Toonami Too-005 Theme

Meet Sour - One Hot Headed Charmeleon!

This furious-looking Charmeleon is named Sour. He is Charmander's older brother. He may be soft towards his little brother, but on the other hand he is angry and furious, especially towards kids' TV fully embracing the algorithm.

Unexpected, horrid twists and turns involving the Pokemon franchise are enough to send him blowing his nobbly top. The most recent incident happened to involve the one channel we all hate to love:

CBBC.

How, exactly? Well, when CBBC struck a deal with Nintendo to use Pokemon for their side of the algorithm, Sour was so furious he attacked CBBC with threats and emails to take Pokemon off the air once every month, in fear it might infringe copyright with the makers of Mario and Link.

Charmander always tells his hotheaded older brother than kind, gentle persuasion is the key, but he just ignores it entirely. He believes CBBC is cheating and betraying its viewers by neglecting storytelling and just focusing on algorithm. Computers are the true enemy, not Team Rocket, and they along with Ash and Pikachu have been kidnapped and used as torture machines multiple times by the horrible horrendous terrible tremendous British kids' channel.

And you know what? Sour's multiple protest-related actions have a good point. He is known by PACT and Ofcom to charge through the doors of the BBC TV Centre and fight off every single star, presenter and cartoon character, often with an army/mob of Digimon in tow, with Charmander following close behind.

He believes Pokemon should have a place on CITV, Cartoon Network and Sky One rather than something as horrendous and loud as CBBC. And guess what?

I think he's right about that!

Sour's Profile Of Favourite Things:

• Age: 15
• Favourite colours: Red and orange
• Favourite song: 'Fight For Your Right (To Party)' and 'Sabotage' by Beastie Boys
• Favourite TV show: Dragon Ball Z
• Favourite film: Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (oh dear, dare I say it now...)
• Favourite food: Spicy chicken wings
• Favourite game: Playing at being a dragon with Charmander
• Common flaw: Lashing out in public
• Main occupation: Protester/activist
• Favourite toy: Panic Pete
• Favourite book: Grumpy Monkey

The Theme Of Toonami's TOM 3 Era

Curious Thoughts - Vegeta

At the beginning of the very first Toonami TIE, The Intruder, Tom 1 was mentioning Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z before Sara screamed that an intruder had entered the hall. But, I'm curious about something: was Vegeta really friends with Tom 1? Because it all links to something potentially much more powerful. So powerful in fact that it would even bring the most feint-hearted Toonami fan into tears. Here goes:

When Tom 1 first arrived on US screens, Vegeta had been training him behind the scenes. The two had a mentor-student relationship that felt like that of a father and son, and as time passed and shows on Cartoon Network came and went, their bond strengthened and grew. The days grew into years, weeks and months, and with every second he spent with Vegeta, Tom 1, a weak little robot host, grew stronger and more powerful to face even the scariest content some of his shows had to represent.

However, the massive downhill point came when The Intruder aired. Vegeta prayed that Tom would survive this, but we knew what happened, don't we? It was an event that would change Vegeta's life forever and place a firm impact on his mental health. After watching Tom get consumed by The Intruder, he screamed as loud as his did in Dragon Ball Z and began crying mournfully.

For the rest of his years, he fell into a deep depression over the loss of his student. He couldn't eat or drink anything, he refused to partake in filming of future Dragon Ball episodes or films and worst of all, his Saiyan powers faded until it was just a spark. The Vegeta he used to be was gone forever, all thanks to the loss of his faithful student.

But when DBZ aired uncut in 2005, Vegeta couldn't take seeing Tom in his then-current form anymore. He flew into a rage and began throwing things around, overturning tables and attacking other characters that were attending every uncut screening, until, one day, he bit Goku's arm right off.

All this sent him to a mental asylum, where he was treated and experimented on multiple times before he emerged battered, bruised, bloody and with one arm missing. It was here that Toonami returned to TV screens in 2012, and years later, Intruder II premiered, and Vegeta knew it was his chance to help the Tom he despised show the Intruder who's boss.

He told the Intruder to listen to him very carefully, and said to him all the wise words he'd forgotten when he was consumed. Upon hearing those words, Tom 1 began crying, something he refused to do when he signed a contract for starring as the host of Toonami. And with that, after Intruder II had finished filming, he turned back into his normal self. Various news reports and tabloids said he'd disappeared for so long, leading to Vegeta's mental health spiral, but now, the two are reunited.

Remember: never be afraid to cry. Sometimes, it's through a robot host's tears that one depressed cartoon star manages to find one way when he is urgent to find another.

When Goku Gets A Chronic Headache & Cannot Work For Toonami Anymore...

Furaha, Orko & Optimus' Guide To A Less Confusing Time With Creator's Block

Furaha, Orko and Optimus have had a lot of letters from Transformers fans telling them that the English dub of Transformers Energon is so awful it can compare to an English-dubbed 4Kids anime. Now, looking at it carefully we can see how this relates to a stern case of creator's block, which I too have had.

Transformers Energon, with its expressionless characters and terrible dubbing, represents the stale mind you get when you force ideas. Apparently those who dubbed the series didn't know what creativity was when they made it, leaving this series to be a pile of smelly Japanese sausages. Now, the Japanese sausages inside your brain can come instead of the bright sparks when you feel down and out with creator's block, and it can feel like you're living in a sick pit. Transformers Energon itself represents the horror that comes from not having anything to write about during creator's block, and it's just as annoying as how awful the actors voice the characters - especially Ironhide, a badly written Autobot boy who always steals the show, primarily due to budget cuts.

Now take a look at 4Kids' shows. Unlike what they did to stuff like Pokemon and One Piece, some of their shows are practically well dubbed and loved by kids, but according to the internet, they are despised by adults. It's not just anime 4Kids deals with, they do hand drawn, stop motion and CGI, as demonstrated when they made Cubix and the 2003 Ninja Turtles show, and when they distributed the classic stop motion Cabbage Patch Kids specials. They're very creative with making adultish kids' anime more kid friendly, now people on the internet are making fun of 4Kids characters being obsessed with food, especially those jelly doughnuts introduced in Pokemon. The hate side of 4Kids represents how wobbly your ideas are, but the good side of it is finally getting a story in your head after waiting this whole time.

According to what Google AI Mode told me, removal of horrid things in the original anime like death and alcohol made the characters act like spoiled toddlers, especially the whole 'Shadow Realm' meme that's been going around because of a certain tank engine. But here's the thing: there's lots of wonderfully-dubbed anime out there, such as Spirited Away and the Funimation dub of Dragon Ball Z, that didn't need to be childish and poor.

Only you can prevent the standards and practices from happening. Standards and practices are what caused your brain to get its block, but by ignoring them entirely and focusing on shows that don't use those two topics (hint: relaxing hobbies), you won't be focused on writing entirely.

And by the way: 4Kids is better than Transformers Energon, ya hear me now?

Cartoon Network - October 31, 2002

Halloween 2002.

A time of sweets and candy.

A time of spooks and shocks.

A time...OF COURAGE!

Courage's Trick Or Shriek Marathon