As an ’80s kid, I was at the perfect age to fall in love with Toonami on Cartoon Network when it first began. This programming block introduced me to Dragon Ball Z and anime in general, creating a lifetime of brand loyalty. I still tune into the block each week, and I’ve got Toonami Tom as my iPhone wallpaper!

The modern block is still fun, but I (like all middle-aged nerds) sometimes get nostalgic for the good old days. Fortunately, digital time travel is quick and easy. All you have to do is check out these old-school Toonami cartoons streaming for free over on Tubi!

10

Naruto

Naruto is an infectiously fun series about a ninja who dreams of sharpening his skills and becoming the clan leader. Along the way, he meets a coterie of quirky allies and a bevy of Big Bads, all while introducing us to signature moves like the Naruto run. Debuting on Toonami in 2005, this show was a gateway drug for young fans discovering anime in the early aughts.

Considering there are 220 episodes of the original show, Naruto will keep you busy for a long time as you binge through one ninja misadventure after another. Of course, that pales in comparison to the whopping 500 episodes of the spinoff series Naruto: Shippuden. Whether or not you watched the OG on Toonami back in the day, watching Naruto on Tubi now is a chance to revisit a genuine golden age of anime.

9

InuYasha

Iconic cartoons like Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon formed the backbone of early Toonami for those who were new to anime. However, the new millennium meant new shows for voracious fans to devour. Debuting on the programming block in 2000, InuYasha is about a desperate young girl who is transported to the past and must team up with a half-human, half-demon (InuYasha). Together, they must retrieve crystal fragments that can bestow great power on those who find them.

There’s a little something for everyone here. InuYasha is a show with swords, sorcery, time travel, and even an ongoing quest that’s mostly an excuse for an endless road trip. Fun for history buffs and martial arts fans alike, this vintage anime helped introduce a new flavor of picaresque exploits to the Toonami programming block. It also introduced young me to an important question: how can I get hair as awesome as InuYasha’s?!

8

Sailor Moon

There are popular animes, and then there is Sailor Moon. Debuting on Toonami in 1998, Sailor Moon is the tale of five teenage gals who secretly have fantastic powers. Whenever a new threat rears its head (pretty much every week), they transform into Sailor Scouts, who use their abilities to send these baddies back to the moon. The show is anchored by the charisma of its main character, an airheaded ditz who suddenly becomes the greatest protector the world has ever known.

From the Sailor Scout uniforms to the magical girl transformation sequence, everything about this show is iconic. For nerds of a certain age (like old-school Toonami fans), there’s also plenty of nostalgic appeal in revisiting this show. Who couldn’t love an 80s-coded main character who wants to spend all her spare time playing arcade games at the mall?

Related

10 Anime Series for People Who Don’t Like Anime

It’s a medium, not a genre!

7

Yu-Gi-Oh!

The premise of Yu-Gi-Oh!, about a boy whose body becomes host to a spirit who loves to play games, is entertaining for all audiences. But it will hold a special appeal to anyone who has ever played the Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game. Rather than being some cheap game tie-in, the show added surprising amounts of depth and complexity to a world that only got weirder by the episode.

Yu-Gi-Oh debuted on Toonami in 2005, one year after Lost began airing on ABC. And while there are no smoke monsters to be found, the anime is likely to be a big hit with anyone who enjoys this kind of mystery box style of storytelling. Speaking for myself, trying to figure out all the secrets of the dark Yugi hidden inside the main character kept me glued to the TV even when the battles started getting a tad repetitive.

6

Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex

The original Ghost in the Shell film remains one of the most legendary anime films ever created. It also spawned a number of sequels and spinoffs, some of which are better than others (looking at you, live-action movie). Fortunately, Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex is one of the best ones. Premiering on Toonami in 2004, it gives us a kind of alternate universe that once again focuses on a cyborg cop who must deal with the next-level threats facing Tokyo.

Your mileage may vary, but I loved this show for how it threaded the needle, expanding the already-rich universe of the first film while creating its own unique style and vibe. Plus, there’s plenty of joy in discovering all of the intricacies of this show’s distinct cyberpunk world. Considering the popularity of emerging tech like AI and Neuralink, this show also serves as a prescient warning of just how much weirder our future society is likely to get!

5

Hunter x Hunter

Hunter x Hunter is one of the weirder anime titles on this list because it debuted on Toonami in 2016. However, it originally premiered in Japan way back in 1999. That means that while it’s not old old-school Toonami, it’s still a cartoon that was created back when many older fans were still hanging DBZ wall scrolls in their dorm. Even now, this Indiana Jones-esque title is one worth checking out!

The general premise is that a young boy decides to follow in the footsteps of his father, a professional hunter who can track down everything from exotic animals to long-lost treasures. He has super senses that would help him fit into the world of My Hero Academia, but he’s more interested in discovering artifacts than fighting supervillains. And his adventures are worth checking out for anyone who loves a good, world-spanning quest filled with noble heroes and mustache-twirling villains.

4

Transformers: Armada

To this day, Transformers: Armada is a divisive title for Toonami fans. That’s because it broke with the continuity of the original G1 Transformers cartoon while giving our favorite Autobots and Decepticons anime-inspired makeovers. This show also introduced a trope that the franchise has never managed to fully shake: annoying kid sidekicks that go almost everywhere the ‘Bots go.

If those aspects aren’t dealbreakers, though, there’s a lot to love in Transformers: Armada. The new designs are genuinely cool, as evidenced by the fact that Hasbro continues to produce popular figures based on these decades-old designs. Plus, while the transition to different designs and animation style is jarring to old-school fans, this show arguably gives us cooler and more kinetic battles than the G1 cartoon ever did outside of the iconic 1986 animated film.

3

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure debuted on Toonami in 2016, four years after its Japanese premiere. This delightfully strange anime follows entire generations of the Joestar family, each of whom develops a special power to help them fight the forces of evil. However, the plot is (and I mean this in the best possible way) mostly an excuse to put insane heroes and villains into rooms together to see how weird things can get.

If you like anime titles that change things up, you’ll likely dig JoJo, a show which gives us new protagonists with every arc. As an added bonus, all of them are memorable, as are the supporting characters. Honestly, if you’ve never watched, I’ll ask you a simple question: how can you not love a show where a character just happens to be named after REO Speedwagon?

2

ReBoot

While it may seem primitive by today’s standards, ReBoot was a revolution in CGI animation. The show’s denizens all live inside of a computer, with the good guys just trying to survive another day without getting derezzed by local virus supervillains Megabyte and Hexadecimal. However, the User (the person who owns the computer) periodically plays games that turn the residents of Mainframe into unwilling enemies. Unless Guardian Bob and his allies can win the game, entire sections of this fictional town face mass deletion.

For American audiences, part of what made this show’s Toonami premiere so special is that we finally got to see the third season that never aired on ABC. There was even a fourth season, though it frustratingly ended on another cliffhanger. Speaking for all fans of this groundbreaking CGI show, here’s hoping that creator Gavin Blair will someday be able to bring his Mainframe’s misadventures to a satisfying conclusion.

Related

10 Essential Cartoons from Classic-Era Toonami

These cartoons of Toonami defined an entire generation of anime and action.

1

Beast Wars: Transformers

Would you believe the best Transformers show ever made wasn’t the G1 original? And would you believe that it featured ‘Bots transforming into exotic animals rather than cars, trucks, and planes? Courtesy of the creative team behind ReBoot, Beast Wars provided new Transformers heroes and villains, ones who quickly won over a new generation of fans.

If you’re an old-school Transformers fan, you’ll enjoy that this show is set in the same continuity. And it provides just the right level of lore-filled fan service while establishing awesome new characters and settings. Plus, if you want to fully enjoy the Transformers: War For Cybertron trilogy, then watching all of Beast Wars is downright mandatory!

Longing for the good old days, Toonami faithful? Want to return to the glory days of the block, or maybe just the glory days of your childhood? On Tubi, all of these nostalgic faves are just a click away.