After whispers of a sale threatened to upset the balance between rival anime streaming companies, Crunchyroll strengthened its partnership with Cartoon Network by bringing the Toonami block of anime to Latin America.
The partnership brings a couple of well-known anime titles to Latin America starting August 31. Toonami runs Monday through Friday from midnight until 1 a.m. and brings the Crunchyroll-supplied shows Dragon Ball Super and Mob Psycho 100 to television with Spanish and Portuguese dubs. This news comes on the heels of reports that AT&T – Warner Media owned Crunchyroll wanted to sell the streaming service to Sony and its rival in the anime streaming world Funimation. In the wake of those reports Crunchyroll appears to be forging ahead with its current partnerships by bolstering Cartoon Network, which is also owned by Warner Media.
The news about Latin America is part of a much broader strategy to use Crunchyroll to help bring more anime to television. Cartoon Network catered to anime fans throughout much of the 2000’s with its original Toonami block that brought shows like Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo to teens getting out of school in the afternoon. In the evenings, its Adult Swim line up introduced more mature titles like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Cowboy Bebop.
Both Crunchyroll and Cartoon Network have been pushing revamped Toonami and Adult Swim lineups that will come to the US in 2021. That lineup includes a mix of anime and western cartoons that attempt to blend the talents of both countries. The most intriguing of those titles include an an original exclusive to both Toonami and Crunchyroll Fena: Pirate Princess. The other Toonami exclusive is the anime adaptation of Uzumaki, which was originally a manga done by the Japanese master of horror Junji Ito. The last series is an original series in the Blade Runner universe called Blade Runner – Black Lotus, which brings on board two anime industry veterans known for doing cyber punk shows Shinji Aramaki and Kenji Kamiyama.
The star power that back all three of these shows is reason enough to sit down and at least check out the new line up Cartoon Network is putting together. Fena: Pirate Princess will be the first full-season anime directed by Kazuto Nakazawa whose visual stylings as an animator have appeared in the Animatrix and Kill Bill: Volume 1. It’s also got Production IG handling the animation, which is well known for the crisp visuals in cyberpunk shows like Psycho-Pass and Ghost in the Shell along with a many other popular anime to its credit. Junji Ito is well known in horror circles for the manga he’s done and Uzumaki is one of his more famous works exploring the mystery of an entire town obsessed with spirals. Both Aramaki and Kamiyama have a long history doing cyberpunk and science fiction. Aramaki has done the mecha designs for Gundam and the suits for the classic 80’s cyberpunk anime Bubblegum Crisis. Kamiyami is the one responsible for adapting the popular Ghost in the Shell movie into the popular television show version Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex.
All of this news taken together points to a focus on reviving reviving anime on Cartoon Network. For many in the 2000’s Adult Swim and Toonami were an introduction to many older series adapted and brought to the US. The rebooted version brings fresh titles and a focus on originality.
Toonami comes to Latin America on August 31
Source: Crunchyroll
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