Adult Swim‘s Toonami has been an influential programming block for decades, responsible for introducing many hit anime series to Western audiences, from Dragon Ball to Bleach. As such a long-lived institution, though, Toonami has had to adapt to changes in the way people consume anime.
Anime viewership in the US has increased radically over the past few years, with series like Demon Slayer even setting box office records for movie releases. More and more adults are willing to give anime a try, and many are finding it to their liking.
However, when it comes to anime, there’s long been a debate about the best way to consume it: subtitles or dubbed. For Toonami, dubs have been their bread and butter for most of the programming block’s existence, but things are starting to change in that arena, according to the block’s founder, Jason DeMarco.
Toonami is More Willing to Experiment With Subtitles
Recent Trends Have Made Subtitles Less Daunting for Fans
Traditionally, it was considered good advice in the TV world to avoid subtitles whenever possible, under the impression that viewers hate them. It has historically been pretty rare that anime or even foreign media in general has been aired on US TV with subtitles, with even Toonami only having done it a handful of times.
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For those wondering why TV is still so behind in the anime space, Toonami execs step forward to explain the process
On the Toonami Faithful podcast, Jason DeMarco explained why he feels that line of thinking is dated, and how that led the creatives behind Toonami to “accept the reality” and embrace subtitled airings. To quote DeMarco:
“Most of us watch videos with subtitles these days, whether on YouTube or elsewhere. So it’s like, why? Why are we worrying about [subtitles]?”
“It’s still a fact sometimes you will see less people watch the sub than the dub, but the difference is getting more and more marginal. That was somewhat of an internal push on all of our parts. Can we reflect reality and not do the old cable channel thing?”
DeMarco has a point; it’s extremely common these days for viewers, particularly the younger audience which Toonami is targeting, to watch everything with closed captioning or subtitles on. An Axios article from 2023 cited a study saying that 59% of Gen Z and 52% of Millennials watch TV with the subtitles active, so the common knowledge that subtitles will scare off viewers doesn’t really apply anymore.
The Younger Generations’ Embrace of Subtitles is Good for Anime
Anime Stands to Benefit Dramatically From a Preference for Subtitles
Anime fans are well aware that not every anime series to air in Japan will receive a dub, and in many cases, fans are lucky if the series releases a subtitled version at all. Being open to subtitled series grants access to a whole new world of anime that’s just not quite popular enough to dub.
That stands to help niche series quite a bit, and broadens the options for what can fit into a programming block like Toonami. Toonami has been broadcasting more and more subtitled releases, as they did with Ninja Kamui. If DeMarco’s words are any indication, fans can expect Toonami and Adult Swim to continue this trend of airing subtitled anime on cable TV.
