Toonami’s “Broken Promise [Dreams]” is Still A Millennial’s Spiritual in the Darkest of Days

I remember Toonami first as a feeling, a breathless hustle home on weekdays to watch the latest anime episodes I didn’t yet recognize as classics. I often joke about comparing my Sailor Moon fandom to a religion but looking back, if this early 2000’s hallmark wasn’t a sacred ritual, then I don’t know what is. Like many spiritual practices, it wasn’t until I was a full grown adult that I truly had the ability to appreciate TOM and SARA’s careful curation (which, sidenote, is also why I’m hype for the recent confirmation that Toonami will be alive and well for generations into 2021). Consider the original music video “Broken Promise [Dreams].” It’s been almost two decades since Toonami first aired their visual found poem (and arguably one of the greatest AMVs of all time), but pull up that bad boy on Youtube for any member of the Cartoon Cartoons generation and the anime praise dances start flowing before you can blink. Trust me, I tried it in my office once. Productivity tanked for like an hour. Hell, I still think about this video all the time, and I ain’t even like the shows that were in it that much, that’s how amazing it is. It’s so iconic Toonami not only re-aired and remixed it throughout the years, they literally compiled an entire homage with their 2016 line up. So with that being said, let us now open our browsers and go to the good word, beloveds:

https://youtu.be/eOXX_r0fuIw

“Space.” Ooo, that composition so smooth. That’s that gentle audio caress, fam. Composer…