Retro Anime

One thing I rarely talk about are the first few anime I've watched, especially when I was a wee lad. I think I have mentioned them before, but did not go beyond the very first that I watched, Voltes V. In Asia, it was quite easy to get "cartoons" of Japan. That's what I would call them back then since the word "anime" was not a household word yet. Though I knew it was Japanese because my brother has told me that it is Japanese and I remembered that it was the Japanese language that I was listening to.


I was very young when I first watched Voltes V. I was maybe 3 or 4 or 5 years old. I couldn't even say the word "Voltes" and said "wortel" instead, which meant "carrot". Oh and in Jakarta, "Voltes" was spelled "Voltus" for some reason... Oh and the picture above is of Megumi Oka, the female member of the Voltes Team, probably my first anime crush; and the reason why I liked anyone named "Megumi" ^^;

Behold! The anime that started it all!

I remember only segments of the show if I try to recall, things that I thought was the beginning was actually the end, there were some dialogues in Japanese that somehow I memorized and I could not forget that epic theme song! And of course Voltes V's final attack, the Tenkuuken or Sword of the Heavens, yelled out by Kenichi, the leader of the Voltes Team. Later on, when my brother and I watched Martian Successor Nadesico, we heard it once again... One of the characters in the anime within the Nadesico anime was called Ken Tenkuu. We laughed our asses off when we heard that name! Eventually I'll talk more about Voltes V, once I finish watching this show again...

There were lots of Super Robot shows I watched back then, but they weren't all robots back then. So before I go back to the Super Robots I'll show one of the ones I saw that didn't involve robots.

Ikkyu-san is a boy who lives in a Buddhist monastery. When he gets in trouble he always sits on his lap, meditate and does a circling motion with both his index fingers on his head to think of a way out of the situation. This is pretty much what I've remembered of the show...

Machine Hayabusa was my choice of racing car anime. I've never heard of Speed Racer or Mach Go Go until I came here. I only knew Hayabusa. It was really cool actually, especially the car design... Unfortunately when I watch this opening, I don't even remember this song... It's such a blur to me :P

I have no idea why there are Touhou characters in my God Sigma fanart... Anyways, back to the robots.

I remember this song and this transformation of the robots... but I'm starting to think that maybe I didn't watch complete series, which is why it's hard to remember what happened in the show... Either way, God Sigma is freaking cool!

Of course after the three robot combination, I have to get to Getter Robo. I did watch a version of this show, but it was called Shogun Geta in Jakarta. It was only until I saw the robots and heard the opening that I realize they're the same. I remember watching up to the end of the first season for this one... I never got around to the next ones with Getter Robo G and everything else.

I slightly remembered Mazinger Z, but I don't think I've seen any of it... Love the song though!

I remember Go Shogun was made into stickers and was put in to kids magazines and I collected those. Such a cool looking robot! But other than the robot and this song, I don't know much about it ^^;;;

Now here's a show I remembered watching, Gordian! I liked how the guy enters the first small robot and the robot moves the way he moves, and then that smallest robot enters a medium size robot and then enters into the biggest robot! IT WAS FREAKING AWESOME! I think it's one of my favourite concepts, though I'd wonder what happen if the guy has an embarrassing itch and just has to scratch... When we finished the show, the clerk was telling us that there's a sequel to this show. I saw that "sequel", but it was nothing like Gordian... I wish I knew what it was called...

And lastly, the last anime I sorta watched before I left Jakarta was Saint Seiya. Now, when I say "watch", I say it loosely because it was on a paid channel... I saw it scrambled ^^;;;  I remember hearing this song and thought it was cool. I tried watching what I can with it, but let's just say I missed it all...

It was right after this that I began to like more American cartoons that started to appear more in Jakarta channels, particularly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Then I still loved TMNT when I moved here because it was still playing on TV. So due to the lack of information and income, I wasn't able to come back to anime until mid-90's when I discovered a very interesting concept for an anime when I was discovering puberty...

Yep, Ranma 1/2. I fell in love with the concept of a boy changing into a girl. It was really funny... I can't help but think I was Kunou because I was falling for the female Ranma or that I wished I was Ranma when I can switch genders at a splash of water ^^;;; Oh and cute Akane in the opening is very cute!

Anyways... that's my past anime history. I may have missed a few, but these are the ones that made an impact for me when I was still young. Next up will be retro tokusatsu! And I'll leave this post with a very nice picture of Megumi Oka from Voltes V featuring pantsu and knee pits.