Next Club Meeting:September 20, 2025,at the Fountaindale Public Library in Bolingbrook from 11:00 am - 5:00 pm
The Animatrix Network is an anime & manga fan club located in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. We usually meet on the third Saturday of each month (except when holidays or conventions coincide). The meetings are free and open to the public. Join us for a day filled with anime.
This site provides news, reviews, commentaries, and previews of the world of anime and everything it inspires, such as live-action films, comics, music, art, and other weird things to enjoy and contemplate.
Showing posts with label cartoon network. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cartoon network. Show all posts
According to a Bloomberg report, Cartoon Network is on life support. Kids aren't watching it anymore, WBD is barely supporting it, and its ad revenue is a fraction of what it was 10 years ago. But if you've been watching Clownfish TV, you'd already know how bad it really was.
Days after the Boomerang app shut down, they shut down the official CN website with zero warning. It now redirects to Max. This seems to be another indicator that Cartoon Network, as a separate brand, is living on borrowed time. Then we talk about how weird it is that the new Looney Tunes movie is being distributed by someone other than Warner Bros.
Click on the Cartoon Network link to see for yourself.
Unicorn: Warriors Eternal is an upcoming American adult animated fantasy television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky for Adult Swim. It was originally produced for Cartoon Network’s ACME Night programming block before moving to Adult Swim. The series will premiere on May 4, 2023, and stream on HBO Max the following day.
Footage of the series was shown at Annecy International Animation Film Festival from June 13–18, 2022. The Annecy website also showed updated character designs. The series was previewed at New York Comic Con on October 9, 2022. This will be another mini-series in the vein of Over the Garden Wall with a total of 10 serialized episodes.
The series follows a team of ancient heroes protecting the world from an
ominous force. Throughout history, unicorns have symbolized the
virtuous, appearing to ensure that goodness reigns. When the reawakening
of our heroes comes too early, they find themselves in the bodies of
teenagers. Damaged as a result, their memories of who they are and the
history of the unicorn over the centuries have been lost, with some of
their magical abilities weakened and fragmented. Not only do they have
to protect the world against the prevailing darkness, but they also have
to do it while navigating the unexpected laughs and humor that come
with teen angst and emotions.
This one’s for Candice! Take a look at the full first episode of Close Enough, from Regular Show creator J.G. Quintel.
"Quilty Pleasures": After Candice fails to turn in a quilt she was supposed to make as a class project, Emily and Josh enlist the help of British street urchins at the local fashion district to make one.
"Open House": Emily enjoys going to open houses to escape from the stress of her life, and forms a fake family with a stressed father and a pre-teen pop star so they can go to open houses for the same reason. However, they wind up trapped inside a sitcom. Meanwhile, Josh buys a family bike.
J. G. Quintel as Josh Singleton, Emily's husband and Candice's father who is a video game developer and works for a company based on Geek Squad. He is modeled and based after his voice actor.
Gabrielle Walsh
as Emily Ramirez, Josh's wife and Candice's mother who works as an
assistant for a food corporation and is part of a Guitar duo with
Bridgette.
Jessica DiCicco as Candice, Josh and Emily's five-year-old daughter.
Jason Mantzoukas as Alex Dorpenberger, Josh's best friend and Bridgette's ex-husband who works as a community college professor and is a Viking enthusiast.
Kimiko Glenn
as Bridgette, Emily's best friend and Alex's ex-wife who is a
Japanese-American social media influencer that often gets frequently
arrested by the LAPD.
Danielle Brooks as Pearle, a retired LAPD cop who is the landlord of the duplex and the adopted mother of Randy.
James Adomian as Randy, Pearle's adopted son and the building's property manager.
Giddy up, BMO is gonna be a hero! Adventure Time: Distant Lands streaming soon on HBO Max.
Unlikely heroes Finn (a silly kid with an awesome hat) & Jake (a brassy dog with a big kind heart), are the best of friends and always find themselves in the middle of heart pounding escapades as they traverse the mystical Land of Ooo.
[Source: Entertainment Weekly] EW exclusively revealed that Warner Bros. Animation is bringing back the iconic cat-like aliens for new animated series called ThunderCats Roar, which will debut on Cartoon Network in 2019.
Check out an exclusive sneak peak at the show above.
The original ThunderCats show aired from 1985 and 1989, and followed the adventures of Lion-O, Cheetara, Panthro, Tygra, Snarf, and WilyKit and WilyKat, the refugees of the planet Thundera who end up on Third Earth. While ThunderCatsRoar plans on staying true to the original’s premise and will feature tons of action, it will also lean into the inherent comedy of the world, too.
“I think the world that they built lends itself really well to comedy because of how silly and crazy and outlandish those ideas are and some of those settings are,” says producer Victor Courtright in the exclusive behind-the-scenes video above. “But at the same time, it wouldn’t be ThunderCats if it didn’t have super cool action elements because that’s what people came back to. It’s very much something that we want to lean on. So with the new show, we’re not walking away from the action in any bit. Every step we take towards comedy, we take two more towards really cool action scenes and explosions and lasers and actions effects.”
Here’s the official logline for the series: “Staying true to the premise of the original series, Lion-O and the ThunderCats — Tygra, Panthro, Cheetara, Wilykat, and Wilykit — barely escape the sudden destruction of their home world, Thundera, only to crash land on the mysterious and exotic planet of Third Earth. Lion-O, the newly appointed Lord of the ThunderCats, attempts to lead the team as they make this planet their new home. A bizarre host of creatures and villains stand in their way, including the evil Mumm-Ra, Third Earth’s wicked ruler who will let nothing, including the ThunderCats, stop his tyrannical reign over the planet.”
ThunderCats Roar stars Max Mittelman (Justice League Action) as Lion-O and Wilykat, Erica Lindbeck (DC Super Hero Girls) as Cheetara and Wilykit, Patrick Seitz (Justice League Action) as Tygra and Mumm-Ra, and Chris Jai Alex (Star Wars: Battlefront II) as Panthro.
The sequel anime series was announced on March 24, 2016 via the Toonami crew's Tumblr and Facebook page that 12 new episodes of FLCL would be produced in cooperation with Production I.G. The upcoming episodes will be split into two individual seasons: FLCL Progressive(フリクリ プログレFurikuri Purogure, "FLCL Progress") and FLCL Alternative(フリクリ オルタナFurikuri Orutana, "FLCL Ortana") which will serve as sequels to the popular series which was broadcast on Adult Swim's anime block in 2003.
The crew includes Neon Genesis Evangelion character designer Yoshiyuki Sdamoto and original series director Kazuya Tsurumaki. The sequel series Progressive will premiere on Adult Swim’s Toonami programming block on June 2, 2018. In the United States, FLCL Progressive will air in June, and FLCL Alternative will air in September In Japan, the premiere will be divided into two theatrical showings, with FLCL Alternative releasing in September 7, 2018 and FLCL Progressive in September 28, 2018.
The official synopsis of the series was published by Adult Swim:
In the new season of FLCL, many years have passed since Naota and Haruhara Haruko shared their adventure together. Meanwhile, the war between the two entities known as Medical Mechanica and Fraternity rages across the galaxy. Enter Hidomi, a young teenaged girl who believes there is nothing amazing to expect from her average life, until one day when a new teacher named Haruko arrives at her school. Soon enough, Medical Mechanica is attacking her town and Hidomi discovers a secret within her that could save everyone, a secret that only Haruko can unlock.
But why did Haruko return to Earth? What happened to her Rickenbacker 4001 she left with Naota? And where did the human-type robot 'Canti' go?
Production I.G vice president Maki Terashima-Furuta announced at the annual 2016 Anime Expo that original series character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto would be reprising his position for the upcoming sequel and that Psycho-Pass director Katsuyuki Motohiro would be supervising the production. Additionally, it was announced that Japanese alternative rock band The Pillows would be returning to provide the musical score for the anime.
[Source: Yahoo!News] Jack is a haunted man. He hides beneath abandoned ruins, cowering from the pelting rain as enemies search to claim his head. An apparition in the guise of his former self taunts, “How long can you keep this up?… There’s no way home, there’s nothing to fight for.” It’s a stark contrast to the flamboyant villain he faces in a previous episode, frolicking around and saying “babe” too many times.
“That’s my sensibility,” Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky tells EW, laughing. “I walk the line, you know, Bug’s Bunny and film noir.”
Jack is indeed back in Samurai Jack season 5, premiering next month — and it’s been a long, torturous wait for fans. More than 12 years ago, the vivid cartoon series about a noble time-displaced samurai warrior and his fight with the shapeshifting demon Aku abruptly capped four seasons with an open-ended finale.
“I didn’t know if I should finish it,” Tartakovsky reflects. “Nobody told me if I should finish it. I didn’t know if we were gonna do more. I was burnt out to a crisp, and the whole crew was. It’s a very grueling show. As much as we all loved it, it was challenging, and on top of everything, we just got Star Wars: The Clone Wars to do. So I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m gonna bust out a giant finale and end Jack’s story however way it’s gonna end, figure all that out, and do Clone Wars on top of that.'”
Tartakovsky served as director and executive producer on the Star Wars animated series, but he hoped to revisit Samurai Jack six months or so after the fact. Pretty soon everything changed as Cartoon Network revamped its programming blocks, and that plan was no longer a reality.
“Cartoon Network, they loved the show, but maybe it was ahead of its time a little bit?” he says. “They didn’t know what to do with it exactly, and also they were still figuring themselves out as a network back then. They were going through their first big transition and they always moved it around — we never felt like we got the audience that we could’ve had.”
It wasn’t until Samurai Jack left the air for good that the show developed a cult following, especially among artists inspired by its bold, picturesque animation. “It took me a little by surprise, to this day,” Tartakovsky says. “You know, I don’t sense it because we [as animators] are pretty sequestered.”
Over the years, Tartakovsky would go on to direct the Hotel Transylvania films and work on shows like Sym-Bionic Titan, but there was hope for Samurai Jack to return as a film. “Jack will come back,” he promised in 2006. The following year, a film was announced with the launch of the indie film production company Frederator Films. The project didn’t come to fruition by 2012, but Tartakowsky said he would keep “trying so hard every year” to make it happen.
Meanwhile, the adventures of Jack were continuing in comic book form, but Tartakovsky confirms they are not canon. “The comics, I really didn’t want them to go into a territory where they were gonna finish the story their way. I think that was wrong of them to do that,” he remarks. “So, it’s not canon, it’s not part of my Jack universe — and I know some people like them, but the show is the show and that should be, that’s what the truth is.”
Because of all the hangups with the film, the creator got the idea to finish out the story where it all began: on television. As he said in a featurette for season 5, he shot an email to Mike Lazzo, vice president of programming at Cartoon Network, and the project was finally green-lit.
Season 5, which began production at the tail end of 2015, was initially planned for a fall 2016 premiere, but Tartakovsky said a mixture of “bookkeeping” and scheduling issues pushed the date a few months. “I was really nervous because we were going too fast and I didn’t think we were gonna be able to hit those dates,” he recalls. “Initially they talked about showing five [episodes] and then waiting two months and showing another five.”
That brings us up to date, where fans are less than a month away from Samurai Jack‘s return, with the first of 10 new episodes kicking off on Adult Swim March 11 at 11:00 p.m. ET. It’s been 50 years since the season 4 finale, and Jack is still trapped in the future. He can’t age and, as glimpsed in the trailer, he’s plagued with memories of the family he can’t return to.
“The biggest thing that we were able to take advantage of is more of a mature style of storytelling, [though] Jack never pandered to really tiny kids anyway,” Tartakovsky explains of the “darker tone” of the story. “But at the same time the most exciting things [are] we get to dive into the madness of Jack right now and where he’s at and that he’s really lost hope and he’s just miserable and that kind of psychosis.”
There’s a lot of blood, new villains, a new motorcycle and armor for Jack, and more surprises Tartakovsky doesn’t want to get into before the premiere. But the show’s mastermind teases, “It’s something that I wanted to do in animation and I don’t think it’s ever been done to this level or the level that I’m hoping that we’re doing it.”
More importantly, Jack has a conclusion — 12 years in the making. “This is it. This is the definitive end, and it’s a great end,” Tartakovsky says. “I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve storyboarded it, and I think it’s super satisfying, and it should close the door for me for Samurai Jack.
However, he wouldn’t object if someone wanted to fill in the gaps. “Now, look, there’s 50 years between season 4 and season 5,” says Tartakovsky, “and if somebody wanted to jump in and do some stories in between, but for me this is the end.”
The series revolves around the daily lives of two 23-year-old friends, Mordecai—a blue jay, and Rigby—a raccoon. They work as groundskeepers at a park, and spend their days trying to avoid work and entertain themselves by any means.[8] This is much to the chagrin of their manager/boss Benson—a gumball machine and their coworker Skips—a yeti, but to the delight of their (other) manager/boss Pops—a man with a lollipop for a head. Other coworkers include an overweight green man called Muscle Man, and a ghost called Hi-Five Ghost.
A behind-the-scenes video for the upcoming fifth season of Samurai Jack was unveiled at the Toonami panel during this past weekend’s Anime Expo, where production members, including Jack's voice Phil LaMarr, revealed some intriguing new info concerning our time-traveling samurai's return to the small screen.
In the video, Samurai Jack creator and director Genndy Tartakovsky explains that the new season will pick up years after the original series ended, and that there’s no direct connection between the last episode of the series and this new season. If you've been wanting to try the awesome cartoon series but didn't want to watch the previous 52 episodes, you’re in luck. Tartakovsky also says the interim years have changed Jack.
“I think we're going to see [Jack] in a new light, because we're going to see him from a different standpoint. In the original series, he was very heroic person on a very rigid quest. Now, we pick up with him and it's many years after the fact and he's a little bit lost. So, it's a story of redemption and him trying to find who he is, again.”
Switching from the more family-friendly Cartoon Network to the, erm, more adult Adult Swim also represented a “big challenge” for the Samurai Jack team.
“People watch [Samurai Jack] with their kids. You know, through the generations. I didn't want to go full on heads getting chopped off and blood spurting everywhere, but at the same time I also wanted it to be newer and exciting and take advantage of some of those things. The way Jack’s gonna be different, he’s definitely the same, there’s definitely more darkness to it. It’s one story, one episodic story. The action is just as badass as it's always going to be. Probably even more.”
Five Days of New Episodes! - Adventure Time is back this week for its seventh season, and Cartoon Network is kicking everything off in style with five days of new episodes, continuing through Friday, new episodes will debut every night at 8 p.m., so you'll get a very large dose of new adventures from the Land of Ooo. Check out a preview for the new season above.
