My earliest exposure to Japanese anime and cartoon was when I was in Primary 3 in 1980. There was a TV series running on the then SBC channel 5. Starblazers ran on the Monday 7 pm evening slot, and was an originally Japanese sci-fiction cartoon but dubbed in English about how the old battleship Yamato is brought up from the ocean depths and turned into a space warship in a search to save Earth. When I was in secondary one, in the midweek afternoon slots, there was Super Dimension Fortress Macross dubbed in Mandarin which I followed whenever I could.
I was absolutely fascinated with both series as a child, but I outgrew them when I was in secondary 3 or so preferring live action science fiction instead. It was my best bud, Matt, who got me introduced back into Anime some 5-6 years ago. Being in Missouri though it was hard to identify with the anime he was watching. But there was one series I got my hands on in 2003, and briefly for around 6 months, I was absolutely hooked again.
The series is Full Metal Panic!. Yep, quite a funny name. It’s a series that falls squarely in the pseudo-sci-fiction genre with big robots, pretty lasses, and heroic heroes. But that wasn’t what caught my attention. One of the years in this series departed from the usual action-heavy story telling and instead dwelt into light-comedy. This series is named Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, and concerns the continuing adventures of Sagara Sousuke, a young special forces soldier who as orphaned has known nothing but war, is sent to secretly protect a school girl, Chidori Kaname, who just doesn’t know what to make of him.
A lot of humor in the short 11 episode series is parody and situational. Typically Sousuke will attempt to solve every challenge or difficulty in school with guns, sniper rifles, grenades, bombs, mines and rocket launchers. It’s all just crazily hilarious and in good fun. Ironically, Matt didn’t see the series before, but when I passed word of it along to him, he was equally hooked. In fact, as I recalled it, he devoured all the episodes in a few nights, and even got people who’s never seen anime onto it too by sole virtue of these 11 episodes.:)
The video below is a segment from the last episode where Sagara Sousuke accidentally introduces a deadly bacterial weapon into his school, and locks his whole class in to prevent further spread of the virus. It’s in snippets though, so don’t worry if the sequence of the snippets don’t seem to make much sense.:)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z83PFSL72U8
oh yeah, i like watching anime too n i’d try to actually understand the japanese but golly they speak so fast… my jap sucks =P i’ll try watching this once i’m done with stupid PW.
heh… try Ouran High School. i loved that.
You’d be hooked on Fumoffu. It’s a hoot and laugh-a-minute, especially with the appropriate fansubs.:)
At the time Yang introduced me to the Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu series, I had coincidentally just gotten back into watching anime, so his recommendation had also gotten me interested in seeking newer series. My all-time favorite remains Rumiko Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura, but in terms of sheer madcap hilarity the Full Metal Panic! spin-off series Fumoffu ranks right up there.
Though I didn’t live in an area that broadcast Starblazers on television, I fondly recall checking out the first several episodes of Macross on home video (known as Robotech, the explanation of which is a story unto itself). It was much, much later, probably not until I was 15, that I really got into anime as a hobby and became exposed to the Japanese originals.
My Japanese is beyond woeful at this point. Whereas once I might have carried a simple conversation a fair ways, now I’d be doing nothing more than wearing a stupid, blank expression on my face while infuriating native speakers. :)
Ling and I caught selected episodes of FMP: Fumoffu! last night, and I think she was hooked, or at least interested enough to ask mournfully after 2 episodes, “Any more..?” :)