So I tuned into Bleach (the only anime I currently watch) a little early tonight, and I saw something that made me pretty sad. It was the end of Toonami. Not just them closing shop for the night, but Tom and all those little CGI robots packing up and saying goodbye. After 11 years, Tom told us, Toonami is gone for good.

That is so surreal to me. It's like the end of an era. 11 years. I was there when it all began. Back when Toonami started, and they were on weekdays after school. They showed stuff like Thundercats and the old 1940's Superman cartoon. After a while, they started showing anime, like Sailor Moon and Dragonball Z. And that's when things got good.

See, kids, back then, anime wasn't on every channel. It wasn't like today, where aisle after aisle at Best Buy is filled with anime. Same with bookstores and manga. The only game in town for those of us who knew what it was were shows like Sailor Moon and DBZ, which usually came on at like 6 a.m. Sunday mornings. But Toonami changed all that.

They put anime on in the middle of the day, where we could easily find it. And not just old anime, they brought in new stuff we had never seen before. Gundam Wing, Outlaw Star, Tenchi Muyo. For years, Toonami was the only game in town. They MADE after-school cartoons. Life was good.

But, like they say, nothing gold can stay.

See, anime was great because it was a refuge for those of us who still loved cartoons, but were tired of kid's stuff. Anime treated us like adults (or at least like teenagers). But ignorance is bliss. See, to show anime in such a visible location as weekdays after school, Toonami had to make a few concessions. They had to heavily edit some of their shows to make them acceptable. No squirting blood, no nudity, no profanity. And, of course, once we found out what we where missing, a lot of us were ticked.

See, it was fine when we didn't know. Heck, some of us could already tell (clearly those bathing suits were digitally pasted on) but we could live with it. And frankly, I didn't need to see little Gohan's "Little Gohan" to enjoy the show. I understood that some things just aren't acceptable on American TV. I got that. My major argument was "Yes, it's edited, but we're still getting a good deal. In Japan episodes come out once a week. Here we get them 5 times a week. Can you imagine waiting a whole week between Dragonball Z episodes where all they do is stare at each other? That'd be brutal. It's quantity over quality."

But then, they moved Toonami to Saturdays. So now we got heavily edited anime only once a week. No sale. I moved on to other things.

It's funny how things change. Showing an anime on TV used to practically be like having a license to print money. Now all I see on Adult Swim is those guys complaining that no one watches their anime.

Anime helped build Cartoon Network, and now it's treated like a second-class citizen. Oh, well. Life goes on. I guess I'm just a sentimental guy. I always think back on stuff. Toonami did a lot for me, even when they screwed up. When they first got the new DBZ's, it was 75 episodes. After that, they started milking it, only showing like 30 episodes a season. I used to get so mad. "They put a six month wait in-between a two-part episode and call it a Cliffhanger. Jerks!" But all that meant was that I would buy the DBZ videos when they came out, and share them with my friends. And my school was blessed with a disproportionate amount of hot girls who really liked anime. That's how I got my girlfriend, who I'm still with. We met and bonded because of our love of anime back in high school.

So thanks Toonami. Thanks for the good times, and even the bad times, because they are just as important. So good luck Tom! I think I'll got find that old tape I recorded the first season of DBZ on, complete with the original Toonami credits, and "Fat Astronaut Tom." Take care, space cowboy!