News

Toonami Airs One Piece, Dragon Ball Z, Toriko Anime Crossover on March 4 (Updated)

Toei Animation announced on Friday that Adult Swim's Toonami programming block will air the 590th episode of the One Piece - which is a crossover between One Piece, Dragon Ball Z, and Toriko - on March 4 at 1:00 a.m. EST (effectively March 5). Toonami skipped the episode and went straight from episode 589 to 591 last October. Neither Crunchyroll nor Funimation have ever streamed the 590th episode, although both have streamed episode 492, which is a crossover between just One Piece and Toriko.

Update: Toei Animation began streaming an English-dubbed clip of the episode, confirming that the dubbed episode will air on Toonami:

One Piece's 590th episode is part of a one-hour special with Toriko's 99th episode that originally aired in Japan in April 2013. The latter episode is not scheduled to air on Toonami. Likewise, Crunchyroll and Funimation have never streamed Toriko's 99th episode. The Toriko anime has never aired on Toonami either.

Another episode of One Piece is scheduled to air at its usual 1:30 a.m. time slot on Toonami.

The ongoing anime adaptation of Eiichiro Oda's One Piece manga premiered in 1999.

One Piece debuted on Cartoon Network's original Toonami block in 2005. Adult Swim's Toonami block began airing One Piece in May 2013 starting with episode 207. The premiere garnered 995,000 viewers. The anime left the block in March 2017 with episode 384. The anime returned to Toonami in January 2022 with episodes 517-518.

Shimabukuro's gourmet battle manga Toriko launched in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2008, and ended in November 2016. Viz Media published the manga in North America. The manga inspired a 147-episode television anime series in 2011-2014. Crunchyroll streamed the series, and Funimation released part of the series on DVD. The manga also inspired several anime specials and crossover specials, and an anime film in 2013.

The most recent Dragon Ball franchise anime Dragon Ball Super premiered in Japan in July 2015 on Fuji TV and other channels, and ended on March 2018.

The Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero anime film opened in Japan in June 2022. Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures screened the film in theaters last August.

Update on February 24: English dub clip added. Source: Toei Animation's Twitter account

Sources: Toei Animation's Twitter account, Toonami's Facebook page