Toonami's Most Important Shows
Jeff Harris, July 2004

This was a question that was posed by a lot of the original forum posters when I first examined what I felt were the ten most important shows to ever air on Toonami. I can answer that, but first, I have to tell you what importance is not.

Some people confuse importance with popularity, which is why a lot of people were shocked to see some shows ranked higher than others and other shows not on the list at all. Heck, a lot of my favorites (especially my very favorite show) didn't even make the initial list, and a few of them didn't make in the list of 15 this time around. What makes a show important to Toonami is what kind of positive mark it left on the block. I choose to think about the positive aspects rather than the negative because I've seen too many people dwell on the negatives of the block in many arenas. These are the shows that have left a significant distinction on the block that people still talk about.

Admittedly, some shows are ranked higher than others, but that doesn't take away from the show's greatness by any means. I feel myself drawn to a lot of the shows at the top, middle, and bottom rungs of the list and was kicking myself for the great shows I didn't put on the list, and boy, were there a lot of great ones. I managed to pick the most important shows from each year of Toonami's existance. I have one show from 1997 and two shows from 2004. One year had particularly more choices than others, but you'll have to discover that yourself.

Before you venture further, I want you to be reminded that this isn't a popularity list, but rather a list of shows I feel were very important to the Toonami block as a whole. There are 16 shows in 15 slots. Two shows had to be paired off in one of the choices.

Let's begin.