Toonami Recap: The Story So Far & Every Ending Explained (2026)

Updated October 21, 2026 · 16 titles · spoilers for everything below

Toonami was Cartoon Network's action block from 1997 to 2008, hosted by the robot TOM, where many American kids first saw anime like Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, Gundam Wing and Naruto next to older action cartoons like Voltron and ThunderCats. These shows have nothing to do with each other, so this is a nostalgia run you can watch in any order.

Recapped: 16
Watch time saved: 596 hours
Latest: 2002

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Voltron: Defender of the Universe poster

No. 01 · 1984 · Series

Voltron: Defender of the Universe recap

Voltron: Defender of the Universe is the American version of the Japanese anime Beast King GoLion. Five space explorers, Keith, Lance, Pidge, Hunk and Sven, escape from the tyrant King Zarkon of Planet Doom and land on Planet Arus, where Princess Allura and her adviser Coran show them five giant robot lions. Each pilot takes a lion, and together the lions form Voltron, a giant robot with a blazing sword. Each episode, Zarkon's witch Haggar sends a monster called a Robeast, and the team forms Voltron to destroy it. After Sven is badly wounded, Allura takes over the Blue Lion. Zarkon's son, Prince Lotor, arrives, wants Allura for himself, and becomes a rival to his father. A separate run, Vehicle Voltron, followed with fifteen vehicles that form a different Voltron.

How Voltron: Defender of the Universe ends

The Lion Force story ended without a true finale. The last episode, "Breakin' Up Is Hard to Doom," is a standalone story, and Zarkon, Lotor and Haggar are never finally defeated; they return in the 1986 special Voltron: Fleet of Doom, which teams the Lion and Vehicle Voltrons. Voltron came back in several later series, most fully in Netflix's Voltron: Legendary Defender (2016 to 2018).

No. 02 · 1985 · Series

ThunderCats recap

When the planet Thundera dies, its noble cat-like people flee, and a ship carrying the young Lord Lion-O and his guardians reaches Third Earth. Lion-O's suspended animation fails, so he wakes as a boy in a man's body and must grow into his role as leader. With him are Tygra, Panthro, Cheetara, the twins WilyKit and WilyKat, and the fussy Snarf, while the spirit of the old leader Jaga advises him. Lion-O carries the Sword of Omens, whose Eye of Thundera lets him see danger and summon help. Their enemy is Mumm-Ra, an undead sorcerer, who teams up with the Mutants of Plun-Darr. Later seasons add new ThunderCats, Lynx-O, Bengali and Pumyra, a new set of villains called the Lunataks, and a rebuilt home world, New Thundera.

How ThunderCats ends

In the final season the ThunderCats rebuild New Thundera and keep fighting a revived Mumm-Ra. The series closes with Mumm-Ra gaining control of the Ancient Spirits of Evil, the mystery of the Book of Omens solved, and Thundera at peace. A rebooted ThunderCats ran on Cartoon Network in 2011 but was cancelled after one season, and ThunderCats Roar followed in 2020.

No. 03 · 1989 · Series

Dragon Ball Z recap

Dragon Ball Z picks up with Goku grown up and a father to Gohan. In the Saiyan saga, Goku learns he is an alien Saiyan when his brother Raditz arrives; Goku dies to stop him, trains in the afterlife and returns to fight Nappa and Vegeta, the proud Saiyan prince. In the Frieza saga, Gohan, Krillin and Bulma go to Planet Namek for its Dragon Balls, where the tyrant Frieza is hunting them too; when Frieza kills Krillin, Goku becomes a Super Saiyan and defeats him. In the Android and Cell sagas, Trunks, Vegeta's son from the future, warns of killer androids, and the bio-android Cell absorbs them. Goku dies again during the Cell Games, and Gohan, unleashing his full power, destroys Cell. Seven years later, in the Buu saga, the wizard Babidi releases the magical creature Majin Buu. Vegeta sacrifices himself, Goku and Vegeta fuse into Vegito, and the last form, Kid Buu, is destroyed by a Spirit Bomb powered by everyone on Earth.

How Dragon Ball Z ends

After Buu's defeat, the finale jumps ten years ahead to a World Martial Arts Tournament, where Goku meets Uub, a village boy who is the human reincarnation of Kid Buu. Goku leaves the tournament with Uub to train him, flying off into the distance. The story continued in Dragon Ball GT (1996 to 1997), Dragon Ball Super (2015 to 2018) and later films and series, including Dragon Ball Daima.

No. 04 · 1992 · Series

Sailor Moon recap

Usagi Tsukino is a clumsy, crybaby Tokyo schoolgirl until a talking cat, Luna, gives her the power to become Sailor Moon. In the first season she gathers the other Sailor Guardians, Ami (Mercury), Rei (Mars), Makoto (Jupiter) and Minako (Venus), and fights Queen Beryl's Dark Kingdom while falling for the masked Tuxedo Mask, who is Mamoru Chiba. They learn they are reincarnated from an ancient Moon Kingdom, with Usagi as its princess. In Sailor Moon R, Chibiusa arrives from the future as Usagi and Mamoru's daughter, chased by the Black Moon Clan. In Sailor Moon S, the Death Busters threaten the world, and the outer Guardians Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn appear. In SuperS, the Dead Moon Circus hunts the dreams of Chibiusa's friend Pegasus. In Sailor Stars, Usagi faces Queen Nehelenia again, then Sailor Galaxia, who steals the star seeds of Guardians across the galaxy, while the Sailor Starlights arrive on Earth looking for their princess.

How Sailor Moon ends

In the final episodes of Sailor Stars, Galaxia kills the Guardians and takes their star seeds, and it is revealed that she killed Mamoru at the start of the season. Usagi refuses to fight, reaches Galaxia and frees her from Chaos, the force controlling her. All the star seeds return, her friends and Mamoru come back to life, the Starlights go home, and Usagi and Mamoru share a kiss. The manga was later re-adapted as Sailor Moon Crystal (2014 to 2016) and the Eternal and Cosmos films.

No. 05 · 1992 · Series

Tenchi Muyo! recap

Tenchi Masaki is a teenager who lives at his grandfather's shrine in the countryside. Exploring a forbidden cave, he releases Ryoko, a space pirate sealed there 700 years ago, and she soon moves into his house along with her cabbit ship, Ryo-Ohki. Princess Ayeka of the planet Jurai crashes on Earth hunting for her missing half-brother Yosho, bringing her little sister Sasami, and the clumsy Galaxy Police officer Mihoshi and the genius scientist Washu join the household too. Ryoko and Ayeka compete for Tenchi. The first OVA series builds to Kagato, a powerful villain who once controlled Ryoko and wants to seize Jurai's power, and reveals that Tenchi's grandfather Katsuhito is really Yosho, making Tenchi heir to the Jurai throne. The second OVA series brings Dr. Clay, who sends a copy of Ryoko to capture Washu.

How Tenchi Muyo! ends

In the first OVA series, Tenchi summons the Light Hawk Wings and defeats Kagato, and everyone settles back into life at the Masaki home. The second OVA series, which is what Toonami aired along with the first, ends on a cliffhanger as Washu outwits Dr. Clay. Later OVA series followed in 2003, 2016 and 2020, and the franchise also includes the separate retellings Tenchi Universe and Tenchi in Tokyo.

No. 06 · 1992 · Series

Yu Yu Hakusho recap

Yusuke Urameshi is a 14-year-old delinquent who dies pushing a child out of the way of a car. The afterlife was not ready for him, so Koenma, the son of King Enma, brings him back as a Spirit Detective investigating demons in the human world, guided by the ferry girl Botan. His rival Kuwabara, his childhood friend Keiko and two demons, Kurama and Hiei, become his team. After early cases, Yusuke trains with the old master Genkai and takes on the Four Saint Beasts. In the Dark Tournament, the team fights its way through a demon tournament to face the Toguro brothers, and Genkai is killed before Yusuke defeats the younger Toguro. In Chapter Black, the former Spirit Detective Sensui tries to open a tunnel to the demon world, and Yusuke dies and returns as a part-demon, descended from the demon king Raizen. In the Three Kings saga, he goes to the Demon World and joins the struggle to rule it, which ends in a tournament he proposes.

How Yu Yu Hakusho ends

The Demon World tournament is won by Enki, who sets out peaceful rules for the realm, and Yusuke returns to the human world after three years away. The final episode, "Coming Home," shows the friends catching up and ends with Yusuke reuniting with Keiko on the beach, where she has been waiting for him, as Kuwabara, Kurama, Hiei and Botan look on. A live-action Netflix series adapted the story in 2023.

No. 07 · 1994 · Series

ReBoot recap

ReBoot was one of the first fully computer-animated TV series. It is set inside Mainframe, a computer system, where Guardian Bob protects the city with his tool Glitch, helped by his friend Dot Matrix, who runs a diner, and her little brother Enzo. Their enemies are two viruses, the power-hungry Megabyte and the unstable Hexadecimal. The User regularly drops games into Mainframe as cubes, and Bob and the others must enter them and beat the User, or the trapped part of the city is nullified. At the end of season 2, Megabyte sends Bob out into the Web. In season 3, Enzo loses a game, is trapped in the game cubes, and grows up into Matrix, a hardened gunslinger, travelling with his friend AndrAIa until they find Bob and return. Season 4 brings the Daemon, a virus spreading through the whole Net.

How ReBoot ends

ReBoot ends on a cliffhanger. Season 4 was cut to eight episodes, and its last episode was rewritten to end with Megabyte in control of Mainframe's Principal Office, a situation that was never resolved on TV; the creators have never said how it would have ended. Webcomics later carried the story on, and Netflix's live-action reboot ReBoot: The Guardian Code (2018) followed new characters.

No. 08 · 1994 · Series

Mobile Fighter G Gundam recap

In the Future Century era, most of humanity lives in space colonies, and every four years each nation's colony sends a giant robot to a Gundam Fight on the ruined Earth, with the winning nation ruling the colonies. Domon Kasshu, the fighter for Neo Japan, pilots the Shining Gundam with his mechanic and childhood friend Rain Mikamura. Domon is secretly hunting his brother Kyoji, who is blamed for stealing the Devil Gundam, a machine that grows and spreads on its own. Domon makes rivals and friends among the other fighters, who form the Shuffle Alliance, and learns that his own revered teacher, Master Asia, is working with the Devil Gundam. A masked fighter, Schwarz Bruder, trains him for the final rounds, and Domon upgrades to the God Gundam. He finally learns the truth about Kyoji and has to destroy the Devil Gundam with his brother inside.

How Mobile Fighter G Gundam ends

Domon defeats Master Asia, who dies at peace with him, and wins the Gundam Fight. Then Neo Japan's leaders revive the Devil Gundam with Rain trapped inside as its core. Domon declares his love to Rain, she breaks free, and together they destroy it with a final combined attack. The series ends with Domon and Rain together. There was no direct sequel.

No. 09 · 1995 · Series

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing recap

In the year After Colony 195, space colonies send five teenage pilots to Earth in Gundams to strike at the Earth Sphere Alliance: Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner and Chang Wufei. They are soon fighting OZ, a secret military group inside the Alliance led by the elegant Treize Khushrenada, whose ace, the masked Zechs Merquise, becomes Heero's rival. Heero keeps crossing paths with Relena, a girl who turns out to be the heir of the pacifist Sanc Kingdom and Zechs's sister. OZ takes over, then splits, and the war spreads to space. Zechs eventually leads White Fang, a group of colonists who seize the giant battleship Libra and plan to drop it on Earth, while Treize leads the Earth forces against them.

How Mobile Suit Gundam Wing ends

In the last battle, Wufei kills Treize in a duel, Heero beats Zechs, and the Gundam pilots destroy a section of Libra falling toward Earth. Zechs is presumed dead, and peace finally takes hold. The follow-up Endless Waltz (1997) is set a year later: the pilots send their Gundams toward the sun, then have to use them one more time against a coup led by Treize's daughter Mariemaia.

No. 10 · 1996 · Series

Rurouni Kenshin recap

In the early Meiji era of Japan, Kenshin Himura, a former assassin known as the Hitokiri Battosai, wanders with a reverse-blade sword after vowing never to kill again. In Tokyo he is taken in by Kaoru Kamiya, who runs a struggling kendo school, and gathers a found family: Yahiko, a boy Kaoru trains, Sanosuke Sagara, a street fighter, and Megumi Takani, a doctor. Old enemies and rivals come for him, including Aoshi Shinomori and the Oniwabanshu ninjas. In the Kyoto arc, the government asks Kenshin to stop Makoto Shishio, his scarred, burned successor as assassin, who plans to overthrow the new government; Kenshin returns to his old master to learn his school's final technique. After Shishio's defeat, the TV anime does not adapt the manga's last arc and instead runs original stories, including an arc about a Christian uprising in Shimabara.

How Rurouni Kenshin ends

The TV series ends with filler stories and a final episode, "End of Wanderings," that never reaches the manga's ending. The OVA Trust & Betrayal (1999) tells Kenshin's past as an assassin and the death of his wife Tomoe, and Reflection (2001) shows his later life with Kaoru. A 2023 remake has re-adapted the manga, covering Tokyo and Kyoto, with a third season announced.

No. 11 · 1998 · Series

Outlaw Star recap

Gene Starwind and his young partner Jim Hawking run a small odd-jobs business on the planet Sentinel III. A job for the outlaw "Hot Ice" Hilda pulls them into a fight with the Kei Pirates over a prototype ship, the XGP15A-II, and Melfina, a quiet bio-android created to pilot it. After Hilda dies, Gene keeps the ship, which he names the Outlaw Star, and sets out to find the Galactic Leyline, a legendary place said to hold vast treasure and knowledge. Along the way he takes bounty jobs to pay for the ship and builds a crew: Aisha Clanclan, a Ctarl-Ctarl warrior, and Twilight Suzuka, an assassin with a wooden sword. Gene uses a caster gun that fires magic shells, and is hunted by the Anten Seven, a group of Tao assassins, and the MacDougall brothers, who were involved in his father's death.

How Outlaw Star ends

Everyone reaches the Galactic Leyline at once. Harry MacDougall dies protecting Melfina, the scientist Khan is absorbed into the Leyline, and Gene tells Melfina he loves her and brings her back out of it by wishing they stay together. The crew defeats Lord Hazanko, returns to Sentinel III, splits up, and later reunites for new adventures. There was no sequel.

No. 12 · 1998 · Series

Blue Submarine No. 6 recap

Blue Submarine No. 6 is a four-episode OVA from 1998 to 2000, made with early mixes of 2D and 3D animation. In the future, the rogue scientist Zorndyke has flooded most of the world by raising the oceans, and his army of half-animal hybrids is attacking what is left of humanity. The Blue Fleet's submarines are humanity's last defence. Tetsu Hayami, a former Blue pilot, is pulled back into service by Mayumi Kino, a young officer, and returns to Blue Submarine No. 6. During a battle he saves Mutio, a gentle sea-creature hybrid, and starts to question the war. Zorndyke's son-like admiral, Verg, wants to kill humans to please him, while Zorndyke prepares a plan to shift the Earth's poles from the South Pole, and the humans prepare a nuclear response.

How Blue Submarine No. 6 ends

Hayami and Kino reach Zorndyke's base and learn that his plan has gone beyond his control, and that the human launches would make the coming polar shift far worse. They get the warning out and both sides stand down. Verg charges at them in rage, then sees how alike the two sides are and retreats. There was no sequel or continuation.

No. 13 · 1999 · Series

The Big O recap

Forty years ago, an event known only as the Event erased the memories of everyone in Paradigm City, a domed city run by the Paradigm Corporation. Roger Smith is the city's top negotiator, working with his butler Norman and Dorothy, an android girl. When negotiations fail, Roger calls on Big O, a giant robot called a megadeus, to fight other giant machines and monsters. Cases bring him up against the corporation's head, Alex Rosewater, the vicious Schwarzwald, the terrorist Vera and others, and keep putting him in the path of Angel, a mysterious woman looking for her past. The first 13 episodes ended on a cliffhanger, and a second season was made in 2003 with Cartoon Network's backing, revealing more about the city and its memories.

How The Big O ends

In the final episodes, Alex Rosewater pilots the megadeus Big Fau against Big O, and then Angel, revealed as the one who created Paradigm City's reality, appears as a giant megadeus, Big Venus, and starts erasing the world. Roger asks her to let go of the past, Big O and Big Venus merge, and reality resets. The last scene shows Roger driving through a restored Paradigm City, watched by Dorothy and Angel.

No. 14 · 1999 · Series

Zoids: Chaotic Century recap

On the planet Zi, giant metal life forms called Zoids are used as war machines by the Helic Republic and the Guylos Empire. A teenager named Van Flyheight finds a mysterious girl, Fiona, who has lost her memory, and an Organoid called Zeke, which can merge with Zoids to make them stronger. Van takes the Shield Liger, later the Blade Liger, and travels with Fiona to learn her past, joined by the mercenary Irvine and the trader Moonbay. They get caught up in the war between the two nations, fight Van's rival Raven, a cold Imperial pilot with his own Organoid, and uncover a plan by the Imperial schemer Prozen to revive the Death Saurer, an ancient and enormous Zoid. In the second half, Guardian Force, two years later, Van and Fiona join a joint Republic and Empire force.

How Zoids: Chaotic Century ends

The first half ends with the defeat of the revived Death Saurer. In Guardian Force, Van and Fiona face Hiltz, an Ancient Zoidian, and Reese, who try to wake the Death Saurer again, and the series ends with Hiltz defeated and the Republic and Empire working side by side. Later Zoids series like New Century Zero are separate stories with new characters.

No. 15 · 2001 · Series

Rave Master recap

Fifty years ago, a weapon called Rave was shattered into stones in a battle against an evil force called Dark Bring. On quiet Garage Island, a boy named Haru Glory meets Shiba, the old Rave Master, and his odd dog-like companion Plue, and inherits the Rave and the Ten Commandments, a sword with ten forms. Haru sets out to find the scattered Rave stones and destroy Dark Bring. He travels with Elie, a cheerful girl who has lost her memory and carries a mysterious power called Etherion, and gains friends like Musica, a silversmith, and Griff. He fights Demon Card, the Dark Bring organisation led by King, whose ties to Haru's father Gale Glory come out along the way. After that, a new group, the Oracion Six, takes up the fight.

How Rave Master ends

The 51-episode anime covers only the first part of the manga and does not finish the story. In the last episode, "Further Mysteries, Part 2," Elie recovers some memories, the Oracion Six take a new leader, Lucia Raregroove, and Haru and his friends set out to find the last two Rave stones. The manga continues the story to its end.

No. 16 · 2002 · Series

Naruto recap

Naruto Uzumaki is a loud orphan in the Hidden Leaf Village who carries the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed inside him and is shunned for it. He dreams of becoming Hokage, the village leader. He is put on Team 7 with his rival Sasuke Uchiha, last survivor of a massacred clan, and Sakura Haruno, under their teacher Kakashi. In the Land of Waves arc they protect a bridge builder from the swordsman Zabuza and his partner Haku. The Chunin Exams bring a tournament, Gaara of the Sand, and Orochimaru, who marks Sasuke, then invades the village and kills the Third Hokage. Naruto travels with the sage Jiraiya to find Tsunade, who becomes the Fifth Hokage, and learns the Rasengan. Sasuke, desperate for power to beat his brother Itachi, defects to Orochimaru, and Naruto's team chases him, ending with a fight at the Valley of the End. A long run of filler episodes follows.

How Naruto ends

After the filler arcs, the final episode, "Departure," has Naruto leave the Hidden Leaf with Jiraiya for years of training, promising to bring Sasuke back, while Sakura begins training under Tsunade and the others vow to get stronger too. The story continues in Naruto: Shippuden (2007 to 2017), which picks up two and a half years later, and then Boruto, following Naruto's son.

Common questions

What is the Toonami story so far?

Where did Toonami leave off?

Naruto (2002) is the latest. After the filler arcs, the final episode, "Departure," has Naruto leave the Hidden Leaf with Jiraiya for years of training, promising to bring Sasuke back, while Sakura begins training under Tsunade and the others vow to get stronger too. The story continues in Naruto: Shippuden (2007 to 2017), which picks up two and a half years later, and then Boruto, following Naruto's son.

Toonami recap: the story so far