Cartoon Network's 8 anime that never got a proper ending

Screen Rant has rounded up eight anime that Cartoon Network and Toonami aired and then cut short. The list runs from Deadman Wonderland to a 2003 remake of Astro Boy, and the reasons vary: ratings in Japan, a lost license, a lawsuit, a corporate merger. The same network that brought American viewers Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Death Note and Bleach also left a lot of stories unfinished. Start any of these and you will hit a wall, usually a cliffhanger. Here is how far each one got and why it stopped.

Deadman Wonderland

Screen Rant files this one under death game anime, next to Alice in Borderland and Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor. Ganta is falsely accused of a murder and sentenced to die, and the mysterious Shiro, who seems to know him, helps him try to clear his name. The prison sits inside an amusement park, and the inmates wear collars that pump in poison: earn or buy a candy antidote within three days, or die. The adaptation dropped major characters from the manga and drifted from the story, Screen Rant says, which made a second season impossible. It was not cancelled in the usual sense, but it will never get a proper ending.

The Big O

Sunrise Studio 6 animated nine episodes of Batman: The Animated Series before it started The Big O, and Screen Rant says the resemblance is obvious: the Dark Deco look, the distinctive art, the wealthy lead, Roger Smith. The differences are the point. This is mecha action and psychological science fiction, set in a domed city where a cataclysm 40 years earlier left survivors without their memories. The first season did poorly in Japan, Screen Rant reports, and a planned 26-episode order was halved. Toonami and Adult Swim gave it a second life, and Cartoon Network co-produced a second 13-episode season that ended on an ambiguous twist. Then it was shelved.

Cyborg 009

Screen Rant notes the manga goes back to 1964, and Cyborg 009: The Cyborg Soldier reached Toonami in 2003 under the shorter name Cyborg 009. Nine people are kidnapped by an organization called Black Ghost and turned into cyborgs, which its leader, Skull, plans to use as weapons. They escape and rebel. Toonami aired 26 of the 51 episodes, then moved the show out of primetime into late night and early morning slots. The final two episodes never aired on the network.

Zatch Bell!

Creatures called Mamodo compete in a tournament to decide who rules their world, and they need humans to read their spellbooks. Zatch Bell teams up with a genius named Kiyo Takamine. The show debuted on Toonami in 2005, then stopped after three seasons and 150 episodes, mid-story. Screen Rant points to a second problem: Viz Media lost the localization rights after a lawsuit between the creator, Makoto Raiku, and the parent company Shogakukan. Toonami aired 77 of the 104 localized episodes and dropped the series in 2007.

Rave Master

Screen Rant notes that Hiro Mashima went on to Fairy Tail, and that Rave Master came first. The site compares it to Black Clover, with an ordinary character named Haru Glory pushed into circumstances far bigger than he is. The adaptation covered 12 of the manga's 35 volumes, so most of the story stayed on the page.

Shenmue

The games follow Ryo Hazuki, who wants to master martial arts and avenge his father, and Screen Rant says the adaptation arrived in 2022 from Crunchyroll and Adult Swim. Warner Bros. Discovery's post-merger cuts ended it after one season, the site reports. That season covered Ryo's search for his father's killer.

Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo

Screen Rant describes a shonen parody stuffed with self-referential jokes, with Bo-bobo himself spoofing Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star. The Maruhage Empire wants to shave everyone bald; Bo-bobo fights back with the “Super Fist of the Nose Hair.” The show was cancelled abruptly after 76 episodes, just as its nine main characters were coming together, and the last episode breaks the fourth wall to joke about it.

Astro Boy

Screen Rant calls Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy the most influential manga ever published, and the 1963 anime was the first weekly anime series to reach American television, arriving alongside shows like Speed Racer. The 2003 remake landed on Toonami in 2004 and flopped. All 50 episodes were finished; 15 aired. Screen Rant says the cause is hard to pin down and names localization, the character design and viewers who did not know the character. Screen Rant still argues the remake holds up, especially in Japanese with the original score.

The pattern in these eight is business rather than quality: a ratings flop, a lost license, a lawsuit, a merger. That is our read, and the details above are the basis for it. If you start one of these shows, know where it stops before you commit. If you want the opposite, Toonami is now home to Bleach's Thousand-Year Blood War arc, which Screen Rant calls a full-circle moment for the network's long-time viewers.

• anime
• Astro Boy
• Cartoon Network
• Deadman Wonderland
• Toonami
• Zatch Bell