No channel has been more important to anime’s growth in America than Cartoon Network. Between Toonami and Adult Swim, Cartoon Network has always been the home to iconic anime like Sailor Moon, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, and especially Dragon Ball Z, and their commitment to the medium played a big part in it becoming as big as it is.
Cartoon Network’s place in anime history is undeniable, but that doesn’t mean every anime they’ve had worked for them. As varied as anime can be, Cartoon Network has cultivated a specific image for the kinds of anime they air, whether it’s on Toonami, Adult Swim, or even during the day, yet despite all that, Cartoon Network has aired plenty of anime that never once made sense with their brand. A few of those anime especially stand out, as no matter how much time passes, it’s hard to understand why anyone thought they were good ideas.
7 Rick And Morty: The Anime
Anime Series By Telecom Animation Film; Based On The Cartoon By Dan Harmon
Telecom Animation Film’s Rick and Morty: The Anime is, as the name would imply, an anime spinoff of the long-running Adult Swim cartoon Rick and Morty. Set sometime during season six, the series s the Smiths, either the ones from the show or another version of them within the multiverse, as Rick draws them into danger over an antimatter bomb the Galactic Federation is after, all while Morty uncovers the truth of his mysteriously supernatural new girlfriend, Elle.
While a Rick and Morty anime would make sense with how big the franchise is, not only did Rick and Morty: The Anime come out well after the show fell off in relevancy and prestige, but the show, itself, took itself far too seriously and was structured in a way that made it too hard to understand on a casual viewing. In short, Rick and Morty: The Anime didn’t work because of how far removed it was from Rick and Morty’s appeal, and it’s easy to see why it was met with such mixed reception.
6 Crayon Shin-Chan
Anime Series By Shin-Ei Animation; Based On The Manga By Yoshito Usui
Shin-Ei Animation’s Crayon Shin-chan is a slice-of-life anime about the adventures of Shinnosuke «Shin» Nohara and his friends and family. While the art style gives the impression of a family-friendly story, Crayon Shin-chan is actually an infamously raunchy anime, with most stories revolving around some sort of sex-based humor and Shin, himself, having a proclivity for raunchy jokes and double-entendres.
With how unabashedly raunchy Crayon Shin-chan is, the series aired exclusively on Adult Swim, and with the English dub finding a way to double down on the profanity, it fell right in line with the dirty adult cartoons that have defined Adult Swim for decades. The problem with that, however, was that Adult Swim didn’t usually go that route with its anime, as shows like Bleach, Cowboy Bebop, and Fullmetal Alchemist can attest to, so as odd as it might sound, Crayon Shin-chan didn’t work because it was a good Adult Swim show, but not a good Adult Swim anime.
5 SD Gundam Force
Anime Series By Sunrise; Directed By Yuuichi Abe
Sunrise’s SD Gundam Force is an anime based on SD Gundam, a Gundam spinoff centered around super-deformed versions of the eponymous robot. When the futuristic city of Neotopia is attacked by an evil force from another dimension called the Dark Axis, Neotopia must fight them off with an elite group of robots called the Gundam Force, with the ensuing battle taking robots and humans alike across the entire multiverse to put an end to their evil.
While SD Gundam Force wasn’t without its serious moments, it was a surprisingly lighthearted show from start to finish, especially compared to the other Gundam anime that had aired on Toonami and Adult Swim at the time, so SD Gundam Force was a weird pick for Cartoon Network because of how different it was from their previous Gundam anime. The Gundam Build series works as a lighthearted spinoff, so it might be that SD Gundam Force came out too soon for its own good, but there’s no way of knowing for sure.
4 Food Wars!: Shokugeki No Soma
Anime Series By J.C.Staff; Based On The Manga By Yuto Tsukuda, Shun Saeki, And Yuki Morisaki
J.C.Staff’s Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma stars Soma Yukihira, an aspiring young chef who’s suddenly forced by his father to attend the elite Totsuki Culinary Academy. There, Soma intends to hone his skills to become the master chef of his dreams, all while engaging his newfound rivals in culinary matches that put their entire futures on the line called shokugeki.
Food Wars was very popular in the late 2010s, and since Toonami had just come back from cancellation, it makes sense that they would want to air it for some easy popularity. That being said, anyone even remotely familiar with Food Wars will know that it’s a very fanservice-heavy anime that features plenty of nudity and sexual metaphors; Toonami has aired plenty of anime like that, but rarely ever any that revolve around it, so Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma didn’t make sense for Toonami because of how overtly raunchy an anime it was.
3 FLCL Progressive/Alternative/Grunge/Shoegaze
OVA Series By Production I.G; Directed By Katsuyuki Motohiro, Hitoshi Takekiyo, And Yutaka Uemura
In 2016, almost 20 years after Production I.G’s iconic FLCL OVA series, it was announced that FLCL would return with a series of new stories commissioned by Adult Swim. The first two new anime, FLCL: Progressive and FLCL: Alternative, premiered in 2018, with another duology, FLCL: Grunge and FLCL: Shoegaze, premiering in 2023, and they all Haruko Haruhara going on more adventures with awkward kids either before or after the original OVA.
As much of a cult hit as FLCL was, it was rare to find people asking for a sequel, and when Progressive and Alternative finally came out, they were heavily divisive for how little they added to FLCL while simultaneously detracting from the original series, with the divide getting even worse when Grunge and Shoegaze released to little to no fanfare. FLCL’s sequels had the classic problem of being sequels no one asked for and never justifying their existence, and it’s no wonder most people ignore them to this day.
2 Pop Team Epic
Anime Series By Kamikaze Douga And Space Neko Company; Based On The Manga By Bkub Okawa
Kamikaze Douga and Space Neko Company’s Pop Team Epic stars Popuko and Pipimi, two girls who constantly witness bizarre things in their daily lives and respond to them in equally strange ways. The series is known for its frequent pop culture references and surreal humor, and very uniquely, every episode has a different pair of voice actors for Popuko and Pipimi, even male ones, more often than not.
There’s no denying that Pop Team Epic is a wonderfully surreal anime, and that surrealism has earned it plenty of fans worldwide. However, Toonami anime are known for being action-oriented more than anything, so an anime focused entirely on surreal comedy like Pop Team Epic never had any place on Toonami, and the fact that season 2 never aired on Toonami is a perfect testament to how unfitting it was.
1 Hamtaro
Anime Series By TMS Entertainment; Based On The Manga By Ritsuko Kawai
TMS Entertainment’s Hamtaro stars Hamtaro, the pet hamster of a young girl named Hiroko Haruna. When Hiroko goes off to school, Hamtaro goes out to play with his hamster friends around the neighborhood, the group collectively known as the Ham-Hams, and the adventures they go on range from largely harmless to being occasionally serious, although there’s never an episode that isn’t mostly lighthearted.
Hamtaro is one of Toonami’s most iconic anime, and it never fails to deliver on being a cute and lighthearted slice of life anime. The problem, however, is that Hamtaro’s focus on cute talking animals makes it as far removed from Toonami’s usual anime as a show could get; Hamtaro was never a bad anime, but it’s one that never made sense for the Toonami block, and there’s no better candidate for an anime that never made sense for Cartoon Network.
