of OZ, a sprawling, billion-user virtual world that has become so deeply embedded in daily life that hospitals, governments, and infrastructure systems all run through it. When Kenji unknowingly solves a math puzzle sent to his phone, he hands the keys to a rogue AI called Love Machine, which proceeds to hijack OZ and start causing real-world chaos.What follows is a film that swings between giant multiplayer avatar battles inside OZ and a surprisingly tender, lived-in portrait of an enormous extended family coming together. It is also, structurally, a spiritual successor to Hosoda's earlier Digimon Adventure short Our War Game!, expanded into something far more ambitious.We talk about how Summer Wars balances its sci-fi spectacle against its family drama, what the film says about technology's place in everyday life nearly two decades on, and where it sits in Hosoda's filmography.🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing watch-through of Toonami and Adult Swim's most iconic anime films and series!