It's Not Poke'mon: The Rest of Saturday Morning

Hello everyone, it's the third and final day of my posting marathon.  This week I've decided to not talk about Poke'mon and instead talk about the rest of the anime of my childhood.  While Poke'mon was my first anime it was quickly followed by several other shows the aired around it on Kids WB.

Their logo was practically a cartoon character itself



 

Yugioh also has the weirdest Haircuts.

The first of these shows is of course Yugi-oh.  I started watching this when it first began airing, my family even somehow got a promo VHS of episode one so I can always watch Kaiba cheat 3 Blue Eyes into play in one turn.  My initial impression of this show was a bit lackluster since I didn't understand the card game at all, but once I figured out how the rules worked it was pretty cool.  Looking back, I can appreciate why this show has the most famous abridged series of any anime, in the early seasons the rules of the game seem to be either ignored or be entirely dictated by the creativity of the players.  The basic plot of the series is the main character teaming up with a ghost to play a card game and fight off the forces of evil(who can be stopped by being beaten at said card game). Worth noting about this series is that the english and japanese versions of the show actually differ( a topic I plan to cover in more detail next week).

The next anime I remember is Card Captors.  This show was my first magical girl anime, and despite being a young boy when I watched it, I thought it was really cool. the basic premise for this show is that a young girl named Sakura accidentally releases a number of card spirits from a book and has to go hunt them down and capture them.  Each card spirit had its own ability and once captured the heroine could use that power as her own. She was joined on her quest by Kiro the guardian of the Book of Clow, her video camera toting friend Madison and Syaoran the heir of the card's original master.  This show has gained some significance more recently since the main characters of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles are based on the heroine and male lead of this show and that series has several references to this one as well as the rest of Clamp's other works.

Kids WB aired several other anime during it's saturday morning block, including Megaman NT Warrior and Veiwtiful Joe, but these two are the ones that stand out to me as the foundation for my anime experience later in life.