Toonami Absolution

We have a confession to make. We watched this movie. We found it very boring. So we spend 30 minutes trying to talk about literally anything else, some of which is He-Man related.

This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: The Beginning (2002): the 90-minute pilot movie that launched the 2002 He-Man reboot series. But in the spirit of full transparency, we want to admit upfront that we actively avoided talking about it for as long as we reasonably could.

The plot is what you expect, Skeletor's forces return and start to attack Eternia, forcing a young, generally useless Prince Adam to go to Castle Grayskull. In this castle, he accepts the Sword of Power and becomes He-Man, giving him the power to fight back.

It's a perfectly competent, perfectly serviceable piece of early-2000s pilot television, one where you can guess every plot beat about 10 minutes before it happens. It is also, we discovered, almost impossible to talk about for an entire episode, which sent us careening sideways into the live-action 2026 Masters of the Universe film starring Jared Leto as Skeletor (or more specifically, us questioning how he still gets work), Alyx and Sam trying to convince Jon to watch Kevin Smith's Masters of the Universe: Revelation, and a fairly long detour into Alan Thicke.

We talk about why 2002's The Beginning struggles to leave much of an impression compared to its successors, and question if its better to be wild and terrible, or solid but boring.

🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing watch-through of Toonami and Adult Swim's most iconic shows and movies.

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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!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

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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.

****

See more Toonami Absolution stuff (including the video version of the podcast) by checking out our Linktree!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

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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!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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!

****

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.

****

See more Toonami Absolution stuff (including the video version of the podcast) by checking out our Linktree!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of these episodes you may never have seen growing up. That's not nostalgia talking, it's because Saban’s syndicated broadcast genuinely skipped it.

This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover Ocean Dub Episodes 10 and 11: "Escape from Piccolo" and "Showdown in the Past,” and we need to talk about the fact that "Escape from Piccolo" is a technically a Banned Episode.

"Escape from Piccolo" follows Gohan as he tries to sneak home to see his mother without Piccolo noticing, and along the way encounters a group of homeless orphan children being rounded up by the authorities to be placed in an orphanage.However, due to it showing social workers as evil, stick-wielding cops and features a scene where Gohan beats one of them up, it was pulled from the original 1996-1998 first-run syndication broadcast entirely. It wasn't shown in North America until Cartoon Network picked up the series and showed the episode like nothing happened.

Then "Showdown in the Past" shifts gears completely: Krillin, Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu enter the Pendulum Room to fight illusory recreations of two Saiyan warriors from the past, in a filler scene that has us genuinely confused about the Dragon Ball Z timeline.

We dig into why "Escape from Piccolo" got pulled, why it is Saban at their most Saban-ey, and how the Pendulum Room ruins the stakes for the looming Saiyan invasion.

🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing watch-through of Dragon Ball Z in the Ocean Dub!

📌 Topics covered this episode:

– DBZ Ocean Dub Episode 10 "Escape from Piccolo" recap & review

– DBZ Ocean Dub Episode 11 "Showdown in the Past" recap & review

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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.

****

See more Toonami Absolution stuff (including the video version of the podcast) by checking out our Linktree!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A villain who weaponizes guilt itself. A crazed clown who wants to guarantee he has the last laugh. Two episodes in, and Batman: TAS is already redefining Batman’s rogue’s gallery and transforming them forever.

This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover Batman: The Animated Series Episodes 3 and 4: "Nothing to Fear" and "The Last Laugh."

"Nothing to Fear" give u our first exposure to Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka the Scarecrow. He has a plan to destroy Gotham State University after being fired for his unorthodox teaching methods. Batman tries to stop this, but a quick spray of Scarecrow’s fear toxin and he’s dealing with a hallucination of Thomas Wayne, ragging him out for his life choices. It's a remarkably dark beat for the third episode of a children's cartoon, and it sets the template for Scarecrow being one of the show's most unexpectedly dark villains.

Then "The Last Laugh" brings the Joker back for another shot at the Batman as he unleashes a city-wide laughing toxin via a massive garbage boat. This episode also introduces the Joker’s robotic buddy Captain Clown, and sees the animators learn an important lesson: Standards And Practices will let you do anything you want to a robot.

We dig into how these two episodes establish Scarecrow and the Joker as legitimate threats, the surprisingly dark places the series is willing to go this early, and question how a show can be this good from the very start.

🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing episode-by-episode watch-through of Batman: The Animated Series!

📌 Topics covered this episode:

– Batman: TAS Episode 3 "Nothing to Fear" recap & review

– Batman: TAS Episode 4 "The Last Laugh" recap & review

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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.

****

See more Toonami Absolution stuff (including the video version of the podcast) by checking out our Linktree!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Gero is dead. His laboratory computer, however, is not. And it has been very busy. So you know what that means: yet more Androids!

This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover Dragon Ball Z: Super Android 13! (1992), the seventh DBZ film and the first to feature all three Super Saiyans: Goku, Vegeta, and Future Trunks.

After Dr. Gero is taken out, his computer makes three new Androids: Androids 13, 14, and 15 all of whom quickly hunt down Goku and start beating him up. Naturally, Piccolo shows up, because Piccolo always shows up. Vegeta also turns up to aura farm, because that is what he does in the movies.

But naturally, we spend most of the time talking about Android 13. Who, due to his southern accent and trucker hat, is the funniest Android ever created, and the creator of the funniest and most-memed line in Dragon Ball movie history:

"Don't you lecture me with your thirty dollar haircut!"

We discuss if Super Android 13 works well as a DBZ movie, where it fits in the wider Dragon Ball Z continuity, and if all Androids should have had southern accents and trucker hats.

🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing watch-through of Toonami and Adult Swim's most iconic anime films and series!

****

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.

****

See more Toonami Absolution stuff (including the video version of the podcast) by checking out our Linktree!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Goku falls off Snake Way and lands in the Home for Infinite Losers. Naturally, he overcomes this, only to meet a beautiful snake woman who wants to eat him. Snake Way is certainly not an easy place to run.

This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover Ocean Dub Episodes 8 and 9: "Home for Infinite Losers" and "Princess Snake's Hospitality".

And yes, we will be defending the decision to call it HFIL.

"Home for Infinite Losers" sends Goku plummeting off Snake Way into the realm below, which the Japanese version calls Hell. Naturally, the Ocean/Saban dub couldn’t let that fly and opts to rechristen it as the Home for Infinite Losers, one of the most infamous bits of censorship in anime history.

We would like to go on record that HFIL is an inspired piece of localization and we will not be taking questions.

After Goku escapes, we go into "Princess Snake's Hospitality,” where Goku arrives at a palace on Snake Way. Naturally, Goku assumes this is King Kai's home, only to find Princess Snake, the palace’s true owner, is actually a giant snake who wants to marry Goku or eat him (her moods change quickly).

We discuss if Dragon Ball Z’s pacing holds up today and get into why the HFIL rename, actually makes sense when you consider the rest of the arc.

🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing watch-through of the Dragon Ball Z Ocean Dub!

📌 Topics covered this episode:

– DBZ Ocean Dub Episode 8 "Home for Infinite Losers" recap & review

– DBZ Ocean Dub Episode 9 "Princess Snake's Hospitality" recap & review

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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.

****

See more Toonami Absolution stuff (including the video version of the podcast) by checking out our Linktree!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

September 1992. Fox Kids. The opening notes of Danny Elfman's Batman theme over a city drawn in shadow and dark watercolour. One of the greatest animated series ever made has just begun.

This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam start a brand new series: Batman: The Animated Series, we’re going to be covering the show from the very first episode (in production order).

"On Leather Wings" is the premiere and it starts in classic monster movie fashion as Batman tracks down Dr. Kirk Langstrom, a scientist who has developed a formula to turn himself into a fusion of man and bat. A Man-Bat if you will.

Then "Christmas with the Joker" sees Mark Hamill make his debut as the Joker, in a story where Joker captures Gotham PD’s top brass on Christmas Eve and throws Batman into a race against time to save them.

We discuss if Batman: TAS holds up today, the significance of Kevin Conroy's voice work, and how this show has heavily shaped all of our lives and all superhero media that followed it.

🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing episode-by-episode watch-through of Batman: The Animated Series!

📌 Topics covered this episode:

– Batman: TAS Episode 1 "On Leather Wings" recap & review

– Batman: TAS Episode 2 "Christmas with the Joker" recap & review

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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.

****

See more Toonami Absolution stuff (including the video version of the podcast) by checking out our Linktree!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jill Valentine is tracking a zombie outbreak in San Francisco. Leon Kennedy is hunting a kidnapped scientist. Claire Redfield is investigating a monstrous mutant fish that is killing whales in the bay. Chris Redfield is useless, again.

This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover Resident Evil: Death Island (2023), the fourth Resident Evil CGI film and Capcom’s attempt to do Avengers for Resident Evil characters.

Set in 2015, a year after Vendetta and two years after the events of Resident Evil 6, Death Island brings together the largest cast of Resident Evil characters yet. Most notably, Jill Valentine, fresh of Wesker’s latest dumb plan, makes her CGI movie debut, meaning we finally get to see most of the original cast work together (except Barry, Barry is never in these things).

When Alcatraz is been turned into a bio-weapons staging ground by a guy called Diego, everyone heads to San Francisco to kick him a good old-fashioned kicking, which is very much a Resident Evil film doing what a Resident Evil film does.

We discuss what Death Island adds to the CGI franchise, if Jill’s first movie outing is good, and how all the CGI Resident Evil movies stack up.

🔔 Subscribe for our ongoing watch-through of the Resident Evil animated films!

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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.

****

See more Toonami Absolution stuff (including the video version of the podcast) by checking out our Linktree!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.